Damascus Revisited

After a quiet few weeks, a visa run and a smackeral of work, it seems like we have hit the final straight. With approximately six weeks of university left and May approaching very rapidly it feels rather like we are being slowly rehabilitated into English society. A steady trickle of visitors, girlfriends and friends bringing with them Sunday newspapers, sausages and Pimms and taking home in their place jumpers, books and our paltry collection of Syrian artefacts are slowly reintegrating us with the West.

The pressure is now on with brushing up on Arabic, visiting and taking photos of all the things that we have put off for seven months. Guy is even planning to take a week off university in order to complete his tour of Syria and suddenly, having bemoaned aspects of life here as boring, there is so much for us left to do. That seems to be the way with Arabic though. Everytime you find yourself improving something makes it harder. One friend of mine likened it to learning a train timetable. Difficulty, 'nerdy' but not without its ultimate satisfaction, when you leave the classroom you discover it has little relevance to the reality of the situation.

Plenty of photographs to follow as I catch up on the things I wasn't doing while I was learning my train times.