Curfew!

In other news first, I went skiing today and completed my first red run! I also had a couple of falls and am nursing sore legs. This of course meant that I and my friends were out of town when the students at the Arab University started fighting. This took place in the south of the city but trouble spread to Basta (between Hamra or West Beirut and Achrafieh) and there were rumours of trouble in Achrafieh which thankfully were unfounded. All this meant that it was a bit of a fraught drive home as the mobile network was down (from over use).

The army has ordered a curfew tonight from 8.30pm to 6am tomorrow. In true Lebanese fashion there were a few people out after the curfew began (always fashionably late) but at the time of writing (10.30pm) it is very, very quiet indeed. Schools and Universities are closed tomorrow and I am sure many people will stay away from work. Hopefully these measures will calm tempers. However, it never ceases to amaze me how some people appear to have learnt nothing from the lessons of the civil war and seem determined to push Lebanon into conflict. Many of these students will have had parents who stayed in Lebanon during the civil war, and many of them are likely to have some memories of it from their childhood - so why start it all over again?

Also, rather worryingly, Sydney appears to be nesting again. We all know what happened last time she hatched a chick! Hopefully she is indeed a dove of peace and not a hawk!