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Local Blogger Lina, evacuates Lebanon and is thankful to be back in the boro. Interesting read:
Quote:
Recap: Lebanon evacuation
I'm sitting here on Sunday morning, watching CNN and thinking how strange it is to now be on the outside of the situation in Lebanon and not a part of it anymore.
When I finally arrived to Greensboro, NC yesterday morning, my body completely shut down. I went to sleep as soon as i got home and didn't wake up except for once to order Chinese food, eat, and then fall back asleep. I slept for about 20 hours. I think my mind and body are still too tired to fully come to grips with where I just was only days ago.
My family and I evacuated Lebanon on Wednesday. My brother happened to check his email at around 1:30am Tuesday night and found an email from the State Dept. asking us to call them (a US #) if we were ready to leave. It was a little strange that he seemed to be the only one notified (especially since I was the one that registered us all - I had gotten all other emails except for the most important one of all). If he hadn't of checked, then we may not have gotten to leave that day.
I called the number given to us and was on hold for about 5 minutes. Then a person came on the phone and I told her that we received that email and wanted to evacuate. Strangely, my name was the only one they had (even though I had registered my mom, brother, sisters as well AND my brother was the one that got the email). Anyway, it wasn't a problem, I gave them all of our names and passport numbers. We were given the option to arrive at the port at 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, or 3pm. We chose 9am. I was given the location and that was it.
Even though it was all we had wanted for days, it suddenly came as a shock to us that we were leaving our family within hours. Because it was so late, we opted not to wake those that were already asleep. Thankfully we had already packed, so that wasn't a problem. We just finished up some last minute things and then spent time trying to find hotels in Cyprus, with no luck. I finally went to sleep at 4:30am, knowing I had to be up at 6am.
I was so nervous that I would wake up late, but the bomb that went off at 5:30am was all the alarm clock that I needed. I couldn't believe it. Israel was bombing in southern Beirut on the morning that we were leaving -- more than nerve-wrecking! We woke up our family that wasn't yet aware of what was going on. They were in shock. They knew we would be leaving but didn't expect to wake up to us leaving in an hour. So many of us were crying and sad...My aunt was so upset...couldn't stop crying. My poor grandmother just couldn't believe it. Slowly my cousins and uncle woke up...we sat down to have coffee and then had to call other family members to let them know.
Right before we piled into the car, another bomb hit in the Dohi. I was pretty scared about our safety but my uncle (who was driving us there) didn't seem phased, so I trusted his judgement. The ride to the port was uneventful, thankfully.
When we arrived, the first stop was with someone who needed to make sure we were on the list. Then we continued onto the first line where we waited for 2 hours to have our luggage checked. The lines were not roped off, so many people kept crossing over into our line, making our wait longer. They coulda done a better job keeping things more orderly in that area. It was scorching hot. A little boy fainted behind me because he was so hot. A chopper brought in 2 people that were injured...one on a stretcher. I felt so badly for them and felt so lucky that me and my family hadn't been hurt.
The US marines were there and were really nice to everyone. They continuously brought cold bottles of water to those of us standing in line. Once we passed that point, we waited in another line for immigration to check our passports. We all had "Beirut, Lebanon" stamped on our arms. Strange. Then we sat and waited for our assigned bus. When our bus came, we loaded our luggage and got on. The boat was about a 10 minute drive from there. The AC was minimal...it was so stuffy and hot. Then when we got to the port, we sat in the bus forever until we were allowed to get off.
There was a large tent...and as we entered it became apparent that we would be getting on a cruise ship and would get a room, which really surprised us. By the time we boarded the ship, it was 2pm. We had begun the process at 9am...it took 5 hours to get to this point. As soon as we got on, we saw one of our cousins (not the ones we were with in Ainab). She said her, her mom, and siblings were on board. What a coincidence. We got to the room, showered, and then met them for a quite bite. Then we went back to the room to take a nap...we awoke after a bit and went to take a look at the USS Gonzalez, which was trailing behind for security. After having some dinner, we went back and slept until we docked in Cyprus...
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