I roam around Beirut on a motorbike. Sun or rain, my preferred way of commuting is my bike. A trans-alp 600 a cross-style bike, big enough to look like a pool table and me, the skinny one, a billiard stick riding it. The roads I take in my work are mainly towards the east side of Beirut, since I live in Hamra which is on the west side. I end up heading to my job of teaching audio production or to my freelancing job, which can be of any audio related nature and can be anywhere. One road I take in particular is that to Studio-Vision's offices in Nakkash area on the northern suburbs of Beirut. The trip starts by the agony of trying to cut my way out of Hamra, if it is before noon time, I can take Clemenceau road, a residential cozy area which gets hectic at noon and beyond, by the time schools are out, The alternative is Spears.

Just note that Spears is the end road, whereas the start of it is called Emile Eddeh. Spears exit for me starts with filling gas at the gas station near Barbar Hamra where Mohammad the Egyptian guy is always sweet and friendly, straight to the cross-section where the cars double park and I either have to drive slow behind the cars or wait for the sidewalk to be empty of pedestrians to bypass the traffic and reach the big intersection of Cairo Street and Emile Eddeh where the policeman is more useless than the traffic lights which everyone ignores, reaching to Sanayeh, where I have to keep my right and be careful about cars opening their doors suddenly on me. Dip the taxi drivers at the small intersection and once I am at Barbar Spears, the road is open.

The road takes me to Dora where I have a choice of either taking the usual Jal el Dib highway or taking the Seaside Bourj Hammoud road.

Jal el Dib highway is always a nuisance, the bus drivers will kill me for 1,000 ll and I should always be careful when they are on the right side, while the highway is just a boring congested road filled with too many advertisement just adding to the noises of that road. Smell: gasoline with bit of diesel from the busses which you need to bypass to stop the smell.

visuals: loads of cars congested and a bottle neck at the Jal el Dib bridge which is not safe and people say it may fall, while the site of the polluted buildings is covered with excessive photoshopped advertisement trying to sell us other people's culture.

rePLACE
Roaming around
submitted by RM, 34 year old male sound engineer
20min, on motorcycle, 3 times a week