Tuesday night, after a last minute cancellation of one of Manu's roommate's birthday party, we decided to go out to Jemmaizeh anyways, since we were dressed up and ready to go. Jemmaizeh is a district of Beirut where there is a long street full of pubs, clubs and restaurants. After taking a "servis" a taxicab which picks up more than one group of passengers, continually honking to find new clients, we were let off near the Hariri mosque, and walked a few minues to Central, a restaurant and bar designed by a famous Lebanese architect. The building was a small, dilapidated abandoned church before its transformation , but only the outside walls hint to its' previous role as a place of worship. Now, there is a restaurant with very high ceilings on the ground floor and a large wine elevator where the altar used to be, and a bar on the top floor which can be reached through a nice elevator at the back. In the summer, on days with good weather, the roof of the bar - which looks like a long barrel from the inside - is removed, and reveals the beautiful view of the surrounding neighborhood. After staying at the bar for a while, and snacking on carrot slices dipped in lemon juice and worm-shaped chips, we received a call from one of Manu's Armenian-Lebanese friends, Shant, who was in a Armenian-Lebanese bar nearby. We walked for a few minutes through Jemmaize, and soon found Jayla bar. Inside the small but cozy bar, everyone was Armenian-Lebanese: The owner - a psychology student studying humor - studying, surfing and conversing all at the same time; Shant - who works with Manu, and also sings in a band -; Shant's friend who plays in the same band, and his girlfriend. We talked about the Armenians, that they curse in turkish, Lebanon, its' politics, Bulgaria, Hungary, their next concert, and much more!
The highlight of Wednesday was: Sushi! After Jamal collected Manu, Corinne and me, we headed off to Sushi wa, a sushi place that no-one really knew where to find. After looking for it for 20 minutes without luck, we tried another sushi place, which was full, and another one, also full, we headed back to find Sushi wa, and found it! After taking a look at the menu, we decided the cheapest solution was the biggest one: the party platter! Actually, this is only half of what we ate, we received another boat 10 minutes later and you can't see the 10 bowls of ginger either... Safe to say that the asian ladies preparing the sushi were quite amazed at the amount of sushi we ate!