First few days...

My flight out of Sea-Tac to Beirut that connected through Cincinnati and Paris didn't go quite as planned. An old lady on the plane had a heart attack causing us to divert and miss the connection. I arrived in Cincinnati to overnight and take the Paris flight the next day. At Applebee's I saw one of the passengers also heading to Paris. She was a nice Russian woman from Vancouver B.C. named Tatyana who invited me to eat dinner with her. She was on her way to Russia to visit her family. We met the next day and waited the few hours in the terminal for our flight. Because we sat in two different classes on the airplane, it was the last time I saw her. It was nice to have someone to chat with during our layover.

I arrived in Paris and made my connection to Beirut. I had planned on taking a picture of the guy holding my name on a piece of paper but felt it would be inappropriate seeing the environment in Beirut. I am going to head back to Paris today with my new Saudi Arabian Visa, and meet up with the other pilots (one of which I will be replacing).

I am posting some pics of Beirut taken from my Hotel...Not exactly the vacation hot spot, but it is visible that they are putting the city back together. My room was nice which was a surprise after driving through the neighborhood to get to it. I was supposed to stay at a very upscale hotel called the Metropolitan but my driver said "No, I am going to the Marriott" to which I replied "The Marriott it is" :-). Jim asked me if I felt any different being so far from home but I don't, at this point it feels like any other trip I've had to Mexico...I'm sure that will all change in the days ahead.