all roads lead to damascus...unless you're me

so life here in the longest continuously inhabited city is pretty fantastic i must say. the people are nice, the food is fantastic, and the taxi drivers only try to rip me off half the time (take that, egypt). overall, i'd things are pretty comfortable here and it is horrendous to think that i only have another three weeks to enjoy it here...though i hope to avoid what happened to me the other day...

there is an old adage that says "all roads lead to damascus". unfortunately, that adage has to be slightly amended in my case to "all roads in damascus lead me in the wrong direction". i'll explain

so we started our private lessons 5 days a week with a syrian teacher (who is great btw), but it requires us to travel a few kilometers to another part of the city...no problem, i figured. but after miraculously making it there on the first day, day 2 rolled around and we weren't so fortunate. here's the scene:

the day before i had been pretty sick, probably just ate something that didn't sit well, plus the food here is really really rich so it could have been any number of problems. anyway, i woke up still feeling pretty crappy, but couldn't sleep anymore so i decided to head to the lesson anyway. ryan left about 30 minutes before me, so i got my life together and walked to the square to get a cab...found a nice cabbie, no problem, things are going smooth...i ask for "souq sarujeh" and we are en route...but this is where things went wrong...(don't get the wrong idea, things go wrong here all the time, it's just that they rarely matter because i have no agenda and usually end having an interesting experience regardless)...

anyway, apparently someone in there infinite wisdom decided to name one place "SARIJEH" and another COMPLETELY DIFFERENT place "SARUJEH"...it is difficult to convey via text, but neither of these names are particularly easy to say (at least for me...they may as well be japanese, since every syrian says each one differently too) and i apparently conveyed that i wanted to go to souq sarijeh, rather than the correct 'sarujeh'...so my cabbie drops me off at some unfamiliar place bustling with syrians and wreaking of olives and raw meat (a horrible combination if you hadn't guessed, especially while being sick)

things would have been fine had i just called my tutor and straightened things out, but me (in my own infinite wisdom and making my best effort to perpetuate the "dumb american" stereotype) decided that the place i needed couldn't be far from here, so i began to walk.......well, that didn't go well because things only got more unfamiliar and started to smell worse, so i called husam (my tutor) and the real adventure began. he informed me that i was mispronouncing sarujeh and that i would in fact have to walk to the correct place...no problem i figured...

so i do an about-face and head toward the opposite direction...in my broken syrian arabic (and trust me, its reaaaaal broken) i asked for directions about every 19 meters (yea, they converted me to the metric system temporarily, sorry america) and people just kept saying "last street, turn right"...so i walked for 25 minutes, and when i couldn't walk straight anymore, i turned right, only to see the giant souq (market) that is only minutes from my house in the first place...so not only did i needlessly waste money on a cab (okay, it cost like a dollar, but you all know i'm pretty cheap), but i could have easily walked to my lesson (which we now do without any trouble)...so i finally find a bridge i recognize and i knew i was warm, so i ask an old guy and he starts helping me, then he starts speaking perfect english, so i think im home free! we start walking toward where i told him i needed to go, but we are back -tracking and i get suspicious, so i ask one more time "we are going to sarUjeh right?" and he says "no, sarIjeh, like you said"...so he essentially walked me half a kilometer in the wrong direction for no reason...in 95 degree weather...while im sick...

determined as ever i turn to the friendly shop owners (2 of which refused to help me earlier and looked at me like i was covered with scorpions) and he jokes with me that i'm really far off (in arabic, mind you) until he realizes i am in no mood to joke and points to the right...so i walk right...and im still not in the right place...(as an aside, i have mastered about 5-8 sentences in arabic which i'm proud of...but this inevitably hurts me because people i ask for help immediately assume i'm fluent/really good at arabic so they start speaking fast and i spend the next 2 minutes pretending i understood more than the words "building", "car", and "street"...but i digress)...then,husam calls back cuz i had told him 28 minutes ago that i was close and sure of where i was...so i find a cop, throw my phone (with husam on the other end) at him and they sort things out, he walks me somewhere, points straight and i finally find my oasis, which really is just a scrubby little hotel where i was supposed to meet ryan and my teacher

i realize this is a pointless story, but i had to rant about it. it was simultaneously the most frustrating/interesting 1.5 hours of my life (yes, i was lost for that long, sadly). the best part is that ryan got dropped off in the wrong place too! except he was dropped off in a place called mezze (how in the world the cab driver mix that up mix sarujeh?!)...and the best lesson i learned from this is that syria, in all its beauty and hospitality, really has to change the name of sarujeh/sarijeh...preferably to something much easier to say.

otherwise, very little going on besides lessons, homework, eating, and loving the city. here are my final thoughts:

-damascus is hands down one of the most tolerant cities in the middle east i have seen (2nd maybe to beirut)...for those of you picturing camels, fully covered women, sword-weilding men, and every stereotype from alladin, im sorry...you will find covered women, but equally mixed with girls wearing lots of make-up (a world epidemic apparently), showing skin, and wearing unmistakably western clothing...same with the men...and nobody cares! everyone gets along...christians, armenians, alawi muslims, sunnis, shias...its great and so fascinating...in fact, at night from my roof you can see dozens of blue neon crosses mixed in with the green neon lights of the minarets of the mosques...really cool...

-syria all of the sudden got really windy

-not sure if i mentioned this, but i got shaved old fashion style with a straight razor in a barber shop and it was the greatest thing ever

-in the states, modern standard arabic is taught (the formal language)...in the middle east, every speaks their own dialect that sometimes resembles modern standard arabic...so from now on i think we should teach foreigners Olde English and Shakespeare and then send them to the united states and see how it goes, just so they know how i feel...

-i got mistaken for a syrian the other day! although my fraud was discovered as soon as i tried to respond to the question that i was asked...but still, i apparently tricked someone! except for every other shop owner/cab driver that knows immediately before i even say a word that i am from the states...

-i celebrated 4th of july over here in typical american fashion...by eating myself sick on ridiculously good fried-chicken (actually broasted chicken, whatever that means)...i sort of missed the typical hotdogs and fireworks, but my friend let me wear his american flag sunglasses for a few minutes (inside the house, im not that ridiculous) and that was enough patriotism for the day

-kevin (my bud from ohio) is on his way as i type...this should be a great adventure

til next time, ma'a salama
todd