1. The airport is teeming with taxi drivers who like to smellout Americans to rip them off with an exorbitant taxi fare. Well our driver smelled out the wrongAmericans. Kirsten’s friend toldus not to pay more than $15/20 USD (which they use along with the Lira), sothere was no way I was going to pay more than $15. Warning: Don’t mess with Caitlin when she is bargaining.
One taxi driver sniffed out the three American girls, mostlikely assuming we were an easy target. Oh how he was mistaken. Hetried to take us for $25. No, no,bud. NO. So I said $15, and not a penny more. He laughed at my $15, so I laughed athis $25 when he said it again. Realizing I wouldn’t budge, he went down to $20. Ok, so now he is showing hisweakness. He went down within 5minutes, so why should I go up?! So I stood my ground. Hesaid no to $15 again, and literally pulled a random guy off the street andclaimed he was airport police (umm, yeah, sure…airport police wearing jeans anda t-shirt talking on his cell phone, holding car keys?) and said the policemanwould enforce the $20 fare. Well,I was not about to buy into that, so I started walking away to find another cabto start the bargaining all over. But of course once he saw that, $15 it was!
2. So the thing to do in Beirut at night is goclubbing. I am not a clubbing kindof girl, but I bought into the whole “When I Lebanon, do as the Lebanese do”thing after Kirsten spent all of dinner convincing me to come out withher. Well, we left for the club at11:30 pm, thinking it would take half an hour to get there. So when I checked my phone uponarrival, I was shocked to see that it was already 1 am.
It took us awhile to catch a cab since there were 6 of us,but we managed to cram 5 people in the back seat, and one sat in thefront. The driver had no ideawhere we wanted to go, and neither did we. Great…always a good sign. So we drove in the general direction of the club (whichmight I add was an underground civil war bomb shelter turned club), but gotstuck in traffic. And by stuck intraffic I mean like sitting in the same place for 30 minutes. We stuck up a conversation with thecreepy guy in the car next to us, because we were so bored. Then, once we started moving, the guybehind us apparently got so excited we were moving again and rammed into theback of our cab. So that tookanother 20 minutes to figure out, even though car accidents here always endwith a smile and handshake.
So we were finally back en route to this club. Until we no longer knew the route. So the driver pulls off the road onto aside road trying to find the place, and then all of a sudden we see thereflection of flashing red and blue lights. Great. So not only did we get into a car accident, but nowwe are also getting a ticket. Apparently it was a 1 way street for the night, and we were going thewrong way, and also the fact that we had 5 people crammed into the backseat wasalso definitely illegal. So that’stwo strikes against the driver, but apparently he talked himself out of theticket, so after another 20 minutes, we started up again. Only to be pulled over, AGAIN. But this time the police made a mistakeand returned the wrong drivers’ license to the taxi driver and had to exchangeit. Thank goodness.
We finally arrived at the club an hour and a half after ourjourney had started, and of course the driver wanted to charge us for thetraffic, the accident, and the run-in with the police. Umm, I don’t think so, but this time Ileft the bargaining up to the Lebanese.
3. Jennifer,Kirsten, and I were wandering around Beirut trying to figure out how to go toPigeon Rock (pretty much just a massive rock off the coast of theMediterranean), but we had no idea how much the taxi should cost. So we flagged one down and told himwhere we wanted to go, and he said 4,000 Lira for all of us. We agreed, and got in. Probably 7 minutes later, we were atPigeon Rock, and he said he wanted 10,000 Lira for all of us. What?! Absolutely not.
So I started arguing with him. There was no way I was going to let him rip us off when weonly got in after we agreed on 4,000 Lira. He told us that normally it was 6,000 for a service and10,000 for a taxi, so he wanted 10,000 and denied that he originally told us4,000. So I pitched a fit. I was yelling at the guy in Arabic, andwasn’t going to let him take advantage of us.
Then a random guy from the street came up to the windowasking if there was a problem. Thedriver told him what was going on, and I clarified that he had told us 4,000 tobegin with, but the random guy on the street started saying “I guarantee he isright. You owe him 10,000 Lira. Hedidn’t say 4,000. I know. I knowhe didn’t.” Oh boy. That got me even more upset. I started yelling at him, too! “What doyou mean you know? Were you there 5 minutes ago when we got in the cab and hesaid 4,000? I don’t think so. So you don’t know. I know. So goaway and let me talk to the driver.” (I am proud I got this all out in Arabicin the heat of the moment!)
After 5 minutes of bickering, we threw a 5,000 Lira bill inthe front seat and got out of the cab. I’m still a little upset he got an extra 1,000, but whatever. At least he didn’t get his 10,000.
One taxi driver sniffed out the three American girls, mostlikely assuming we were an easy target. Oh how he was mistaken. Hetried to take us for $25. No, no,bud. NO. So I said $15, and not a penny more. He laughed at my $15, so I laughed athis $25 when he said it again. Realizing I wouldn’t budge, he went down to $20. Ok, so now he is showing hisweakness. He went down within 5minutes, so why should I go up?! So I stood my ground. Hesaid no to $15 again, and literally pulled a random guy off the street andclaimed he was airport police (umm, yeah, sure…airport police wearing jeans anda t-shirt talking on his cell phone, holding car keys?) and said the policemanwould enforce the $20 fare. Well,I was not about to buy into that, so I started walking away to find another cabto start the bargaining all over. But of course once he saw that, $15 it was!
2. So the thing to do in Beirut at night is goclubbing. I am not a clubbing kindof girl, but I bought into the whole “When I Lebanon, do as the Lebanese do”thing after Kirsten spent all of dinner convincing me to come out withher. Well, we left for the club at11:30 pm, thinking it would take half an hour to get there. So when I checked my phone uponarrival, I was shocked to see that it was already 1 am.
It took us awhile to catch a cab since there were 6 of us,but we managed to cram 5 people in the back seat, and one sat in thefront. The driver had no ideawhere we wanted to go, and neither did we. Great…always a good sign. So we drove in the general direction of the club (whichmight I add was an underground civil war bomb shelter turned club), but gotstuck in traffic. And by stuck intraffic I mean like sitting in the same place for 30 minutes. We stuck up a conversation with thecreepy guy in the car next to us, because we were so bored. Then, once we started moving, the guybehind us apparently got so excited we were moving again and rammed into theback of our cab. So that tookanother 20 minutes to figure out, even though car accidents here always endwith a smile and handshake.
So we were finally back en route to this club. Until we no longer knew the route. So the driver pulls off the road onto aside road trying to find the place, and then all of a sudden we see thereflection of flashing red and blue lights. Great. So not only did we get into a car accident, but nowwe are also getting a ticket. Apparently it was a 1 way street for the night, and we were going thewrong way, and also the fact that we had 5 people crammed into the backseat wasalso definitely illegal. So that’stwo strikes against the driver, but apparently he talked himself out of theticket, so after another 20 minutes, we started up again. Only to be pulled over, AGAIN. But this time the police made a mistakeand returned the wrong drivers’ license to the taxi driver and had to exchangeit. Thank goodness.
We finally arrived at the club an hour and a half after ourjourney had started, and of course the driver wanted to charge us for thetraffic, the accident, and the run-in with the police. Umm, I don’t think so, but this time Ileft the bargaining up to the Lebanese.
3. Jennifer,Kirsten, and I were wandering around Beirut trying to figure out how to go toPigeon Rock (pretty much just a massive rock off the coast of theMediterranean), but we had no idea how much the taxi should cost. So we flagged one down and told himwhere we wanted to go, and he said 4,000 Lira for all of us. We agreed, and got in. Probably 7 minutes later, we were atPigeon Rock, and he said he wanted 10,000 Lira for all of us. What?! Absolutely not.
So I started arguing with him. There was no way I was going to let him rip us off when weonly got in after we agreed on 4,000 Lira. He told us that normally it was 6,000 for a service and10,000 for a taxi, so he wanted 10,000 and denied that he originally told us4,000. So I pitched a fit. I was yelling at the guy in Arabic, andwasn’t going to let him take advantage of us.
Then a random guy from the street came up to the windowasking if there was a problem. Thedriver told him what was going on, and I clarified that he had told us 4,000 tobegin with, but the random guy on the street started saying “I guarantee he isright. You owe him 10,000 Lira. Hedidn’t say 4,000. I know. I knowhe didn’t.” Oh boy. That got me even more upset. I started yelling at him, too! “What doyou mean you know? Were you there 5 minutes ago when we got in the cab and hesaid 4,000? I don’t think so. So you don’t know. I know. So goaway and let me talk to the driver.” (I am proud I got this all out in Arabicin the heat of the moment!)
After 5 minutes of bickering, we threw a 5,000 Lira bill inthe front seat and got out of the cab. I’m still a little upset he got an extra 1,000, but whatever. At least he didn’t get his 10,000.
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