Monday, May 3, 2010

Unexpected Evening

There is an Arabic restaurant here where you can eat dinner and then choose to dress up as an Arab and get your picture taken. Some of our friends have been wanting to do this for awhile, so we decided to join the fun...and ended up having a blast as we encountered an unexpected cultural experience. We arrived to the restaurant and saw beautiful flower bouquets everywhere and also saw that a major section of the restaurant was reserved for the night. We found out that the owner of the restaurants son was getting married that evening and was having their reception here.

We ate dinner and as were heading to get our pictures taken when the whole wedding crew showed up. It was a really large crowd, so we all just stepped back to watch everyone. The bride and groom took awhile to arrive, but when they did, you bet it was a big show! They had a fireworks show, huge sparklers inside, they had brought in Lebanese dancers, and had even brought a Ukrainian belly dancer. The owner recognized one of our friends, so they allowed us to be apart of everything...we basically just sat back and watched. I was pretty amazed at how opposite this experience was from everyday life. Normally I see women covered head to toe, but most of the ladies were wearing sleeveless dresses...and a belly dancer is the last thing I expected to see!

We finally got around to getting our pictures made. Micah LOVED dressing up and wouldn't take his costume off. He wore it forever and just danced and danced to the loud Arab music. We got some hilarious videos of him dancing...since our internet speed isn't the best, I'm thinking the file might be too large to post on here though.

Here are some pictures of our evening...
My wanna-be Bedouin boy.
Friends.
The wedding party arriving.
Lebanese dancers.
the Ukrainian belly dancer.

1 comment:

Blair said...

Love Paul's face as well as the pretty costumes. Tell Micah I wouldn't have taken my outfit off either. Looks like a fun night!