There is this amazing city in the north-west of Syria: unspoiled beaches, a more liberal atmosphere and hardly any tourists, or so we were told by the Dutch institute. In retrospect, we should have been able to tell that this idyllic, calm and clean place cant really exist in Syria. What we couldn't have foretold is that it turned out to be a nightmare. After a bus trip and the most expensive / short minibus ride experienced so far, we arrived at the beach chalets. They were less chalet-like and beachy than expected (no beach in sight). This did not spoil [View Full Entry]

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...eat me completely, all that I give you, you eat, tamaam?' is how our first lesson in Arabic started yesterday. Wasil is an amazing teacher, extremely active and serious about his job. His English is rather poor, but he compensates this with a fanatic attitude I have seldom seen in a teacher: even though we have four hours of instruction every day, we only get to have two three minute breaks and lessons tend to run late: there is no minute to be wasted on such useless past-times as thinking or writing things down: one should pay attention, repeat and learn. [View Full Entry]

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Since I had picked Arash up from the airport Sunday morning at four and we had had a day full of tests, we decided upon a short nap before heading out to see some more of the old city: we ended up at one of the popular cafes near the Umayyid mosque for some narjeela (sheesha, supposedly, is Egyptian) and tea (beer is in short supply). More sleep followed, but not before we had been elaborately introduced to the art of name calligraphy by an old man passing by: based on my mum and dads surnames (loosely interpreted as von behr [View Full Entry]

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You look like you speak English! What does 'skurmesches' mean?! This was roughly the first thing that came my way when I set foot on the streets of Damascus. The shopkeeper was reading a lonely planet about his own country. For a second, I wondered whether he would be offended when he would find out that the beloved travel guide describes the skirmishes at the Israeli - Syrian border. Upon explaining the word, he did not seem to care much and instead helped me on my quest for a Syrian SIM card. This proved especially hard since many shops are closed [View Full Entry]

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