Beirut Taxis

I'm in Beirut! The weather's awesome, and I get to give my Abaya a rest, (at-fucking-last!)
Taxi drivers here are funny, man. They LOVE to honk them horns!
You could be walking down the street, and a taxi would pull up to you, the driver would roll the window down and shout "TAXIIII!?". And after shaking your head (rather violently) no, he'd motion for you to get in, (also rather violently). A few minutes later you'd find yourself absolutely screaming "NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOO!". It's all quite dramatic, actually.
Come to think of it, every taxi ride I've gotten has been an experience. (Infact, the ones I haven't gotten are aswell, strangely enough..)
About a year ago now, Our whole (extended) family went on a skiing vacation in Austria *que the sound-track to The Sound Of Music*. Two of my cousins and I called a taxi to pick us up from the hotel we were staying at. To our utter horror; a tiny ancient looking pink taxi pulled up infront of our hotel.
At first, we saw the hilarity in our predicament, (Really; have YOU ever seen a hot pink taxi?) and started giggling. Then, the driver, who turned out to be a ridiculously old, ridiculuosly skinny, toothless chap, turned around and said; "Vutt are you gurlz laughing at!? Eh??".
We said nothing.
"EH??"
"Err.. Nothing."
Later on, we discovered the little man smoked like a god-damned chimney. The smell was overwhelming. I asked him to stop, (my cousin had started to cough, and her eyes were turning red) and he said "No, next time, you assk for a non-smoking driverr."
Can you imagine? We could have died right then and there from inhaling all that smoke! (Or someting)
We asked if he would mind opening a window.
"Yess."
I asked if he could please turn the radio on
"NO!"
At that moment he swerved infront of a red light. We were not only going to drive past a red light, we were about to hit a little old lady.
about 15 minutes into the ride, he rolled down his window, stuck his head out, and started shouting (what sounded like) German curse words at random people.
We later found out that he is quite fond of shouting curse words at random people. (Who, as a result, wound up laughing their asses off.) Imagine an old,toothless man shouting at you from inside a pink car. (Why PINK, for God's sake!?)
We got to our destination about 3o minutes later. What should have been a 15 minute ride, wound up a 45 minute adventure in a little pink cab.
Beware, the wrath of the dreaded Pink Taxi. *Mwahahahaaaaaa!*
ubergirl