Lebanon

I've been in Lebanon since late Thursday evening, first impressions of Beirut, its an incredibly busy city, with a lot of ostentatious displays of wealth, there are many people with a lot of money and they want you to know it, the streets are lined with imported Range Rovers and BMWs with their windows tinted. Downtown you can purchase Chanel and any other fashion brand, in some aspects the city is like Paris or London, yet it is different, armoured personnel carriers guard potential flash-points and the atmosphere can change dramatically when you cross a main road, on this side there are no adverts for La Senza and there is less of a sense that everyone has plenty of cash and is willing to spend it.

Part of my reason for being in lebanon is to get some anecdotes and background research for my thesis, I want to counter the traditional view (at least in academia) that the Lebanese state is somewhat of a myth, a set of territorial boundaries and a seat at the UN. I'm hoping to show that by locating state power through networks and the use of particular Ministries or reconstruction projects that illustrate why particular parties or groups want to control them, just the small matter of tracking down some data.

on a more casual note, we went to Tyr (Sur) for the weekend and sat on the beach and relaxed and enjoyed the warm weather and lovely sea and sunset and indulged in plenty of photo taking