Originally when they told us we'd have a week off after every 4 weeks of uni i thought this sounded pretty generous, perhaps even excessive seeing as we finish at 1pm every day but now, since doing my extra course, i am so so grateful! The weeks holiday in October was supposedly a chance to catch up on work and chill out a bit after a hectic few weeks but i have never passed up a chance to go traveling and i don't intend to start now! We toyed with the idea of going to Lebanon but i decided against it in the end because i already spent a month there last year and wanted to explore more of Syria before the weather cools off.
I should probably say first though that we did not encounter any dodgy taxi drivers on the way to Malula after my last post, all went annoyingly smoothly, and i was not required to assure the driver that i was merely human. Malula is a funny little place in the desert with a couple of fairly touristy monasteries but we heard some aramaic and once we'd climed up the hill over looking the town the view was pretty cool.
So at the beginning of our weeks holiday in October i travelled to Mar Musa, a fairly famous ecumenical monastary in the middle of nowhere surrounded by desert. My friend Ashley and i wanted to escape Damascus for a while and quite spontaneously decided to go and stay there for a few days. It was amazing! It's hard to capture the atmosphere there just writing about it i'll try.
After getting a taxi from the nearby town of Nebek along an almost deserted stretch of road that leads nowhere except to the monastary we then climbed a few hundred steps (for some reason doing exercise in Syria feels more painful than back home!) and arrived at our destination. It's fairly informal there and travellers drop by and stay for a few days/weeks/months or maybe even years. It's got a great community feel and in exchange for a bed and food people muck in with the cooking or cleaning or farm work or just bring some food or make a donation. The actual monastary is a network of little tiny doors, underground rooms, the stone chapel littered with cushions, tea lights, incense, what would have been lavishly painted walls in their time and the coolest library ever with the most ecclectic collection of books i've ever seen! The mixture of people there was very interesting too, many different nationalities with many different stories. There are nine permanent residents six of which are eurpoean and three are syrians - father paolo who founded Mar Musa is italian my languages got quite a work out while i was there as it cetainly wasn't just arabic being spoken. We spent a morning exploring the mountains behind the monstary, admiring the peace and quiet, the veiws and generally enjoying the fact that our lungs didnt burn from the smog/pollution like they do if you do anything more strenuous than walk in Damascus! Ok so it's not that bad but it certainly isn't fresh somerset countryside air here! I'd like to go back and visit again but it really will be freezing there at night now and a lot of it is open to the elements so we'll see.
Yeah so i said i wouldn't ramble but evidently i lied. The rest of the holiday i mainly stayed in Damascus. We went for a day trip to Quneitra, a town on the edge of the Golan Heights down on the border with Israel. Now a completely deserted ghost town since the Israeli bulldozers destroyed most of it and it's become a sort of memorial to the events of 1973.
It's now UN controlled and you need a permit to go there but it's just an hours drive or so from Damascus.
It was also Ashleys 21st birthday during this week and the definite highlight of that was going to the Four Seasons hotel (the extremely posh hotel in Damascus) for brunch. (Although calling it "brunch" in no way does it justice!) There were whole rooms of food and after paying your 1000 SYP (about 14 quid) it was all you can eat and there was EVERYTHING!!! Not only was there plenty of really high quality arabic food but there was sushi, seafoods, roast beef and lamb, a pasta bar, selection of homemade breads and cheeses, (particularly exciting when all you've had for two months is flat bread and rubber cheese), arabic sweets like bacalava and kanafa, and huge array of pudding and mounds of fresh fruit. We were there for four hours! I dont think i ate the next day. Amazing.
Anyway so since then it's been back to classes and a more hectic schedule. I have now finished my colloquial course though and the thought of having actual free time during the week is a little disconcerting! I met a girl in Mar Musa who wants to meet up for language conversation exchange so i think i'm going to start meeting her every week. The only really exciting things to report from the last few weeks are that we had Top Gear and Hugo Chaves visit Damascus in the same week...Jeremy Clarkson casually strolled past my house! Oh and i've stated Salsa classes!! A couple of syrian friends invited Ashley and I along so i now have salsa lessons monday and wednesday nights. Not exactly fitting with the culture here perhaps but we are the only foreigners in the class and salsa actually appears to be very popular among more "upper class" syrians.
Starting to make travel plans for our next weeks holiday starting on the 11th November...possibilites are Jordan or northern Iraq but going to have to follow the news and play it by ear a little over the next few weeks i think due to current circumstances.
Congratulations if you made it this far!! There is so much more i could talk about - I'm moving house soon...it's pretty chilly at night now (although still gets to 26 degrees and is always sunny during the day! :) ) - but i think that's enough for one post and i may get kicked out of this cafe soon. I finished my drink ages ago and i'm still using the wifi.
Keep the news from back home coming...i know i'm poor at replying but it's always good to hear!
