Ahhh...where to begin...
There is so much to go into this posting...so many adventures, mishaps, history...I hope my words and pictures can do it justice!
It all begin with an easy, on-time flight to JFK to meet Wendi to start our adventure to Syria. When I told people I was going on vacation to Syria, everyone wanted to know one thing: Why? For some reason, I've been fascinated with Syria for years. Syria is home to some of the oldest, continuously inhabited towns in the world. It's history spans thousands of years, countless civilizations, rulers, wars...all the stuff a great epic novel is made of. We're talking Crusader castles, Roman ruins, Christian churches, Muslim mosques...Whether or not it's true, there is a story that the Prophet Mohammed saw Damascus from a nearby mountainside and refused to enter because he wanted to enter paradise only once, when he died. Unfortunately Wendi and I almost didn't make it when our flight to Istanbul was delayed four hours!
Waiting at the gate, it became clear that our plane was mostly filled with Orthodox Jewish families heading to Israel. One family was literally 35 people. I was mesmerized by the men in their suits and tophats, and the young wives with their wigs and children. Boarding the plane, Wendi and I were sat in the midst of them all. It was like a social event...the aisles were packed with people chatting and gossiping all night long. A video would drown them out, you say? Well yes, if the in-flight entertainment was working, which it was NOT. Wendi sat next to a man who alternately looked out the window while covering his head with a blanket and played the drums on his iPod touch with his thumbs. Strangely, although the menu promised dinner to be vegetarian canneloni, it was covered in meat sauce. And breakfast included pork sausage! Serving pork to a plane full of Jews on their way to the Middle East is a bit odd, to say the least. It was off to a rocky start.
Shockingly, the flight passed quickly and before we knew it, we were booking through the Istanbul airport trying desperately to make our connecting flight. When we got to our departure hall, the entire hall was a throng of people - no line, no order whatsoever...we just had to push our way through and funnel down to four security lines. We made our flight with not a minute to spare! I don't remember the last time I was so grateful.
Arriving into Damascus, we got our backpacks from baggage claim (they made it!) and headed outside to get a taxi. He spoke no English (a common theme here). We told him repeatedly the name of our hotel (Afamia) and after half an hour, we pulled up to a medieval building called something along the lines of Atlandia Hotel. An argument ensued where he wanted more money to take us where we needed to go, and we finally gave in and paid him and got dropped off. Afamia Hotel was a midrange hotel...not nice enough to write home about, but nor did we have to shower with our shoes on (that comes later!). Although we were tired, we dragged ourselves into the streets of Damascus.
Having heard about the Damascus souq (bazaar), we headed there. You have to pass through the Old City walls to enter the souq. Although the Old City dates back to the 15th century BC, the current walls and gates are "new" (13th century). There we found people out in full force...wandering the lanes, selling towels, linens, sugar holders, lingerie, mosaics, etc. The souq is covered with a metal roof but you can see bullet holes leftover from when the French bombed Damascus with artillery in 1925. People looked curiously at us as we walked along Straight St., but as we've found all over the country, theirs is a reserved friendliness.
We had an excellent dinner that night at a restaurant in the souq called Al-Khawali. Spicy hummous and fresh bread to start, fresh strawberry juice, followed by shish taouk (chicken kebob) for me and some baby leg of lamb in broth for Wendi. For dessert, they brought plates of fresh figs (delicious!), grapes, and a plate of probably 40 miniature pistachio cookies. We were so satiated that we walked off the food and fell into bed. By this time I had been traveling for 32 hours. Impressive.
Friday was our first full day in Damascus and we slept late, which was ok since that is the day of rest here. The souqs were mostly empty but we went to the Umayyad Mosque which is one of Islam's most important buildings. It is third in sanctity only to Mecca and Medina. Originally built in the 9th century BC for Hadad, it was later devoted to Jupiter by the Romans, then became a Christian church when Constantine embraced Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire, then had Christian and Muslims worship side by side when the Muslims entered Damascus in 636 AD...Finally it was turned into today's mosque - built over a 10 year period by 10,000 workers and costing seven years of taxes from all of Syria. It's a beautiful mosque with a spacious, open courtyard, showcasing the mosaics that adorn the the walls.
After the mosque, we let ourselves get lost among the wandering lanes...where flowers and vines grow over top off of balconies, and if you peer through gates or the occasional open door, you get a glimpse of gorgeous courtyards and intricate architecture. 
We ate in a restaurant called Takaya, sitting in their open air courtyard by a fountain...having our standard hummous and fresh fruit juice. We were totally unhassled and could take our time browsing the various artisan's stands. It was an awesome first day.
Saturday we were up early and we put on our backpacks and hoofed it to the local Europcar office. As I've found in most of the Middle East, street names mean nothing and are not really known by the locals. Although I rented a car online and chose the least expensive car, they ecstatically told us multiple times that we were getting a Volvo S40. It's really nice...manual, with leather seats and even a CD player! Miraculously, we navigated our way out of Damascus on the correct road...imagine a three lane road that is turned into a four lane game of dodge-car...with taxis and tall, narrow trucks darting in and out of the lanes, and of course stopping wherever they feel like it. I love the chaos!
Our plan was to head east to Palmyra, Syria's most popular tourist destination. Palmyra (called Tadmor by locals) is a sprawling archaeological site from the 2nd century AD. Imagine you're driving along dusty, desert terrain...and suddenly you come upon a lush oasis and tall columns and temples rising out of the desert sand. It's pretty unbelievable. It sort of reminded me of Ephesus in Turkey. Palmyra has a rich and long history (which I won't go into here) but in 634 it was basically lost. It wasn't until 1678 that it was rediscovered and since then, archaeologists have been painstakingly excavating the site. I hope my pictures do it justice. After checking out the ruins, we ate sandwiches on a terrace overlooking the ruins and then got back on the road.
Our drive took us along lost villages and camel herds (I've never seen so many camels in one place) and Bedouin camps and rocky terrain until suddenly everything was green, and we knew we were in the Orontes Valley.
We miraculously drove directly into Homs, the 3rd largest city in Syria and known to have the friendliest locals. Our hotel (touted in the guidebook as "modern and spotlessly clean") was anything but! The first room they showed us was unique - if you sat on the toilet, your legs were in the bathtub! Their marketing materials claim (re-typed exactly as it reads in the brochure):
"In the center down town of Homs, city which moderate the Syrian city, Lord suite Hotel located in the centre of the city by its lovely overlook at at the bazaars with oriental and western style to give a satisfaction and good mood. The Lord hotel has a beautiful design and gentle furniture for all its sweets, single and double. In additional the eastern and wonderfull atmosphere the customers can feel".
Um.....we checked in and it was pretty much a dump. The porter kept offering me a massage and trying to get me alone...there were red napkins strategically placed around the room like doilies...it smelled suspiciously like some scented spray was masking the dirt...so we immediately headed out. We actually went to a bar in a hotel and had a few local beers and snacked on cucumber with lime juice and peanuts. Around 11 we got in a taxi to take us back to our hotel and asked our driver to stop for falafel sandwiches on the way. Ok, I use the word "ask" loosely...we repeated "falafel" multiple times and mimed stuffing our faces. He got it, and we found ourselves in a local falafel shop. I handed over 2 US dollars, which apparently paid for FIVE sandwiches. Thankfully the driver was hungry too! The sandwiches were delicious...pita stuffed with falafel and mint leaves and tahini and pickles. He took us back to our hotel and both rides, including waiting time, cost one dollar. We gave him a 100% tip and he was so sweet, telling us we were part of his heart (this is me extrapolating his holding of his heart and kind smile). We can see why the people in Homs are known as the friendliest.
Strangely, Wendi and I woke up the following day at 4:30 am. We've never had jetlag on a trip so we didn't know what was going on. Around 7 we finally got up. I showered (while wearing shoes) and we went downstairs to have breakfast. Cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, olives and Nescafe. Yum. A savory breakfast person's dream!
The souq in Homs is known to be one of Syria's most attractive but unfortunately most shops were closed when we were there :( But we walked around in that area and ran our errands (buying water and going to an ATM since 99% of the places in Syria do not accept credit cards. Might I add here that my credit card was turned off for some reason and Wendi's ATM card won't work, so we're pretty much batting a thousand).
We checked out in early afternoon and hit the road again, heading to the town of Hama. The road north to Hama was lined by these odd-looking leaning trees. 
Hama is apparently one of Syria's most beautiful towns, with the Orontes River flowing through the city center. There are norias, or water wheels, that still function in Spring and Summer, carrying water via aquaducts to irrigate fields. It feels very old. Sadly, Hama is also known for the massacre in 1982, when the Muslim Brotherhood declared Hams a liberated city and spoke out against the Ba'ath government and removed goverment officials from their homes. The government retaliated by shelling the city and killing between 10,000 and 40,000 people, while also destroying countless buildings.
Let me give you a political rundown on Syria. I find it so fascinating.
Syria's 18.5 million people are 90% Muslim and 10% Armenian and Greek Orthodox. Syria, in theory, is a Republic but one book we read said it's more like a militarily enforced dictatorship. The country was led by Hafez al-Asad for a long time, who was grooming his oldest son Basil to succeed him as President. When Basil died in a car accident in 1994, Bashar, the younger son who was living in London and working as an opthalmologist, returned to Syria. When Hafez died in 2000, Bashar, then aged 34, won the election with 97% of the vote (ironic it wasn't 100% since no one could run against him). President Bashar promised that the press would be more open, started releasing prisoners, began allowing mobile phone networks, and opened universities. He even supposedly helped the US after 9/11 by handing over files on extremists. But in 2002, the neocons put Syria on the axis of evil list and President Bashar started putting the lockdown on the people of Syria once again.
Syria has few friends - most notably Iran, Russia and Hezbollah (out of Lebanon). The US helped boot Syria out of Lebanon in 2005 after a car bomb killed Lebanon's premier Hariri. There are not enough jobs in Syria (unemployment hovers around 20% and you know we are BITCHING right now with 10-15% unemployment in the US) and a quarter of Syrians live below poverty. In fact, the only people who are poorer in the Middle East are the Yemenis.
What's wonderful is that Syrian people are open and friendly and have been so warm and hospitable to us. They welcome us when they hear we are American (although they are usually surprised since most Americans don't travel here. They give us thumbs up for Obama :) And all are able to discern the different between US public policy and American people. We feel completely safe.
What will be interesting to see is how long President Bashar Asad remains President. The socialist Ba'ath party dominates the goverment and it is quite secular. Arab nationalism is important while religion isn't as much. But the Asad family leans towards the Shia sect and most Syrians are Sunni. Which brings me full circle back to 1982 when the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood tried to overthrow the goverment in Hama and were crushed and run out of town.
Back to Hama...we found the most amazing hotel in Hama called the Orient Hotel. It's an Ottoman mansion with so much character. Imagine tiled mosaic floors, a large courtyard with a fountain, leafy plants all around. The proprieter told us that a former Syrian President once lived there. It wasn't clear who that was. The Orient Hotel was not very central - it was in a side alley outside of the city center so after driving around aimlessly for a good half hour, we finally paid a taxi driver to let us follow him there! He thought it was hilarious. When he pulled into the alley and we saw the hotel, I was so relieved and exhilerated that I stopped paying attention and I hit a parked van!!! The side mirror of the Volvo popped off! That definitely took my excitement down a notch, but the nice van owner came over and fixed the mirror with a smile. I have never been so glad to park and leave the car.
We ate in the restaurant of our Ottoman mansion (Wendi ordered vegetables and rice and we thought she got a bowl of carrots, but no, it was carrots and french fries that were dyed orange!) and took a nap before heading to the city center. We strolled along the Orontes River and saw the water wheels. There was, sadly, a bad stench of sewage. There was also quite a bit of garbage in the water. But it was a full moon so Wendi and I went to a cafe and had a drink outside while overlooking the water. Naturally it was the two of us, some younger men, and some older men playing backgammon. 
Our original plan was to eat at a nice hotel by the river but as we passed this hole-in-the-wall rotisserie chicken restaurant, it smelled so good that we went in. What a feast we had! They brought us cucumber and tomato salad, hummous, baba ganoush, saffron rice, pita and a half chicken each. I swear we didn't speak for 30 minutes while we stuffed outselves with the best chicken I have ever tasted. It was awesome. It's always the local places that have the best food!
The following morning, after showering in our super clean and wonderful Ottoman mansion bathroom (it's the little things that matter while traveling in a developing country!) we had breakfast downstairs and then went out to the car. I realized my little iHome (portable iPod player that is a savior on these road trips) was still up in our room so I ran up to get it. When I got to the room, the door was cracked open so I figured the cleaning woman was in there. Nope, one of the men from the hotel was sitting on the edge of Wendi's bed reading our trashy Life & Style magazine! Well, reading is probably not accurate, but he was likely looking at the half naked pictures of the "Dancing with the Stars" people who all lost 10 pounds by eating two almonds every three hours, or something like that. Practically porn in Syria!
Laughing and with our iHome in the car, we put on some tunes and managed to navigate out of the town. 
We were headed east, passing rocky terrain, Bedouin tents, small mudhut villages, tractors, sheep herders, lime trees, brightly colored trucks...all to visit some beehive villages (Twalid'Dabaghien and As'srouj). These beehive houses are these crazy cone shaped structures that are all over the area. Luckily Wendi and I are not shy in the least, because there were very few road signs and the ones we did come across were only in Arabic! So we have become adept at pulling over constantly, wishing people hello in Arabic, pointing at something on the map, pretending to understand the directions, saying thank you in Arabic, wishing the people well in Arabic, and going on our way until we find some other unsuspecting soul on the side of the road. Well, as we neared the first beehive village, we asked a man directions and he hopped in our backseat. He was probably in his 40s, wearing a long robe and a red and white checked head scarf. He took us to his friend's beehive house (no joke) where we sat with him and his family and drank tea and looked at pictures. 
There were two adorable kids there too - the three year old loved having his picture taken and then seeing the picture on the digital camera. I love these random experiences!
As it was only early afternoon when we finally left the beehive house, we decided to continue east and visit Qasr'Ibn Warden, a sandstone palace church.
It was sort of dilapidated but pretty nonetheless. Afterward, we noticed on the map that there were some local ruins in Allandarin. We turned when the sign said "Allandarin 4 km", and drove 4 km until...the road ended. Literally, the pavement stopped at the 4 km mark and a sand dune began.
We took it as a sign to turn back and got SO lost in the Syrian countryside! Which proved once again that being off the beaten track is where you meet the best people. We were helped by women planting seeds in a field...
men on motorcycles...
and whole families on the side of the road...
We attempted to use the sun to determine what direction we were driving. People in the back of trucks waved at us, some people attempted to lead us to the right road...just amazing hospitality in general. We were invited in for coffee and food at various stops (but politely declined since we had no idea when we would get back to Hama and it gets dark here around 6). Wendi finally had the brilliant idea to look up Hama in Arabic and we decided it looked like "olas" in Arabic and could read it on the occasional street sign and made our way back into town. It was the best adventure!
Dinner that night was (how could it not be?) the awesome chicken place. They remembered us and it was just as good the second time! 
After dinner we tried the special dessert of Hama, called Hakiwat bi djeben, which is a sweet, stringy cheese that is rolled into dough, stuffed with clotted cream, and lightly drizzled with honey and pistacchios. Once we got over the consistency, it wasn't bad.
The following day we got up early, ate breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and hit the road again. This time we were headed to Lattakia, an affluent (in Syria) and liberal town on the Mediterranean. We took a very roundabout way there, through the mountains. The view outside the car was beautiful...rich, brown soil and bright, green trees, and mountainous villages.
Let me point out that until this day, we had been experiencing hot and sunny days, with not a cloud in the sky. And naturally we were in Lattakia when it was overcast and had rained earlier in the day.
We found a really nice hotel in Lattakia called the Riviera. It was also in an old, atmospheric building. The woman at the front desk could not have been friendlier. We asked her if there were any restaurants in Lattakia serving makhlooba (a delicious rice and chicken and eggplant dish we had tried in Wadi Musa, Jordan when our hotelkeeper Ibrahim's mom cooked it for us) and she said, "It is much better prepared by a woman in her home. I see if my sister cook it for you". Next thing we knew, the chef was making it specially for us, and we were upgraded to a suite. Awesome.
Sadly because of the weather we could not swim in Lattakia. But we were able to check out the downtown and get online. Then we returned to the hotel for our feast of makhlooba. It was as good as the first time. A heaping bowl of rice, chicken, eggplant, pine nuts, almonds and spices...just awesome. After a nap (seems to be a common theme here! Hey, we're on vacation!) we went back to the downtown area of Lattakia. You can sense how liberal Lattakia is...women walk around in tank tops and skirts. We wandered around a bit, had a coffee, had dinner on a terrace overlooking the busy street, and had our best night's sleep that night. It was like the week had caught up with us.
Although Riviera Hotel was really nice, the bathtub was a little alarming. Wendi asked me to come in the bathroom when we first arrived because "there's a machine in here that looks like what they have in banks to count bills". Hilariously, there really was. This random machine was on the counter with a tube that led into the tub. We skipped the shower and hit the road yet again to head to Aleppo. Three hours of hair-raising mountainous turns (passing trucks) later, and reading sreet signs in Arabic (Aleppo looks like a sailboat) we rolled into town.
Aleppo is Syria's second largest town and also claims to be the longest continuously inhabited town in the world. It was one of the key stops on the Silk Road and still seems like an old Arabian city. The Old City is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site and will never be modernized.
Wendi and I decided to treat ourselves and went to the Sheraton Hotel. Which was booked. As was the hotel they recommended to us. Well, luckily this second hotel took pity on us and called SIX hotels around Aleppo before finding one with one room left. It's called Ramsis Hotel and it's directly across the street from the historic Baron Hotel, which used to be THE place to stay in Aleppo. Agatha Christie wrote "Murder on the Orient Express" from the Baron Hotel. But it looks very dilapidated while our hotel is nice and modern and clean. Wendi and I are pretty scared that we are becoming adults, wanting nice hotels and all that. It's a big fear!
After dumping our bags, we found a local restaurant and sat in the courtyard and had our usual chicken and hummous and salad meal. It was good but couldn't compare to our place in Hama. But the waiter was so nice...he didn't speak a word of English but he brought only our table a vase of flowers and was very smiley and attentive :)
After lunch we wandered around Al Jdeida, part of the old city that is the Christian and Armenian quarter. There are small and winding cobblestone streets, vaulted ceilings, and churches side by side with mosques. We browsed in some shops and met some nice locals.
The following day was our big day to visit the Aleppo souqs. The souq is not as extensive as either the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul or the Khan al-Khalili in Cairo, but it feels more authentic. This is still where Aleppans come to shop for what they need - be it clothes, a broom, nuts, coffee, soap, fabric, etc. There is not a lot for tourists. The only items that one could buy are really silver, gold, olive oil soap, and nargileh pipes. Walking through you feel like it could be a few hundred years ago.
There are old houses, madrassas, mosques and hammams tucked back behind the walls of the souq. The small and winding lanes are so colorful and traditionally dressed men and women pick through the merchandise and make small talk with the sellers. 
The women in Aleppo are probably the most covered of anywhere we have been so far. I'm almost uncomfortable in a t-shirt (showing my arms). We had lunch on a rooftop terrace overlooking the Great Mosque. The whole day passed while Wendi and I put the guide book away and wandered wherever we felt like it. Unlike the souqs in Cairo and Istanbul, we were relatively left alone here. Some notable exceptions...the guy who walked along us saying "France? England? You look like Dutch? Australia? England?" and the guy who said, "Come and look at my junk. It's very bad quality and very expensive". You can't not laugh!
After we washed the dirt off of ourselves (it's very dusty here) we went to eat dinner at a rooftop restaurant near our hotel. Once again, it was Emily, Wendi and local men. And of course we had grilled chicken and salad and hummous. We also had some Almaza beer that we had first tried in Lebanon. From there we went to our hotel restaurant to have some tea, and ended up talking to our waiter Firas. He is so sweet...his English isn't great but he told us "The Syrian people like very much American people but I know the American people no like Syrians". We weakly protested this, but considering we have seen three Americans here the entire time, he may be right.
Which brings me to the topic of tourists. The only tourists here seem to be elderly French, Spanish and Italian. It's this weird phenomenon that Wendi and I can't get our heads around. People retire and then head to Syria? Is it because they are on fixed incomes? The three Americans we have met have been an awkward old man who approached us in Lettakia to tell us he has never seen another American here, a man sleeping on the couch in the lobby of our nice hotel in Aleppo (the concierge conspiratorally told me he was American by miming a snoring man and saying "American" - I was mortified) and this interesting character named Jeff we met on the street after eating at the rooftop, who is a firefighter in Washington state and traveling alone for three weeks. He was wanderning around at 9 pm without a map, looking for a hotel, and stopped us. Within five minutes he told us that he travels with only a carry-on, said he needed to wash his underwear, took our picture, and asked us if we had good jobs to be able to travel. Naturally Wendi and I almost offered him our extra bed in our hotel room but maybe we are getting a little classier, because we held back, and just had fun talking about him over tea :)
We decided to take another roadtrip the following day. We hit the road around 10:30 am and headed due east, toward Halabiyya, also known as Zenobia.
It's a fortress town about 50 miles from the border of Iraq. It's originally from the year 272. To get there, we passed through what is likely the poorest part of Syria.
We passed farmers, sheep herders, trucks piled impossibly high with goods, women and children and goats packed tightly together in the beds of trucks...I couldn't help but wonder if Syria's President, who lived in London, goes to this part of his country and feels that his land is prosperous. 
As Wendi said when we reached the villages surrounding the ruins, "This is where Jesus would have lived". It was very primitive and you could imagine Jesus kicking it there today. Zenobia has no information, no admission fee...nothing. You just pass through these villages and come upon the ruins. Of course the children in the villages were waving at us and we stopped and took pictures and pseudo-chatted with them.
Zenobia is on the Euphrates River, which was the main purpose of the trip. "Euphrates" means "gentle current" in Greek, and is mentioned in the Book of Revelation and by the Prophet Mohammed. It starts north of Syria in Turkey only 80 km away from the Tigris and they actually meet up in souther Iraq. The word "Mesopotamia" actually means "between rivers".
Strangely, the Book of Revelation says that when the Euphrates dries up, Armegeddon will happen. And Mohammed says that the river will dry up and widespread war will follow. I'm just glad we had a chance to see it, and I seriously hope neither of those instances occur...
On our way back to Aleppo, we swung by Lake Al-Assad. This is a man made lake that was made in the 1960s by damming the Euphrates, in order to provide power for irrigation and hydroelectric power. Strangely, you have to pass by a military checkpoint to reach the lake. The hotel still had our passports so we had to give them our licenses and endure 25 questions about our life. We figured it was preparing us for going through immigration in the US :)
We rolled back in town as the sun set, passing the usual characters on the road. Wendi is the best co-pilot and somehow we manage to learn our way around these new towns really quickly!
Saturday was our final day of vacation. Ok, remember when I said Wendi and I were concerned that we were getting high class and classy? Well that ended when Jeff (the firefighter from Washington) called our hotel room at 9 am and woke us up. He wondered if he could hitch a ride to Damascus (we had loosely offered this on the street the night we met him). We figured at the very least it would give us some good stories for our 26 hour trip home! So he met us in the hotel lobby at noon, and when Wendi attempted to pay the bill, she realized she did not have her credit card. So off the three of us went in search of her card. We got it back from the restaurant where they had forgotten to return it to her, and the three of us went to a classic Aleppan restaurant. It was delicious! Wendi and Jeff ate SHEEP (and later when we passed a herd of them Wendi called out, "Hello sheep! Yum, I ate you for lunch!"). Finally around 2 pm we hit the road.
Our first stop was supposed to be the Dead Cities of Jerada and Ruweiha. The Dead Cities are ancient ghost towns scattered among the limestone hills between Aleppo and Hama. There are about 600 sites in the area! The big question is why they were abandoned. Unfortunately we happened to pass these two cities. But Wendi, being the great co-pilot she is, realized that there were some others that were ahead of us. We pulled off the highway (and I use this term loosely, as there are no exit or entrance ramps, just tractors and motorcycles and slow trucks that pull on and off as they see fit!) and attempted to find these towns. We asked some young boys on motorcycles and they led us around winding one lane roads to this amazing Dead City named Bauda.
Proving that everything always works out in the end, Bauda was PHENOMENAL! It's on the north-south trade route between Antioch and Apamea. In the 4th century AD it was a flourishing town, surrounded by grape and olive trees. Even when the trade route shifted, this area prospered. Unfortunately, nearby was the site of a gruesome act by the Crusaders in 1098. The Crusaders stormed nearby Ma'arat an-Nu'aman and killed thousands of people. But they didn't stop there. Afterwards, they boiled adults in cooking pots and impaled and grilled children...then EATING the bodies.
The rest of the drive with our new friend Jeff was mostly uneventful. Ok, so he might have commented on my driving a few times. He may have asked how many speeding tickets I have. He might have suggested I slow down. Perhaps he once yelled it from the backseat. But Wendi agrees with me...I'm good on the road! There are no street lights on the roads here so once it got dark, I was just thankful for my good night vision. Funny note here - I think Wendi and I saw two women driving the entire time we were here. So imagine the look on people's faces when they passed us (or more likely, when I passed them) and there were two chicks in the front seat. And it was even more priceless when we made our 50 year old male guest sit in the back! Men are alwaaaays in the front.
As luck would have it (or as we like to think, we are deserving of good karma) we rolled into Damascus and immediately got our bearings. We dropped Jeff off near the souqs and navigated directly to the Europcar office. Where naturally, the guy who checked us in with our car was a complete freak. Within a 30 minute period of time, he told us how lucky he was to meet us ten times, hit on both of us, told us he has psychological problems, and begged us to listen to him play the piano while he bought us a drink. Ummm, no thanks. He also told us he is a Palestinian refugee, and said we probably don't know anything about when Israel stole their land. We told him we actually know a lot about the history of the Middle East. He responded that in the US our news is biased and we don't get the real news (partly true). We then responded that we know both sides of the story. He said "There are not two sides of the story! They stole our land". We nodded and booked it out of there...
So we narrowly made our escape (no charges for dents and we drove 2000 HARD kilometers, let me tell you) and headed to the New Town of Damascus. It could not be more different from the Old City where we spent our first two nights. There are French clothing stores, boutiques, bars, modern restaurants and high end confectionary shops. We did the usual Emily/Wendi thing and got absurdly lost and talked to about 20 people before finding a great cafe for a leisurely dinner. We didn't have to leave for the airport until after midnight to start the long trip home.
The trip home was agonizing, honestly. A two hour flight to Istanbul, a four hour layover, an eleven hour flight to NY, a three hour layover, and finally a flight to DC. I was up for 41 hours and only slept two! Thankfully the trip was more than worth it!
