Shop till you drop

Looking back at my trip to Amman it might seem a bit odd. I didn't really do anything even close to what tourists usually do in Jordan. That being looking at old rocks in different forms and shapes then. Instead I just did things that I can't do here in Damascus. Like going to Burger King and eating a Double Whopper, and yes it tasted just as bland as major franchise burgers always do. Jenni was lucky enough to be able to get a vegetarian burger, minus the burger of course. There doesn't seem to be any market for vegetarian food in the Arab world. We also passed by a real supermarket. Since I didn't feel like carrying the entire store back to Damascus I settled for a bottle of Heinz Ketchup, you can't get good ketchup in Syria. They simply put too much sugar in it here.

After shopping we did our best to find a cinema, another thing we don't really have in Syria. Unless you count the one at Cham Palace that show quite old movies, or the smaller ones that show either Arab movies or seem to show movies that you just don't want to watch... In Amman there's no problem to find a cinema though. Our biggest problem was the directions we got or the cab drivers we rode with. In the end we found one in a super-western mall. They had both a Versace store and a food-court . Amazing I say. I didn't dare to try the buns at "Cinnabuns" or whatever the place was called. They looked kind of nice but I didn't feel like having a heart-attack. At least we managed to get tickets to this movie called "When a stranger calls". It was more or less the first five minutes of "Scream" turned in to an entire movie. I kind of liked it anyway, despite it being a bit to scary for me.

Then I had to go back to the Cliff since they lock the door at some random time between twelve and one. i can understand that Samer wants to get some sleep though. One of the evenings at the Cliff I asked a Maltese guy how useful Maltese is around here. Apparently I was the first to ever ask him that but he said it actually was quite useful. Not that much of a surprise maybe but it was cool to hear it from someone that actually had some experience of it.

The trip back to Damascus was much quicker than the one to Amman. Despite me being the only westerner in the Car. On the other hand we weren't going in to Jordan this time. So no thumbprints or photos were taken of us and the car wasn't checked three times. But going in to Syria they actually sprayed the car down with something to get rid of the bird flu. Good thing I live in a country that hasn't had any cases of it, much safer than those dangerous countries in Northern Europe... The trip took about three hours, maybe a little less. The company might have been nicer going to Amman but this time around no one in the car spoke any other language than Arabic, which is something to always be appreciated. Ok, the Algerians spoke French but that doesn't really count does it?

I spent most of today studying at Inhouse, so it's nice to be back in Damascus. Drinking Amman-priced coffee and discussing Swedish Deathmetal with the usual suspects. Like I knew anything about that, at least I know how to pronounce "Yngwe Malmsteen" which gives me lots of kudos. I know it might not sound like it but i did spend like five hours studying as well.