I had a safe trip to Beirut on Saturday afternoon, enjoyed spending most of Sunday chatting in the kitchen with my new flatmate (a professional belly-dancer and a very cool lady, you´ll meet her soon!) and prepared myself for the big day: On Monday, my work exchange at the Lebanese francophone newspaper „L´Orient Le Jour“ was supposed to start.

I sent a couple of Emails to my future colleagues but I didn´t get a response – that´s when my flatmate advised me to get a Lebanese mobile phone because without it, I´ll probably be lost in Beirut. However, Lebanese SIM cards don´t work in foreign mobile phones anymore: A recent law states that all foreigners have to register first, only then a Lebanse SIM card will work in international phones.

I decided to register early in the morning – too bad I didn´t know then that I was wrong with my assumption that emails were not a good way to communicate in Lebanon: My colleagues replied almost instantly when I forwarded my mails to their PRIVATE mail accounts! If Hostwriter already existed, I could have asked a local journalist and could have saved me the trip…!