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...

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.

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...

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...

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.

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...

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.