Sushi for Beginners

I have not been blogging from Lebanon because I am too overwhelmed by everything that happens to us nearly everyday. It is just like this sushi spread - so plentiful and rich and delicious and so many pieces. I don't know where to begin and I want to tell you everything at once. Alyssa and I have written pages and pages of journals and letters, but there is just...so...much...to...tell. I am going to start slowly, like with the sushi, one piece at a time...and try to capture all the amazing things that have happened on the trip.

But not right now.

I'll just say about that sushi tray...that it was our dinner on a luxury motor yacht in a marina in the heart of Beirut. We were guests of a boisterous, generous and kind Saudi guy, Momo, who let us join him for his 41st birthday celebration (which went for three days on his yacht, I think). Long story on how we found ourselves in his company, but it has to do with Per and Elly being super cool and social...and a random favour they did for another yachtie in Greece two years ago. More on that guy later.

Momo had a personality like esspresso and conversation with him was like riding a roller coaster. He was filled with great parables from his father and lots of philosphy on religion and world affairs from his perspective as a Saudi Sunni Muslim living in Lebanon (I'm sorry to say he hasn't been back to the US since 9/11). He's a party boy so the conversation flowed faster than the laurent perrier rose he indulged us. It was all so crazy...and so long ago that we've eaten about a dozen more pieces of adventure-sushi since then.

But I'm delivering these vignettes one bite at a time, so keep your chopsticks out....