Don't cry for me Dr. Alban

I did actually only leave Damascus for a week but it had changed so much by the time I came back that i might as well have been away for a year. The first thing that I noticed was when I came back home to my house and some of the guys that used to live there no longer did so and that people that didn't use to live there now did.

Later at night, at Serai, it became even clearer that a lot of the foreigners that I used to hang out with had left, some poured alcohol in their honor. It was in the next couple of days that other changes became more evident. Like Inhouse, my little oasis of Western coffee in a desert of Arabic/Turkish tar. Over the time I've spent there I've gotten to know a lot of the other regulars that go there every day. I do, of course, go there to study but since the study area is non-smoking I have to go upstairs to smoke and always end up talking with someone.The good thing about that place is that it's one of the few places were people actually speak Arabic with me every now and then and not just insist on speaking English. After that I came back from Turkey the bunch of guys that i used to hang out with the most all were gone. Then i found out that some of them had left for Dubai and some others had started to hang out at Inhouse Meze to try to befriend some music-producers, still hoping for the big chance. Still it's Inhouse so it wasn't such a big problem but all together it really felt like coming back to another city for a while.

University these days is really a sad sight. Not too many new students and most of the old ones have left. People say that there'll be more students next month and that sounds reasonable. My class is still more or less the same people which is cool. The new level is the first one that might actually become interesting when you consider what we're reading this time around. They do have a huge problem when it comes to reading material at that place. I don't really know what to say about the new teacher but she's probably ok.


Yesterday was random Danish guy's birthday, as it was also Friday we decided to have it at Serai, why change a winning concept? For some reason i also ended up having to invite people to fill up his table. Considering the amount of people that left the in last two weeks it might have been hard but I did fairly ok. It was a nice mix of locals and expat-wannabees. Maybe he didn't knew too many of them but at least they came and Serai is always a good place to end week at. This week the DJ didn't do a "best of random Swedish dentist/"artist""-marathon, he just played one song this time. It might seem strange but that's not my fault...