I think many people in the West think of the Middle East as somehow "other". So I just wanted to tell you a bit about Lebanon, which I've visited as a tourist a few times.
Beirut is a party town, with beach clubs lining the coast. The Corniche in the centre is a gorgeous promenade where people meet to walk, chat, court.
In the hills surrounding Beirut there are amazing vineyards with restaurants serving delicious food. There's a ski resort up in the north, though I think the chair lifts might date from before the civil war --
And the country still bears the scars of that civil war - burnt out, bullet hole ridden buildings, in between billion dollar redevelopments.
The roads are a mess, ridden with potholes, a problem for all the super cars speeding round them driven by the super rich, for whom Lebanon is a playground As a historically Christian country it's far more liberal than it's neighbours, hence the rest of the region go there to drink and party.
Out to the East, Baalbek is an almost completely rebuilt Roman city that defies belief, like travelling in a time machine.
And the countryside is full of tents - because Lebanon has one of the biggest refugee populations in the world, of Palestinians and Syrians.
It's a beautiful, but fragile place that has already rebuilt itself from a 15 year civil war and looks like it's about to be destroyed again. Which is a tragedy.