International School Community Blog

Traveling Around: Lebanon (The life of an international school teacher is good!)

Traveling Around: Lebanon

Can you relate?

• Enjoying the gentle breeze of the Mediterranean Sea.
• Taking in the sunlight and warmth while escaping the winter coldness of Northern Europe.
• Being amazed of the history of Beirut, with its 1000s of years of oppression.
• Going on a day tour with small group of people from all over the world: Venezuela, U.K., Romania, Lebanon, USA, and UAE.  Great conversations.
• Checking out very old art (e.g. mosaics) and being in awe of the detail and history of each piece.
• Driving through the mountains and enjoying the excellent views of banana tree groves, the sea and just nature in general.
• Noticing the different ways that the Lebanese culture make bread designs. There was a popular purse-shaped bread on all the streets in Beirut.
• Observing the Lebanese men walking around in their underwear instead of wearing a Speedo or another kind of bathing suit.
• Being surprised to hear shouts from the military officers (with large guns) when I tried to take pictures nearby them.
• Taking in the history of the buildings in downtown Beirut; the newly constructed ones, the renovated ones, and the old ones that still have signs of war wreckage on them.
• Walking around the antique district and finally deciding to purchase some old tiles to put around my flat. I think I haggled well!
• Getting into a taxi car with a man who only spoke Lebanese Arabic and being taken for an extra long ride in the wrong direction.
• Walking around and exploring Jounieh, getting into neighborhoods where there weren’t any stores around and observing how the people live.
• Checking out all the Lebanese grocery stores to see which products that they had
• Eating at very good and tasty restaurants; getting treated very well with many restaurants giving me a complimentary dish/appetizer.
• Going to a felafel stand and trying to figure out the system to buy one without knowing the correct lingo and procedure to use.
• Experiencing rain, sleet, snow, hail, fog, sun, clouds, etc. all in the span on 1 hour while walking around the top of a nearby mountain.


Currently we have five international schools listed in Lebanon on International School Community. They are:

American Community School at Beirut (16 Comments)

International College Beirut (0 Comments)

Beirut International School (0 Comments)

Wellspring Learning Community (7 Comments)

Adma International School (0 Comments)

If you are on a trip right now, away from your host country, write to us at admin@internationalschoolcommunity.com with your “Can you relate?” traveling experiences.  Tell us where you are traveling in the world, what you are seeing and how you are coping with any culture shock.  Once your Traveling Around experience is posted on our blog, International School Community will give 6 free months of premium membership!