Springtime in Syria

I know it has been ages since I've updated my blog. My only excuse is the usual one: spring semester, in Beirut as everywhere else, seems to be especially busy and tiring. In its quest to acknowledge the holidays of multiple religious sects, AUB's calendar only gave us a couple weeks off after fall semester, and so everyone is feeling a bit frazzled by now. Classes are going well, and I am advising a couple Master's theses for the first time, so I'm staying busy.

However, we did recently get two long weekends in a row, in commemoration of both Western and Eastern Orthodox Easters, and so Jeff and I took a trip to Damascus. It was really exciting finally getting to visit Syria, and we had a great time visiting some historic sites, such as an old, ornate mosque where I had to put on a beige druid-like robe that the attendant handed me before I could go in.

Damascus is also known for its souks, or markets, and it was fun looking at the piles of nuts and spices some of the vendors had for sale.



We took a trip to the nearby town of Maalula, where the local people still speak Aramaic, an ancient language I thought was dead. We visited a church which had formerly been a pagan temple. When they redecorated, the Christians replaced the church's pagan altar that had a hole in the middle of it to drain off the blood of sacrifices. The tour guide there prayed aloud in Aramaic, which was neat to hear. Also in Maalula, we visited another ancient church that was actually just a walled-in cave. It has a tree growing in it, as well as a holy water basin that is continually replenished by the water seeping out of the rock itself. Pretty neat.





The town of Maalula itself was lovely, too, perched on some
desert cliffs.

All in all, we had a wonderful time looking around and getting to meet some incredibly friendly Syrian people.