Friday, 5 September 2003, Jaramana, Syria
80 degrees, sunny, pleasant

We all wake up around 9 AM, jet lag seemingly not kicking in, for a breakfast of eggs and olives and tomatoes. After that, everyone takes showers, while I smoke nargilah on the porch with Rebal and Rawal.

After that, a walk around Jaramana to change money, then we're off on a microbus to Bhab Touma. We walk around the shopping area and drink orange juice and hang out. Then, to Old Damascus to walk around Souk al Hamidiyyah - which is mostly closed on Friday. However, this is an excellent day for a first visit, as it's possible to get more of an idea of how the souk is arranged when it's not packed with people. The ice cream stores are open though, and we enjoy some delicious Syrian ice cream with pistachios. After that, out of the souk, past Omayyad Mosque and down the stairs to Nowfara for tea and nargilah. We stay there for awhile, smoking nargilah and drinking Zoughrat - a kind of tea made with hibiscus flowers.

Next on our marathon day of walking, we head towards al Hedjaz train station. Last year I'd spent many hours in the cafe in the back of al Hejaz, but now I see that the Sultans train cars (which housed a small bar) are no longer there. And neither is the bar, as it's a tea shop only now and seemingly in the midst of renovations. Since there is no opportunities for an aperitivo, we get in a cab back to Jaramana for dinner chez Rafeh.

We have dinner in courtyard and Lebanese beers. Naeif's mother cooks up a huge pile of rice, peas and chunks of lamb a popular dish - and it's really good. Jeremy has located a guy who sells beer that speaks English, his "beer friend", and he's brought back some quite tasty Lebanese beers.

We have a great dinner, change into dishdashis, and go back upstairs for a party at Ghazwans! A whole bunch of us sit on the terrace, drink beers, smoke nargilah and watch the festivities - a wedding next door! We can see the bride in her gorgeous huge white dress standing around with her family and looking somewhat morose - yet glamorous. Here, weddings are bittersweet - while the woman is glad to be married, she's sad to leave her family and home where she's lived all her life.

A whole crowd of women come over with drums, singing, led by the groom's mother who carries an enormous pole covered with flowers and a candle on top. One woman has a tabla (hand drum), beating out a doom TEK TEK doom TEK TEK, and they're singing and clapping like mad. They pause in front of the house, keeping up the singing. Meanwhile, I'm on the porch playing my zills wildly and we're all waving to the neighbors on the porch next door. The whole neighborhood is enjoying this wedding, everyone singing along and checking out the action. The women continue up the staircase into the brides apartment, singing up all three floors.

After awhile, we hear car horns and all kinds of noise - it's the groom and his friends. These guys have a tabla too, and they're singing away. They form a circle, and two guys dressed in black whip out large silver swords and start dancing with them. The swords get passed around and all the guys take turns dancing in the middle of the circle with them. Some guys get on other guys shoulders and wave around fake guns. Diana and I sort of cringe at this, until we're assured that they are, in fact, fake and will not be shooting off any bullets tonight. The sword guys are totally cool - hot Syrian men, though.

Finally, the bride and groom come down, get in a Mercedes that's all decked out in flowers and off to their wedding party. We're throwing rice wildly from upstairs on the porch and I'm ringing my zills again until everyone has driven off.

After all the excitement, Marlin drags me to the downstairs apartment for a hafla - a chick party! Ghazwan's wife, Amale's wife, Marlin, Surreya, Rama, the neighbor woman we hung out with the other night and the woman that lives in the apartment. Jeremy wanders down and tries to crash the party, but is booted out as the downstairs neighbor dives for her hijab - she's Muslim and must not be seen unveiled by any men not in her family.

But boy, can she dance. Under all the robes - once it's back to all women and she whips these off, she's wearing a white tube top with "69" (!!) printed on it and skintight white jeans. Ghazwan's wife, Masinah is wailing on the drum and everyone is singing and "lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-ing". I'm bellydancing with wild abandon, shaking my stuff Chicagostyle for everyone - and even Diana dances in her dishdashi!

After awhile, we're spent, so we go back up to the terrace, for whisky and shenglish. Walid arrives and we hang out for awhile longer, then finally sleep around 2 AM.