How We Went Italian

I just talked with Nisha about foreign language misuse, prompted by another fine example of Syrian English: Extra Vergin Olive Oil. We had a good laugh, then he wondered aloud, Don't they have any linguists or anglists or any other qualified ists? Then I remembered, well, it's not much different back home. Think. How many variations did you find for the word Cheeseburger? How many places offer Cordon Blue? How many...

Oh, oh, the two best ones I can remember off the top of my head! One is in Croatian, and I will not recount it, but the other one happened at my work. We have a restaurant there. We commonly call it Poisoner's. The name has not affirmed itself yet, at which fact one can only shake one's head in wonder. Anyway, I think they have taken it off the menu since, but for a while they offered Hemedex. When you give up, float over the strange word. And no, it's not a brand name.

This evening we were invited by my uncle's supervisor and his wife to dinner in an Italian restaurant. One would surmise that my preference so far to Syrian food against our usual meals would indicate that I'd prefer they picked something else; but it was a really good restaurant. We ate only half of the food, and we're all full to bursting. Syria definitely provides a good diet for me, if you define a good diet as one providing lots of body mass in a limited time. I have no idea how much it cost, but in Croatia it'd probably be a week's pay. At least.

In truth, the Italian restaurant only had one Italian in it, but the rest were cunning copies. And the food... Half the people were more than half full from half the appetisers we got, and groaned when the other half of the dinner was brought to the table. There were shrimps and calamari, tomatoes and cheeses, garlic and onion, olives and prosciutto, ruccola and salad, then pasta with saffron and shrimps, and with assorted frutti di mare, and with parmesan and tomatoes, and with gorgonzola and mushrooms, and then six different varieties of cake, of which I tried two and found them yummy.

The company was very nice, and tennish in size. And all but one of the rest of them were practically locals. We got good tips on haggling (although my hopes of becoming an expert haggler are feeble, straddling that subtle border between the beep-beep-beep-beep-beep and the beeeeeeep-clear-THUD-beeeeeeep-crap-nineteen-twenty-seven), and heard nice anecdotes, and generally had a Good Time™, among other things learning that cheap saffron is cheap saffron, while the expensive saffron is really good saffron. Iranian. You might think it's trivial, but it's been bothering us. One more weapon against you, George (although you'll probably still be slaughtering me in Trivial Pursuit for aeons to come). A revelation a day keeps dementia at bay. Thanks again for a very nice evening, folks, if you're reading!

Before the restaurant, guess where we were. Suq, of course. I have a list of things that I have to buy, which was today down to five items. I bought five or six items today, and my list is down to four. Does that seem right to you?

One remarkable stall was the perfumer's. There are lots of those in Damascus, easily recognisable by the myriad of little bottles surrounding them. You can buy essential oils, or they can dilute them for you, and even dye them, to make a bottle of perfume. And you don't even have to settle for one scent, they can expertly mix them to your specification. Their principal instrument is what looks like a horse needle one would sooner expect in a brawny Texan vet's hand, rather than in a delicate Damascene's. They have all the usual suspects: rose, citrus, jasmine... but they also have Hugo Boss, Chanel 5, and other pricey goods. Pricey? 250 pounds for a bottle of perfume, 150 for a vial of essence. Wouldn't you shop too?
Trivial Pursuit, Hugo Boss, Chanel 5, Jasmine and Bottle trademarks of their respective owners, where applicable.

Then we went again to try the Museum of Calligraphy. No luck. Too late. Foiled again! I really hope we'll have some time tomorrow. Earlier.

Just around the corner we found what my uncle promised: sand artists. We bought some sand art earlier, but it was pre-made; now we could watch it emerging before our very eyes. A dozen cups of coloured sand, a long-necked funnel, some glue, and one or two stranger implements, and you get an art form I have never seen in Croatia. And, I suspect, neither did you. Especially those of you who don't live in Croatia.