Therapy?

My health was becoming such an issue that i finally had to go and see a doctor. Since I'm not the biggest fan of neither doctors nor medication I tried to prolong my visit for as long as possible but in the end it was impossible. I did get better since my last post here but my appetite never came back and my stomach never got any better so after six days of not eating I ended up going to this really posh private clinic in Abu Roumane. It was recommended to me by English Ben, I guess his experience of the place differed from mine...

Anyway, I went there after school yesterday and it really looked posh. With automatic doors made out of frosted glass and everything. Registering for an appointment wasn't any problem either and I just had to wait for 15 minutes or something before seeing the doctor.

The examination was very quick and he just felt my stomach a bit and also took my blood pressure. That was when everything went wrong. Apparently my blood pressure had gone very low because of me not eating anything (in my defense I'd like to say that I did drink an ocean or two instead) so he thought that some IV-fluid would be good for me and at the same time they would give me some antibiotics.

I didn't really like the sound of that but being to weak to say no I went with it. So the doctor leads me deeper in to the clinic and hands me over to a nurse that puts me on a bed. She then proceeds to not find a vein on my right arm before settling for (not) finding a vein in my left one. Being an experienced blood donor I know that my right arm isn't a good place to find a vein but that there are plenty in my left. Anyway, she starts the drip and quite immediately I feel a cold but very intense pain spreading through my left arm. I thought it might have been so that the needle wasn't in a vein. But rather than redoing the thing both the doctor and the nurse blamed me for being a sissy (not using that word though). I must admit that I've never felt such an intense pain in my entire life, ever.Maybe when i broke my arm years ago but that I don't remember. They didn't care much for my pain though and after a while they changed the IV to antibiotics instead. If the IV was painful there just aren't words to describe what the antibiotics caused, pain is simply too small a word. I was literally shaking and my left hand was sweating, despite being cold as ice. It took quite the effort just to keep the tears back.

Now I really started complaining and they kept telling me that I shouldn't worry. At least they lowered the speed of the fluid, it didn't really make the pain go away but it sure made the entire thing take longer time. That was the best thing all day. Me being such a whimp seem to finally have got to them because they mixed the last bottle of antibiotics in to the IV fluid and changed it back. It didn't do much for the pain though but I liked the effort. In the end I couldn't stand it and they had to take the needle out, which resulted in the following:

Doctor: You can move your arm now

Me: No I can't

Doctor: But there's nothing in there anymore

Me: But I can't move it.

Doctor: You'll be fine in half an hour, just get out now.

So I paid the fine price of 2.500 lira ($50) and left with a small bag of pills I'm supposed to take. Being a bad patient I only take the antibiotics...

Today I'm a lot better though and I'll stick to my Ciprofloxacin for another couple of days. But this morning I was still so tired from yesterdays adventure that I couldn't make it out of my bed so I got to school two hours late. I'll be there on time tomorrow though.

On a much nicer note: I had the best result of all students in the last level (Beating Werner by one point). I was also the only one in the two classes that got a full 10 points in classactivity/homework doing. I guess it pays of not to skip classes...

Keeping it Real

Yeah we did that “Power Hour” thing. I can't say that I'm proud of it but we did it. We planned to carry it out between ten and eleven monday night but as all things around here it got delayed for 45 minutes or so. We had this free room in mine and Lukes house so we did it there. I think that something like 20 people showed up but not everyone even tried the big drinking game. To be even fairly hones only Noah and Jamie and maybe the two Turkish guys tried to do all 60 shots. Personally I think that might have been to overdo it a bit but then again I didn't even try. I still got fairly drunk so the stereotype party wasn's such a miss after all. On the other hand Noah was the only person there that put any effort in to the dressing thing. The party went on till about three o'clock and then everyone either went home or to Domino to continue partying. I was one of those that went home instead.

So yesterday I woke up with what I thought was the hangover of a lifetime. If everything had gone as planned me, Noah and Valeria should have gone to Beirut for the holliday but me and Noah had a meeting around one and decided that today would be a much better day to go. As it comes I didn't even go today because I never started to feel any better all day yesterday and I was freezing all the time. So I started to harass Luke in to feeling my forehead but he just kept making fun of me being hungover until he actually felt it and went like: Hey boy you're burning up there.

I spent most of the rest of the day in bed trying to speak with all the people that came to visit me. Then again, when my flatmate Ben came by he was very clear on there being no visitors. It came as a bit of a shock since I was very sure on there being so many people coming and going all the time.

Anyway, some people did actually come by. Mostly because Luke was leaving for the states but at least Omar brought me some yellowish custard thing and a can of Sprite. Eating has been a big problem for the last two days and it's not really getting better.

Today I woke up feeling a little better but I still felt like shit. But then Annika came by with my computer and Lawrence came by with some Paracetamol and orange juice. He then went home again and came back with chocolate croaissants and a pack of noodles. The pills made me feel all better, at least for a while. Feeling better was cool since I was able to hang out with Lina and Lawrence for a while, I might not have left my room all day but it was still cool. Another guy that lives here, Ahmed, was having practice for a play he's setting up in two weeks so there were a bunch of actors here as well. It's good when you don't have to leave your house to speak Arabic.

Finally I made Omar run by Nas house to get me a thermometer, I could of course bought one but they only sell quicksilver thermometers here and I don't think that's a superior option for the environment. Then again, Nas wasn't home but her roommate Talia had one too. That was really cool sinceit was in celsius. I only had 38 degrees (that's 100.4 to you non-metric system people) but I thank the paracetamol for that. I think I'll have some more soon. Hopefully I'll be fine by tomorrow or the day after. I'm a little sad though that I didn't get to see Lebanon this time either. Maybe next holliday. Or I'll just go for a weekend.

Troubles with Saudi

I've had this plan for awhile. It's all about going from Damascus to Sana in Yemen by bus. I'm not very fond of buses but then it would be so cool to go through Saudi that I have a hard time dropping the idea. Traveling by bus has a tendency to become rather boring on your own though so I've been pitching it to more or less everyone I've met around here. But for some unknown reason more or less noone has been interested in taking a three day busride through Saudi with me. That was until Annika thought it could actually be quite cool. So Yesterday the two of us went to the Saudi Consulate in Meze just to find out what our options were. Despite the fact that I knew the general whereabouts of the place it was very hard to find. Mostly because people we asked gave us directions that always was at least a bit off. But we did find it in the end, so I asked this guardguy standing outside where we could ask about visas. He just pointed towards a window and told me to knock on it. I thought it was kind of a strange way of treating people, then again I knew nothing at that time...

Anyway, I knock the window and of course nothing happens, so we end up waiting by the window for about ten minutes before an Arab guy shows up and knocks on it. Of course it opens right away and he gets at least some of his kinks straightend out. As he stands talking trough the window five to ten other Arabs show up and, being Arab that is, they just cut in line. When they were all finished the guy behind the window started to close it again but I managed to catch his attention right before he closed it. The conversation went as follows:

Me (some polite phrases, which he ignored completley): I just wanted to know if it is possible to apply for a transit visa through Saudi.

He: Where are you going? Bahrain?

Me: No, I would want to go to Yemen.

He: You fly to Yemen.

Me: Yes, of course sir but I'm thinking about going from Syria to Yemen.

He: You fly from Syria to Yemen.

Me: Yes that's true but I want to go from Damascus to Sana.

He: So you buy a ticket and take a plane from Damascus to Sana.

Me: I could do that but I've heard about this bus from Damascus to Sana and I would really like to go with it.

He: You do not take that bus, you take a plane.

Me: Ok, I understand. So it's impossible to even get a three day transit visa? (I'm a little slow sometimes)

He: Only if you have family in Saudi you want to visit before continuing to Yemen.

Me: Ok thanks for your help and bye!

The End


So I guess it might be hard to go that way since I don't know anyone in Saudi. If anyone knows someone that would like to invite some Swedes I'd be very happy :) Then again, if that guy at the Consulate is representative for the rudeness of Saudis I'd probably not want to go there anyway.


On the other hand the people at Yemen's embassy were very nice and polite. They just told us that we'll get the visa at the airport. No questions asked. We would also get one at the border but then again, he added laughing, that's up to the Saudis if we get there...

On to more merry matters. Today we had the final exam of this course. I think I needed somewhere between 13.5 and 20 points out of 50 in the exam to pass. The variation is because of the ten points you get from class but since I haven't missed a single class and that I'm the only one that did all our homeworks I don't think I'll need to worry too much about that. And since I got 10 points in the hearing part this time too I'm probably safe.

Keeping with the fine Swedish tradition of exam beer there's a party tonight. Someone at some time decided that everyone should come as a stereotype of their country and that created some problems for me. The Americans only knew of the Swedish bikini team and that would just be so wrong for me so that stereotype was quickly discarded. Then Annika thought that we should go as tennisplayers and that was kind of ok I guess. But in the end I discarded that idea too. My new idea was to go drunk, that for sure would be a Swedish stereotype. Going drunk might still be an option but I hope not to. Considering that I'm a walking stereotype, being tall and blonde, I could probably just go as myself.

Americans also have post exam traditions and one of them is something called "power hour". The idea seem to be that you get a collection of music and you cut 60 to 80 songs down to one minute tracks (so it can be quite the long hour). You then get a shotglass that you fill with beer that you drink during the first track, you then refill that glass and empty it once for every track. As you might have noticed this is a concept that is so wrong in so many ways. Only the idea to drink beer from shotglasses make me a little sick to my stomach, not as sick as I'll get if I really go trough with this, but still... Somehow Noah managed to convince like almost everyone at uni that this is the thing to do before going to the actual party tonight. I'm, on the other hand, is still a bit sceptical.

My life as an homeless person

There came both good and bad things from leaving Meze. The good things are that I no longer have a strange landlord and that I don't have to go all the way out there whenever I have to go home from anywhere but uni.
Then there are the bad things. Usually when you live somewhere you get a key to the door. For me that is not currently the case. Luke has been nice enough to provide me with a key to the room but there exist no extra key to the main door. So if I want to get in to the house I'm pretty much dependant on someone else being awake. That is usually cool since especially Luke never seem to sleep. On the other hand he's not always home... Like thursday night. The plan was that most all of us were going to Cave again, there was that slight hope of reliving the previous thursday. Then again, we all know that's impossible. That not everyone showed up that were there before didn't really improve things either. My biggest problem, though, was that Luke had a date with an American girl and when he called and said he wasn't going home it kind of meant that neithar was I since he had the key. Looking for somewhere to sleep at two o'clock in Damascus is far from as fun as it might sound. Then again everything went fine, it wasn't like I had to sleep in a park or so. The irony of it all was that most people that had an extra bed all lived in Meze. There's something about that place that keep pulling me back.
Yesterday was better though. First of all me, Luke, Noah and Omar went to the hamam for some cleaning and massage. That means that I went to the hamam with three Americans. You should never go to the hamam with Americans. They all think the massageguy is going to hit on them and that the guy in the sauna wants to buy them an expensive dinner. Still it was a good time but the sauna was a bit on the cold side and the massage was short but I'm starting to think that it's the "foreigner special".

Of course the night only starts at the hamam it hopefully never ends there. So we went to Cafe Rest for some cheap dinner and beer. It's a good place because it's one of the few places where you can get both an argileh and a beer. Later on we went to Alex's place for a big foreigners only party. Alex is a nice guy and he lives in a REALLY big apartment in Malki/Abu Rumane. It was such a crazy party that it was finally broken up by the police. Since I'm not American that's never happend to me before... Anyway, more or less everyone was there and I got introduced to so many new words from the Americans. They're all about "spitting game", "power hour" and "keeping it real". I'm so happy I'm European...

The Return of a friend long lost.

I might have alluded once or twice to the fact that Hans is my best friend in the entire world. Around here people are mostly surprised that I carry him around where ever I go. Then again what would I do if I left him at home? But there is something else that's been missing in my life lately and that's my greatly beloved iBook. The wait has been long and painful but today I finally got it back and it works perfectly. The guys were even nice enough to give me a one year warranty on their work. It's pretty cool that I have warranty on my computer in Syria but not in Sweden. Getting the computer back was one of the two great things that happend to me today. The other was that I found this little newspaper stall that also tenderd "Extra White". I never even dreamed about finding my favourite chewing gum here in Syria. Considering that the most common one seem to be "Chicklets" it really came as a big shock. Still it was a very much appreciated one.

All moved out part 2

Sometimes things just doesn't work out as planned. The worst times are when you're really tied up in somthing you just doesn't want. My apartment and my six month contract started to become more and more like that. I was really happy with the place at first having my own apartment with everything you need in it. It was also kind of far away from the old city and the rest of the foreigners so I thought I would end up speaking more Arabic. Then the problems started to pile up. First of all no one in my building ever even said hi to me and if I ever passed by their apartments they would just close their doors. Then my landlord started to act kind of strangley being sort of very rude at times. I also found out that hanging out in the old city was kind of fun and that it's a damn good place to speak Arabic with people. Not like Meze, nothing like Meze actually. But then again if I came home late I would hear my neightbors lock their doors at the same time as I opened mine... In the end I came to the conclusion that the only thing I could possibly do was to move. Having a six month contract doesn't really make that to possible though. But I had a good conversation with my landlord and since I've paid him a total three months of rent he was ok with me moving.

Now I'm sharing a room with an American in the Old City but I'll get my own one next week. It's in Hussein's special house for his friends so I already knew some of the people that live there but I still had to go and introduce myself to the other people living there because no one is allowed to have any objections against the people moving in there. So it's a bit different than the other houses around but atleas the people living there are cool and it's clean and it also has a huge courtyard. Not as good as a balcony but it will have to do.

Twisted

The weather finally got better again. The last three days were really hard on me... On the other hand all of last week was kind of hard on me. It all started last weekend with me twisting my right knee dancing (yes dancing) and then a couple of days later I twisted my right ankle when i missed a step in one of all those holes they have in this city. For some reason there's a lot of them in the streets here. I sometime think it's because we should all bow our heads, but then again; what do I know?

All this meant that I didn't really go to the gym last week but I'm going today. It feels good to be back again. The bad thing is that I have to wait around till five o'clock because that's when the accountant comes in. It would of course be impossible to pay in the reception. I also have to bring another two copies of my international student card. For some reason they need two new ones every month... No one around here pays much respect to the forrests...

Have you ever seen the rain?

I finally got what was comming for me. After all those mails mocking people back home about how warm and sunny it is here and that I never leave the house with anything more than a t-shirt on the rain finally hit me. And the rain brought wind and cold tempearatures. I was compleatley sure that I would freeze to death, alternativley that my apartment would blow away (yes I live on the top floor). Today is a little better but it's still colder than it was only three days ago.

A cold weather calls for a warm night though. The plan was to meet up with some of the guys from uni to drink a beer or two but when it comes to Luke and Noah a beer or two just won't cut it so we all ended up at Cave de Baal. It really lives up to it's name being a cross over of a really old house and a cave compleate with the sacrificial bowl and all. It makes all goth clubs in Europe look like Starbucks, then again the clientel at the club make people at a Western Starbucks look like goths so I guess it all evens out in the end.
That said the place was really cool and much cheaper than Domino and the bar also had a way superior assortment. I was even able to order an almost-ragnar (that would be Absolut Kurant, 7up and Limejuice, it should be only lime but they don't have that here). It was yet again a very fun night in the Damascus night.

Not leaving at all

I might have written once or twice about going to Jordan this week end. Then again, it would mean that I'd have to skip class at least once and most probably twice. Since I came here to study I came to the conclusion that skipping class is not an option. I'll have a long weekend next week and then a five day holliday after that so going somewhere is still doable.

Not going to Jordan meant that I had to go to the ministery of interior visas and passports branch I've heard so many horrible, horrble things about that place that I was half expecting to spend the rest of my breathing days in that place. But it was nothing like that, I went inside and got some forms from a guy behind a counter. They were in french and arabic and since I'm not always too confident in my Arabic and my French is as non-existant as an Italian girls English I asked this very nice Algerian girl to help me. Actually I didn't even had to ask, she just helped me anyway. Then I went downstairs to have some copies made and to buy the stamp (there's always a stamp to be made and some passport photos to hand to different people). After doing some more running around the place I went back to the guy behind the counter and he asked me what I was doing here and if I had a paper from the uni. The problem with that paper was that it only says I'm staying for another two weeks, which isn't really true. I'm planning to stay for much longer than that. So I simply asked the guy if he might give me another month and he just went NO! That made me a bit sad but then he quickly added that he'd give me two and then I was happy again. I did some more running around getting signatures from different people before the guy behind the counter took and kept my passport. I had to wait for like five minutes before getting it back and then I only needed one more signature before I was free to leave. All in all it took about half an hour.

Not yet no

I wrote yesterday that I'd leave for Jordan today, but I seem to have forgotten where I am. There was supposed to be a holliday tomorrow and wednsday, which meant I only had to skip classes on thursday to get a proper vacation in Jordan. Too bad I wasn't the only one that saw that possibility so the ministry of education decided that there shouldn't be one tomorrow. International women's day will still be one and I'll leave for Jordan tomorrow afternoon instead.

It's kind of funny that women's day is a holliday here, but I guess that the main effect will be that a lot of working women will stay home and do the dishes instead. It might not have been the idea behind it but I bet that it's what's going to happen.

We also had a small exam yesterday. I don't know how I did at the main part of the test but I got 10/10 on the listening part. I kow that I made at least one mistake in the reading part and probably a couple in writing. The mistake in reading was not so much a language problem as an intelligence problem. I fully understood what I was reading, I'm just not that good at replying at their tricky questions...

Time to leave

Ok, it's not as serious as it might sound at first. I'm just going to Jordan for a couple of days. My visa is running out and I have to either leave the country for a couple of days or go to the ministry of immigration and visas. A seven hour busride to Amman seem to be the best option... Beirut would probably be a quicker option but since I'll be visiting a friend in Jordan I'll probably have more fun there (ok, it's not possible to have fun in Jordan, I allready know that. Amman is and will always be the most boring place on earth. Even the drying paint channel wouldn't do a spot about it...). Considering that everybody seem to agree on that Amman is so boring I'm very disapointed that I missed that travel program where they let an old tv-reporter do a spot on his favourite city in the world and he picked Amman... And yes it was on public service... In Sweden...

My biggest point with this is though that it won't be very likely that I'll send any postcards from Damascus but I most probably do that from Jordan so if anyone wants any postcards please send me an email and I'll send you a postcard, maybe. This applies to everyone that hasn't actually given me a piece of paper with their address on. Previous emails not included...

Nemo saltat sobrius

Unless he's Arab that is. But more on that a little bit later. Last week I wrote that I didn't like the sound volume at the club we went to so my plan was to just go to a pharmacy and buy some ear pluggs. But since this is Syria things are not always that easy. The first place I went to only had pluggs for swimming. I never even knew there were such a thing but apparantly they are very popular since the second, third, fourth and fifth pharmacies also only carried those. For being a desert people these guys really seem like they love their swimming. Not one to be easily discouraged I kept trying to find some. The good thing is that pharmacies are among the most common stores around here. There are three on my street alone, of course they didn't sell earpluggs but it's good that they're around. In the end I went to the extreme measure of asking a cab driver if it was possible to find ear pluggs anywhere in Syria. He told me that I had to go to a special "ear pharmacy". Since he was such a nice guy he not only offered to drive me there but he also waited for me (I was on my way home from the old city), of course with the taxameter running. And by the way, the "special pharmacy" didn't have any they either. It actually didn't seem to be special in anyway. But then again, what do I know, I'm not a cab driver... Friday finally came along and all the pharmacies seemed to be closed, just as all other shops in the city. But I did pass one that was open and they actually had a couple of pairs so I cleaned them out. All well that ends well, or what ever you say.

The entire weekend was very nice. On thursday evening Omar, the American bakistani, also known as The Blanket, Lawrence, a brittish medic in training, Werner, the Austrian banker and Annika, the only other Swede at uni all came to my house for dinner. It was very nice to eat some pasta for once. We also came to the conclusion that Lebanese wine is far superior to the Syrian ones. It was also very nice not to be forced to take a cab home in the middle of the night.

Back to friday. The big party day in Damascus. It is fully possible that it's really thursday that's the big party day but I wouldn't know anything about that. I spent the first half of the day studying, as I do most days. Then I went home to put in my contacts and get a nicer shirt (me, always the vain one) before heading back to the city. First I met up with Lawrence at his place and had some ciggaretts before heading out to meet Werner and Lorenzo, the Italian surgeon to go with them to the Hamam. We spent about an hour in that steaming place but I can really say that my back needed the massage. My bed and my pillows have a joint adventure to destroy my neck and my back, and they are succeeding...

After the hamam we went to the Seif and shitty cafe. It's a place that really lives up to it's name. If you'd enter that place hungry you'd starve to death before getting your food. It's the only place I've ever been to that need 45 minutes to make a sandwich... Having finally eat our food and smoked some water pipe me and Lawrence went to meet The Blanket outside Domino, that's the name of the club. We came at 11pm so we were quite early but it was ok anyway. Most people seemed to come at about twelve o'clock and by then the place was crowded. Other foreigners there included Noah, the American son of an episcopalian minister, Jonas, Annika and Alex, the colombian ex-street kid, with his gang of Italian women. The Italian girls are more of a concept than any particular people. They all move around in great hordes that roam the old city and other studentlike places. They don't speak any non-latin languages so all form of communication is impossible so no one really knows them. Except Alex that is. Later both Luke and not-Luke (Jeb) showed up. It's really impossible to tell them apart but then again all Wasps look the same.

I did notice some interesting stuff at the club; Arabs dance like they're mad, no matter how sober they are. Then again, even Arabs get so drunk that they try to throw up in secret behind a table. That just never works. They also make out in public when they're drunk. I'd never seen that before and I wouldn't have bet on it.

In the end Jonas got so drunk I had to help him home. It would have been very just if there had been a ferry to help him to but now I just had to get him to his house. That wasn't to much of a hazzle since he lives like 20 meters from me.

I haven't mentioned my computer yet. I called the place thursday and a woman told me that it was fixed but that she didn't know where it was, and then asked me to call back in ten minutes. When I called back an hour later another woman told me that the person in charge of my computer would come back on saturday but when I wasn't happy with that reply she refered me to another woman that told me that yes it was fixed but it didn't work and it would be really good if I called back on sunday instead. None of those answers made me very happy so I went there today and actually got to speak with the guy that was supposed to fix it but went to Dubai instead. He told me that the new hard drive probably was defect and that they'll try changing it again. So I'll know tomorrow. Nothing is ever easy around here...