Inutile et Indispensable

I arrived in Damascus with no real clear plan of where I was going. I found a few promising hostels in the Lonely Planet book and attempted to take a minibus to the area where they were, though it turned out a taxi was necessary (supposedly). I didn’t have enough money for the taxi, but the driver said that wasn’t a problem–we could stop at an ATM on the way. We did that–and my cash card didn’t work. At two ATMs. We drove a few blocks to another Syrian national bank outlet. Once again, two ATMs, side by side–and my card couldn’t withdraw money from either. We tried another set. And another. I knew that I had far more money in my account than I was trying to withdraw, without question. My card had been in my possession the whole time, and there was no reason that anyone else would be withdrawing from it. I panicked a little, trying to come up with a solution, but finally the driver stopped us at a different bank than the nationalized Syrian one, with a different brand of ATMs. My card worked without a problem. Stupid national bank.

After all of that, the driver took me to the hostel without incident. I got a room with two other guys, one from Quebec and one from France. The place was simple but nice, with a small central area with a fountain and very helpful staff. It was evening by this time, and there was relatively little to do in the area, but I wandered around for a bit and made some good finds. One was just around the corner from the hostel–a stand selling some sort of lemon ice concoction. For 10 Syrian pounds (about 20 cents), one could get a medium sized plastic cup filled evenly to the top with a delicious, sweet, lemon gelato-ish substance. I don’t know how many times I visited this stand over the next two days, but I would guess more than five. I also discovered a pretty cheap, air conditioned internet cafe in the neighborhood with a friendly owner who spoke English and had no qualms about helping customers access Facebook via a proxy, as that site is blocked by the government. Finally, I got some great Damascene shwarma for dinner–basically a  kebab, and quite cheap and delicious. I went back to the room and researched things to do the next day. Pretty successful night in my book.

In the morning, I dipped into the Old City to do some exploring. There’s a lot to see there and I definitely didn’t catch it all, but I was very impressed by the Grand Mosque of Damascus, which is an extremely important religious site. There are a lot of key things centered there. First, Muslims believe that at the end of time Jesus will appear at the top of one of the minarets. Lots of people don’t realize that Jesus is a prophet in the Quran, though to Muslims he (as well as Muhammad) is only a man who was chosen by God to receive part of the greater message, and isn’t the son of God or anything. However, he’s still a pretty important guy. Also, the mosque is one of several places that claim to house the body of John the Baptist. I’m not sure what role he plays in Islamic theology, but I guess he’s at least regarded as a good dude by Muslims. There is a small shrine to him in the middle of the mosque, looking sort of out of place, but still very dignified. Finally, the Grand Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is where the survivors of the battle of Karbala, including Husayn’s son Ali (not to be confused with Husayn’s father Ali), were marched by their captors to stand before the caliph Yazid I, almost universally regarded as one of the biggest meanie-heads in early Islamic history. Though I think most of the prisoners were released, the heads of those slain in the battle (including Husayn) were kept in a metal box for Yazid’s enjoyment. I saw that box (now empty, obviously) in the mosque, and had a pretty powerful experience of watching Muslim women weeping and running their hands over it. Shiite Muslims come on pilgrimages from around the Middle East, but especially Iran, to see it and touch it. I saw many women with green handkerchiefs rubbing them against every reachable surface, trying to capture the essence of the place. Pretty powerful. The mosque itself is by far the largest that I’ve ever been in, and absolutely gorgeous. There are extremely impressive mosaics stretching out everywhere, all done with green tones, depicting paradise or other idyllic scenes. The massive courtyard is impressive in its emptiness and the simple monuments that it holds in the middle, and the interior prayer space is quite spacious and airy. It’s a very striking place, overall.

After the mosque, I went to the nearby mausoleum to pay my respects to Saladin, who rests  in a simple building with two coffins–a simple wooden one covered in green cloth that really holds his body, and a more elaborate marble one that was a gift from Emperor Wilhelm of Germany several hundred years later lies next to it. The walls are a pretty blue mosaic, though I think the most notable part of the whole experience is the sign outside, in Arabic with an English translation pointing the way to the “Putting On Special Clothes Room.” Awesome.

The next stop was the Damascus souq, which I’d heard a lot about. There are several different parts to it, but I went in the more modern one. It actually felt more like a luxury shopping district than a Middle Eastern bazaar. There were a lot of fancy stores selling modern clothes, accessories, furniture, hookahs, and other essentials. There was also a pretty amazing ice cream store that I hit up, serving huge cones of freshly homemade vanilla ice cream, covered in pistachio, for a dollar. I enjoyed walking around, though definitely didn’t see anything that I would buy and bring home. Once again, I found myself frequently tempted by the argilehs being offered, and considered breaking down and purchasing one. In the end, I decided to hold out.

I made my way back to the hostel afterward and contacted a young man named Hannado, who indirectly obtained my large luggage bag after I sent it with a mutual friend from Beirut to Damascus. I’d never met him before, but he did me a huge favor by holding onto a bag full of books, winter clothes, room decorations, and other things that I definitely did not want to have to carry around in Greece and Turkey. It was a little tricky to meet up with him to get the bag back, but we set up a time to meet at a spot a short minibus away from my hostel’s area, and it all worked out perfectly. There’s no way that I could have survived carrying this bag around with me for the first part of the trip, so I was very thankful that he helped me out. I returned to the hostel and repacked everything, estimating the weights of my bags and trying to gauge what would be under the limit and wouldn’t. I felt reasonably confident that they would slip by under the maximum, but I wasn’t sure and had no way of checking scientifically besides guessing and asking other peoples’ opinions. During this, my roommate Max noticed that I had a Lonely Planet Middle East book in addition to one for just Lebanon and Syria (courtesy of my father). Both had been put to excellent use, but as I was leaving the region, their continued usefulness seemed questionable. Max offered to buy the Middle East one for $20, not much less than the price marked inside the cover. It seemed like a good deal to me, and I knew exactly what I wanted to spend my new $20 on. Gauging that I still had some wiggle room as far as weight, I went back to the souq area and went hookah shopping, finally settling on a lovely small-medium sized blue argileh with a hardhsell  case and all of its attachments for exactly $20, with a box of shisha and some tinfoil thrown in for good measure. Not a bad deal at all.

The next morning, I wandered around Damascus a bit. I didn’t have any particular goal or destination, I just walked from place to place, enjoying my last few hours in the Middle East. I was very content to just wander, staying in the shade when possible, and double checked my packing job. At about 12:45, I left my hostel and took a taxi to the bus station, and from there a bus to the airport. I was let through with relative ease, though had to pay the obscene exit tax of 1500 Syrian pounds (over $30) in order to leave the country. I checked my big bag and boarded the flight that would take me back towards home after so much time, ready to return at last. My journey was almost over.

Lattakia – اللاذقية‎

I hadn’t exactly decided on where to go in Syria besides Aleppo and Damascus, the two largest cities. I debated going to Palmyra, a famous archeological site in the desert in the eastern part of the country, but in the end elected to go to Lattakia on the Mediterranean coast. I didn’t know much about Lattakia besides that it was a more modern, western city. Considering how hot it had been in Turkey and Aleppo, I figured going to the coast was a good idea. What I found was a disappointing city, but an amazing ruined castle, so it all worked out in the end.

My arrival in Lattakia was uneventful—I took a train for a few dollars from Aleppo to the coast, and caught a taxi from the station to a hostel I’d heard about from a few places. My driver was a very amusing and engaging man named Obey (“Obey…but not ‘disobey,’” he was quick to laughingly point out in pretty smooth English). He was definitely a charmer, and in the short amount of time between the train station and the hostel, he had convinced me that it was a good idea for me to ride around with him the next day to two large archeological sites, and then to a conveniently-located city on the main highway between Aleppo and Damascus, so that I could keep my luggage in the trunk of his car and cover a lot more ground. Price was negotiable, but sounded pretty reasonable when I did some quick math in my head, considering how much this would help me out. He dropped me off at Hotel Safwan with a plan to meet the following morning at 10 am.

Safwan is a kind of bizarre place that, in the end, I feel was pretty overrated. I had read about it in both my Middle East and Lebanon/Syria Lonely Planet books, as well as found the owner Mohammad’s page on CouchSurfing. He advertised extremely cheap rooftop beds, the maximum rate for which appeared to be about $3 / night, but with discounts for CouchSurfers or people who stayed more than one night. Additionally, Mohammad was advertised as a pretty fantastic local resource and all-around quirky guy—he has what could only be labeled as an obsessive fetish with the Tin Tin line of comics, and owns every book in the series, many of them in multiple languages. On the walls are pictures of historical Syrian sites, with cutouts of Tin Tin and his dog Snowy pasted amongst the ruins and palaces. Apparently, further lodging discounts were offered for guests who could answer Tin Tin trivia. I have no idea how he developed this particular manic fixation, but it’s pretty pervasive everywhere in the hostel. However, on my arrival I was disappointed to find that the rooftop beds weren’t available, and my only option was to book a double room for myself, at 8 pm, and hope that someone else showed up without a reservation and would split the cost with me. This was still incredibly cheap compared to American prices, but I ended up paying $10 for a bare, dirty, hot room that I shared with at least five good-sized cockroaches, and a pretty filthy shared bathroom that I avoided in whatever ways possible. Mohammad did indeed seem like a pretty personable guy, but I was unimpressed with my experience overall.

After I checked in to Hotel Safwan, I wandered around Lattakia on my own for a while. There wasn’t a lot to see—I was excited to hear that they had their own version of a Corniche, but it turns out that it follows the ugly industrial harbor, so really is nothing but a glorified sidewalk along a shipyard. The central “downtown”-ish area, as far as I could tell, was only really made up of a few streets with some restaurants that I wasn’t particularly interested in. I wandered around until I found a falafel stand crowded with locals, and worked my way into the mob in the doorway. The spectacle inside was incredible—a round, balding man was making falafel sandwiches faster than I’d ever witnessed any food prepared. His hands flew across a wide counter with pita bread, freshly fried falafel balls, trays of vegetables, and wax paper wrapping, simultaneously taking orders and money while he worked. He did the majority of the labor, aided only by another man in the back continuously frying up batches of falafel that would disappear as quickly as they were finished, and what appeared to be the most facial-hair-endowed 12-year-old kid I’d ever seen, who would reach into the flurry of the first man’s hands to crush the falafel into the pita and put orders of the finished products into plastic bags. It seemed like there was no end to the orders, and at any given moment there would be between four and eight sandwiches on the counter in simultaneous production, with a never-ending rush of activity around them. I ordered two and a drink, and was amazed at the total price—50 Syrian pounds, or just over $1. Not bad.

I didn’t really do much of anything else that night, but talked to Mohammad about my plans for the following day. He helped me a little bit with my math, and I realized that I would actually end up paying a huge amount to ride around with Obey, and could pay probably less than 20% of that by going on my own. Oops. He called Obey for me (apparently they knew each other already), and cancelled my request for the next day’s transportation. However, at 10 the next morning, Obey showed up regardless, hoping to still con me into some sort of a deal. He almost managed, too, convincing me that just going to the first of the two castles on our earlier itinerary was still a good deal. Once again, I semi-agreed to it without doing the math very well, and then quickly afterwards realized that I was getting ripped off badly. Once again, I changed my mind, and him take me to the minibus station instead so I could do it myself. He did so, but ripped me off very badly on the fare, charging about four times what the short ride was worth and blatantly lying about the distance traveled. It was an unfortunate experience, but at least I didn’t end up going the full distance with him.

Citadel of Salah Ed-Din – قلعة صلاح الدين

The minibus was extremely cheap and took about 45 minutes to take me to the village of Haffa. There’s not much to see in Haffa, except a large crusader castle about 6 km away that I was really interested in. I figured the best way to get there was to take a taxi, but before diving into another haggling experience I wanted to get some breakfast. This actually turned out to be a great move, because the falafel stand I went to was owned by a very friendly older man who helped me out a lot. He had a much more low-key operation than the one in Lattakia, and I sat and chatted with him in Arabic for a while. A few other men from the village came by and ordered food as well, and I had a nice conversation with them. They offered me a bizarre combination of juice boxes and cigarettes, which I found amusing, and advised me that the cheapest way to get up to the citadel was by “moto.” You don’t have to speak Arabic to guess what “moto” implies—we’re talking motorcycles. I was a little apprehensive, as I was raised with a pretty healthy fear of two-wheeled motor vehicles and have very little experience actually riding them, but it was sort of a “when in Rome” moment. The owner of the stand offered to flag one for me, which he did by walking out into the street and whistling loudly when a motorcycle passed by. I have no idea how he distinguished this particular one as a motorcycle taxi, rather than someone who owned their own wheels, but the driver agreed to take me to the castle for a few dollars. I hopped on the back, and off we went.

Of course there were no helmets. Of course we drove fast. Of course there was frequent traffic going the opposite direction. Of course there were steep up and downhill slopes, and switchback curves. But damn, this was fun. I resolved to trust the driver, as his life was just as much at risk as mine, and he seemed to know what he was doing. We raced along the small but paved road, until we reached a densely wooded ravine, and dropped into it on a series of tight switchbacks. The castle was clearly visible at the top of the other side, large and ominous. My driver turned the motor off and we coasted down, fast and silent, announcing our presence at each turn with a single honk before drifting around it. As we descended, we became more and more surrounded by trees, which surprised me considering my initial perceptions of Syria being a hot and desert-like nation. We reached the cool shade of the bottom, crossed a bridge, and started ascending. The driver used our remaining momentum to kick the engine back on as we were climbing the first switchback, and we started speeding uphill, still honking with each corner. Finally, we leveled out, and raced past a particularly amazing spot—we were passing through a deep and narrow stone canyon, and in the exact center was a lone, perfectly square pillar of rock that went up level with the top of the stone walls on either side. Researching afterwards, I found that this canyon was dug out of the ground by hand by the Byzantines when they originally improved an existing Phoenician fort in that location in the 10^th century. The Crusaders improved on it further when they took it, and that this “needle” of rock was cut out as a support for a bridge that ran across the top. The canyon is 28 meters deep and 14-20 wide. The bridge is gone today, but the pillar stands in the center of the paved road, dividing it into two lanes. Pretty impressive.

My driver dropped me off at the stairs around the back side of the castle where people enter. A quick climb up took me to the ticket office, where once again I presented my faded and expired International Student Identity Card to get a ridiculously low entrance fee. I spent the next few hours wandering around the fortress and grounds, taking lots of pictures. There were a lot of very impressive features of the castle, including two absolutely massive water cisterns underground that I accidentally stumbled upon. I would walk through a doorway and suddenly be in a massive hollow room, at the top of a metal staircase that led down to a foot or so of centuries’ worth of rainwater collected at the bottom of the stone container. A few holes in the rock ceiling provided squares of sunlight that reflected off the water and illuminated the room, and otherwise there was nothing but a huge cavern. I had a good time climbing various towers and walls, and just wandering all over the place. It was also interesting seeing the rock needle from the top. Where the drawbridge used to be, a small metal platform has been installed that extends into space over the massive drop, allowing the viewer to appreciate just how impressive this thing is.

Another interesting thing that happened while I was at the Salah Ed-Din Castle (Salah Ed-Din = Saladin = Muslim general who took the castle from the Crusaders) was that I ran into a big family of Syrians that were really funny. I had noticed that there were some tourists around, but all of them were Arab, which was refreshing. I had only seen two Western girls with cameras (and they were kind of cute so I forgave them for being tourists), and the rest were Syrian or of other Middle Eastern origin. Passing through a tight stone doorway at the same time and in the opposite direction as an elderly Arab woman, I used a very polite word that I actually find myself utilizing pretty often, roughly translated as “go ahead” but in a very courteous way. She did a complete double take, shocked to hear it come from me, and asked how it was that I spoke her language. Before I could even respond, there was a huge crowd of family members around me. I was literally facing about 25 people of various generations, all staring at me. One man spoke English, and the entire family watched while he asked me questions in my language and I answered in his. I was nervous and disconcerted about having such a large audience that was paying such strict attention, so I didn’t talk for as long as I might have otherwise, but it was fascinating to watch all of these people who had probably never heard an American speak Arabic before. They wanted to know what I thought of their country, the castle, the language, Lebanon, and so on. I had to excuse myself from the conversation after a bit because I still felt so awkward with their rapt attention, but it was a rewarding experience.

I took another motorcycle down to Haffa, changed some money, and caught a minibus back to Lattakia to gather my belongings and move on. Coincidentally, the white girls that I’d seen up at the castle were in the van as well, so I struck up a conversation with them. It turned out that they were graduate students doing a summer Arabic program in Damascus, and had just been taking a weekend trip to the coast before heading back. They were planning to take a bus back the same day, and were returning to Lattakia to pick up their luggage—at Hotel Safwan. Small town. I chatted with them for a while, which was fun because they were both much better educated and cultured than other Westerners that I’d met there (the Brits at Bab al-Hawa being a good example). It turned out that one was British and had a degree in History and was now studying Law, and the other was from Seattle and studying political science but with a solid focus on Sociology and Anthropology as well. We stuck together for the rest of the day, catching a taxi from the minibus station to Safwan, another one to the actual bus station, and a charter bus for the 4.5 hour ride to Damascus. I hinted that I was in need of lodging if they had anything available or knew anyone, but they regretfully informed me that they were staying with host families and guests weren’t really an option. I did however exchange contact information with Heather, the Seattle girl, and it’d be nice to run into her back in the Northwest.

…..

As I said, I’m back home now, adjusting to life in America. I will make a few posts about this trip, covering Damascus and the return home, and then I haven’t decided what to do with this blog. I might take a break from it, might just use it to comment on news stories (Saad Hariri is going to be PM in Lebanon by the way, and I don’t want to talk about it), might turn it into a personal blog, or come up with some other use for it. We’ll see what it turns into. It’s been quite a ride, though. Cheers.

Neil

Hey all—

I just wanted to let my faithful readers know that I have safely returned to Montana after one day less than five months even gone. My return home was delayed a little bit by an unexpected overnight stay in Salt Lake, but I wound up with a $400 Delta travel voucher, a free stay in a nice hotel, and got to see an old friend for a while, so it worked out perfectly. I’ll continue on with my travel posts in chronological order soon, but just wanted to let everyone know that I made it back. It’s good to be home. 

Neil

Aleppo – ﺣﻠﺐ

My arrival in Aleppo was uneventful, other than the fact that Mohammad the taxi driver turned out to be less than entirely pleasant. I asked him to take me to the train station, where my CouchSurfing host had suggested that we meet when he got off work shortly afterward. It was an unconfirmed rendezvous, but I figured it was a good starting point and that I could find a phone and call him and work it all out definitively. I had tried to call him from Mohammad’s cell, but for some reason the call wouldn’t go through. However, Mohammad didn’t know where the train station was, so instead took me to the taxi station where he wanted to go, parked, had me get my stuff out of his car, and started asking around how to get to the station on foot. It was a long walk, but I didn’t want to pay anymore than I had to, so I figured I’d do it. After walking for about 15 minutes, including several brief stops to ask friendly and helpful Aleppans where I was going, I arrived at the dusty station. However, there was no phone available there. I asked if there was an internet café nearby, where I could Skype my host Kemal from. Big mistake. Apparently, internet cafes are pretty rare there, and the ones that do exist have weird opening hours. I wandered around for at least an hour in the hot Syrian afternoon, carrying my luggage, until I finally found one that would work with the aid of a little kid that didn’t speak any English but was very helpful with running around and asking directions. I asked the guy next to me if I could use his cell phone and tried Kemal, but the number still wouldn’t work. I finally checked my email and found that I’d written the number down incorrectly since it was on two lines, and I hadn’t noticed one. However, the cell phone of my neighbor had broken in the last two minutes, so I couldn’t use it. Also, apparently Skype-Skype works in Syria, but not Skype-Phone. Not sure what that’s about, but you can chalk that up there with Facebook being blocked in this country. Talking to my mom online, I also had her try Kemal—still nothing. I sort of gave up and figured that sooner or later he would check his email and see the message from me telling him where I was, and I’d get a response telling me what to do. I was tired and frustrated, and enjoying a fast internet connection that vastly lowered my enthusiasm for going into the evening heat and wandering around with my luggage some more. On a whim, I checked the email with his number again, and realized that I’d copied it incorrectly a second time. Finally, I called and got through, and met up with him shortly afterward.

Kemal is a half-Syrian, half-Turkish young man that works for some sort of cosmetics company in Aleppo. I don’t think that he’s terribly interested in his work, but it pays well and gives him a lot of benefits. He took me to his apartment, which he repeatedly warned me was cramped and tiny, but turned out to be about three times as large as what I’d been living (and hosting people) in for four months in Beirut. The apartment is entirely windowless, which is kind of weird, but otherwise very cozy and modern. His French girlfriend Emily was there, as well as the original CS host I was supposed to stay with pre-schedule change, Cristophe. Cristophe and Kemal met through CS, though they have a lot in common. Cristophe also works in cosmetics, though in a different company and a little higher up the food chain, and also has a French girlfriend. However, he himself is very French, in accent and mannerisms. He and Kemal are actually moving in together to a very large apartment in about a week, and make for a very amusing pair. I had a lovely dinner with them at Kemal’s current apartment, and then the four of us drove in Christophe’s company car for a beer at the Baron Hotel.

Baron (pronounced by this group at least in French—“Barón”) is a pretty famous place that opened over 100 years ago to service workers of the Orient Express railway. It has remained largely unchanged, and has a very antiquated style and old feeling. They also joke that the waiter is original as well; a tottering but friendly white-haired man served us our Turkish Efes beers and joked with Christophe and Kemal, who are obviously regulars. Cristophe and I switched between Spanish and Arabic a lot, which impressed him heavily—he has a very French view of stupid Americans that speak only English and have little to no cultural understanding of the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Emily worked with Kemal on his French, which he’s learning. Of the four languages spoken at the table, Cristophe was the only to be proficient in all of them. English was the best common language for everyone, followed by Arabic, but we mostly preferred to speak in French or Spanish and then translate to the other for those who couldn’t understand. Lots of fun with languages. After a big Efes each, though, everyone was pretty tired, and we all retired early. Kemal and Emily took a mattress on the floor in the common area of the apartment because they both get up early for work, and were insistent on not waking me, so I got a big, comfortable bed to myself. We all fell asleep quickly, and I slept very solidly.

When I woke, I had no idea what time it is. I don’t wear a watch, and my computer was off, so there was no timepiece. However, by the very limited amount of light coming through a tiny frosted glass skylight and the silence from the next room, I assumed it must be fairly early. I went back to sleep for a little bit, then decided to check the time. My first guess when I saw “1:30” was that I had only slept for an hour or two, and there must be a streetlight close to the skylight. False. I actually slept more than 12 hours, and it was well into the afternoon by the time I finally got out of bed. Whoops. I rushed around getting stuff together, and went out into the hot sun to go to the Old City.

The main draws of old Aleppo are the souq and the Citadel. The souq was cool, but not hugely different from the bazaar in Istanbul. It was however a big step up from Khan al-Khalili in Egypt as far as enjoyability, which was painfully full of tourist-attacking hawk-leeches that wore me down very quickly. Like the market in Turkey, locals seem to shop there as much or more than tourists, which is always nice. I spent a few hours walking up and down different streets and speaking with shopkeepers. The souq is vaguely organized, with different sections selling different types of products. There were confusing signs directing traffic to the appropriate areas, but these were in Arabic and I largely ignored them, opting instead to wander at random. Doing this, of course, resulted in lots of backtracking and running past the same shopkeepers more than once, who would invariably engage me in Arabic, English, or French. They were universally impressed (or claimed to be, at least) by my Arabic, which is always encouraging. I bought several more gifts, quickly blowing much of the money that I very foolishly had pulled out thinking would be enough for all of Syria (ha!) but finding some legitimately nice stuff. I was very tempted by the section of the souq with argilehs for sale, as I found some pretty impressive and relatively cheap stuff. However, I resolved to try to save at least a little bit of money, and also need to keep in mind transport internationally. Amongst the opulent hookahs that I saw was what appeared to be pretty much the pinnacle of flavored tobacco smoking—four bowls, four hoses, one massive chamber, decked out in flashy gold and blue. I pretty much wet myself when I saw it; and don’t worry, I took a picture of it in all of its glory. We’ll see if my self-control remains in Damascus—no promises.

Halfway through my shopping experience, I exited the souq to go to the Citadel. This was a very worthwhile side trip. I honestly pity the fool whose job it was to sack Aleppo back in the day, because attacking this castle would really suck. It’s built on a commanding, steep, natural hill above the Old City, surrounded by a wide and deep (though now-dry) moat. The only access that wouldn’t involve swimming would require crossing a relatively narrow stone bridge far above the moat, exposed to arrows and boiling oil and whatever else the soldiers in the keep wanted to throw at the aggressor. The walls look very thick and solid, and like they wouldn’t come down or be climbed easily. The outer walls of the castle are the best preserved part of the site, but the rest is very complete and interesting too. I really enjoyed wandering around and walking on top of the inner walls. I generally much prefer physical ruins to museums full of artifacts, maybe because it gives me more of a picture of what the reality was however long ago. I think I’m less of a history buff than I used to be (Age of Empires as history class, anyone?), but I like thinking about what would have been. Another nice thing about the Citadel, as well as most other historical sites in Syria, is that it is ridiculously cheap to go to, especially if you have an International Student Identity Card. I happen to have an ISIC in my wallet that expired at least a year ago, has no photo of me on it, and is faded and grimy almost beyond all recognition. However, the attendant accepted it without question, and my entrance fee was just a few Syrian pounds—literally, like $0.20. This is the case all over the country, so an ISIC is a very good investment for that amongst many other reasons. Another really cool thing happened to me while I was on top of the Citadel, actually the opposite of my call to prayer experience in Cappadocia. Here, when the call rang out, I could see I’d guess over 100 minarets of mosques, in all directions. Rather than the rising and falling of a few identical calls overlappying and layering as I experienced a few days previously, this was a cacophany of entirely different voices, all competing for attention. There were many styles, volumes, cadences, and variations on the same thing, and it was an equally powerful experience. I’m very glad that I got to hear it.

Next to the Citadel and souq is a fairly famous Umayyad mosque that I was interested in checking out. It actually reminded me a lot of Al Azhar in Egypt, on a slightly smaller scale, but it was fairly full of Syrians and I felt awkward being the only non-Muslim wandering around the wide-open marble floor. I didn’t spend a lot of time there, but I definitely appreciated being let in. There’s also a sister mosque in Damascus that is much larger and more famous but built at the same time, which I definitely intend to visit. For some reason, I’ve always appreciated Islamic architecture more than Christian. I definitely am impressed by big cathedrals and such, but I think I just like the style of grand mosques more.

By the time I finished with the souq, Citiadel, and mosque, it was around 6:30. I knew Kemal would be off work by then, so I caught a taxi back to the Al-Azizieyeh neighborhood where he lives. Azizieyeh is a largely Christian area, with a nice big park and fairly convenient location. Kemal and I walked to the train station and got me a ticket to Lattakia for the next day, and then met up with Emily at a shwarma stand for a quick dinner. I found that Syrian (or at least Aleppan) shwarma is different from Lebanese, in that it had a creamy garlic spread, and some sort of red chili sauce. It was spicier than expected, but not overwhelming, and quite enjoyable. After this, the three of us continued on to the apartment of a French friend of theirs for a going away party.

The party was…interesting. There were probably about 25 people there over the course of the night, at least 20 of whom were French or French-educated. This obviously made communication difficult for me, but after a while a Syrian showed up who spoke Spanish in addition to French, so he and I talked for a while. That made things a lot more fun, and we chatted European and Middle Eastern politics and culture. The party wore down after a few hours, and Kemal and Emily and I returned to their house to crash again.

The next day was ridiculously hot, and Kemal (who doesn’t work on Fridays) and I stayed in all day. There was talk of going to a swimming pool, but this is quite expensive, and we decided that it wasn’t worth it to us and we would rather hide with the air conditioning. Emily brought us lunch, which was very sweet of her, and we hung out for a while until it was time for me to take the 5:30 train to Lattakia. I didn’t get to spend much time in Aleppo, and a lot of it was spent in Kemal’s place, but I definitely got a good vibe from the city. I don’t think I’d want to live there, but it’s definitely worth visiting for a few days, if nothing else just for the souq and Citadel.

I’m working on catching up on my blogging—as of posting this it is 5:45 pm on Saturday evening in Damascus. That puts me about 48 hours behind present moment in my recording of this journey, and about  24 hours from my flight out of Damascus, and 55 hours from home, insha’allah. Obviously, I’m in the finishing stretch of this trip. It’s been absolutely amazing, but I’m ready for the longest bath in history, followed by sleeping in my own bed with my cat back in his usual place at my neck. It will definitely be good to be home with family and friends, and back into a normal schedule without the stresses and expenses of buses and trains and luggage. Looking forward to it.

Cheers,
Neil