why so syria - damascus

In November, me and four other friends traveled to Syria for our Eid break. The culture in Syria is absolutely fantastic, and I loved being there. Traveling in Syria for 12 days I actually saved money because Syria is so cheap compared to Jordan. We did so much that there is no way I could blog about everything in one post, so I'll break it up into cities. First: Damascus.


After our unnecessarily long pit-stop at the border, we got to Damascus around midnight when we were expected to get there around 8. Our host, Josh, was out with friends so instead of going to his apartment we went straight to a bar. Ended up crazy dancing until 4 in the morning.


Umayyad mosque at night.




Umayyad mosque during the day.

The rest of these pictures are mainly from walking around the souqs in Damascus: eating chocolate crescent rolls for breakfast, drinking endless cups of fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice (Miriam was loving it), visiting other mosques, having pizza and wine for dinner, meeting random new friends, etc.







Spice market in Souq Hamadiya.








Sarah and I made friends with this man. We went into his store at least 3 times to haggle with him, and finally on the third time we bothered him enough that he brought down his prices on some pillowcases we were buying for our families.


This last picture portrays how Syria feels about Israel. This metal Israeli flag has been anchored to the ground in one of the main souqs in Damascus so everyday thousands of people walk over it as a sign of disrespect.