Syrian Nights

2007-08-25T13:37:00.000+03:00

Back in town

Finally I'm back in Damascus. It's been almost a year still I keep running in to people that wonder where I've been... Even the guy that I bought two pack of ciggarettes of every day still remembered me. Most everything is the same except that Inhouse might not be the coolest coffee shop anymore and that I had to leave a fingerprint to buy a simcard... Of course I also had to buy a phone but that's just for fun.

The trip from Amman was boring, as is everything that includes Amman in any way. In Damascus I went straight to Inhouse, which was the same only with less people and more staff... I was staying with a friend in Qasaa the first two nights but he had to leave the country one day earlier than planned to go back to school so now I've been looking for a room in the old city. I'll be staying next to my old house and there is even a fan in the room. That might come in handy...

Now I have to go and make a fight with the people that sold me the simcard since it has not been activated yet. Oh that is not annoying at all...

2006-09-04T01:02:00.000+03:00

You've not changed at all

This is it, no more posts. It's time for this travel diary to end. Syria is for me a closed chapter now and I won't be going back there any time soon. Life in Stockholm is pretty much as it always been. I've seen my friends and had lots of beer and bad food. That's life here I guess. I still haven't gone swimming but I hope to do that tomorrow, or some day soon. I'm going back to work in just a couple of days and I should really find somewhere to live. The suburbs just aren't as nice as they're made out to be.

It's easy to be a little lost after a long stay in another place, it's happened to me before and I hope it will happen again. But for now I just have to deal with rain, green trees and old friends on my own.

It was great to be away and it's great to be back. I just don't know what I want to do now. Things usually solve them selves though...

So till next time, take care and may Hans be with you at all times.

2006-08-30T16:28:00.000+03:00

I'm Back

I landed just fine this morning. It was pretty cold but not as bad as I had expected it to be. The flight was ok, except that we got a couple of hours late because of some important person landing roughly at the same time we were supposed to fly away.

I haven't seen anything here except my dad's apartment yet. For some reason my keys are gone and so are all my clothes. Just what you want to be waiting for you at home...

2006-08-28T15:55:00.000+03:00

Nothing Lasts forever

It's time for me to leave now. My little Syrian adventure is finally over. I've been a bit tired of being here lately and the last couple of days have been even worse. It doesn't feel like I live here anymore. Somehow it feels like I've already left and I'm just stuck in a limbo for now. This makes it quite hard for me to do something productive, then I don't really have anything productive to do anymore...

Saying that, Syria has been great. Despite actually having visited here before it was nothing like I expected. Maybe because I didn't spend any time around Bab Touma back in those days... I've had a really good time and I've learned more than I could have ever hoped for. When i came here I could hardly separate the words in a newscast on Al-Jazeera or read anything that wasn't a newspapers articel. Now I'm reading novels and listening to the news whenever I want. The big drawback of that is of course that I'm losing Hans. I've hardly used him the last couple of months and now I don't even now where I put him. I still need him though, I guess that will always be true.

I also made lots of friends here, some of them I might even stay in touch with even if I'm usually quite bad at that. Almost all of my foreign friends have left by now though but that also feels good. I always want to be the last man standing...

One thing I didn't understand was Syria. Whenever I thought I had figuered this place out someone told me something that just tilted everything again. I leave the figuring out part for someone else...

The same goes for the people here. Some people might write books like "The Arab Mind" and say they know it all. I'd never do that. I only know two things; most Arabs really love smoking, but then who doesn't? And none of them knows how to drive a car...

For now only a haircut, a last dinner, a last time at the gym, a last coffe at Inhouse and one last ride to the airport is all that's left for me here. I guess i should pack too. My bag is really small but I've got so much stuff I want to bring home with me. I think I might have to get creative, like buying a new bag or something. Packing is boring though...

It's not really sleeping time for this blog just right now though. I'll still write a post or two after I get home...

2006-08-27T19:35:00.000+03:00

Homeage to Inhouse

Some people have told me during my time here in Damascus that I most probably spend way too much time at Inhouse. They are most probably right so here comes my defence.

A long time ago I spent a year in a Godforgotten Arab village. It was nice and fun in all possible way but I also discovered that I really missed two things; one was cucumber-water. Something that is quite ubiquitous in Swedish coffeshops but completely unknown around here. I can't say that I've missed that this time around though, maybe because the second thing I missed that time; real, black coffe, has been so prevalent...

I can't lie, I love coffee. Maybe as much as I love nicotine, but only maybe. At least I'm very much aware of my addictions... If there is one thing you can get at Inhouse it's ok coffee. I'm not going to say that it's amazing in anyway but it's cool, I'm down with it. A couple of two dollar coffees a day and I'm already broke. Might as well just cut my hair and get a job.

Inhouse is also great for many other reasons. It has been a place where I've met lots of Syrians and I spoke so much Arabic there that it feels like coffee is better than private lessons, on the other hand that is most probably always true...

The study area in the Qassa branch is also something I can recommend. Will you believe me if I say that they enforce the ban on smoking there? Probably not but I still say it.

2006-08-22T21:16:00.000+03:00

SCHOOL'S OUT!!!

And the war is over, I guess not only all good things must come to an end. But I'm for one is very happy that school is over. I barely got out of the last class alive, some quite demented person likened the entire thing as the mental equivalent of being tied up and having hot wax dropped on you. That doesn't sound to nice to me I say.

The last week and a half has been spent mostly on the road. I went to all different kind of places with one of my flatmates; Quneitra, Sayda Zeinab and Qamishli. Quneitra was among the most bizarre places I've ever seen. By some kind of serendipity we managed to visit Sayda Zeinab on Zeinab's death day anniversary, lots of people doing cool dances and singing. Qamishli wasn't even half as cool as the trip there. We took the night train and that's something I can really recommend. We even got clean sheets on the way back...

Now I'm going to spend all my time working on a paper. That also sounds like lots of fun...

2006-07-16T23:04:00.000+03:00

School

How quickly things change around here don't they? Like my new level at uni. In the last one they gave us about a page a day to read. In this one we get like ten... At least I know what to do with my time here...

And yes, I'm staying for the time being. I can't see any imminent threats towards Syria so I leave the running away to the Americans. I do promise that I'll be in the first car for Amman if there's a war. I'll do my best anyway.

This last weekend was spent in Jordan. Me and one of my housemates took a little trip around looking at ruins. It was fun and interesting and totally devoid of any news broadcasts. I'm so lost sometimes.

2006-07-11T20:08:00.000+03:00

Bye Bye Ma' Salaama

World Cup in Syria was an experience as intense as it was interesting. Every night all the restaurants, cafés and even the small shop on the corner filled up with fans more fanatically supportive of their team of choice than you could ever imagine any non-affiliated people to be.

The team of choice was in most cases Brazil, proved by the great amount of flags hanging from windows or between houses. Brazil's popularity was followed but not rivaled in any way by Germany, Argentina and Italy. More or less in that order. Banana Republics of Football like Angola, Togo and Sweden was not even remembered in the most flag-covered of restaurants.

Watching football here was fun in all kind of ways. People got so engaged in the games half of the fun was watching them jumping up and down when ever their team had a chance or scored a goal. In the end of the games they would always taunt the losing team in the most taunting of ways. Preferably shouting, for example, England barra barra or just the title of this post. It's good when people are good winners.

After the games people would get out on the streets and shoot of fireworks or ride around in their cars waving flags. Except for when Brazil lost of course, that was a day of mourning. In the end that was probably best for all of us since it would have been impossible to sleep for several nights running had they won... In the end people seem to have been pretty happy about Italy winning. Nothing wrong with that, always good when people are happy.

2006-07-09T20:54:00.000+03:00

Castles and stuff

Yet again there's time for another holiday from school. Sometimes I really appreciate that we have ten days off every four weeks. Then again, other times it feels like school is just time spent waiting for another test and maybe longer courses would be nice too. Not that it really matters in the long run anyway.

Having to spend time on my thesis sort of impairs my ability to do anything really relaxing during these holidays though. Especially since this is the last one and i haven't really spent that much time on it before. I guess I'm just the kind of guy who likes to procrastinate.

So why should this holiday be any different? Well I don't know I guess it won't so let's go on a road trip for a day or two or why not four, five or even six? Let's spend the holiday in old buses and dirty hostels.

Ok, I'm getting carried away. I do have at least a bit of discipline. Or maybe i just pretend to.

Anyway, friday morning me and two of my new housemates left the house to go look at the amazing Krak de Chevalier. It's this really cool Crusaders' castle not too far away from Homs. Going there includes taking a bus to mentioned Homs and then taking a microbus for the rest of the way. Sometimes people stop at the bus-station in Homs to eat something and maybe use the toilet. Eating and buying fake sunglasses is by all standards ok, the toilets aren't, and that's by any standards... Japanese tourists are known for passing by just to shoot photos of them...

Krak is soooooo cool though. You HAVE to visit it if you're ever closer than 10.000 kilometers of it. It's worth the trip. Especially since it's in Syria and there are lots of other cool things to look at here.

Just make sure that you have a lot of time at your disposal because the place is huge and also bring a flashlight since that makes it possible to run around in all the tunnels and dark rooms under ground. Well spent time and money I said. The view is the only thing that doesn't make you want to order up an extra bottle of oxygen, but it's still quite ok...

Leaving the Krak isn't supposed to be that much of an hassle. Then again things are never easier than you make them. We didn't want to go back to Homs but rather continue to Tartus on the coast. Being from Stockholm and all I do feel the need to see some water every now and then and there's even an Island just outside of that city, can you believe it?

Asking around for a service to Tartus wasn't really meaningful, but people did tell us that we could take one from the highway and then usually just pointed in a random direction. Since Syrians usually tell you to take a cab if the distance would take more than two minutes to walk we thought it couldn't be too far away. Apparently country side people are more up to walking than your usual Damascus guy... Having walked for a while we finally asked some people how far it was. Getting an answer that could be understood as either 200m or 2km. Since we'd already walked for so far we thought it probably couldn't be too much farther. Half an hour later we ran in to two old ladies that was happy enough to tell us that we still had more than 2km to walk. They we're also nice enough to stop a truck for us to hitch with. Too bad he'd just ran out of diesel and could only take us downhill. Then again there a car stopped almost immediately to drive us the rest of the way. Now you might think that the smart thing would have been to just take a service to the highway and then get out there... We could have done that had there been any around...

Finding a service for Tartus was easy and so was finding a hotel. The latter thank's to Lonely Planet...

Tartus is a quite small but pretty nice town. Most of all it's located in a really nice and green area. I had almost forgotten what that color looked like but now i know again. We didn't visit the Island but we did have both dinner and breakfast by the sea. It was indeed very nice.

Having already spent a day and a half away from home another couple of hours didn't seem like the worst thing you could do. We also read in the GUIDEBOOK that Qala'at Marqab is a nice place to visit and that it's pretty close to Tartus and everything. It's not really on the way to Damascus or anything but you can't have everything here in life, I did at least have a bad stomach so that made up for a lot.

Going North is never a bad idea and that was the way to Marqab. First off to a place called Baniyas and then another service to the castle it self. If Krak lacks a view Marqab lacks its splendor because, boy, does it have a view. That said it looks really cool on top of its hill, being all big, black and intimidating. I wasn't the only one thinking vampires... Then I do have Buffy on speed-dial. Despite looking so big on the outside it's not as impressive as Krak on the inside, still well worth the trip though it's not like it's small or anything and we for one don't have anything like it in good old Sweden. It was also kind of cool to be kidnapped by the guys who worked on the set of this television show they were recording there. As you all know I never turn down being force-fed some good tea. The only one to complain about it less is probably my dentist since it keeps her in business. Marqab is for sure a castle where you can spend a couple of hours searching for the best spot to be impressed by the amazing view, or to do Tai-chi on the roof.

The trip back to Damascus was uneventful though. Being back was as always these days very nice. This city is really growing on me.

2006-07-01T12:49:00.000+03:00

All moved out part 3

So no post in a long time. Well the truth is that I've been very, very bussy. Not hiding from Israelis fighter jets bussy but still quite occupied...

I had a Swedish friend visit me the first week of the current course. That was so nice that I totally forgot to study. That wasn't the smartest thing I've done but at least it was fun. It was also quite the time because I kind of rediscovered Damascus. You know, I got to see all those things that I never see at other times as well as sort of seeing the city with new eyes. I think I really like it.

The new course is hard but very good. There are some new students and they are even better. Scary. If that wasn't enough there is something like a Swedish invasion going on at Uni. I don't know where they all came from but my broken Swedish is coming to good use.

I also left my old room. Too many too late parties at that house for poor old me. At least I can sleep in the new house. Even if the shower is a joke in comparison. But I guess you can't have everything in life.

I'll try to kick some proper life back in this blog again. We'll see I guess.

2006-06-10T17:02:00.000+03:00

Lebanese Blonde

I might say it the first thing I do; Beirut is amazing. I've just been there for two days but I'm already in love. I'll go back there soon again, that's for sure.

We were a group of five people going, me, three Germans and a Kiwi. All good people and then me...

I also got a little taste of Syria's judicial system as we were crossing the border, or trying to... Apparently they changed the amount of time foreigners are allowed to stay in the country without going to the ministry of interior. It has at least for as long as I've been here been a month but now it's only 15 days. So of course the guys at the border didn't want to let me leave but after a lot of nagging they did. It didn't really seem to occur to anyone that I would have been late had I even left on the day the new law was published. It's good to know that you can become a criminal by default here... Then they didn't want to let two of the Germans leave because they only had temporary passports and wouldn't be let in to Lebanon. Our driver might or might not have given the guy some money to let them go though because after a while they were allowed out and the driver went on about wanting an extra tip for the rest of the ride... Of course there were no problems on the Lebanese side...

I might have pointed it out before but Syria is mostly desert. Except for the Golans then... It must really feel like shit to have all the nice and green parts of your country taken away by others. Lebanon is on the other hand very green and beautiful with the greenness starting almost as you cross the border. After that it only gets better.

In Beirut we went to a hostel recommended to me by a friend of a friend but it was full. The guy in the reception did offer us two rooms in another hotel though. But after a lot of tea drinking and sitting around in silence for a long time after that he told us that there were no free rooms in that hotel either. Thanks for telling us that a little earlier. So we were off to the mean streets of Beirut for at least five minutes before finding a hostel that did have a room with five beds. Nice enough we said and took it. Not that it was nice at all but we might have been a bit tired after the long, long trip from Damascus, or we might just have been lazy and lost.

The good thing about having a shitty hotel-room is that you don't waste a lot of time in it. There are lots of things to see in Beirut. Most prominent being the clean streets and the painted houses. Maybe they could stop running drugs in to Syria and start smuggling house paint instead, I for one would appreciate that a great lot more. We also checked out Rafiq Hariri's grave. That was a strange place I say. It's kind of in the middle of the city, covered with fake grass and pictures and a bunch of peoples graves then...

After that we went to one of the most important places in town; the Virgin Megastore. It was like this shop with four floors. Selling everything from toys to English books. I could have easily spent a couple of days there but others wanted to go to lunch. Boring people i say.

Walking around in Beirut is quite nice as well. The beautiful buildings are mixed with all the old shot up ones. But you got to remember that they're really building and also painting the houses. In Damascus there are roughly two painted buildings, in the entire city... People here just doesn't seem to care about anything.

Walking by the sea is also possible and depending on which route you take it can be quite nice, other routes aren't...

We also did try out the Beiruti nightlife. They do have a lot of really nice bars over there. Smoky, dark and filled with good music, just the way I like them. Another time I might check out the clubs but I was happy with the bars for now.

Leaving Beirut was a bit of a hassle since we almost got kidnapped by a cabdriver with a way too small car for five people. Getting away from him wasn't too hard though and we managed to get to the garage instead and the driver we got there liked to drive really fast. But at least he got us back in one piece so he was ok in my book. At the syrian border the two same Germans at the border got a bit of a lecture for being so stupid and only having single entry visas which meant they had to buy new ones at the border. Since I also thought it's a stupid thing to have I was both translating and agreeing at the same time. Good times indeed.

In the end it was really nice to be back in Damascus. Despite being smoggy and unpainted it's quite the good place to be...

2006-06-03T20:16:00.000+03:00

Generation Terrorists

Ok so we had a "terrorist attack" here in Damascus yesterday. Some guys carrying way to many guns for their own good was spotted trying to "infiltrate" en empty building. Since they even failed to do that I guess it wasn't the Al-Qaida masterminds that were out last morning. What I've read and heard four of the terrorist and one guy from the security forces were killed and some others were wounded. No bystanders though, thanks God.

The only Syrian newspaper to come out on Saturdays is Tishriin but I only read the frontpage and it didn't say so much since they had to use half of it showing pictures of dead bodies and weapons. It seem like the terrorist were carrying everything from M-16s to nunchakas. No wonder they got shot, I would guess that they had a hard time walking around carrying all that shit.

The paper did make a point of them carrying American made weapons though and so did Syrian tv yesterday. I wouldn't care to much about that when you consider the extensive smuggling that goes on between here and Lebanon though. These days it's probably easier to come by an M-16 than an AK-47. Not that I would know though.

All in all I'd say that thing in Canada seem to be way much worse so Syria is still quite high on my list of safe countries. The traffic and the heat not considered then, of course. Sometimes I also feel that the alleys of the old city might kill me to. Just getting lost and dying of starvation seem to be so possible...

2006-05-24T23:39:00.000+03:00

Half-way through hell-week

For some reason that I really don't care about, but am aware of, the mudir of our part of uni decided that we should end our courses one day earlier than planned. That brought with it that we had to go to school one a day that wasn't supposed to be a school day. That day happened to be last saturday and it was also our mid-course test so it didn't seem like the best idea in the world to skip it either...

I had planned to spend most every hour of last week studying. Mostly because that's what I usually do but also because of the exam. Then I hadn't really counted on the possibility of some old friend showing up from Sweden. He's here to study so I don't have to babysit him or anything but it's still way much more fun to hang out with Swedes than to study Arabic, then again most anything is more fun than studying Arabic...

Since we only had Friday off last week I didn't seem like such a great idea to do anything serious on Thursday night, the plan was just to have dinner with some people. Of course there was someone leaving and we had to say goodbye to him. Then no one really disliked the idea to go to this kind of nice beer garden right by bab sharqi. There aren't really that many places that serve beer outside around here. Just a beer or two is never that bad. So when the place closed two beers later the clock wasn't really that late so some German girl came with the proposal that maybe everyone should go on to some place that was open a bit later. Ok we said and then every plan to study seriously on Friday was lost since it's not allowed to leave Cave too early. Damn, damn, damn. But I did at least make it in time for the exam on Saturday morning. Thanks to a taxi I'd like to add.

WARNING Bragging ahead

If you believe everything that I wrote above (it's all true by the way) it might come as a bit of a shock that I had the best result in the test. That's just the way I am though.

Now I'm yet again pretending to study for my exam that I have next week. Pretending to study is the best way of studying I think. Maybe I did overdo my studying before because I really like to only study an extra two to three hours a day outside of school. I know It's not enough and I'll have to do something about it but this week I'm fine with it. It's a really long week to I'd like you to remember.

2006-05-13T23:42:00.000+03:00

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...

2006-05-09T22:34:00.000+03:00

Anonymous said

I got a comment on my last post. That almost never happens anymore so I was, of course, very happy about it, at least until I read it. Oh my God I say. It was so harsh that I feel compelled to comment on it. I could of course have just denied it but I'm not censoring anyone just because they're negative towards me. Red text is random anonymous person's.

I have read most of your essays,you know what?

Well thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog. It's always nice to hear that someone does.

,I think that you are so racist,cause when it comes to your foreigner friends you mention their names,and when it comes to Arabs you say "the Jordanian guy" for example.I think he deserves more than not mentioning his name.

Ok, comment noted. I do believe that I used the phrase "random Jordanian guy" and that only because that was just what he was. Neither me nor Jamie knew him from before and at least I'll never see him again. He was very nice though, and unlike you he did give me his name. That doesn't mean that I have to write it here though...

You also write that I mention the names of my foreigner friends. That is true to some extent. I've been very restrictive when it comes to writing names here and most of the times I don't. Even in my last post about the trip to Turkey only a few people are mentioned by name.

Its a shame you have been living in Syria for a couple of monthes and non of Syrian names was mentioned,its either cause you are isolated with no friends-then why did you come here-or you are too racist and you feel that Arabs are not worth mentioning.

You never considered the possibility that this has been done intentionally? It is in no way a matter of course that people want me to publish their names here. I'm not that adamant about not publishing foreigners names here and that's why I do that every now and then but only when it comes to close friends and only when I feel the need to do so.

When it comes to Arabs I'm even more restrictive and have a no name policy. Maybe that is a bit racist but I don't want to make anyone's life any harder than it already is.

So Anonymous. I hope that you in the future try other options than just screaming racism when you see something you don't understand at first. Thinking is a good thing, try that first, it does wonders all around the world every day.

And if you want to be taken seriously you might want to consider what tone you use when you write people and also not to sign comments as Anonymous.

2006-05-06T20:52:00.000+03:00

What's the plan?

My last week has possibly been eventful enough to warrant a couple of entries here but time has confined me to this one entry. Last thursday was the goodbye party for a lot of my fellow foreign students. They're all gone now so let's not speak more about them... There were also three random Swedes at Cave that night. It felt kind of strange to not be the tallest guy in place but at least one of them lives here in Damascus so I might still get to speak Swedish every now and then. Good times since Annika was one of the people that left last week.

Friday was going to Turkey day. It will from now on always be a famous day in the chronicles of mankind. It was that kind of trip that didn't even start out well. First me and Jamie met up at Bab Touma to get a cab to Al-Medina Al-Jamaia. Think really old Russian student houses with squat toilets and no kitchens and you'll be pretty close to what it looks like. We chatted some hours away in Chaldesh's room before meeting up with Sonja and Dana at the local restaurant for a quick snack before leaving for the bus station. For the first time in the history of the Middle East a large group of people were actually heading out in good time. All we had to do was to convince some service-driver to drive us to the big bus-garage. that wasn't even close to a problem. Getting ten people and all they're luggage in to the car was a piece of cake for a practiced Tetris-player. The driver though was completely crazy and took us for a ride that most certainly should have ended with at least a carload of dead Turks. But we were lucky, or kind of, he drove around the city not knowing where we were going or listening to directions. That he admittedly couldn't read wasn't making things easier either. Good to know that you don't have to know that to get a driver's license in Syria, it explains a lot.

We were really lucky that we had a good marginal to reach the station because in the end we had less than ten minutes to spare. And the bad things had only just begun. The bus-ride to the Syrian border was mostly uneventful except for a random stop in the middle of nowhere with all the lights turned off. It's amazing how well a dark bus get lit up by camera-flashes. Good times indeed. The Syrian border was passed mostly without any difficulties, except for that the border guard guy didn't look for Suleiman's visa in his passport and just told him that he didn't have a valid visa and that he had to go back to Damascus to get one. It was all quickly resolved when someone opened the passport and showed him the visa. It was 2 am so it can be forgiven but we were a bit worried for a while. The shortest part of our journey should have been the distance between the Syrian border-station and the Turkish one, but then again, we didn't consider the possibility that it would be blocked by a million large trucks. Apparently goods traffic between Syria and Turkey isn't that important so the truck can just wait and wait and wait. It also meant that we had to wait and wait and wait in a yet again completely dark bus only illuminated by intermittent camera-flashes. Ah how fun it was. For some other unknown reason we had to keep our phones of during the trip. They apparently could disturb some equipment on the bus. Despite my three years working as a bus-mechanic I have no idea what that would be. My best guess is that the driver just liked to pretend he's a pilot. Some very funny conversations did occur during our extended stay in no-man's land. One of them between the driver and the guy who was afraid that there would be a jam at the passport-check when we were allowed through and that he should be allowed to walk there in stead. It went like this:

Man: There will be a jam tomorrow, let's walk there instead.
Driver: It's forbidden to walk here.
Man: But let's just go there now.
Driver: The road is blocked and it's forbidden to walk here. How are you going to get there?

It all turned out for the better when we just backed up and took a secret path around the place instead. Other good things include me not having to pay for the Turkish visa, neither did Sonja or Jamie. Jamie should have but that's a later thing. Good things doesn't include me bringing the good news of free visas to the five Italian girls on the bus because they got very upset with me when they all had to pay 15 dollars each. Don't blame the messenger I say.

We finally reached Antakya at about six am. Only eight hours after our departure from Damascus. I for one doesn't like long bus-rides but no one asked for my opinion on that matter. After all, it was up to me to go to Turkey or not. In Antakya we first went to a place by the sea for some morning tea before heading to Said Ali's grandparents house for breakfast. Four of the Italians were continuing to Istanbul later in the day so they just hung out with us until midday or so. We all agreed on that it was against human nature to go on a 15 hour bus-ride straight after our first ordeal, but those Italians were though enough to do it.

Crossing the border into Turkey made all the Turks forget their Arabic and since they don't speak English either communications became a bit of a hassle. So for the first day the non-Turks on the trip were always left a bit in the dark. I do know that it was decided that we should rent cars and go around Antakya looking at all the sights instead of sleeping. I might be of the opinion that people that hasn't slept for thirty hours shouldn't drive. But I was to tired to comment on it, I just went with the flow which took us to a very old church, a museum, a kebab-restaurant and a waterfall. It was all very appreciated. After driving around all day half of the group went to Chaldesh's relatives' house and the other half to Said Ali's mother's. His mother spoke German so mine and Sonja's secret language wasn't that secret anymore. Not that I speak German or anything but I can at least pretend to. Then we went back to his grandparent's house to sleep, or rather to hang out in the kitchen speaking Arabic. It does seem that everyone in the older generation in Antakya speaks Arabic, which is good since no one speaks English.

The next day we went to See Titus' Tunnel. It also meant taking a wrong turn somewhere ending up on the top of a mountain. It was a good and nice hike though. After that we went to Iskenderun, had kebab, ice-cream and bought some beers to bring to Chaldesh's summerhouse. It was a bit outside of Iskenderun in one of many summer settlements they have out there. We were so many people that it was good that his Aunt owns the house next to his. it was also nice that it was right next to the Sea.

After that not many things happened. We did a lot of swimming and beer-drinking. We also came up with a great way to drive Dana insane. Whenever the Turks conspired against us in Turkish we'd just turn to her and ask: "So Dana, what's the plan?" Americans are crazy. We also had a fair amount of kebabs over the days. At some point I asked one of the Turks if there existed any other kind of food in Turkey. I just got a sad stare as a reply and then the comment: "That's not kebab that's döner". If anyone knows the difference, please inform me.

We didn't really do that many more trips around the area. Just hanging around the sea and burning my poor body in to a smoldering heap red flesh was good enough for me though.

As we started out I had decided to go home last Wednesday but I ended up staying until yesterday, Friday. A week in Turkey was just what I needed.

So yesterday I and Jamie left Iskenderun heading for Damascus. The rest wanted to stay an extra day but I really wanted to do some studying today as well as say good bye to Maurice yesterday evening. Traveling with Jamie wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done though. Getting back to Antakya by micro was easy but it took much, much longer than we expected so we didn't have time to buy breakfast before getting the bus to Damascus. Yet again getting to the border wasn't a problem. Yet again the Turkish border was the problem. Apparently Jamie should have paid for his visa and that he hadn't was a big problem. When everyone else at the bus had sorted out all their issues at the border the clock was about 12.30 pm and then they told Jamie he had to wait till 2 pm to find out what he should pay.Counting doesn't seem to be the quickest thing in Turkey. I of course stayed with him but also did this random Jordanian guy that thought Jamie needed someone that spoke Turkish around. That was so nice we couldn't believe it.Then again that guy would amaze us many times over. So we got our bags and stuff of the bus and proceeded to wait at the passport-booth. There being no shade around didn't make it anymore fun to wait. At about half past one a police came out and told Jamie he could either pay 85 dollars or be banned from Turkey for five years. Since he didn't have any money there wasn't really much of an option now was there? Oh, think again, the Jordanian guy instantly offered to lend him the money. Who does that really? I would never do it. While they paid I ran to look for the bus and since there was a traffic jam yesterday too it had only moved about ten meters in that hour. We all felt better back on the bus. Especially after another Jordanian guy bought us lunch. Good thing since none of us had any Turkish money left. At about half past three we reached the Syrian border. One of the guys on the bus had ran ahead of us and handed in our passports so it was just to collect them on arrival. Not Jamie though. His visa extension wasn't valid for reentering Syria. Please pay another 52 dollars for a new visa. Guess what, the same Jordanian guy offered to pay that as well. The craziest thing about that was that he was going to Aleppo and not to Damascus so half an hour after the border he just got off and left us. Jamie did get his contact information first. Somethings you just have to pay.

We finally reached Damascus at 8 pm. A good ten and a half hours after leaving Iskenderun. Of course we were courted by cab drivers but when I told them that we live in Damascus and that we know the prices around here they lost all interest in us. Being cheap we got in to a service-taxi but got off in the wrong place. Not knowing where we were we stopped a cab and asked to go to Bab Touma by taximeter but the driver just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't want any money for the ride. Never having heard that one before we just got in the cab wondering what it would end up costing us. At Bab Touma I asked him again what it costed and again he said it was free and "God be with you". It was indeed a strange journey.

I had about enough time to get home and notice that everyone had moved out and a lot of new people moved in while I was gone and have a shower before I had to go out again. The night at Serail was ok and I didn't get home until way to late. Damascus is a crazy town sometimes.

Now I can focus on my studies again, tomorrow is a new day and a new course and most certainly new people.

2006-04-24T22:11:00.000+03:00

A small proposal

I haven't really written anything here in anger before, I might have written once or twice in boredom but never in anger. Now that changes. It takes a lot to make me really angry but today it happend and the topic is, of course, wine, or rather the lack off. As you might, or might not, know Syria pretends to produce something it likes to call wine (from now on referred to as "wine"). No one else in the world would ever label it that but they do. The quality of it is so bad that it's not even fitting to use it for carpet miscoloring. So it might come as a bit of a shock that they didn't start producing "wine" yeterday but that it has actually been going on for a while. Myself I'm of the opinion that if you've been doing something in a REALLY bad way for a long time you should probably change something. A first step for the local "wine"-producer could be to get someone to sample it before it's distributed but since they no longer carry out death penalties in this country I don't think that will happen.

I was discussing this matter with a Syrian today and he told me that the company is governmentally owned and that of course gave me lots of great ideas on how to improve things. The first thing to come to mind is that they should just sell the entire thing to someone who actually knows something about wineproduction or at the least to someone that has actually had a glass of wine in his/her life. Considering that other countries in the region produce quite nice wines I don't think the abyssmal quality of Syrian "wine" is because of raw materials so there should be someone out there that would be interested. The government makes a nice buck selling it all and let's someone else make all the new investments and then they can tax exports and local distribution to make another buck or two. This idea was appreciated but called unrealistic.

So I had another one: Bring someone over here to improve the production but keep the ownership with the government. You don't need to bring some expensive French guy, just ask someone that had a setting of fruit wine in their bathroom to take a look at production, it couldn't do any harm. Somethings you don't even need professional help for, like: getting some new barrels instead of using ones that earlier were used to store toxic waste and just because they added kerosene to the wine in Simpsons doesn't mean that you have to do it too. And if the point of selling this "wine" is to provide people with candlesticks then you might just want to stop making them have to pour out the "wine" first and just make some nice candlesticks instead. This way the government has to pay for investments but they can keep all the profit. I don't understand why this hasn't already been taken care of since I do believe that Syria could compete with Lebanese wine and make a rather nice profit from exports.

If I ever come back to making small proposals I'll do one on Syrian Tourism marketing, or lack off. That's almost as upsetting as the "wine" thing, not quite though as nothing ever upsets me more than a bad wine.

I will never ever ever even mention the thing they call "beer" here, just put it like this; they most probably use the water from the river whose name it goes by to make it...

2006-04-23T21:58:00.000+03:00

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.

2006-04-21T15:33:00.000+03:00

Back at the Cliff

Jordan, I'm finally here. I actually thought I might never end up going at all. I decided that I had to come here about a week ago and that I'd try to get a taxi from Damascus to Amman.

So two days ago I was going to Beit Jebri to say goodbye to my German flatmate Sven and as I was entering the place some people was leaving and they we're speaking Swedish. Since I never speak Swedish anymore I just shouted: Hey Sweden to them. Then I ended up speaking with these three Swedes for about twenty minutes and since they were also going to Amman the next day we deceided to share a cab. So yesterday I met up with them, One woman and a her daughter and also the mother's collegue from work, to go to Amman. All in all it was a quite easy trip, despite the Jordanian border being very slow.

I got to the Cliff at about half past seven and still ended up having to wait a bit for Jenni. It was ok since I had the time to say hi to Samer and taking a shower before she showed up. As it is it is always nice to meet someone from the old crew and when ever I do we end up talking for hours about the strangest things. I guess someplaces do that to you.

We ended up going to books@cafe which is a bookstore/restaurant in Downtown Amman. I was very shocked at the amount of books they sold and in English too. Amazing I had almost forgotten that there existed books in English.

We were supposed to go to Karak today and check out the castle but since the busdriver wouldn't get going until the bus was full and we were about five people on it we decided against it. So I'll just spend the rest of the day shopping at the supermarket and the bookstores. Maybe I'll even drop by Burger King for a burger or something. A little taste of the West, or whatever you call it.

2006-04-17T22:07:00.000+03:00

Breaking Circles

So from complaining about my mundane existance to complaining about it changing. I guess I'm just the kind of guy that's never satisfied about anything...

It just struck me that more or less all of the people I've been hanging out with lately either already left or will leave in the next two weeks. Of course there'll be new people coming but I don't think it'll be the same.

At least I came up with a new way of adding to my study time since it's been kind of hard to find the time to increase it. Flashcards might be good for busrides but they get boring every now and then so I went out and bought some books that are published in both English and Arabic. That's really good for bed and trips since I don't need any dictionary to read them.

Other than that I'm just hoping for rain since the city is still very dusty from the sand rain. It makes it seem even more like a ghost town. Because in so many ways Damascus really looks like one. It's not that dirty, by comparison to other third world cities it's not dirty at all and there's always all these people out cleaning the streets so it looks rather ok. But all other kinds of maintainance have been left completely neglected so the houses look really really old despite being sometimes just twenty years old. A lot of them would benefit from some paint and others from someone just stopping the water leaks... Still, I really like this city, but I'll go for a road trip next weekend. That will give me something to write about...

Today was also Independance day. Sixty years of independance. I thought about going to Quneitra and check the festivities but I went to Inhouse and studied instead. Always, the party animal. So I missed the entire party. Then again, I got to see everyone celebraiting Easter yesterday so I don't have to see another celebration again in my life. The last couple of weeks have been nothing but days of from school because of the Prophet's birthday, Easter and Independance. Next week is another Easter and there are even rumors that there was some kind of Easter last weekend. I take some pride in not caring about anything else than my studies though...

2006-04-15T19:38:00.000+03:00

Going in a circle

Now I'm more than ever at home in Syria. Life has become so based on routines that I don't really now what to write here anymore. Not that I'd like to say that it's only for the worse. Actually it's quite alright.

I'll spend most days waking up a little late for school, usually ending up taking a cab there. Spending for hours in class is kind of ok. Then I'll go to the gym three times a week and spend afternoons and early evenings either at Inhouse or at a random library studying and doing homework. Some evenings I meet up with some friends and smoke waterpipe and drink tea, except for on weekends when we go clubbing.

My exam actually went quite ok despite me making some really stupid misstakes in the grammar part of it.

The weather is completely amazing at the moment; sunny and really, really warm. I'm not one to complain about sun so I'm happy.

Also a small warning: Foreign women shouldn't go to Aleppo, at least not without a male escort. Apparently the men there are not like people in most other cities of the world...

2006-04-11T22:42:00.000+03:00

Things I've learnt
We had our kind of midterm exam today. I don't know if you really can call it midterm since every course is just four weeks long but I'll do it anyway.
Usually I don't learn that much from exams but today I learnt something really important; in Syria two hundred is more than two hundred thousand. The thing goes like this. It was during the listening part of the exam and the guy on the tape said that there has lived people in Damascus for more than two hundred thousand years... On our question paper there was then a statement that there lived people in Damascus for more than two hundred years. I of course marked that as correct, thinking that two hundred thousand years are probably more than two hundred. WRONG!!! Stupid me.

So I thought I should mention some other things I've learnt here:

There's a "musical" genre called Swedish melodic Death-metal.
There are Syrians that like that kind of "music"
It's always better to change lanes, especially in rush traffic.
About 500-1000 new Arabic words (I'm making amazing progress, not that it makes any difference)
There are no queues, then again who doesn't love chaos?
Americans are crazy
Americans have a funny vocabulary
Kent are big in the Pakistani community of Austin, Texas
Damascus has some nice nightclubs
"Son of a taxidriver" is a valid insult
You can find anything you need in Syria. Everything from Authorized Apple Resellers to Temporary fillings is to be found. Sometimes it just takes a bit of time. (If you think it was hard for me to find earplugs you should really try to find some temporary fillings (for cavities that is))
People are crazy, did I ever tell you that?
There's a Swedish company that exports wooden LCD-Screens to Syria
Mozart was German (Nope not Austrian)
"Power Hour" is a bad idea
"Olympic Games" are even worse
Americans are really, really crazy
They will even rather use the Term "An Afro-American from Britan" rather than "A Black British guy"
Swedish is a useful language here, unless you run into Swedes that don't speak a word of it
Hanging out with Brits make me use a lot of bad words
Hanging out with Brits makes me learn a lot of bad words
Hanging out with non-drinking Brits (almost an oxymoron?) can make you very drunk
Brits are cool

2006-04-07T13:51:00.000+03:00

Keeping busy

I'd like to say that my new course is very hard, but that would be I lie. Then again our new teacher gives us so much homework that you wouldn't believe me if I told you how much. There are some positive things about that though since it forces me to review the material of the course rather than just spending my days with newspapers and bad books.

At this point my studies take up about six to ten hours of an ordinary day but I think i'll have to up that to ten to twelve hours a day. I'm just not making enough of a progress as it is. When I do the math in my head that i'll just learn three times of what I've learnt so far during this trip I tend to get a bit anxious. I'll just never learn this language.

Taking my time to study doesn't really stop me from hanging out as well. Usually for a couple of hours each night or going to strange clubs or parties in the weekends. You must be allowed to relax every now and then.

I'm going to try to get some pictures of Damascus here in a couple of days. I'll try to find some "alternative" ones.

2006-04-03T16:21:00.001+03:00

The day of yellow rain

First the most important thing: Me myself and I. My health is now very fine indeed. I might still not have much of an appetite, but then again that's most probably just for the better.

Day before yesterday was kind of strange since we got hit by the sandy rain. It's not the best thing to ever happen, especially not to my bedcover that was still drying. But the sky got really yellow and so did all the cars... This thing apparently doesn't happen every year in Damascus so I feel very special, or at least a bit yellow.

Being sick made me fail to mention that a new course has started. We're eleven students this time around and only three are new so it's mostly the same old people. But since they're all so nice I'm not one to complain.

There were a lot of people from other classes that left the uni though. mostly because it's almost the same price to have a private tutor as to study there. That made a whole bunch of people think both once and twice about staying. Private teacher isn't really an option for me though so I stayed and I'll stay through out the summer.

New courses usually means new people as well. This time around there aren't as many Italians around though. Almost all of the new students actually seem to be German. Not that I'm one to have any negative ideas about Germans, and them being here means that maybe there will be some moose signs left in Sweden at the end of the summer...

2006-03-27T22:54:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-03-22T20:16:00.001+02:00

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.

2006-03-20T16:15:00.001+02:00

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.

2006-03-18T21:50:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-03-15T00:08:00.000+02:00

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.

2006-03-14T00:30:00.000+02:00

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.

2006-03-12T15:54:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-03-10T15:49:00.000+02:00

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.

2006-03-07T16:10:00.000+02:00

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.

2006-03-06T20:06:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-03-05T17:45:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-03-04T18:46:00.000+02:00

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...

2006-02-28T22:06:00.000+02:00

Bumming out

I know that I've been complaining about school a lot here lately. More or less everything is about that right now. So to make things a little bit clearer I'll give you the inside scoop on what we're up to. Today the teacher asked us to conjugate verbs... Verbform one that is... Ok she wanted us to conjugate Akhada, shadda and verbs like that but still, I've known that stuff for years. So not only don't I see any new words I have to do old grammar all over again. In a week and a half I've written down about 20 words that I didn't know before. In class that is. Reading in private I've written down about ten times that.

To put this in another perspective I was doing word by word translation of a newspaper article for a friend today without even consulting good old Hans. Ok it was about an Hamas delegation going to Moscow but still... (ok that was a horrible example, me and Hans are still the best of friends. He's the shoulder I'm leaning on, the light in the end of my tunnel and that's not very bad going for an old dead German guy.)

So I was really down under after class today, just feeling like I'm wasting my time achiving nothing. I went to the gym but left after only half an hour because I was really feeling down. Then I went to the library at the French Cultural Center and read Ash-sharq al-awsat and that at least felt meaningful. The rest of the evening was spent loitering around doing nothing much at all. Homework for tomorrow was to conjugate verbs... I always do my homework, no matter how stupid and easy it is but this I will not do. Despite me and Werner being way ahead of the rest of the class, we seem to be the only ones doing the homework on a regular basis. I like to say: "I came to study". I say that almost as often as I say: "people are crazy, did I ever tell you that?"

Sometimes I think that the point of studying Arabic is to remind you that you're mortal. I've always had the idea that unless I almost break out and cry in every class and when ever I'm doing my homework or what ever there's something wrong. Arabic is supposed to be so hard that there simply is no hope around. And then one day you just sit down with a newspaper and read it as you would any Swedish or English one. At least that's how I Imagine it will be, sometime in the future. Now I'm just almost breaking out in tears for all the wrong reasons.

Everything else is just great but school sucks bigtime. I just hope it get's harder in the next couple of courses otherwise I won't be able to stand it. On the other hand it would be kind of cool to be the first one to quit an Arabic course because it was to easy... (maybe not the first one, but I dare to say that it's not the most common reason)

Sorry for this, I promise less bitter posts in the future. That despite the fact that I'm going to THE most boring city in the World next week...

2006-02-27T21:15:00.000+02:00

Note to self

always bring earpluggs... Yes we went to that club last friday and it was cool but the sound was so loud that I couldn't stay for as long as I had wanted. But I'm pretty sure we're going back there. It's kind of nice to go to someplace that's not barsaloon...

I also handed in my computer for service today. Not only was the place an authorized reseller for Apple but the guy had also changed the harddrive on atleast one other iBook... And not only do I get a bigger and better one than the last one but he also offered to recover my old one and try to make it in to an external harddrive and that without charging any extra. All in all it will cost me 10.000 lira which is about as much as a new harddrive, without installation, would cost in Sweden so it was a good deal I think...

Other great things include the weather turning for the better, I don't even have to sleep with my sock on anymore. And that's very good since I managed to brake my washing machine. I hope it will be fixed in the next couple of days but for now I'm bying underwear in bulk...

So far I've been able to get to school in time this week but I still don't learn anything while I'm there. Instead I spend most of my spare time watching al-jazeera and reading al-sharq al-awsat and al-arabi. And drinking coffee at inhouse of course. They still haven't given me an ashtray but I'm working on it. First I tried to buy one but that was not possible so they offered to give me a chipped one, tomorrow. The sad thing is that tomorrow never seem to come around over here.

I shouldn't say that I don't learn anything in school. I've actually learned a couple of things. The most important I've learnt I learned today and that is that "den som lever far se" also is an arabic proverb. You learn something everyday (and they're not all like sunday by the way) I like to say.

I'm trying to improve myself here so I'm going to give you a little preview of what's comming in the future; The Rolling Stones and the Arabs.

2006-02-24T15:10:00.000+02:00

Winning the battle

I have finally come to terms with the taxi drivers around here. I simply stoped riding them. It seemed like the best solution. Now I'm all in to walking and riding services. It is, of course, almost impossible to never ride with the taxis but at least I cut it down a bit and walking is really nice. Asking for directions isn't though. The most common reply to a question about how to get to somwhere usually is: oh that's far, you take a cab from here and... Arabs doesn't seem to be in to the entire walking thing.

School continues to be far too easy but getting up in the morning isn't. I have two alarmclock and I still overslept twice the first week. I usually never oversleep so I'm getting a bit nervous if I'll be allowed to stay in the class or not...

Today is friday and a complete day off. I'm not going to the gym today and I haven't spent anytime with my books yet. I'm going to do a couple of hours of reading before I go out tonight. People seem to want to go to some kind of club in the old city. I don't know if I really want to do that but I'll probably go with them.

2006-02-21T17:10:00.000+02:00

Mending the broken

We all met this guy outside the place you go to to get a permission to visit Quneitra. I ended up not going there but the rest went and that guy went along with them. He was an American just visiting the country. A couple of days later me and Werner ran into him on the street again. I was looking for this place that might be able to repair my computer. He then told me that he had this American friend who'd had just the same problem with her Powerbook and that she'd had it fixed here in Damascus. I just went bombasticly extatic and handed him my email and asked me to send directions. Werner then bet me a beer that he'd never send it. But the good thing is that he did. The bad thing is that his friend hasn't had her computer fixed yet. So now I'm just sitting here waiting for more news. Maybe I too should go out and look for someone. Nay, why do things yourself when other people can do it for you?

School has been going on for a couple of days now and everyone seem to agree on that I'm in the wrong level. Everyone except the teacher that is. Whenever she says something she just looks at me and ask me if I understand and everytime I just nodd and say "of course". Anyway, I don't spend too much time on my homework and that gives me the time to go to the gym and also to read more interesting stuff than "al-kitab al-asasi". We're doing political systems of the Arab world now... They seem to be the best in the world...

2006-02-19T20:00:00.000+02:00

First day of school

Today was the day, the day to separate the boys from the men. I'm proud to say that I'm not a boy but not yet a man. The class was kind of disorientated as well as chaotic. People kept on comming in during the day and it was more or less impossible to tell how many we are. I'd make a guess and say somwhere between eight and ten. The biggest Arabic class I've been in for years... The teacher spoke very clear and good Arabic. I'm sorry to say that the students didn
t. It became quite clear to me and Werner, the Austrian guy, that we might be in a level or two too low. Anyway I heard one word I didn't know from before. Which for a four hour day can't be seen as too bad. If everything goes on in that speed I'll learn somwhere like a hundred word these six months. There're a lot of people out there who knows less than that. Other than that I must say that I was most impressed with those of the students that only studied Arabic for three months. Had I known that much after three months I have no idea how much I'd know today. One thing is at least for sure: I'll never study Arabic in Sweden again.

Everything else is fine. I went to the gym again today. Four times in one week is quite ok. I also had some chicken sandwiches so I have to go tomorrow again :) Now I'm of for coffee at inhouse. I'll make sure to harras them in to selling me an ashtray too. They've refused for a while now but I have a feeling that they're about to budge.

2006-02-17T15:23:00.000+02:00

Riding with a truthsayer

The placement test didn't go as I well as I had hoped. I ended up in level four of eight. On the other hand it was just the level I was hoping for since that means I'll be able to stay here until August, just like I planned to do. I've already met anothe guy who's in the same class and he seems to know what he's doing so I guess it won't be too easy. At least I'll know the grammar part...

I've spent the last couple of days mostly hanging out with other foreigners. That mostly meant doing kind of touristy stuff, which I think you should also find time for when you're here. Last night we were supposed to go the the North Korean built panorma of the October War. Too bad for us, but good for our driver, it was closed when we got there. The cab driver was nice enough to inform us about it as we were two minutes away from the place. The cab drivers here are all just the best people. Instead we decided to go for dinner and later for some beers. First at a little posh Italian coffee shop and after that at the infamous Bar Saloon. At least we filled the place up...

As usual I got a cab to go home. The difference this time was that the driver was a little bit odd. He started by asking me what I thought about Arabs. When I told him I liked them he went on a five minute rant about what thieves and liars all Arabs are (and yes he was an Arab Muslim himself). I tried to protest and tell him that I have lots of Arab friends and that they are very nice. He just waived my protests away and said they just wanted my money. Just as he was being nice to me just because I was going to pay him for the ride... So yes, it was kind of a strange ride.

2006-02-14T15:52:00.000+02:00

Going Social

It's been a while since I last wrote something here. It's not really my fault though, mostly it's because I've been unable to access this page. So don't blame me, blame the isp here or maybe blogger :)

Anyway, the last couple of days have been really nice. The weather is getting better again and I'm atleast pretending to meet people. I've also had a problem with sleeping, or rather, I've been sleeping too much. That made me a bit nervous about today since I had a placement test early in the morning. But I got up in time and everything. I've also had time to go to the gym and hanging out some more with the danes. They're all very good people, but their reputation sucks.
I've also registerd with the embassy so now my precense here is known. I guess they care about as much as anyone else about that.

Today I had, as i wrote before, the placement test. IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOO HARD!!! I couldn't even believe it. Ok, I haven't studied Arabic for a year and of course I've forgotten a lot but this was insane. Still there are those that are worse than me but I won't be in any of the higher levels. This does actually come as a bit of a surprise since I still speak rather well. I mean; I've managed to negotiate an apartment deal and I do most everything in Arabic but when it comes to modern standard I'm so lost I can't belive it.

After all parts of the test I went with some other foreigners, one German guy, one Check girl and two Brittons to eat and have coffee. They all seem like really nice people and I might see them again at a party tonight. Apparantly a lot of the foreigners living in the old city are getting together for tonight. And since I'm never one to say no to a good party I'll be there. Maybe I'll even have my first clash with my landlord tonight...

2006-02-11T21:04:00.000+02:00

Passing time

I moved in to my apartment yesterday. It's as nice as it gets, the problem, though, is that it's also as cold as it gets. I used up all the oil in one of my heater. I guess I'll freeze to death tonight. This only means one thing for sure and that's that I'll have the warmest apartment in the summer, and yes, there's no air conditioner. That's life.

I spent most of last night watching tv. I was wrong before, I have like 400 channels but most of them are in Arabic, German, Italian and Farsi. But there are som music channels and at least one that show American movies and one that shows American tv-shows. So I watch Dr Phil and Oprah for all it's worth. And I'm also freezing. Did I mention that?

Today I slept late again. Maybe not the smartest thing to do but it sure felt nice. I also washed some more clothes and went shopping for some things I needed for the apartment. Then I went to the gym again. Might as well make it in to a routine and I haven't had a shawarma all day. Good riddance. Now I'll just go home and freeze some more...

2006-02-10T17:02:00.000+02:00

Sleeping in

Today is my first day to relax a bit. I really slept late this morning before moving all my things over to my new apartment. The good thing is that it's only downhill from Jonas place, the bad thing is that I had to go two rounds to carry everything. The rest of the day I've spent washing clothes and watching tv. I have like 300 channels on my tv but only four or so are in english and two of those are BBC World... I don't even have CNN but I do have a couple of Quran channels. That's really educational...

So I take some time to tell you about Damascus. It's a rather big city that I can't find my way around yet. I have to take a taxi whenever I want to go anywhere, and that include to the other side of the street. Arabs might be the most hospitable crowd around but when they get behind the wheel they go compleatly crazy. It's fun and interesting for awhile but mostly I just fear for my life. Other things I've learnt so far include that it's impossible to find a shawarma place or internet cafe when you want one but they're everywhere when you don't. The one I'm using right now is really good but also expensive. I guess it's all about quality here.

2006-02-09T22:25:00.000+02:00

I sold my soul to the Devil

So I went along with it and signed a six month contract with the ultraconservative landlord. It's not as bad as it seems and I'll be fine. I might even be able to move after six months if I'm not happy. At least I have a nice place to live for now.

Other than that nothing much new happend today except for me getting a gymcard. I just hope I'll use it. One thing is for sure and that's that I have to stop eating only shawarma and pizza. I hope that'll change with my new apartment...

I've also noticed some interesting things about Syrians. The one thing they always ask me after how I'm doing and where I'm from is which currency we use in Sweden. It might seem like a strange question to ask someone, then again I'm not Syrian...

Another fun thing happend yesterday; I was in this taxi and the driver wanted to know what "Last night I dreamt of San Remo" meant. Apparently he'd been thinking about it for years. He got so happy when I told him that I didn't have to pay him. Good times man!

2006-02-08T23:30:00.000+02:00

Looking for a life in all the wrong places

I spent today looking for a place to live. It went pretty well and I visited some different places. Now it's more or less down to two different apartment; The first one is a really nice two room place with a washing machine and balcony and more or less everything else that you can want. It's also quite cheap but it's in a rather conservative neighbourhood and I'll probably get stoned for living my life. The other place is just a room without more or less anything except for a bed and a lamp, but it's really really cheap. On the other hand; to have a real apartment with all the luxuries for less than 15.000 lira/month might be worth it. Instead of paying half for something that's worse than a cell at my old job... Options, options. I think I go for the nice apartment, I've never been one to turn down a good stoning...

Other things going on: My computer broke down so I have no idea how to finish my thesis. I'll try to get it fixed but since it's a mac it's probably impossible. I'll just have to settle for being a notorious under performer. If anyone feels like sending me an old computer you're more than welcome to do so :) New ones are of course also accepted :)

2006-02-07T22:18:00.000+02:00

PASSED EXAM!!!

I know I already wrote a post today but there's so much going on I just felt like writing another one. One thing is sure so far; I must have set a record in registring at the uni today. I managed to get it all done in one day. I started out going with J to campus in the morning but the office was closed so I had a cup of coffee and ten or so ciggarettes. Then I went back to the office and got my application form and the paper that I should hand to the Aids test center. After that I took a taxi that was expensive even by Swedish standards, but at least it got me there. Getting ripped off is after all a big part of the Middle Eastern experiance. At the center I had to first visit the "library" to have my picture taken and to make some photocopies of my passport. Then this guy at the center stuck a needle in to one of my veins and poured a couple of liters of my blood in to a tube. That wasn't too bad though, I've had worse, I have a small brother for God's sake. Then it was on to the embassy to get a paper stating that they have no objecions to me studying at the uni, which they hadn't but they told me to stay inside today, which I didn't. Now I was really getting hungry but food is a luxury best enjoyed at a later time. Instead I did some emailing and updated this page. When I finished that I went to the souq to buy some workout clothes and towels, yet again I was ripped off harder than a grandma in a Morrocan bazaar. At least I got everything I wanted before heading back to the center to get my result and I'm happy to say that I passed my first test here, the results came back negative, which I think was positive. With no time to spare I headed straight back to uni, got a hold of a pen to fill out my application form and handed everything in. All accomplished in just a little bit more than five hours. Good going boy! After all that I was so tired and out of cash that I had to go back home to pick some up. Too bad for me neither I or the cab driver knew where I'm staying so all of the money I had on me was spent getting almost back. I had to walk the last part. But I don't complain, that wouldn't just be me now would it?

For those of you that feel like you need my new Syrian number, please send me an email.

2006-02-07T11:22:00.000+02:00

One day in paradise

As I wrote yesterday I arrived safe and well. The flight was really nice since I both ran in to an old classmate of mine and that we didn't stop in Aleppo so the flight was only four hours. I had no problems at the airport, except for tipping the guy who carried my bag to the taxi ten dollars. I hope he needed them. I'm not able to call from my Swedish phone here but it's possible to send text messages. This made contact with Jonas a bit hard but I managed to get hold of him and a guy on the street handed me his phone so that I could call Jonas. He asked me to meet him in front of a mosque in Baramke. Of all the places to meet that might not have been the best but I was only mildly harrased and when I explained to everyone that I'm Swedish everything was ok. After meeting Jonas we went back to his really nice apartment and I had a shower, checked the news and sent my mother an email. Later in the evening we went out for some shawarma and strange soda, the shawarma was great, the soda wasn't. I tried to make Jonas go to the newly opened KFC but the refused so instead we went to a very western inspired coffee shop. They advertised things like San Fransico Blend and European Espresso. We also had the chance to check out our embassies. They looked fine, not. When I visited the Swedish one today I got a better look at things and it kind of looks like a reclaim the streets demonstration on steroids had been allowed to roam freely in the entrance area.

For now everything seem to be quite calm but rumors say that there'll be a demonstration against the French today and against the Danish again on saturday so maybe I'll go to Lattakia or something for the weekend.

2006-02-06T17:31:00.000+02:00

Alive on arrival

I'm in Damascus now, the weather and everything else is wonderful. Take care and be safe.

2006-02-05T20:30:00.000+02:00

Where does the good go?

My plan was to write something funny about packing today but the last couple of days kind of make that a tad improper so I'll just write this instead. I'm still leaving for Syria so my plans hasn't changed in any way. This does not mean that everything is still the same. I will have to take it easy for a couple of days and check the situation out and I also have to admit that I'm a bit scared. Mostly I think it's because of the trip but the situation makes me feel like thinking everything over once or twice. I will, of course, be on the next plane home if the situation get completely out off hand, but I don't think that'll happen.

God speed on all of you and take care, wherever you are.

2006-01-31T23:40:00.001+02:00

All moved outAll moved out

So this is it, kind of the end of a quite large part of my life. Yesterday I quit my job and my home. For now I'm homeless and unemployed, some people say that I chosed it myself, yet others ask me how I was so lucky as to get a cardboard box with internet access. They are all good comments and question but I refrain from giving them any notice. So yes, I'm still the same. Anyway, I spent today cleaning my apartment. Since it's very small I thought a day or a day and a half tops would do it but as time passes I'm starting to doubt that I'll ever finish. Me and dirt simply get along so well that parting is so very very hard (joke). It's actually not so bad and I'll finsh tomorrow, as planned. After that it's just chilling time until I leave. Packing and drinking beer, maybe even packing some beers, oooh you brave new world.

2006-01-27T02:49:00.000+02:00

My life in boxes

My apartment looks like some one detonated a bomb in here, and that only to clean up the Hurricane that passed through here last week... I´m leaving my apartment as one of the many steps in preparing for my trip to Damascus.
Another thing I´ve done to prepare myself is to quit my job, or more correctly: I didn´t harass my boss in to letting me stay for another period. Anyway, I only have three more nights left to work and then I´ll move to my dad´s house. I really liked both my job and my apartment. Mostly everyone understand why I like my apartment but very few people understand why I like my job. Still, three more nigths and then it´s all over. I hope these last nights will be quiet and calm, considering that it´s the last week end of the month I shouldn´t get my hopes up but I´ll bring my school books anyway.

2006-01-05T18:51:00.001+02:00

So this is it

Finally it feels like I am really getting ready to go. Yesterday I paid for my ticket and handed in the last couple of papers to the student aid agency. Today I received notification that my application has been approved. Very good news indeed. I will now be able to stay for the full six months as planned. Today I had my teeth checked by the family dentist. She isn't really the family dentist in any other way than that my entire family have our teeth checked by her. Yet again I didn't have any cavities. After the visit I had to eat an entire bowl of sugar to celebrate that joyful happening. When I had finished the white poison and also had a cup of coffee I visited the Syrian embassy. As I knew that you aren't able to pay the visa fee in cash I didn't withdraw any money before going there. But as had finished my visa application the clerk asked me for payment in cash. Which I, of course, was unable to grant him. So instead I went to the bank next door, withdrew money and then returned. All in all I went up and down those stairs three times. Good for me they deceided to put the embassy on the fourth floor... In the end all things are well.

2005-12-21T20:02:00.000+02:00

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