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The last several days have involved travel via a number of different modes of transportation. As I noted in my last post, the folks at the Jisr ash-Shughur train station were kind enough to store our bikes for us so that we could ride the train to Damascus to meet up with Adrienne. It was a bit strange to cover the distance we had taken three days to ride (admittedly with some significant scenic detours) in just a few hours. We arrived in Damascus early in the morning the next day, after an uncomfortable night’s sleep on the train. Still, we were in better shape than Adrienne, who had apparently required a little assistance getting to sleep the previous night and was still a bit groggy. Early as it was, we had some difficulty finding some food, so we sat for a bit in a little park, where, just before we got up to leave, the sort of wingnut I’ve rarely encountered outside of Santa Cruz approached us and seemed very much to want to “help” us. He was full of all sorts of praise for the European stock from which he had decided we all came. Despite the fact that some poor Texan was waiting for him, and despite the fact the we clearly weren’t interested in his “help,” he carried on and decided we really needed to know what our names looked like in bad, blocky Arabic and Armenian calligraphy. We eventually extricated ourselves from this self-professed philologist and headed to Mayssun’s house. (more…)
