Where to begin??? - general

The last few days have been about wandering and relaxing.

The Al- Arabie hotel continues to be lovely...the water has been a bit finicky but whatever. The relaxed covered garden is aces. From there we have wandered the old city of Damascus a number of times.

Therein we visited a Khan...an old rest house used by the caravans. This one had a large central courtyard with fountain and the rooms in corridors around the outside. Got me wondering, did the old caravan guys ever talk about their favourite Khans? Did Achmad's khan in damascus really have the best hummus, and was looked forward to once every 3 years?

Checked out the house/palace of the Ottomoan administrator. This was divided into two sections, one for business and one for family. It to was all about a central courtyard with fountain. This seems to be a repeated pattern, just a question scale. It's interesting how so many of these houses have tiny doors to the street and so much more space on the inside that from a narrow darkened door you would never guess existed.

We also wandered a number of covered souqs...basically a lot of stores.Given my minimal desire to buy anything, whatever.

And the showpiece of the place. The Ummayad Mosque. This jobby is huge and has plenty of fancy columns and artwork to please the eye. Zoe had to throw on a little hooded garment which she fell in love with. I, however was not fortunate enough to don special duds. Sigh, maybe someday.

Aside from that the old city is a lot of walking, a lot of questioning why a car feels the need to be there, etc. The cars do remind me that the city is still lived and in use. Yes there are restaurants and shops everywhere, but they are still very much part of a live in space.

And I will also mention here, the glory of the ISIC card. International Student Identity Card. Basically wqe've been using it for admissions and they tend to drop from 50 syrain pounds to 10, or once from 150 to 10. Very nice indeed.