Lebanese Food :D yeeey

If you've never had Lebanese food then you don't know what you are missing. Our mezza and our variety of grilled meat makes up the staple Lebanese food that everyone adores. Apparently some English people know some of the mezza dishes but have no idea that it is Lebanese.

So, I have been here for three months and the only time I had a mezza dish was when I bought canned hommous (your hearts go out for me - I know :P). It was OK but not as good as the real thing. The reason I didn't have any Lebanese mezza dish - even though I love it so much - is because there are no Lebanese retaurants in Southampton :(. I had been nagging about it a lot lately and I even showed some pictures to my flatmates. They got interested in trying some out so we looked for Lebanese restaurants online. We found that the nearest one was in Bournemouth. We agreed to go during the vacation on the 23rd of December because on that day Lindley - Sheena's boyfriend - would be in Southampton. For the past few days all Sheena and I have been talking about was Lebanese Food. We were SO excited. I couldn't believe I was finally going and Sheena couldn't believe she was gonna be trying new food. I was hoping that the food would be good because it would be such a disappointment and waste if it weren't.

On the 22nd, I called the restaurant and made reservations - not that any was needed because it was a weekday but I wanted them to know that a real Lebanese was coming :P. I told some of my friends and Sarah we would have to drive to Bournemouth to have a meal, she answered 'Bournemouth, that's in the middle of nowhere England!" hehehe
The 23rd finally came. George asked me to check Google maps and see how long it will take us to get there. I did and it turned out that Bournemouth was 45 minutes away! "That food better be good", Sheena and I commented. We agreed to leave the dorms at 7:20. As always, we left 15 minutes AFTER the agreed on time - my Lebanese lack of respect to appointments was not the reason behind it :P. My flatmates and I never leave on the agreed on time :D
The car ride was quite. Everyone was quite and secretly hoping the food wouldn't turn out to be a disappointment. We got there and were seated. The manager was Lebanese but our waiter was Syrian. I handled the ordering because my flatmates wouldn't know anything. I ordered hummus, mtabbal, tabbouleh, vine leaves, fatayer sambousek cheese, and kebbi. I also ordered a mixed plate of grilled kafta, chicken tawouk, and beef meat. As Lebanese we always refer to these as: chicken, kafta, and meat. So when they asked me what I ordered and I replied meat I unconsciously thought that was clear enough. They had to ask me two time what I ordered before I realized that answering meat was not sufficient hehehe
The food came and it was amazing :D they loved all of it. George and Lindley didn't like the vine leaves but Sheena and I thought it was well nice. Then the grills were served and everyone was impressed as well :D By the time we finished we were very stuffed. To end it nicely we also had baklawa, it was amazing AND on the house - how cool was that? We decided we should go back there once again and Sheena and I agreed we have Valentine's meal there :P hehehehe

One last note, after the meal was over Sheena commented that Lebanese food is so good and that she couldn't believe I made it through three months without having any "I can now imagine how you were feeling. It must have been torture" she rightfully stated

Road Trip to Kent and My New Monitor

NEW MONITOR!!!!!!!!!!!!! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYY more like it hehehehe
but we had to drive to Kent to get it!
George was so nice to offer to drive me to Kent to get the new monitor we bought on ebay. We got into the car - loaded it with fuel - and started our trip at 4:45. It took us only 2 hours to get there. Probably because George was driving at an average speed of 100 miles per hour - I didn't mind it but I kept my eyes on the speedometer and the heat-indicator during the whole duration of our trip (talk about bad experiences hehehe). Sheena came along but she slept almost all the time; and when she didn't sleep she was reading in her book (it gets dark after 4:30 so she brought a torch along so she can read in the dark car hehehe)
Although it was really dark, we thought that Rochester, Kent was fancier than Southampton. The houses were bigger and more elegant. It looked nicer because there is a lake with hills surrounding it and the lights shining around the lake were beautiful. We went to the seller's house. His house was overlooking the lake. We tested the monitor, paid him, and left - the whole thing didn't take more than 10 minutes. So, we decided to shop in Kent's ASDA hahaha. I am starting to think we are ASDA addicts :p. We shopped, used the toilet, and were back in the car by 7:55. Off to Southampton - this time with an average speed of 120 mile/hr and with Arabic music playing from my laptop (yeeey). I had to blindly navigate to the music directory because I just can't see anything on the screen! We were back in the dorms at 9:45!!!! I directly hooked up my monitor and was so relieved because I can finally use my laptop properly. The monitor is really BIG and everyone is so jealous hehehe George didn't accept that I pay him for the fuel; so we agreed that I either bail him out of jail or pay for his pizza next time we buy takeaway food hahaha