Day 1

The next day, my first back in Damascus since 1999, we kowtowed to Leila who happened to be in town doing some banking business. Dania lived at Leila's apartment shortly after her first two weeks at Zuhair and Alia's home. It's very close to Dania's present apartment - about a 7 minute walk up and down hills. After a bit of small talk and showing me around her place (and asking that we remove a decomposing cat that had appeared in the entrance way DAYS ago), Leila insisted that we accompany her on her rounds. Knowing her better than I do, Dania consented to one task (a meeting with her banker at a hotel bar??!!....), but said we had things we had to do also. We hopped a cab, went into the downtown area of the city, schmoozed with the banker just long enough to satisfy Leila and headed out for a quick pickup kind of lunch with Dania's new friend, Julian, who also lives in the same neighborhood.

We grabbed a falafel at a nearby hole in the wall and headed out toward the airport to the Tishereen War Panorama (http://cencio4.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/tishreen-war-panorama-museum/). Built to celebrate both the Six Days War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War that took place in 1973, it's a pretty imposing round domed building that contains a very large, revolving mural display on its second floor that commemorates the battle Syria fought against Israel when, while it lost the Golan Heights in 1967, it did win one particular battle for a watchtower at Kuneitra. One of the most interesting facts about the whole thing is that it was funded by North Korean money! After we had a guided tour of both floors (the first floor has smaller murals of significant events in Syrian history, plus books and photographs of Hafez Al-Assad's presidency), we headed out for an additional guided tour of the war memorabilia on either side of the building. One side displays tanks, MIGs and other Russian-made military "stuff." The other side has remains of US-made military pieces recovered in Lebanon. I tried to find the words "made in the USA" somewhere, but most seemed to have been repainted. My lasting impression of the entire experience was surprise at how rushed our guide made us feel especially when we were outside. He allotted us only a few minutes to inspect both areas of military booty. I've never been to a museum before where I was urged to leave! What follows are photos from both sides of the exterior of the museum.



Once we were told it was time to leave the museum (!), we hopped in a taxi that took us back to the Old City. Julian and we parted ways, and Dania and I headed out just to explore parts of the Christian section and then on to Straight Street (as named by the Romans, ). We saw some interesting sites:


I thought the detail here was amazing!




Mosque in Old City



A very crooked house just down block from above mosque






If you could blow this up a bit, you'd see these are artfully placed slices of tomatoes, cucumbers and pickles. Can you imagine how long it took someone to place each one of them??!!


After walking the Old City, I thought we'd be done for the day, given the fact that I was not on any one particular time zone yet. But, no, we headed home just long enough to look longingly at the bed, wash up and meet Julian and eventually Leila at the Orient restaurant within walking distance of the apartment.

It's a big place where people come to eat, drink (juices, sodas, coffee and tea) and play cards or backgammon. It apparently is a hot spot in the summer when the roof comes off....The culinary highlight of the evening was the Aleppo cherry beef kabob (Kabab ma' Karaz, http://www.ksontheweb.com/ift/articles/article.ift?artid=8383&cat_id=23&adult=0) AND a drink that seems to be very popular in Damascus called Polo. It's a really refreshing mixture of lemon (or maybe lemonade) and finely ground mint leaves. It's a beautiful color and has a really great taste, probably even more so in the hot summer.
The familial highlight of the evening revolved around Leila who was in high form! She had lots of stories to recount about her experiences with Muammar Khadafi.....something to do with his many visits to Damascus, purchasing a home there as a front for meeting his paramours and who knows what else! Anyway, it's always fun to see her in a good mood. She rushed in late to dinner saying that she could only stay a few minutes and couldn't eat because she was catching the 11:30 train back to Aleppo, then eyed the Polo and ordered one, and later decided a bite to eat was in order. Thinking she really needed to keep track of time, I kept eyeing my watch and letting her know as we grew closer to the time to head out. Forty-five minutes before the train was supposed to head out,she finally agreed with Dania that having a narghila was a good way to end the evening! Her sense of time and mine certainly aren't the same; but it didn't matter because, all in all, she had great, funny stories to tell. When she did depart, she took Dania to the side and whispered something in her ear. After Leila had left, Dania announced that Leila had seen Julian and her holding hands under the table, an observation that required her to inform her niece that, "You touch him again and you die!"

All in all, an interesting evening!