Beirut

[dropcap style="font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;"] B [/dropcap]eirut is a woman, a petite one, and not much of a looker at that. The average Beiruti will happily recount her features and highlights: he’ll tell you how she was destroyed and then rebuilt half a dozen times, how her cooking is second to none and how, if you visit the iconic Pigeon’s Rock (with your 20 cent coffee) in the very early hours of the morning, the sea melts into her night sky as the scattered fishing boats blaze their oil lamps.

But ask any of the thousands of internationals that have made Beirut their home why they decided to stay, and you’ll invariably learn that they’re in love with her, and cannot say why.

She’s certainly well-dressed, and steeped in culture, with more sights, galleries and ruins than you can shake a camera at – she’s fluent in three languages. She’s always making music, drinking cocktails and dancing on tables; she’s wild and entertaining, and as attached to her nightlife as she is to her churches and mosques. But that isn’t why you fall for her.

You love her because she’s a living contradiction. She’s rude, cheap and ugly, but for every person that’ll threaten you for glancing at them, Beirut has ten that’ll open their homes to a complete stranger, and for every beggar on her streets you’ll meet two Versace-clad elitists, on the same street. For every 200 dollar steak you’ll find a 50 cent meal fit for a king, and for every destroyed building or break in the highway you’ll find a two thousand year-old Roman bath, or Byzantine Church.

Beirut is an anarchy, with as many independent governments as it has residents. She shuns mere maps and street names, and would much rather you get lost in her alleys. Need to find that obscure art gallery? Take a left at the butcher’s, walk through the street till you hear the caged birds and make a sharp right at the store with the old couple sitting up front.

Beirut will take you out and get you drunk, and treat you like a celebrity. She’ll make love to you all night and leave you early in the morning, hung-over, bruised and alone – but eager for more. And the more she torments you, the more you’ll love her for it.