Last Full Day

People tell us, nothing is free here. The last day Nisha and Nina started seeing more and more evidence to the contrary.

Nisha and I planned to take a cab ever since we first saw one, but an opportunity never presented itself. I never heard, Hi, I'm your opportunity, how do you do?. So I remain untaxied in Syria, except in an aircraft, and that planely does not count.

But the first time they wander off by themselves, they end up in a quarter far, far away and take a cab home. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's the date, but the taxi driver was so enchanted with the conversation that he waved to them and refused payment. Dull thuds were heard when the longtimers' jaws hit the floor.

And a lady was trying to sell some flowers, and we were rudely not buying any, so she gave one to Nina. Gratis.

And then later they were looking for a post-office, and the English speaker that happened to be in the same shop told them, It's over there, just around the corner, but listen, I'm going there, I will drop you off with my car, only badlier and worsely. Okay, this wasn't really a case of business non-transaction, like the first two, but still.

And there was again Nisha's haggling session of yesterday, but I have already talked about that. Looking at that objectively, it might not fall squarely in the "for-free" category, but roundly, certainly does. All depends on the category's shape, you know.

Why did I miss the taxi ride? Why was I not with them? I was doing last minute business transactions. Unlike theirs, mine were the real ones, with largely inefficient price negotiation tactics. (On my side. They did okay.) But, not my money: these items were ordered. I just hope my idea of what was desired coincided in a sufficiently large part with the image in the owner-to-be's mind. (Don't worry, I'm exaggerating. The price was fine, just not outrageously behaggled.)

Tomorrow, a couple of more items, to blow my last half thousand, and that's it. Zero balance — or it would be, if my uncle did not sponsor me quite so much. I blush just remembering it. I'm still embarassed, but I've accepted my beneficiary fate. So, thanks again.

But zero balance is what I'm aiming for. I don't have any use for Syrian pounds in Croatia. Pretty, but I'm not framing them. And I suspect they'd prove somewhat difficult to exchange. Besides, and at the risk of possibly reiterating the restated, there are things so cheap here that it's a sin not to buy them. Even though no holy tomes precisely prescribe Thou shalt spend of thy coins upon the holy city of Damascus with saintly largesse and magnanimity... Maybe it is under Charity. Both Islam and Christianity have that. Thou shalt be judged miserly, and convicted of a mortal sin, and burn eternally in a bonfire stoked of paper monies, lest thou purchasest at such discountly prices as one findeth in the holy city of Damascus? Possibly. So I'm not taking any chances, and I'm spending as the Good Books advise.

Then it's off to the airport, and if my roomies are up with their airline trivia and temporal mathematics, I'm in my home town by half past eight, their time. And hopefully, soon to be my time again, too. See you there, somewhen.

Urchined

More shopping ensued, with several surprising turns. One was when we were searching for a shop. Pierre Balmain? we were asking. Where, shop Pierre Balmain? our choppy Arabic said. Then, without fail, they would start jabbering in not nearly so choppy Arabic. We shrugged our shoulders off, but eventually we did get the drift in each of our encounters. But the best one was when we asked a woman in a shop, and we couldn't understand her, and she couldn't make herself understood, so she pulled a car over. In an one-point-three-car-wide alley. The guy started thinking, PierBalmanPierBalmanPierBalmanPierBalman..., then got irritated by the car behind him blowing his horn to pieces. Just a moment, he said, and drove off. A minute later, there he was again, pulling out a pad and a pen, and pointing to the Pierre's position. The cars queueing up behind him were a bit more patient, or rather their drivers were, so the several minutes of his briefing was uninterrupted by random honking. One just has to love these people.

Another twist was one Nina and Nisha pulled. We walk into a shop (or rather climb after a hawker, for it was not on the street but inside, up the stairs, where advertising and sleeve-pulling become necessary), and Nina asks about an article (of a kind that shall remain unnamed, for it prefers to remain anonymous and not spoil the surprise, and it feels irrelevant in this discussion). The shop owner says 4000. Aghast, Nina protests, that's too much! The merchant exhorts the high quality of his goods, then asks what we think we would pay. 500, Nina says. Ooo, no, no, no, comes from his insulted face. Okay then, see ya...

Wait wait madam, okay, 2000! We turn around. But we got one same like this, from another shop, and we paid 500! Nisha complains. Same one?!? asks he. Same one? Yes,answers Nina, and she's not even lying. Much. Okay, it was just similar, not same.

He's thinking, and discussing the business with his colleagues... then, Okay, 1000! We do our shukrans and ma` as-salaams, and he's yelling Okay, 500, take! at our retreating backs. So we did.

A bit later, we saw some cute toys being sold on the streets by the urchins. Wanna buy, sir? Only 100! We compose our sceptic/insulted faces. 2 for 100!... 3 for 100! That did not sound too bad, so we took them.

Ten yards down, another urchin is stopping us. Buy, sir, cheap! We explain that we bought some already, and he goes, How much cost?. We tell him. I give 5 for 100! 6, sir! How can you resist? It's really no money at all, and twice as much trinkets as the last kid offered, so we took them.

He had but two, so he ran off to his base to get us more. We were left standing rather stupidly in the middle of the bustling suq street holding two toys. We started wondering if he'll ever come back, then remembered that he gave us something and we did not yet give him anything. He came back, got his hundred and gave us the four trinkets he brought, so we took them.

Another ten yards, and there was an urchin yanking my arm, kissing my sleeve, and begging me to buy 2 for 25. We had quite enough of the blasted things, and I really did not want his drool on my jacket, so I scooted into the nearest shop as fast as we could.

We went to the suq by car. The drive was uneventful, our senses having been deadened by our street experiences so far. But this time we turned into a parking lot, as the streets were packed full, and there were abs-0-lutely no parking spaces to be found anywhere near. When we inquired at the parking lot gate if there were any vacancies (unlikely as that appeared), a guy said sure, he'll find us some, we should follow him. He took us on a tour of the parking lot, which was trickier to navigate than Moon Lander, with couple of very close shaves. Five meters from the exit a car left and he made us squeeze in there, by inches, in such a place that we believe at least four car owners were cursing us in absentia.

I know, I'm not that good at recounting things in sequence. Think of my blog entries as small temporal puzzles. Every cloud, silver lining, all that.

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.

Gratz!

I just got the happy news! Congratulations. You know who you are. I wish I could say I knew it would go well, and I can, so: I knew it would go well! And you deserve it, every li'l bit. And if you don't tell me when, I'll bite you, first chance I get, so help me Goddess (for this is not about hot dog buns; maybe hot buns, dog!).

You others who happen to be confused by this, don't worry. You probably should be. All is well. These news aren't mine to tell. So if the hot non-dog chooses to divulge, that too shall come to pass. Remember: confusion is a precursor to enlightenment, so just cheer along with me!

Off to bed now. Four more days.

How We Visited Hawai'i

I'm going to be an envy of all my linguist colleagues! Actually, no-one will probably care one whit. But I think it's still cool, in my lingogeeky way. I've been to one of the three villages in the world whose native tongue is Western Aramaic. Ma`alula is a beautiful christian community that nests high up in the Anti-Lebanon mountains of Syria (and not a Hawai'ian atol, Nina!). Pictures required for full comprehension, but the word nest was not chosen at random. And this is not the only significant fact about the place. We have visited two monasteries there, and both of them have a story to tell.

St. Thecla said to have been fleeing from the anti-Christian persecution some time in the first century of Christ, when she came to an unpassable mountain. God split the mountain asunder, so that she might escape, while the horsemen who hunted her were foiled by the narrow passage. She subsequently hid in a cave at the other side of the ravine, where she stayed for the rest of her life (or most of it, according to another telling). We went to the said cave, and there's a small shrine in it. Not much to look at, but homey. It was filled with icons, and in one wall there was the tomb of Taqla (as the locals call her), with many objects lying on it and hanging above it — watches, bracelets, and sundry other presents — and several wooden crutches in a corner accompanying one prosthetic leg — conceivably from the beneficiaries of healing miracles granted by the holy spring water in the adjoining cavern, or by the saint herself.

St. Sergius and St. Bacchus were Roman soldiers martyred for their Christian beliefs in the 4th century AD. The church was built on top of a pagan shrine, and is so old that it still preserves the pagan architecture. The altar is not flat, it has raised edges; and it is not rectangular, but semi-circular. The original altar was destroyed, but it was in the same shape. The pagan one also had animals engraved in the altar walls, and a blood drain in the middle. No hole, nor animals, adorn the new one's marble, only a small triangular indentation intended to hold a relic. And it is so old that the wooden beams still holding the interior support walls carbon-date to a period not at all much later than that of the saintly couple.

In St. Thecla's, we were thankfully left alone. No postcard-pushers! Yay, how happy we were! Then we walked through the passage, and roughly 10 minutes later we found ourselves at the monastery of Sarkis and Bakhus. It has tiny little doors, as if the building was from the wonderland, and I had yet to take my DRINK ME. The reason for that was probably the fact that a stone building on the top of a hill about 2 km above sea level would have severe insulation issues. I managed to bump my head only once, but that was while I was looking at the beautiful tour guide, so it does not count. Gorgeous, smart and trilingual (at least). She talked about the history of the monastery, the icons there, and the Aramaic language, then gave a rendition of Our Father on Aramaic and Arabic (sequentially, not simultaneously). Then we were shown to a souvenir shop, where we resisted in vain our shopping drive, and ended up buying half the store. Okay, I exaggerated; but they were very friendly, and bid us taste their wine (which some subsequently bought, it being a very fine wine indeed, and ridiculously cheap at that; I did not, for I would have enough trouble transporting my other breakables, and I do not drink wine — which was commented as strange by our colocutor, I wonder why...), and convince us not to abandon Christianity for Islam. We assured them that no such thing will happen (in my case, I can say for sure for such a thing to be a complete impossibility, because of my unChristianity). There was even a cassette tape telling the history of the monastery, in Yougoslav, but that one we decided to skip. The nice lady at the shop explained that some Franciscans visited from Yugoslavia. Probably from Zagorje, we figured. They tell me the wine is really good.