the movies today - plus some pics from Damascus in Syria!

So I went to the movies today to see Sin City... it was the first distinctly Western thing I've done since coming here, but I needed the break. 4.5 hours of Arabic a day really starts weighing on you. I realized today that I now know why babies cry... it's because they can't understand what in the heck everybody else is saying, and have to spend all day learning it!

The movies in Beirut are mostly better than in the US - they're the same movies, but a ticket is only $5, the sodas and candies cost $1, and the seats are super plush, like armchairs. We were in a theater that could fit about 500, but only 15-20 people came to see the movie. The movies are also always at the same time no matter the day - 2:30, 5, 7:30 and 10... 8 different movies at each time! Now that I know about this place I'll probably catch some other American movies before I go home.

The one thing that's bad about the movies here is that they're subtitled in TWO languages (French and Arabic for an English-language movie) so the subtitles take up half the screen...

Anyway, here are some photos from Damascus. It's a beautiful city. Also, what's really good is, I finally broke through the network security so I can just upload pictures to the blog directly, which means the pictures won't cut out again. TO SEE A BIGGER PHOTO, CLICK ON THE SMALLER ONE.

First, here is a picture I took from a little alleyway in Damascus that we walked through to get dinner the first night we were there. A large portion of the city consists of houses surrounded by these tiny alleyways that predate cars. I got the impression that this is the style for most of the residential areas. Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, so that makes sense. It's very romantic/cozy too!


We also went to one of the Syrian government's official museums/souks, and part of it doubled as a propaganda center. This is a bust of one of the country's former leaders, I didn't ask which one:


And here is one of their retired MIG's. To the left you can see a planeclothes "officer" (read: government thug) with some sort of automatic weapon in his hand. Syria has many of these.


I have some cool videos too, which I will upload in my next installment :). Time to go work on some Arabic!

- Stephen

80 miles from Iraq in a Bedouin tent smoking nargileh

Here's update #1 (of many, many to come) regarding my trip to Syria. I have an enormous amount of great stuff to relate, plus I want to keep you all interested, so I'm going to do it in daily batches of descriptions, pics and videos (new!).

[[NOTE: I HAVE BEEN EXCEEDING MY DATA TRANSFER LIMIT RECENTLY, SO PICS/VIDEOS MAY BE TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE WHEN YOU VISIT THE SITE. IF THIS HAPPENS JUST COME BACK IN AN HOUR, AND PLEASE DON'T HIT REFRESH AT ALL. I'M WORKING TO FIX THE SITUATION. THANKS!]

First, I'd like to thank everybody for being so interested in my blog. I really appreciate the readership, and it motivates me to keep writing this. Rock on!

Second, a big welcome to my parents and sister who are now among my readership.

Anyway, on to the trip. One of the things I forgot about going to Syria is that it's right next to Iraq. So there are lots of signs in central and eastern Syria that point you in that direction, for example,


We went far east on Saturday night to visit an old Bedouin town called Palmyra, which has supposedly existed since before the Arabic language reached the region ("Palmyra" is impossible to spell with Arabic phonetics). Palmyra, as well as the road we traveled along to reach it, is only 80 miles from Iraq at the most. And unlike Lebanon and western-central Syria, it's close to a desert. This was the typical landscape driving there:


Here's a picture of the landscape along Palmyra taken at sunset, it was really nice there:


Here's a picture of a roadside reststop we stayed at during our trip to Palmyra, about halfway through, in the middle of the desert. It felt a lot like Tattoine... the people who run the store live in the Luke Skywalker-esque buildings behind me.


In Palmyra we had dinner in a traditional Bedouin tent... it was awesome!!! Here's a pic:


And finally, the best part of this post: I took a video of Bedouin dancers inside the tent!!! This is incredible. Click here to view it - (PLEASE don't download the photo more than once because it is large and I have limited bandwidth! It's ok if you play it more than once, but don't click on the link again if you close the window. You might want to just save it to your desktop)

That's all for now! I'll post another update in about 24 hours.


PS: Two housekeeping comments for you : First, note that sometimes I respond to comments, so you might want to check back if you asked a question or something. Second, I still haven't gotten around to sending invitations to the remaining ~150 people, but I hope to do that tomorrow now that our trips are becoming fewer and farther in-between.

big update coming in 6-7 hours

So I apologize for misleading everybody by saying I'd have an update on Sunday... we got back later than expected and I was much more tired than expected, so I just went right to bed. Then yesterday we had a big birthday party for two of the guys here that lasted all night. Now we're going on yet another trip to yet another Lebanese town. It's a bit much, but that's why I'm here.

Anyway, I have almost a hundred photos and videos from Syria and lots to tell all of you, plus I'm going to send an invitation to the other 150 people I haven't told about the blog yet. So today will be a big day for this blog. For now, though, I have to go.

PS: There was an assassination attempt against the outgoing Lebanese Minister of Defense a few hours ago... though I guess if you only read American news outlets you wouldn't know that. This has become so frequent in Lebanon though that it's hardly even a big deal for me anymore... though it is for the Lebanese citizens here!!

brb,

Stephen