Khaldoun and me were thinking about my Arabic studies and came to a few excellent ideas. Generally I think Damascus is a great place to learn Arabic, as very few people here speak other languages so you are forced to communicate in Arabic, and above all, Syrian dialect is very close to the Classical Arabic I've been dealing with for years. We'll see.
We've also made some plans for my visit of Lubnan. The car's going to be parked somewhere safe while I'll be exploring Beirut by bike.
If you check www.dortler.com Peugeot service site you'll see they're all on holiday, only the Assistance Partner and baloons are working hard. ;-)
While I'm writing this I'm chewing some local kitakit, drinking freshly squeezed sugar-cane juice and listening the muwaddin's call to today's last prayer. So, I have to go, see you tomorrow when I'll be still hanging around Dimashq.
26.11.2003 | Damascus, Syria
Damascus is fantastic! I just left loose myself inside the Old medina and I have a feeling that the life here flows in a very relaxed way and without hurrying. I could probably live here for a while. The streets are crowded despite holiday and it's almost impossible to get from one to the other side of a street inside the souq area. People are very gentle, open-minded, curious, but not hustling as we are used to from more tourism developed Arab countries. Apart from all this I feel very safe in Syria and the same goes for Turkey. I'm not even worried about my "decorated" car when it waits for a few hours on a random spot in Damascus.
