Baalbek to Zahle to Ksara caves

Wandering through the ruins at Baalbek is humbling -- again, like Byblos, there is a great mixture of modern educational museum exhibits and unhindered space for rambling through the temples and broken stairways. We got a few photos of Coleman's dancing shoes, to add to his global collection (he carried this pair of shoes carefully through our trip, only wore them for this special purpose) -- I will add them to the blog entry later, as my phone ran out of battery soon thereafter.
The sun peeked through the clouds for a bit, yet it was quite chilly and windy, cutting through our thin jackets.
But we were duly impressed with the size of the temples and temple stones, and the elaborate carving of the stairways there -- it's quite easy to imagine how impressed a crowd would have been two thousand years ago. We also enjoyed reading the various interpretations of the buildings' origins, that varied according to the origin of the archaeologists themselves.
After a final souvenir shop visit and negotiation (we were proud of our bargaining in Baalbek), we ventured back to the share-taxi stand for a ride to Zahle, then an expensive special taxi ride up to Hotel Akl (it was raining, no choice!). Chilly but atmospheric, huge, very clean house -- again because of the weather and the time, no bargaining. Zahle is a center of Greek Orthodox communities in Lebanon, quite different from the conservative Muslim Baalbek. Photos of Hariri and similar types are on the local billboards. Rain. But the hotel has space heaters in the rooms. and clean warm beds. good sleep.

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Where we are working now

ISG Jubail School is the Anglo-American school for this area: Jubail is one of two planned industrial cities in Saudi Arabia, given a special royal commission for development and planning. Our district, the seven schools of International Schools Group, runs the school in the other industrial city -- Yanbu -- as well. Jubail is on the east coast, between Dhahran and Kuwait. Our nearby "big city" is the tri-city metropolis of Dhahran-Khobar-Dammam, where all the big shopping malls and quaint old markets are, along with the central 3 schools of our district, where Coleman attends high school. ISG Jubail has 410 students -- an average of 2 homerooms for each grade, K-10. Class size varies, up to 22. I have 12 in my required course "Computers & Information Management"; Barb has 12 students in her first-grade class. Most of the teaching staff come from the U.S., some from the Commonwealth. Several teachers are wives of engineers an...

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