Falafel Friday
Middle Eastern Cuisine, which argueably has the best sandwiches in town, only serves falafel on friday. Why? So that there won't be the smell of frying falafels in the restaurant every day. Fair enough. So whenever we can, we head over there and have the falafel on friday, knowing that the opportunity may slip by for another week otherwise. Today we ran into an old Lebanese-Armenian aquaintence from the Lebanese Embassy there that we met when getting visas for Lebanon in December 99. We needed a visa in 2 days, although it usually takes a week to process. They said they would try and we were happy with that. Well on the second day we called, and asked the status and they said we could pick the passports up at 5pm with the visas. Well the guards said that no passports were left for us and we had a flight to Cyprus at 9am the next morning. The guards called this fellow who came to help us sort things out. He said it would have been ready, except for one of the applications said "artist" for occupation. Well apparently this is what "exotic dancers" usually describe their occupation as. So he had us change that to painter when he found out the type of artist and headed off to the Lebanese Ambassador at a very late hour to get the visas signed. We retrieved our passports at almost 11pm in amazement at the helpfullness and have been so grateful to them. This was in stark contrast to the US Embassy and their consular section which I swear was trying as hard as they could to stop me from getting a new passport issued. Well eventually I got to Beirut and interviewed my great aunt to find out my family history. She was born in Marash and is still alive. It was fascinating and I cherish those tapes. If you have a survivor in your family, you must interview them before that peice of our oral history is lost!!
Middle Eastern Cuisine, which argueably has the best sandwiches in town, only serves falafel on friday. Why? So that there won't be the smell of frying falafels in the restaurant every day. Fair enough. So whenever we can, we head over there and have the falafel on friday, knowing that the opportunity may slip by for another week otherwise. Today we ran into an old Lebanese-Armenian aquaintence from the Lebanese Embassy there that we met when getting visas for Lebanon in December 99. We needed a visa in 2 days, although it usually takes a week to process. They said they would try and we were happy with that. Well on the second day we called, and asked the status and they said we could pick the passports up at 5pm with the visas. Well the guards said that no passports were left for us and we had a flight to Cyprus at 9am the next morning. The guards called this fellow who came to help us sort things out. He said it would have been ready, except for one of the applications said "artist" for occupation. Well apparently this is what "exotic dancers" usually describe their occupation as. So he had us change that to painter when he found out the type of artist and headed off to the Lebanese Ambassador at a very late hour to get the visas signed. We retrieved our passports at almost 11pm in amazement at the helpfullness and have been so grateful to them. This was in stark contrast to the US Embassy and their consular section which I swear was trying as hard as they could to stop me from getting a new passport issued. Well eventually I got to Beirut and interviewed my great aunt to find out my family history. She was born in Marash and is still alive. It was fascinating and I cherish those tapes. If you have a survivor in your family, you must interview them before that peice of our oral history is lost!!
posted by Raffi K. at 12:45 AM
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