Email and Syria

My email decided to stop working on Friday. I'm not completely sure why, but I don't think it's from my end. Pitt just updated its email services and they are having issues. Figures. Anyways, I just got back from Syria where we visited Damascus and Palmyra. Syria wasn't as bad as the average American would make it out to be. Damascus was very very interesting. We walked around Straight Street and visited the House of Ananias. Actually I just found an paragraph from Wikipedia which basically describes everything explored while in Damascus:

"Damascus has a wealth of historical sites dating back to many different periods of the city's history. Since the city has been built up with every passing occupation, it has become almost impossible to excavate all the ruins of Damascus that lie up to 8 feet below the modern level. The Citadel of Damascus is located in the northwest corner of the Old City. The street called straight (referred to in the conversion of St. Paul in Acts 9:11), also known as the Via Recta, was the decumanus (East-West main street) of Roman Damascus, and extended for over 1500 meters. Today, it consists of the street of Bab Sharqi and the Souk Medhat Pasha, a covered market. The Bab Sharqi street is filled with small shops and leads to the old Christian quarter of Bab Touma (St. Thomas's Gate). Souq Medhat Pasha is also a main market in Damascus and was named after Medhat Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Damascus who renovated the Souq. At the end of the Bab Sharqi street, one reaches the House of Ananias, an underground chapel that was the cellar of Ananias's house.

The Umayyad Mosque, also known as the Grand Mosque of Damascus, is one of the largest mosques in the world, and one of the oldest sites of continuous prayer since the rise of Islam. A shrine in the mosque is said to contain the head of John the Baptist.

A heavily visited site is the tomb of Zaynab bint Ali. Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims visit it every year.”

Then we made our way to Palmyra, an ancient city built in an oasis in the middle of the Syrian Desert. Our hotel was amazing. Pictures and words do not justify experiencing it in person, a truly exotic and surreal atmosphere. We were surrounded by ancient ruins and singing Bedouins while being served traditional Syrian cuisine.

On the way to Palmyra we took one of the main roads to Baghdad. I believe we were about 60km from Iraq and about 300km from Baghdad. The road we were on actually runs parallel to the Iraqi/Syrian oil pipeline which in now out of service thanks to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I found out that Syria is kinda pissed about since it costs them $2.7 billion a year in lost oil revenues.

Less than two weeks until I'm on my way home. I love it here but I miss everyone at home. Oh yeah, I haven't received my bag and I don't think I ever will. So, I might be doing a lot of shopping soon. From now on send all emails to:

I'll write again soon!

-Joe