Place to see: Beirut, Lebanon, Beirut, Lebanon

About this place:

Everyone says, dreamily, "it's the Paris of the Middle East." It's not. Beirut is its own funky animal: tense, beautiful, cracking with growth, assaulted by civil strife, graffitied with advertising for Starbucks and Applebees and perfumes from Paris, but without jobs for women, without futures for the young people bristling with university degrees. I love the city, love the friendliness of the people; I would live there permanently, but cannot stand to see so many talents withering on the vine, so many dreams dried into dust rather than wines.