Hello from Damascus!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. In our last days of Jordan we visited Jeresh. It would be similar to stepping back in time to when the roman's ruled. Beautiful columns, churches, and theater cover hectares of

land.We even got to scrap with the gladiators and have pictures to prove it

Next we dipped in the Dead Sea which was a lot of fun. We had a wonderful "float" trying to keep our head above water while performing parachuting and synchronize swimming moves. The salt water burns like crazy so you really want to keep it out of your eyes and mouth. We had to try the mad bath…caking on mud from the bank our skin felt silky smooth.

The next day we were awoken by the call for pray just before 5:00am, perfect timing cause we had to get up to catch our local "JETT" bus to Syria for 7:00am.In Damascus we met our guide Fad, a pleasant young Syrian who has made us feel welcome.The Syrians are so kind, always saying "Hi" or "Welcome" and expecting nothing in return, a pleasant change from Egypt. Syrians have such beautiful eyes…blue, green, some brown & we were amazed to find that some had light brown or blonde hair.Food is really cheap …lucky us! Fad treated us to freshly baked chocolate stuffed croissants (what a nice guy!). Then we had the best pizza from a street vendor…. a mere 50 cents for two small ones & we were stuffed.Our goal is to have pizza every day as its so darn good.Fad took us to the old city last night.It's like Christmas as everyone is preparing for the End of Ramadan or Eid al-Fitr.We pushed our way through the crowds (of women dressed as westerners, others in traditional Iraqi, Iranian & Syrian veils) on narrow streets lined by stores.Haven't run into many other tourists like we did in Jordan & Egypt… which is kind of nice & makes it more of a true cultural experience. The stores, part of the old city, are a few hundred years old. Some streets are so narrow one could almost reach their arms across the street and touch buildings on each side. Fad took us for pizza (yes again) then for fresh fruit juice blended while we waited…so much better and fresher than Booster Juice.

The market is so cool as there are street vendors selling cooked corn (kernel or cob) candy carts, watches, spices, clothes, you name… it's there.Today, Fad took us to the SyrianMuseum and showed us the first alphabet which contained letters and was scribed on the tiniest piece of tile. Our alphabet was derived from this

Fad then took us to the largest and oldest Mosque in the region.We were there for call to pray which lasted 5 mins.Men pray at the front of the mosque facing East (towards Mecca) & the women line the back wall. Some of the call is "Allah is the only God… Mohammed is the last prophet….." We looked pretty monkish in our greeny-grey potato sacks that only the women tourist get to experience, the guys thought we were hot!Maria kept her back pack on under her robe to emulate the hunch back of Syria…that's part of history is it not?

Tomorrow we're traveling on to Palmyra in Northern Syria… so the adventure continues!