English travel-vlogger, Jordan Simons, sold all his possessions and quit his job to travel the world. He has been traveling through the continents for 5+ years now and visited Lebanon in October 2019.
During that same time, he decided to take a quick trip to neighboring Syria, which has been in war for the past 9 years.
Strolling down a Syrian souk in the early mornings as it was just opening, Jordan hoped to portray a true image of the war-torn country and discover its daily life outside the war.
As he gave his audience a tour in the old city of central Damascus, he tried Syrian ice cream as well as their spices and expressed his love for the country’s cuisine.
While in the souk, Jordan found something particularly attention-grabbing to any Lebanese person.
He found a box of the Middle Eastern edition of Monopoly, and -guess what- the most expensive street in the board game being Beirut’s Hamra Street.
In fact, Beirut overall is considered one of the most expensive cities in the Middle East. “EuroCost International’s 2018 cost-of-living survey for expatriates ranked Beirut in seventh place globally,” reported Annahar.
Jordan knew that well. Before going on his trip to Syria, he visited Lebanon and vlogged about the revolution. He started his videos on October 17th, the day the revolution began!
His tour of Lebanon began quite normally. Like any tourist, Jordan set out to discover Hamra Street, Downtown, Beirut Souks, the Manara, and more.
The next day, he had to leave a cafe that was closing due to the eruption of protests. He had a firsthand experience of the unfolding of the thawra, which he vlogged about along the way.
After going to Syria for a week, he returned to Lebanon once again at the invitation of his Lebanese friends.
They help him get a true taste at Lebanese authentic cuisine at Em Nazih in Hamra and showed him what the real Lebanese protest was like.
Jordan eventually ended up leaving Lebanon with happy vibes, promising he would visit again.
Watch his Lebanon and Syria videos below, with his finding of the infamous Monopoly in the first video at around the 5-minute mark.
