The Event Pt. 2

LOL at your answers....especially hula hooping! The big event was a family FOLK dance with an emphasis on square dancing. It was lots of fun especially for Tigerboy who loves music. Tigerpapa was concerned that he was one of only 2 dads present. I told him it is a great example for our kids that he came and participated. Not only did we have fun, but I discovered a new chocolatey treat. It`s called a Kinder Delice and it`s made up of a double layer of soft dark chocolate cake, filled with creamy milk chocolate and then covered in rich, dark chocolate:


They are sooooo good!

The Event

Tonight the Tigerfamily will go to an event at the Tigerkid`s school. I made chocolate chip cookies to take with us for snack time after the event. I have not done this kind of activity since elementary school and I`m betting Tigerpapa has never even heard of it, let alone tried it. Any guesses as to what we will be doing?

That Place

I do not know where to begin in describing a certain place we toured back in August. It is nestled in the mountains near Beiteddine and is one of the weirdest places I have ever been in my whole life. There was no theme, no discernible meaning to the displays that I could pinpoint but I do know the story behind it. The name of this place is "Castle Moussa"! Apparently, Mr. Moussa (an architect) had a dream to build a castle to impress (and win the heart of) the girl he loved. He built the castle by himself over a period of about 50 years using 6,500 hand carved tablets. None of the tablets are the same. If you look closely at the picture below, you can see the different carving on each stone. It`s really quite amazing:


There were displays. Many displays. Some were depicting Lebanese life at various times in history:


*Note the hands and feet on the floor at the front of the second display (more on that later).

Some more happy:


than others:


There were internationally famous scenes:


As well as guns. Lots and lots of guns. I`ve never seen so many guns in one place:



*There was also a marked interest in severed appendages:



Here are the kids at the end of the tour:

Tigerboy looks psychologically damaged and Tigergirl looks a bit worried but I`m sure they had a good time!

Busy busy

We have been touring Lebanon like mad since Tiger-aunty arrived. I have so many pictures and stories that I don`t know where to begin. I`ll start with something short and easy because I don`t have much time right now. Remember back in August when I blogged about going to Byblos and looking at the fish fossils? Well, on Thursday last week, the kids and I took Tiger-aunty to Byblos and we were on our way to that same museum when my phone rang. It was the proprieter calling to see if we were free on Saturday to go fossil finding. What a coincidence! So, Saturday afternoon we headed up the mountain with our very kind host and a few other groups of people to look for fossils. Can you see the people on the pathway? We had to hike about 10 minutes to get to the spot:



We were so lucky to get to have this experience. There are only two places in all of the Middle East where these fossils have been found and both of them are here in Lebanon. Pierre (our host) is quite famous and has been written about in The Lonely Planet and in CNN`s science magazine. He is very passionate about his fish and very generous with his time and knowledge. Here he is showing us how to break the rock:



He even let us keep the fish that we found! Basically, you can keep anything you find unless it is something rare that belongs with the collection at the museum. We found quite a few fossils and got to take all of them home. Here is a sample of our find:


Can you believe those fossils are over 100 million years old?

And here we are hard at work chiseling the rock:







It was a really great afternoon!