I Strongly agree and support that Ashraifeh has its authentic and vibrant life style, with its amazing nights clubs and pubs in Monot, breathtaking restaurants and delicious mouthwatering food inside each resturant. Also not to forget my favorite mall in the whole world ABC Mall, but i have to disagree on few things regarding Ashraifeh.

this is my opinion, and to you i may sound like a nut job or a genius, but both cases i will stick to the truth and tell you whats on my mind.

i have been living in Hamra all my life, because i used to study at LAU, my work was there, my friends lived around me, i spent most of my time there, everything i really needed was in Hamra area, sometimes on saturdays or sundays i used to go to ABC to do my weekly shopping :D :D (yeah don't judge me i like to shop,) and i never got bored from abdul wahab street, every time i went there i used to try another new restaurant either with friends, family or a hot date ;).

anyway, after graduation, i had to travel and leave my house in hamra, my family live abroad so i had to leave the rented house to its owners and travel to dubai just like any other typical lebanese ( well some D: ) to work on my new job, i was not happy there so i decided to come back and continue my masters at LAU, but here is the flaw in the plan, Hamra was expensive ( still is ) so i had to find another apartment studio either in Ahsraifeh, fern shbek or the surrounding areas of beirut district.

my friend found me this studio near hotel Alexandre but it cost me 750$ ........it was HOT expensive, but it was cheaper than 1000 $ studio apartments i found in Hamra so i had to stay in temporarily until i find a cheaper place. of course i had to work double shifts at work and what i mean is: work in the newspaper during the day, go to university then work at night in a local restaurant or something.

it was tiring but it was worth it, it is home after all :)

the thing about ahsraifeh is that side of it was kinda quite and i'm not used to it, i mean neighbors were friendly but they never strike up a conversation unless something is really important, when i go at night to buy something, everything closes at 8 or 9 i mean one time because of easter vacation i had to go all the way to ras nabe3 to buy water !!!!!! i mean i know ashraifeh is considered to be christian area ( don't mean anything :D) but lets be realistic this is not true, i mean it is quite cosmopolitan and thats whats makiing it so vibrant and different than other areas. it has it all. i was just hoping for some stores to stay open even in holidays at least till 12 or 10 pm or have like a 24 hour store like in USA or the one in kurytem.

i honestly want to say this, think what ever you want, but when i moved to ashraifeh, i really thought i moved from beirut to paris, i mean all the cable channels are programmed into french, chanel 5, and bla bla bla, i never heard the word saba7 el 5er ONLY bonjour or Salut.

well coming from an english- arabic background i kinda found it difficult to adapt to this environment
for example
when i go to the salon to do my nails, i ask for the price? she answers some numbers in french, so my mind starts to wonder did she say 40 or 14/? then i try to avoid the embarrassment and give her 100$ bill :D

or when i try to pay the apartment's money, the owner of the house comes to me with her traditional french lebanese accent and keeps me hanging :::::::: i mean what did she say ?

so i had to ask help from my mother because she is french educated, i took some french courses, at least the basics i know french is simple to any french educated or any person living in lebanon, i must admit i know all the numbers and letters and general welcoming sentences in french, but i guess living in an area with such a lousy knowledge in french wont do you any good :D

I felt i'm in a european country. I know its a good feeling to experience something different, but i never thought Hamra and Ahsraifeh could be THAT different its just 5 minutes drive away WTF :D

at the end thats the beauty of lebanon, its areas are so quite different yet combined together in a beautiful way just like a cosmopolitan drink.

Viva la Ashrafieh
:P
Au revoir :D