First Day in LEBANON (Nate Got Sick)

Love you. Oh, I just, like, don't want to sit up right now or open my eyes.

Today is our first full day in Lebanon. We got in late last night after it was already dark, so we've yet to see any of the country.

We are so excited to be here this week. We've heard so many good things about Lebanon, and we are starting our trip by exploring the capital city of Beirut.

Back when we first started traveling and making videos, we would always just leave our hotel with our camera and turn it on and just film everything. And we never had a plan, so our videos were always very scattered. And we've gotten a little bit better at storytelling over the years, but I feel like we haven't been on our own in a new city or we can just go out and explore in a really long time.

It's like as our channel's grown, we feel more and more pressure to always top the next video. And with that, there's usually a lot of pre planning, but today we have done none of that. And you're going to be discovering Beirut as we do.

I don't think he knows that we've been here before, but we'll take the extra pretester. Falafel.

Your show's bash.

First things first, it is lunchtime. We actually came here for dinner last night after we ended yesterday's vlog, and it was so good that we're back here for lunch today. It's just this tiny little falafel shop. They're frying these huge falafels right in front of you, so they're super hot and fresh. Then they drown it in tahini sauce with parsley, a handful of mint, freshly sliced tomatoes, and radishes. It's giant and it's only $2. And so, so, so good. We will be doing an entire video dedicated to Lebanese food because it is the best.

So good.

Great way to start the day. I learned that this means I want to beat you up, and I do that all the time. So I'm trying to stop th.

The first thing I've noticed since we've been walking around is just how many scooters are here.

And the only reason that's interesting to me is because I think this is the first Middle Eastern country that we've ever been to where it seems like scooters are used as a main form of transportation.

And we love scooters, so it makes us really happy.

Another thing we've noticed, like, as we've been in the Middle east, it just doesn't seem like a lot of people just go, like, walking on the streets. I think most people drive places, so every time a taxi sees us, they honk. I'd say we've left our room 30 minutes ago and we've been honked at least 50 times.

I think it's usually really hot in this part of the world, and so everybody's doing so much riding, but it feels great.

So we are staying in a neighborhood called Hamra, which is like a touristy area with lots of shopping and universities, and it's just like any other big city. But we've just made our way to more of central Beirut and we've ended up at this huge building called the Beit Beirut, which is basically a shell of a building covered in bullet holes.

It is absolutely crazy. And a quick recap of Lebanon's recent history. They actually went through a 15 year civil war from 1975 to 1990. And this building that we're standing at now, actually set on the green line that divided the east from the West. So it was the Christians fighting the Muslims. And this building here was used as a sniper tower. And that's why there's so many bullet holes in it.

So they've just kind of left the outside as is.

And they've turned the bottom floor into a museum. You can kind of see some photos in there, but it's closed right now, apparently.

Don't come on Sunday. But it's worth it, just coming over here to see the building and witness a little bit of history. It's like the closer we got to central Beirut, the more and more bullet holes we saw in the building.

This is what I'm finding so interesting about Beirut is just the contrast between how it used to be and how it is today. So we've walked maybe 10 minutes from where that building was that had all of the bullet holes in it. And now we've come to a place where there is literally a mosque and a church that are almost touching each other. Thirty years ago, there was a civil war being fought between the Muslims and the Christians. And today the country's come far enough along that they can build a church and a mosque right next to each other, which I just think is so cool.

There's so many.

Another fun fact is that when they were building this church, it was originally supposed to be a few meters taller than it is now, but they realized that it was going to be taller than the mosque, and so they ended up shortening the steeple to be the same height as the minarets. On the mosque in order to show them that they were equal and didn't think that they were better. And now we found ourselves in this little square where it seems like everyone else is spending their Sunday afternoon.

Well, we're gonna call it early today. I've been hoping that I'd feel better this whole time, But I've been a little nauseous ever since this video started, and it's just, like, getting worse.

He was trying to stay strong for the vlog, But I finally told Nate we're going home, and we can finish this another time. He's absolutely miserable.

My stomach just feels, like, so bloated, and I just feel nauseous, and all I wanted to do was lay down.

I knew it was bad when he said he wanted to take a finagrin because that literally makes you pass out until your body is healed. At least that's what's happened in our experience.

So we're gonna go back. I'm gonna lay down and hope I feel better, and we'll continue this tomorrow, hopefully. Yeah. Sorry.

Don't be sorry.

Oh. I just wanted to make the most of our time here.

We will. It's gonna be.

How you doing? We forgot the key.

Come on.

So it's the most comfortable spot to wait.

Let's get you in bed.

Can I do anything?

Mm. Mm.

It's not as bad as it looks. There's been nauseous, like, for three hours, and I'm so ready for it to go away.

We're not blaming the falafel, because I feel fine. I'm blaming the lounge, food, travel day.

It was such a nice lounge.

It was such a nice lounge. I feel so bad.

Okay. Kara's going out to give me medicine as you left the camera beside me in case I had any last words. Good luck.

Love you.

Oh, I just, like, don't even want to sit up right now or open my eyes.

Be safe.

He's alive.

Obviously, he's not 100% yet, but he is so much better than he was when we got here about 48 hours ago.

We've switched rooms in our hotel because we thought we'd just leave all of Nate's sick filth in our old room.

I'm really hoping that I'm not next. He hasn't really eaten yet.

That's kind of the most that touched you. I'm sorry.

I didn't even think about it. I was just like. But we've literally been sitting in darkness for 48 hours straight, which is why.

We haven't Left bed only to use the bathroom for 36 hours.

And you slept all the way through the night.

Now I just feel like I'm in this weird daze.

Was the weirdest thing. The scariest part was yesterday morning. So we came back after we decided we were done with the day. Nate got in bed. We turned all the lights off. He felt terrible. Rested all day and all night. We woke up yesterday morning, and Nate's entire body was shaking uncontrollably. And apparently that means his fever is spiking. And I didn't know that. I called Nate's mom in the middle of the night. She answered and calmed me down a little bit. And eventually he stopped maybe like, 10 or 15 minutes later. But it was the longest 10 or 15 minutes of my life. And, yeah, I've ran to the pharmacy a couple times.

I feel like my shaking is being a bit undersold. It was, like, intense muscle spasm. Yes.

His entire body, he could barely talk.

And I felt like it lasted a lot longer than 15 minutes. But that could have just been my perception of reality.

Yeah, maybe it was. I don't know. Felt like forever. It was probably only like, two minutes. We're gonna take it easy for one more day. Then we'll go back out and bear.

Okay, let's try this again.

It's all better.

That was crazy. I'm feeling just about back to 100% now. So we're gonna pick this tour up where we left off.

Our first stop of the day is the Beirut souk, which is much nicer than I thought it was going to be. But I'm very excited to do some shopping.

When I hear the word sook, I think of, like, an old traditional market, and that's not what this is at all. It's like a big, modern mall. But I think that it used to be a traditional market before the war, and then during the war, it was destroyed. And so afterwards, they built it up to be this big, modern, nice shopping center.

It is beautiful. Nate does all the planning, and I basically wake up in the mornings. I'm like, what are we doing today? And he said we were going to the souk, and I was expecting, like, little market with local people, maybe handmade things. And we showed up, and the H and M is the first thing I saw. And I was like, is this it?

I knew it was going to be modern, but I didn't know it was going to be a mall. It's nice, just not interesting to me.

Yeah.

The backdrop of Beirut is this gorgeous mountain with Snow on the top. It is windy. It is 60 degrees and sunny. It's just crazy to see that.

So the building behind me is the old Holiday Inn. And it's just crazy to see it sitting right here because we're surrounded by all these big, beautiful glasses, skyscrapers. And then here, this building is riddled with bullet holes just right in the middle of this big, beautiful downtown. So this building was actually finished in 1974, one year before the civil war started. So it was only in operation for a year before it became a strategic position in the war, and then got all the bullet holes, battle scars, and damage that you see on the building today. But I read online the reason that it's still sitting here and nothing's been done to it is because it's half owned by a company in Lebanon and then half owned by a company in Kuwait. The company in Lebanon wants to turn into condos. The company in Kuwait wants to just completely knock it down. And because they can't decide what to do with it, it's just been sitting here for the last 29 years. And I liked what K Said when we walked back. She said she felt like she could hear the gunfire when she looked at the building. And it's so true. It just, like, brings history right back in your face. Such an interesting.

So when we first told people we were coming to Beirut, we got a lot of blank stairs and really. Or why. And honestly, a year ago, I probably would have done the same thing. But the more I've learned about Lebanon, the more interested I've been in coming here. And now that we're here. Beautiful is not an adjective that I thought I would use to describe Beirut, but it really is. We've been walking on this corniche that goes along the water forever. The water crashing against the rocks was so pretty with the mountains in the background and palm trees. I feel like I'm in California right now. And it's a Friday afternoon, and everyone's just outside, exercising, fishing, playing with their kids, playing with their dogs. And I'm just having so much fun, like observing local life in Beirut. Our goal is to get to these famous rocks called Pigeon. Pigeon Rock. Pigeon architecture. We're going there to watch the sunset.

I'm hungry.

I thought I was helping some kids get their soccer ball down that was, like, stuck on top of this roof, but then this lady started yelling at, like, us and the kids. And I may have just helped some kids steal a soccer ball. And it was an accident.

So this hotel is not designed very well. We have this very nice couch, but the door.

Only opens a few inches.

So our bathroom is a little useless. Oh, did you see the H? Now it's right there. Going to go on the way out.