Damascus

Before I break out with a recount of our trip to Damascus, I have a few announcements. They may be surprising, so sit down. After a week of frustration with the AUB staff and a following week of exhausting studying and emotional breakdowns, Alex has decided to drop out of the Economics graduate program and be a full-time language student. He is also looking into an internship.

Consequently my plans have changed as well. I will not be beginning coursework at AUB, or any other school in the Middle East. Instead I am going to continue my Arabic courses at the American Language Center of Beirut, and continue with my job at The Middle East Reporter.

We are going to remain in Beirut until March of next year, when we will move to Damascus. The rest of our time here will be split between studying in Damascus and Yemen. We are not sure of the exact details, but we are pretty sure that we will spend the rest of our time here studying Arabic and making contacts.

Since we are now full-time students of the Arabic language, for the next year, we are planning on cutting our trip short. Instead of two years, we are going to spend one year in the Middle East and return before the fall semester begins in America. Instead of finishing up my undergraduate degree in the Middle East, I am going to wait until we return in August and begin a school, probably around the DC area.

Like I said, we are not sure of the exact dates and plans, but we are pretty sure that we would rather study in America and just spend our time studying the language and the culture here.

Now to Damascus:

As I mentioned earlier, after coming home from work on a Friday afternoon I found Alex in a really bad state. He had a semi-nervous breakdown after a week of studying economics for 12 hours a day. I tried my best to calm him and we both decided that he needed a break. Surprisingly he immediately suggested that we take a trip to Damascus for the weekend. An hour later we each had packed a backpack and were on our way to the bus station.

The cost of the bus to Somalia Station in Damascus was $6 a person. It was about three hours travel time, from Beirut to the border of Syria. The terrain was beautiful, and it was a nice surprise to get out of the bus on top of a mountain and feel a cool breeze.

Leaving Lebanon was no problem, but when we got to the Syrian border crossing it was another story. The officials told us that they would have to send a fax of our passports to the government and get our visas approved – so we waited. We went to the Syrian Duty-free shop and played with Legos – I made the coolest military base and Alex built Israel on one side and Lebanon on the other and we did a little war-gaming.

Three hours later we were eating Iftar at an “Italian restaurant”. Finally we went to go wait at the border building and were told they STILL didn’t have our approval. Alex wanted to go back to the café but I decided I was just going to wait there until they let us pass. Not more than five minutes passed before they called me over, by referring to me as “America”, and told us that we were ok to go. I’m pretty sure the whole spectacle was for show, but oh well.

Since it was ten at night there were no empty cabs passing by, but we finally caught a ride with a government official who was making a night run from Beirut to Damascus. As sketchy as the ride seemed, we made it to Damascus around eleven at night. We also managed to check in a chic hotel, a little bit on the expensive side, but better than nothing.

Instead of hitting the sack, we went to the Hammidiyah souks in the Old City. It was the most happening thing I’ve seen since being in the Middle East. It is a whole city of shops revolving around the famous Umayyad Mosque. It doesn’t close until midnight or one in the morning and is packed with women, children and men all day. The prices were dirt cheap and they had everything you could imagine.

The next day we stopped by the military museum which was really nice. It was very unlike museums in America, where you can’t touch anything and everything is encased in glass. The displays inside the Museum were behind glass, but they had artifacts outside the museum that you could walk around and touch. In the artisans’ square we came across a painter who did magnificent work! I picked out a black and white scenery painting and bought it for $16.

We also went to the New City which was more miles of shops. These, however, more closely resembled shops in Beirut - in quality and price. That night we hit the Old City again and had dinner with an American we met at a different hostel.

After roaming around the Old City for an hour or so, we wanted to sit down and smoke argilah and have some tea. We stopped by a couple of places, but it was so unlike Beirut – there were no women sitting with the men and definitely no women smoking! We kept walking around until we remembered a restaurant we read about, where Syrian President Assad occasionally goes to have big parties. We found it on the outskirts of the souks and it was beautiful! We sat there for a couple hours just smoking and sipping on chai.

Sunday, our last day in Damascus, we stopped by Hamaams. They are like Turkish baths, where you sit in a steam room, get an exfoliation, soap bath, and massage. It was a liberating experience. I am definitely not used to being completely unclothed around other people, but it had the opposite effect on me that I thought it would. I was completely comfortable and it was extremely relaxing. I went to one in the early morning, when they had hours for women, and Alex went to one for men a little later. Alex learned the hard way that the male souks were a little more reserved!

We walked inside the Umayyad mosque, including Saladin’s courtyard and the prayer room. I had to cover up in a hooded full-length robe, and everyone had to take off their shoes to walk around the Mosque. The mosque was very extravagant, from the intricate deep red carpet to the walls designs outside and inside the Mosque.

Our remaining time was spent picking up some souvenirs at the souks in the Old City. My most memorable buy – a black and red beaded robe for a woman with a matching headscarf! Now I can convert if I am ever so inclined!

Highlights of Damascus:
~Pictures of President Assad everywhere – his face had a place at the border-crossing, hundreds of billboards throughout the country, and on a wall in almost every shop and restaurant.
~Almost no Westerners, but of course some of the first people we saw in Syria were Asians
~Arabic speakers – most everyone spoke Arabic, and a few English. It was nice to practice!
~Night-life – women, men and children were up until all hours of the night.
~Traffic – most drivers actually paid attention to traffic lights.
~Dinners – we ate at some of the most popular and famous restaurants for nothing!
~The terrain – view after view of cities built into the side of mountains.
~Syrians – they were very hospitable and helpful, well except the taxi drivers.