Live From Syria!

Hello from the oldest continuously populated city in the world!

I arrived at DIA (Damascus, not Denver) yesterday around 6 PM, local time (11 AM east coast, 8 AM west coast, I believe). Please allow me to summarize my travels thus far:

I got through security at JFK without any problems and soon after met up with my friend Bret, who will be in Damascus while I am, at the airport bar. I had what I feared would be my last whiskey of the summer and we caught up before it was time to board. The flight from New York to Istanbul was painless, except for a few screaming children, although I badly miss-timed my Ambien, which ended up kicking in just as I got off the plane.

I was about 9:30 AM in Istanbul when we landed. Bret and I walked around, ate, got some Turkish coffee, which is more like pudding than a beverage, and then joined the other commuters in lying down and sleeping on the two-person airport benches. A few times I awoke with a start, afraid I had lost my backpack with my laptop, passport, and journals in it, only to realize it was serving as my pillow, and fall back asleep. Five and a half hours later it was time to board the plane for Damascus.

The second flight was mostly empty so it was easier to sleep, and sleep I did. Prior to take-off I was vaguely aware of Bret, seated in the window seat directly behind mine, chatting with a man sitting on the aisle of his row. I woke up about 45 minutes from Damascus when a flight attendant put a lunch down in front of me. More airplane food? Ugh. I watched Cyprus pass underneath us, and saw the desert east of Syria come into view as we began our descent.

Bret was chatting with his aisle-mate again who, it turns out, grew up in Iraq, lived in Amsterdam, and was visiting family in Damascus. Unknown to me at the time, Bret had awoke mid-flight to see his new friend, Yousef, going at it with the girl in the seat between them. When Yousef offered to take the $1.50 bus with us, rather than shell out for a $25 cab, we were grateful, and I assumed his girlfriend would be coming along. It wasn't until Yousef went off into the passport control line for people with Arab passports that Bret told me she had been a complete stranger. What happens on Turkish Airlines stays on Turkish Airlines, I suppose.

We got our bags, met back up with our new friend and headed to the bus. As we walked towards the bench seats in the very back I got the sense that most Syrians with any money whatsoever took cabs or had friends pick them up. The other passengers, by and large, were sickeningly thin and dressed shabbily. Andrew, this is the place for you!

As the bus started towards the city we were treated with an incredible scene. Small farms, marked by shacks with enormous piles of trash beside them, sat beside the main road. Small children worked on tiny plots alongside their parents. As we neared Damascus proper, farms gave way to enormous slums. Half-built but seemingly occupied apartment buildings stood next to the crumbling walls and staircases of older abandoned ones. Hundreds of these arbitrarily placed tenements rose from the streets beside the slightly elevated highway. There were no traffic lanes, and cars cut within inches of each other, honking frequently.

When the bus pulled up to our stop, Yousef got off with us and arranged for a taxi to take us to Bab Touma (St. Thomas' Gate), which is one of the many entrance points to the old city, where Brett and I are both staying. Though he was very friendly, and more than willing to let Bret and I practice our Arabic with him, he was unfamiliar with the addresses we had been given. We got out at Bab Touma square and, bags in hand, decided to try to find a phone to call my hostel or his host family. The square was utter chaos, unlike anything I had seen before. This made soccer practice with my hispanic youth soccer team look like a well-rehearsed military parade. No payphones were found and no one seemed to know what a hostel was, so Bret bought a cellphone, but still could not reach his family. I got through to the hostel; they were expecting me, and gave me a few landmarks that I thought would make finding them a cinch. Bret got through to someone at his house and we parted ways; he headed back to the square and I headed towards my hostel.

Thirty minutes later it was getting dark and I was still lost. I knew I was in the right area, but I was on Al Abbarah street and my directions said Al Abbarah 2nd. If there is one thing I have learned from all the time I have spent looking for books in Norlin library, it is that exact directions matter. I tried walking into Al Abbarah #2, which lead me down a narrow, dimly lit, staircase that wreaked of anti-septic. At the bottom of the stairs I found myself standing in an oddly shaped room with white tile floors and a single reclining chair at its center. The single fluorescent bulb in the ceiling illuminated a man smoking a cigarette while performing dental work on another man, seated in the chair. I shook my head and mumbled something to effect of "you've got to be kidding me", and headed back out to dingy Al Abbarah Street.

I figured I would see if my hostel's street, Al Abbarah 2nd, branched off from the dead end. I left the cars and people behind, heading down a dark and empty alley. I passed starving kittens eating garbage and locals that stared at me from their doorways. Kids ran after each other on bicycles in the dwindling ambient light from the sunset. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable but told myself that this was the adventure I had always wanted, and nervously pressed on.

At the end of Al Abbarah I reached a "T" and saw a sign that said Al Abbarah 2nd. I was relieved, but noted the run-down doorways and broken windows and wondered what this hostel might be like. I asked around and a woman in western clothing pointed to a black metal door with a Syrian flag on it, and in good English said, "that is the only hotel/house on the street". I rang the bell and a young guy came to the door. When he saw me he seemed to have been expecting me, so I mumbled a question with the word "hostel" in it, and he nodded yes.

I turned left down a narrow hallway and stepped into a nice room with an open roof. There was a table in the middle and couches against the walls. The proprietor, who I had spoken to on the phone, greeted me by name and invited me to sit down. He asked if I was here to study and when I said yes he immediately switched to Arabic, which I thought was very considerate. I surprised myself with how much I could get out. After a cup of tea he showed me to my room, which is small but clean. I didn't think much would come from sitting around in my room, so I ventured out to find an ATM that would give me enough cash to buy a phone. Not able to get my card into the first ATM and feeling a little annoyed, I stopped at an internet cafe to ensure concerned parties that I had arrived safely. Afterward, I decided to take a cab to a reliable bank ATM that the hostel staff had recommended.

In the taxi on the way to the bank, which was located outside of the Old City walls, I tried to chat up the cab driver. He was either unable or unwilling to understand my Arabic, but after a little conversation in his broken English he became quite friendly. Nassir the cab driver waited for me by the bank, but the first ATM didn't work. Feeling a little isolated, with only the cash I had arrived with, and no clear way to get more, I asked him to take me back to Bab Touma. On the way back, Nassir confessed he has always wanted to visit New York. I told him he would like it, and turned to look out the window, thinking of home. STOP! Nassir waited as I tried another ATM, this one gave me no problems and I took out enough Syrian Pounds for two or three nights in the hostel and food/getting around money for the next few week or so (About 200 dollars, US).

At Bab Touma, feeling much better, I tipped Nassir very generously (about 50 cents US), and figured it was time to eat. It was about 10 PM local time, but the restaurants and streets were still packed with people. I sat down on an outdoor cafe just beside Bab Touma square, where locals were smoking hookah, eating, and, oh my god! Are those beers!? In broken Arabic I ordered a dish that included chicken (I was certain to learn this word well in class last summer), and a beer.

The entire restaurant was captivated by a game show playing on two flat screen televisions. I asked a guy about my age what it was and he told me it was like the one with the rude English man that we have in America. I chatted with Ahmed and his two friends, who were fascinated to hear about New York City. Before ten minutes had elapsed, Ahmed was showing me text messages from his girlfriend in Cyprus: "I can't do this anymore, we are done", and complaining that he didn't want a girl in Syria because they would never "make a sex". I told him that he should find an American visitor in Syria, marry her, and get an American passport. He agreed and I promised to send any that I found his way.

After Ahmed and co. left, I sat for a while, reading Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, writing in my journal, listening to the sharply dressed entertainers on the television singing in Arabic, and generally taking in the atmosphere. It was a sweaty atmosphere. The two men sitting next to me eventually asked where I was from and when I replied "Ana min Amreeka, askoon fee medinat New York" (I am from America, I live in New York City), they replied, "welcome to Syria". Another failed attempt at practicing Arabic.

Around 11:30 I headed back through the alleyways to the hostel. In the common room, I found an English guy having a cup of tea. He was a little bit younger than me, but with tremendous travel experience around the Middle East (tremendous by American standards, he pointed out). We chatted about our trips, plans, learning Arabic, and politics before I couldn't bare my own stench any longer and headed to the shower. In my shared bathroom I found a shower head that ran from the sink faucet, and a squeegy.

After my shower, feeling much cooler, cleaner and less stinky, I bid my hostel-mates goodnight and headed for bed. With a fan blowing on me it was cool enough to get under the covers and I slept like a log, happy at what I had accomplished, and glad to have my tasks in order for the next day. In the days to come I will find: A cellphone, a place to live, a tutor, a gym.

I hope everyone reading this is well and I would love to exchange e-mails with anyone @ eric.harris.bernstein@gmail.com. I hope this wasn't too dull, I am still figuring out this whole blogging thing.

EHB