The ex-pat's lament.

It's almost midnight on a Wednesday, and I leave the US tomorrow. Again.

I'm filled with doubt -- what did I forget, what didn't I buy, look at how much money I spent, will the plane crash, can I manage all my bags, when will I be home. Worse, I'm haunted by the feeling that I am running away from something -- the boxes of my past life that fill one side of my old room mock me. Do I fear settling down this much? Or is this anxiety only because the money's getting lower and I dread the onslaught of real life?

Bags packed.

Syrian Road Trip

Back in late July I took a five day road trip around Syria with three lovely people: my American roommate Lauren, my British friend Elin, and my Syrian friend Tamer. Not only did we refrain from manslaughter, but I drove 4/5 of the way and neither maimed a passerby nor injured the car. (The car, it should be mentioned, lacked both a CD player and functioning AC, leading to extensive periods of horrible radio and lots of staggering about upon arrival in soaked clothes.) Oh, and we got lost. A lot. I mean, really. A lot. Here are the photos!

Our journey touched many of the interesting bits of Syria, historical and otherwise, despite a lack of interest in historical monuments (Lauren, Tamer), anything Syrian outside of Damascus (Tamer), and getting up early (Lauren, Elin).

Day One, we left Damascus (harder than you might think) and drove to Aleppo with a stop in Homs (sort of pointless) and Hama (ancient water wheels on the Orontes). We arrived in Aleppo, spent several hours finding a hotel, an hour finding a place to park, then returned to the chosen hotel just in time for the daily power cut and more lack of AC. Thanks, Aleppo.

Day Two was spent, rather ambitiously, on Old Things Sort of Around Aleppo. While we dreamt of driving an hour and a half south to see Dead Cities then driving back and two additional hours east to Lake Assad in one glorious surge, driving a half-hour past our exit for a Dead City damped general enthusiasm. The Dead City inspires images of perfectly preserved cities suddenly vacated, but, really, it's just a ruin. After getting lost some more we also visited at the Church of Saint Simeon and saw the remnants of the stone pillar he called home for 39 years. We managed to get back to Aleppo and enjoyed an excellent dinner in Beit Sissi, one of my favourite restaurants in Syria.

We spent the morning of Day Three wandering a bit around the Old City of Aleppo, including its famous Citadel, then drove for five hours west to Kasab, a city in the mountains ten kilometers from the Mediterranean Sea and closer to the Turkish boarder. Kasab offered a cool and mountainous change and we mostly bummed around in our lovely little hotel room.

Day Four was a coastal drive from Kasab down to the Mediterranean (fun windy road!), then down the coast to Latakia, Syria's biggest port city. I followed a peninsula out past a small town and found a lovely little beach and the Syrian Government. Onto Latakia. After a while driving in circles trying to pick the best place to start looking for hotels, and another while looking for and finding a decent hotel, we set out to find the Italian Restaurant of Latakia. Success...eventually. Then we drove up the coast to scope out the beaches for Day 5—sadly, even the resort hotels' beaches were disgusting, so swimming was axed.

Day Five, the epic push home. Tamer stole driving away from me for illegitimate reasons, but whatever. We stopped in Tartous and suffered pointlessly for several hours in the miserable humid heat while not doing very much, though we did see a goat slaughtered. Last stop was Crac de Chevaliers, the excellent Crusader Castle. By this point both our nerves and our interpersonal relations were frayed so we headed home and promptly collapsed.

Epilogue: All members of this road trip have remained friends and occasionally think fondly back to that time we spent 120 hours together. But not often.

Syria to Denver in 57 hours

23 December, 2009

A rough breakdown of my travels:

Monday, 21 December, 1:00 PM: Finished Level 7. And, passed! Hooray.

Tuesday, 22 December, 12:15 AM: Damascus Airport
3:05 AM: Arrive in Cairo Airport. Am denied a room voucher because my layover is 5 hours and 45 minutes, 15 minutes shy of the required hotel-appropriate layover time.
4:00 AM Start drinking. Discover the chairs of Cairo Airport all have seat dividers and thus are impossible to sleep in. Shake my fist at the world, attempt to sleep anyway.
6:00 AM: Free breakfast of...pizza.

9:20 AM: The time my flight to London was supposed to leave.
10:45 AM: The time my flight to London actually left.
2:30 PM: Arrive in London. Wander around aimlessly for a little bit, having forgotten how to operate in Western society.
2:55 PM: British people are unfailingly polite. It’s a little frightening.
4:00 PM: Finally connect with my friends in Reading who graciously take me in, give me tea, and cook me dinner.
10:00 PM: Go to bed for the first time in 39 hours.

Wednesday, 23 December, 4:45 AM: Wake up.
5:55 AM: Bus to Heathrow. Wait in hugely long line, worry about missing my flight. Ha ha.
8:40AM: When my flight to Houston was supposed to leave.
11:00 PM: When my flight to Houston actually left.

3:00 PM: Arrive in Houston. Have missed my flight to Denver. Am brought to a back room and questioned about my Middle East activities, but not really that thoroughly.
4:30 PM: Finally get a ticket to Denver.
6:30 PM: When my flight to Denver took off, coincidently the same time it was supposed to take off. Fancy that.

8:15 PM: Arrive in Denver. It's snowing. A lot.
8:20 PM: Lose my boarding pass. Five flights just landed from Houston. Spend an hour and a half looking for my bag on the wrong side of the airport.
9:45 PM: Find my bag. Head outside to catch the 10:00 PM bus to Littleton.
10:30 PM: After freezing for forty five minutes, give up on the bus.
10:45 PM: Board Super Shuttle™ to Highlands Ranch. Sort of. Instead of going to homes, they're going to a random hotel sort of near my house. Attempt to give this information to my mother despite not having a phone.

Thursday, 24 December, 12:15 AM: Arrive at random hotel. Mother arrives following a tow truck.
12:30 AM: Finally arrive at my mother's house, 57 relative hours later.

Ah, America.