Tuesday, 2 September 2003, Jaramana, Syria
90 degrees, SUNNY

Today is my birthday, Happy Birthday to meeeeee! I'm 42!

Wake up around 11 AM, breakfast of hardboiled eggs. We're meeting Walid, and going to Souk al Hamidiyyah for some hookah shopping - he wants to get two to bring home. We walk by stall after stall of hookah shops, every one packed with pipes and accessories. The shops outside the main souk are connected to the factories, and have a better selection and lower prices.

It's amazing how nothing really changes -with the people - in Syria - except for the addition of babies. This is only my observation over the span of a year, but Naeif has been away for five years and many of his friends have the same jobs. I can go to the coffeehouses and restaurants I liked last time I was here, and not only are the same people at work there, but they remember me. People do not switch jobs like they do in the US - it's debatable whether this is good or bad. Naeif has friends that have been working as waiters in the same restaurants for the last fifteen years.

Near Jamir Hamidiyyah (Omayyad Mosque) is a coffee shop - the scene of my near fainting incident when I first got here - called Nowfara. It's great for riding out that inevitable culture shock by drinking tea and smoking hookah. You can always see a few tourists stumbling around more, or wearing brighter clothing with more logos than yours that makes you feel like maybe you might just blend in one day, and not be stared at anymore. Another one of Naeif's friends joins us, and we leave Nowfara to go off through Old Damascus, then Bhab Touma in search of shwarma at Abu Romeh's shwarma stand. After that, home to Jaramana.

Disco naps go from 5 PM to around 7 PM.

Now it's time to put on a styling outfit and go to Le Piano bar in Bhab Sharki - the "West Gate" of Damascus. Le Piano bar seems to attract a latenight crowd. Naeif and I arrive around 9:30, and the place is empty except for one other couple. We sit down and order drinks - my vodka tonic is a glass with two thirds vodka, ice and a can of tonic water. The equivalent of two drinks. Naeif has a Black Label and I order a can of fizzy mineral water. Our entire bill, after we each have two drinks comes to US $10. Around 11 PM, we think maybe no one else is going to show up, so we leave to meet Ghazwan to go out in Jaramana. There is a new nightclub called "Al Arabe" (the Arab!) which seems quite dead. Luckily, while in the Arab, we get a call on Ghazwan's mobile phone - it's Raji and his wife, and Fourat - back at Le Piano Bar! We get back in a cab, leaving Ghazwan in Jaramama - he's got to work tomorrow, and return to the Piano Bar. Now the place is jumping. Fourat gives me flowers (sweet guy!) and Raji and his wife give me a cute turquoise bag with flowers on it. This is so great!

We stay here for hours, singing along to songs in Arabic and English. Then the famous Le Piano bar castanets descend in baskets suspended from the ceiling - we grab them and clatter them for the rest of the night.

3 AM, it's time to call it a night, and a cab swoops us back to Jaramana.