Arrival to a stange place

So, here I am, sitting in an internet cafe at 1:43am in Damascus and what a day it has been! I woke up this morning at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep, possibly due to the excitement of the coming day. Anyway, I got up, sorted a few things out for my trip, then I watched “Quantum of Solace”, which is a pretty awesome film, though not as good as Casino Royale.

Bond aside, I went downstairs and made my mum a cup of tea, as a sort of parting gift, so she was in a good mood and saying goobye when she went off to work at 8 wasn’t so bad. Then I had aaaages to wait before I went off to the airport, so I just watched some trashy TV and made myself a nice bacon buttie, possibly my last for a long time depending on the availability of pork in Syria…

Soon the time came to leave and I shoved all my bags in my dad’s car and got the usual lectures of “don’t leave your camera on the plane” and so on. Then we set off on our way to the airport, which was all the usual boring check-in, waiting then finally getting onboard the flight. Luckily I had someone on the flight with me who’s studying with me out in Syria, Alex Cosgrove, and we got to know eachother on the flight while I was laughing out loud whilst watching The Karate Kid - the inflight movie.

The flight was long and mostly uneventful. Managed to get a nice selection of free alcohol on board which is always nice. Food wasn’t too bad, just had to mash it all together and add salt to make it taste better. The arrival at the airport was strange. It took us AGES to get through passport control, though I think we picked the long line as there seemed to be some guy at the front trying to bribe his way into the country.

The first thing that went wrong was that our taxi didn’t turn up, so we had to try and find another taxi to take us to this supposedly hidden hotel place, which was an extra $13 more, which was rather annoying, but it got us there so I can’t really complain that much. We saw some pretty strange sights along the way, like people with their shisha pipes just randomly dotted at the side of the main road, with their cars next to them - such a weird place to do it! Also the drivers were pretty crazy, though not as bad as I thought they might be. It looks like an awesome city from what I’ve seen so far by taxi, can’t wait to explore it properly!

At the hotel my room was fine but they had Alex down for a more expensive room which she says she didn’t book, so I had to get them to give her the less expensive room. Our rooms are actually really nice. I’ve got two beds in mine for some reason… not quite sure why, but hey, I’m not complaining. It’s got aircon but it doesn’t really work, and a fan, but it’s still quite hot in there. Not too bad though.

We went out once we’d settled and wandered down the street to the centre, which is literally 2 minutes away. It’s pretty much like living next to Oxford Street in London as you have all the different clothes shops down one large street. There were also loads of pirate DVDs and games for the PC; I saw the classic game “Counter Strike”. Epic!

Also, it’s ridiculous how many people are STILL awake. I swear this city actually NEVER sleeps. Or maybe it’s because it’s still Ramadan, but there are families walking round the centre at 1am going clothes shopping! How ridiculous is that? It’s weird because I actually feel lot safer here than I thought I’d feel, as everyone seems really friendly and willing to help. I also don’t feel as if I stand out here either, which is weird.

One thing I can’t find at the moment are the supermarkets, though I haven’t exactly searched extensively, which is annoying as I’d quite like to get food before tomorrow so I don’t have to go out and buy food in the day during Ramadan.

There’s Eid Al-Futr next Friday too so I’m really looking forward to that and to seeing all the celebrations. It should be a lot of fun.

Anyway, my time has run out at the internet cafe so I’ll let you know how I’m getting on soon. I’ll take loads of photos tomorrow and upload them.

D

1 year ago  /  1 note