At Home

The last week has flown by in a haze of verb conjugations, narghile, winter rain and spring sunshine.

My Arabic classes proper don't start for another week, but I signed up for some one-on-one lessons when I arrived here so that I could make up the ground and join a class a level above my current standard. My teacher, a petite lady of about 40 called Hanadi, set about beating my grammatical ability into shape by making me repeat conjugations of perfect verbs, imperfect verbs, present participle tense, active participle tense. Any mistake would be greeted with a disapproving shake of the head. Any vocabulary I didn't know would be explained loudly in French, her preferred second language. The result was that, although feeling a lot like a pupil in a 1950s grammar school Latin class, I learnt a huge amount, covering a 120-page textbook in 10 hours of lessons. My bargaining power with taxi drivers is improving in direct correlation.

On Thursday I moved into the apartment which will be my home for the remainder of my spell here. It is an airy, spacious place with a large terrace which looks towards the mountains beyond the city and over the busy street 3 storeys below. It is situated in Mar Mikhael, a down-to-earth quarter known for its Armenian population, about 10 minutes' walk from the language school. I am sharing the flat with Richard, a kind and friendly teacher from Surrey who has lived in Beirut for a couple of years, and an affectionate but very greedy cat by the name of fustu' - 'peanut' in Arabic. We have Premier League football on satellite TV and a good supply of teabags. On Saturday I threw a small moving in party, mainly with people I've met at the hostel and language school - the perfect suitability of the apartment for welcoming guests made the evening a success. In short, my accommodation is luxurious and I'm going to feel at home.

Having my own place also means doing my own cooking again, and therefore shopping. I went to buy supplies at one of the numerous small grocery stores nearby. I must have looked slightly ponderous as I stood looking for the rice. The store's owner approached me and asked if he could help. The rice is kept behind the counter and must be measured out, which he asked his assistant to do. He then introduced himself as Tony and his assistant as 'my brother, he is from Egypt'. 'Gamiil giddan' - very nice - I replied in the Egyptian dialect, before promising to speak Lebanese next time I came to the shop. The Egyptian then showed me the way to the greengrocers where I bought enough vegetables for a stirfry for 5 people for about 80 pence or 7 Danish kroner.

I do not have any lessons this week so am planning to take some excursions out of town - so there will hopefully be some interesting subject matter for the forthcoming blogs.