A Weekend in دمشق

Friday morning I woke up at 10am and went on a little wander around the streets with my camera, just to see what I could see and to sort of orientate myself and work out where I was in the city.

First I walked down a few of the streets coming off the main square next to where I’m staying and I looked around at the different shops. Thing is this was kinda hard as none of them were open… I have a feeling that due to it being Ramadan, most shops aren’t open most of the day and that they only open late at night like they were at 1am on Thursday night when I got here. There was also a complete lack of traffic and/or people on the street which was kinda unnerving. It was like it was 6am or something…

I had to ring up my bank because I’d had some problems with my card the night before and on that day with ATMs not accepting my card. According to the bank there was no block on my card or anything to it would have had to have been something wrong with either my card itself or the ATMs that I’d been using. Luckily I’ve been able to sort this problem out and I’ve found an ATM that I can use that takes my card, otherwise I’d be living on the streets.

One annoying thing about my bedroom in the hotel is that it’s ridiculously stuffy. It’s slightly underground and has no real window and the aircon doesn’t really work. All there is, is a big noisy fan on the ceiling. It kinda makes me feel like I’m in Apocalypse Now when lying in my bed. It’s not a really bad room though. It has its benefits such as an ensuite and a comfy bed and a fridge to keep stuff in.

In the afternoon Alex and I went exploring and popped down to the Old City to look around. It was really nice and there were some amazing Souqs there with such a variety of different things to buy. What I did find strange was that there were rows of shops all selling the same thing, which seemed a bit pointless. I also saw the Ummayad Mosque and although I wanted to go in and take loads of photos, I thought it a bit inappropriate as people were being called to prayer at the time and I didn’t want to intrude.

As it was Ramadan I assumed there would be no sign of food or drink on the streets, but there were people selling food and drink and consuming as well, which was not what I thought would happen at all, so I bought a cup of really nice grape juice which was perfect in the 32 degree heat.

Drinkwise in Syria there’re a lot of really ridiculously sugary drinks as I’ve found out from visiting the local shop and buying the equivalent of fanta, only to discover how ridiculously sweet it was. They also have Barbican non-alcoholic beer which is actually really nice. It also comes in different flavours which is weird - like pomegranate.

After the visit to the Old City we caught a taxi back to near the hotel. The driving in Syria is extremely erratic: people seem to swerve back and forth and squeeze into the tiniest gaps on the road, and the amount of beeping they do! It really does your head in after a while! At any chance they get they use their horn, it’s ridiculous. Also, there are no such things as seatbelts, so be prepared to hang on if you’re squeamish: I can’t imagine what my mum would be like in a Syrian taxi… A word of advice for people catching taxis in Damascus: make sure you tip as they will expect it and be grumpy with you if you don’t tip, especially if you’re clearly a foreigner from the West.

Safely back in the hotel I had a nap for a few hours before getting up ready for a meal that evening. We decided to go somewhere nearby and checked Alex’s Lonely Planet guide and went to a place called “Al-Kamal” which was just across the road from where we were staying. As it was our first time in a Syrian restaurant we decided to order a range of starters and a main, just so we could sample some of the cuisine, plus we were starving! We had some hummus, some baba ganoush, some cheese in a pastry and some kibbeh. These were all really nice, though the kibbeh was a bit strange. The hummus was a lot creamier than the hummus you get in supermarkets back in England and was very nice.

What was stange and that I still don’t know what to do with it, is the food they bring at the start of the meal when you first sit down. It’s usually a combination of gerkins, radishes, jalapeños, green peppers, mint leaves and olives which they put down in front of you with some flat breads. When we first got this we weren’t quite sure what to do with it, apart from the obvious, so we sort of mixed the flat breads with them and ate that until our starters came, then we ate them all with the starters, like using the green peppers to scoop up the hummus. Whether or not we were just supposed to snack on them or just use them as starters I have no idea and I still don’t.

After the starters we moved onto the main course. I, being all manly, ordered the steak, which was great albeit a bit strange as it came with a load of grilled cheese on top of it… Alex ordered the chicken and this was a bit of a disaster. All I can say about the chicken was that it was a bit like chicken kiev but with about 10% of the chicken, 4x the amount of oil/butter and the chicken, from what was obvious to both of us, had clearly gone off, as the smell was something I experienced last year from housemates leaving chicken in the fridge for too long… Horrible stuff. Not speaking enough Arabic it left us pretty much unable to complain. Luckily we haven’t got food poisoning.

After the meal we went back to the hotel via the internet cafe I’m in now. I say cafe, it’s really not, and I don’t get why people call them internet cafes as there’re no drinks here… I also discovered here that, as well as facebook being banned, so is calling landline phones from Skype… so let’s hope I won’t get into trouble about that. I then went back to my room where I stayed up watching “Flashpoint”, some American tv series on MBC Action… then I drifted off to sleep.

Saturday I woke up late and just did a bit of Arabic revision ready for our placement test on Tuesday, then in the afternoon Alex and I walked up to the station to see where it was via a small restaurant place where we grabbed a small snack. Some of the interesting things to see on the menu, which seems to be popular all around Damascus, were sheeps brains and sheeps testicles… mmm. What was also strange, albeit understandable as it was Ramadan, was that the men in the restaurant told us they could only do certain things on the menu as they were too tired…

That evening we decided to catch a taxi to a restaurant called “Gemeni” in what was a very modern, fashionable part of Damascus, with lots of Western-looking Syrians wandering around. When we arrived at the restaurant it looked really swish and high-brow, so we went in, sat down, ordered our drinks and waited for the menu… which didn’t come. Eventually I asked for it and the waiter explained to us that they didn’t have a menu and asked us what we wanted: Steak, chicken or fish, and to choose a sauce. I, being the man, went for the steak and asked for a peppercorn sauce, Alex went for chicken with mustard sauce. Both meals when they came were amazing quality. My steak was almost perfect and nice and big too. This for around 15GBP total was pretty amazing value, given a steak back in England wouldn’t drop below 10GBP for a small one. During the meal I enquired as to the lack of menus and the waiter showed me what was the Ramadan menu which was all they were doing at the moment and was written all in Arabic, so he figured it would’ve been slightly difficult for us to understand. I’d definitely recommend this place and I’ll hopefully be going back there at some point.

One thing people have to try when they come to the Middle East is the coffee they have here, which I usually order after a meal. It comes black and usually infused with spices. It’s a love it or hate it kind of thing. If you like your coffees white and weak then this definitely isn’t for you! If on the other hand you like your coffee black then this is definitely a thing to try and love.

When we got back to the hotel I came on here to update the blog and managed to delete all I’d written of Friday’s blog so I just had to write it all again! Error… I’ve managed to remember pretty much all I wrote in the last blog and I’ve added some extras… you lucky people!

One thing I do keep forgetting is the cost of texting back to England numbers from my English phone, so hopefully my bill’s not too high, though the only person I’ve been texting is my mother, just so she stops worrying about me… However I have now purchased myself a Syrian mobile on the cheap with a 12 month contract… If anyone’s coming to Syria then send me a message and I’ll send you the number.

Sunday I woke up very late and did pretty much nothing but revise all day. I ate a lot of snack food which probably didn’t help my stomach which has been feeling a little worse for wear from the Syrian food. What did make my day was this poor Spanish man next door to me who was banging on his door for hours because he couldn’t get out of his room. I eventually left my room to see what the racket was and went to reception to get a porter to let him out. Eventually a porter came and opened the door, then proceeded to step inside and shut the door behind him… surely a recipe for disaster if the other man couldn’t get out when the door was shut? But no, luckily the door was fine after that and the Spanish man was let out of his jail.

We did eventually go out for dinner and we had loads of starters instead of a main course, then we went to find me a Syrian phone. Now this is a very strange affair: Not only do they need your passport to get a phone, but they also need your fingerprint too… Very weird… I was slightly freaked out by that.

After that Alex and I grabbed a mixed fruit drink for around 75SYP and chilled out for a bit before trying to get an earlish night’s sleep (after I’d watched Flashpoint of course). Anyway, that pretty much sums up my weekend experience in Damascus. One of the most important things I’ve learnt is that when you get change: try and hold onto it as it’s extremely hard to come by as the notes that the ATMs give out are way too large! A 500SYP note may seem small, and is less than a fiver, but most things are so cheap that it seems too big, so try and hoard the 100SYP and 200SYP notes!

1 year ago  /  Notes