McDonald’s New Lebanon Branch – Batroun

The McDonald’s franchise is opening up a new branch in the coastal Lebanese city of Batroun as part of what looks to be an aggressive expansion campaign.

The Batroun branch has been set at an old fashioned Lebanese house, completely renovated for this purpose, right on the main road.

The two-story house/restaurant’s interior is composed of state of the art equipment that contrast with the rustic exterior. I have to say, this is probably the most amazing McDonald’s restaurant in Lebanon, if not everywhere. It combines both tradition with the future.

But the question begs itself: how successful will this branch be in a city known for an overflow of restaurants that offer cheaper burgers and sometimes better food?

Don’t expect many outsiders to come to this branch. After all, other branches are only a ten minute drive away. This McDonald’s is for the people in Batroun, a not very populated city. Will the returns be enough to cover the cost? I doubt. It’s still a nice place to look at though.

Check out the pictures I took of the place while passing by:

Dear Lebanese Army, What’s This Fuckery?

Every Lebanese (and non-Lebanese) who has been to the North has to pass by a Lebanese army checkpoint at the Madfoun bridge, known as the infamous Madfoun checkpoint.

We used to pass by that checkpoint every day, not caring about it since it wasn’t that problematic to through. But now, every single time you go through the checkpoint, you:

1) Get stuck in unbelievable traffic,

2) Solve a barricade puzzle with your car,

3) Take another driving test, which most Lebanese people undoubtedly need.

And why’s that? Because by the looks of it, the only spot where the Lebanese army decided to reinforce law is the Madfoun checkpoint, even removing the more necessary checkpoint outside Tripoli, which was set up after the Nahr El Bared incidence with the terrorist group of Fath Al Islam.

The new reinforcements include barricades placed left and right (and if they could, I’m sure they would have put some floating in the air) and road bumps that are as bumpy as you could get (they actually add these for a week then remove them because they could damage cars).

Why so? Are the people of Jbeil going to attack the people of Batroun? Or is Batroun the filthiest area of the country when it comes to crime?

I understand my state is the entry district to the North. But I can think of many other locations where such a checkpoint might be more beneficial to fight crime and would cost even less manpower, money and time. Besides, don’t you think a criminal would take the longer inside roads to North Lebanon, instead of a checkpoint that has been here for decades?

And for God’s sake, if you want to keep it, how about you open up the freaking side road that you keep for hotshot people so it doesn’t take me ten minutes to cross a fifty meter stretch of road?

Crepaway Taking Steps Backwards

I was overly happy when the Batroun branch of Crepaway made a separate non-smoking area for those of us who don’t like to inhale with their burgers.
However, as I visited the place with friends, I found the area filled with people who were smoking. I asked about it and was told that they had removed the non-smoking area for the day. The explanation? they didn’t want the smokers to be placed on a waiting list for the smoking areas.

Excuse me Crepaway if I wanted to dine without the smell of cigarettes and without that awful stench getting stuck on my clothes and lungs. I mean, the emphysema I am most certainly going to acquire in this country cannot really be compared to the ten minutes of wait that a smoker has to endure, right?

In Lebanon, non smokers are figuratively run over by their overly dominant opposites in society. After all, clean air is something you’re not entitled to in a country where finding hookahs in American style diners is very common and even normal and where non-smokers have become a distant minority, squashed in almost rodent-like manner.

And let’s talk about the pricing! Back in December, the natural counterpart for Crepaway in Lebanon, Roadster diner, boosted its prices by a considerable amount, causing my friends and I to lessen our visits to a place that was eating away more and more an already tight budget. In the meantime, Crepaway boosted its prices in a lighter manner and they remained quite acceptable for what was offered.

However, I was surprised during my visit to Crepaway that they had increased their prices yet again. The famous Spielmozzarella is now priced at about 17,000LBP, about $11.33 and a Chicken Escalope platter is almost 20,000LBP (about $13.33), with smaller portions of French fries and coleslaw.

I understand fuel prices are on the rise in the country but I am positive chicken is not getting more expensive and nor is meat and, well, I am not going to a restaurant to dine on 95 Octane fuel while sniffing on the “exquisite” scent of a Marlboro.

Lebanese Civil War Stories – Part 3

Continued from Part 2.

Saint George’s Hospital was packed. Simon’s mom looked at the multitude of strangers in front of her. They were all in agony. The mothers that had lost sons, the wives that had lost husbands…

She was asked to come down to the hospital. She didn’t know why but she felt it was odd that her sons hadn’t come back home yet. But for all she knew, they were hiding out at some relative’s house.

On her way there, she had heard how her brother-in-law’s son, my uncle John, was hit and taken to the Geitawi hospital. She knew his condition wasn’t severe. But why was she in Saint George’s hospital?

She looked around. Strangers. There wasn’t any face she recognized. And somehow, she couldn’t even connect to their pain. So she sat there, in the waiting room, waiting for God knows what.

But then she noticed the whispers. Why were the people there looking at her through sad eyes, breathing out worried words she couldn’t comprehend with their tired mouths.

And suddenly she felt there was something she didn’t know. And she started to get worried. Her sons hadn’t gotten home. Her oldest son, George, had gone to get his sister from school. Her son Simon had supposedly also gone to do the same thing.

Why weren’t they back yet? They should have been back when she left the house. Something must have happened to them…

And like every concerned mother, her train of thought took her from being in a relatively comfortable state to a mental wreck.

One of the doctors ran in front of her. She stood up and shouted “take me to your morgue”.

The doctor stopped in his tracks. He turned around and looked at her. “My sons are in your morgue. I need to see my sons”.

Continue reading →

There Goes My Heart… Home

We all know how it feels to be home… you’re too comfortable being there, you’re yourself there… But you know what feels even better than being home? Going home after a long absence.

I belong in Batroun. I am from the North and my heart will always go there. Driving around my hometown, Ebrine, in the Batroun Caza, I snapped these pictures.

When I wake up and open the blinds, this is the first thing I see:

And if I feel like going to sightsee, I don’t need to wander off a lot… these are a few scenes that await me after a few minutes of walking.
And whenever I feel like I want to be alone, I can simply drive down to a very old church, dating back to the 1400s. This is St. Charbel (the Lebanese saint took his name).

My hometown also harbors the mother Convent for Sainte Famille. We all know people who have been to their schools and there are two streets, one in Tripoli and one in Beirut, named after my hometown because they have Sainte Famille convents on them.

And if I feel like visiting my grandma, I pass by a canopy of trees and beautiful olive tree fields…

And if you ever feel hungry, Royal’s Pizza in Batroun offers the best pizza in Lebanon. And trust me, I have tried many, many pizzas. Nothing will ever come close.