We had a great day out in Bosra. The city is a couple of hours on the bus to the South of Damascus. It seemed that we had to travel halfway to Beirut just to get the bus though! When we arrived in Bosra we were unable to find any accommodation. There were 2 options: sleep on blankets on the floor in a big room behind the “1001 Nights” restaurant, or pay US$200 to stay in 5 star luxury. We took the third way - exploring the site and returning to Damascus! The restaurant allowed us to leave our now unneeded [View Full Entry]

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So, summer school 1 is over and today we begin the second of the three intensive English courses. We had some great students. Russ was invited to go out for the afternoon and smoke some hubbly-bubbly with some of the guys he taught. They took him to a local café, which seemed to be men only, where he was treated to a couple of hours of strong Arabic tea, fresh fruit salad and a long puff on the water pipe. There are many synonyms for the argileh (as the Arabs call it). In London they are called hookahs (nothing to do [View Full Entry]

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Hama is the fourth largest city in Syria. It took us just under three hours to get there from Damascus and we were instantly impressed by the chilled out feel to the place, delighted to find the most delicious chicken kebabs (so far) at the bus station, and very happy not to be ripped off by a taxi driver! We stayed at the Riad Hotel and when we return we will definitely stay there again. It was like a cross between a one star hotel and a backpacker hostel with excellent service, friendly staff, and other travellers to talk to! Our [View Full Entry]

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Our first trip out of Damascus was not without its difficulties! We took a taxi out to the main bus station for routes to the North of the country. Then we had to find the right bus - not an easy task with almost no Arabic!! Eventually we were on a 10am departure which left on time, moved about 10 yards, then spent 20 minutes crawling along to the police check area at the exit. Finally we were on our way through the hot sandy scenery for a couple of hours. That took us to Homs. The bus station at Homs [View Full Entry]

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Damascus is proving to be a fascinating place to live. For us, it’s our first experience of living in a Muslim country. Mosques are everywhere and at prayer times the sound of the muezzin calls are haunting as they echo around the city. Working every afternoon and evening isn’t leaving much time for exploring the city. That’s why we try to go somewhere new at every opportunity. This week we went to the Great Umayyad Mosque, a huge but beautiful place on a site which has been a place of worship for various religious groups since the 9th Century. To get [View Full Entry]

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It’s amazing how quickly you can settle into a place. The language barrier is huge but we are managing. This is a place where “eh” means yes, “la” means no and a written 7 means 6!!! We have even had our first emergency Arabic lesson which was, shall we say, interesting!! Work wise it’s been a bit of a culture shock. We last taught in Argentina back in December so being back in the classroom was a little strange at first. We soon got used to it and are fully into the swing of teaching a full 24 or so hours [View Full Entry]

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Damascus, Syria, part of the so-called axis of evil and a place where all the signs are in Arabic which might just as well be ancient Greek or Aramaic! So, why did we choose to come here? Well, 35 degrees of sunshine almost guaranteed for the next three months, a job with the British Council, and about as much hummus as we can manage to eat are just three of the reasons! The people seem very friendly and we are managing to communicate in restaurants in broken English, the odd word of French and lots of pointing. We MUST learn a [View Full Entry]

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Our last week in England was a bit hectic to say the least. We tried to fit in visits to as many people as possible, so apologies to those we ended up missing out. Maybe next time! We returned to Chislehurst, Kent, to stay with Trish’s sister, Sue, for a few days. Whilst there we visited Knole Park in Sevenoaks. The sun shone all day for us and even the deer came out to see us. It was like a scene from a non-cartoon Bambi at times! We had our picnic lunch looking out over the golf course. Nice of them [View Full Entry]

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Does anyone want to buy our house? We have just been back there for a week to spruce it up a bit but now is not a great time to have a house on the market. Still, maybe someone out there fancies a bit of good value by UK standards. It's only a couple of minutes walk from Tesco and the town centre, a 2 minute drive to the M4 motorway, 15 minutes to the coast and 45 minutes to the Brecon Beacons. It has it all really! SO SOMEBODY BUY IT PLEASE!!!!! It was good to be back, but our [View Full Entry]

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We had a tough 6 hour drive down to Devon in terrible weather. It was our first real experience of traffic jams on British motorways since we got back. Very unpleasant!! Our week in the village of Thorverton, near Exeter, Devon, was both relaxing and hectic. With new nephew William to welcome into the family plus Jack (4), Bryony (5) and Kaitlyn (7) to keep us occupied, we were pleased to be house-sitting for a friend of the family. The peace and quiet saved our sanity!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t get me wrong, it was great to see them but it made us realise [View Full Entry]

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