Days 34-44

So its been another ten days since my last post and not much has happened. I failed my Arabic surprise surprise, although 9 students in the class of 14 failed along with me. I'm going to start learning Syrian colloquial with a friend of a friend and study fusha- literary Arabic on my own. Tomorrow I decided that I'm gonna head to Jordan for 5 days mainly so I can get a new visa when I re-enter Syria and avoid going to immigration. The rest of my studies are going to be pretty much on my own, which I think is much better. Hopefully I'll have more exciting things to write about after I get back from Jordan.

Days 23-33

The past week or so have been pretty uneventful. Just classes four hours a day then trying to survive the heat the rest of the day. This Saturday I went to Bosra in southern Syria to see the Roman ruins there. Other than the amphitheater everything was pretty boring, column, arch, etc. This is my last week of classes and this Thursday is my final. I have decided not to continue at the University of Damascus, instead I'm going to get a private tutor for maybe 4 days a week for 2.5 or 3 hours each time. That way I don't get burned out taking classes all summer, also hopefully they will be able to spot my weaknesses. Then hopefully I will jump straight into private lessons instead of classes on Monday hopefully not early. Then after a month I will leave Syria for Jordan since according to the US Embassy Syria is not honoring any more multiple entry visas.

Days 15-22

A lot has happened in the last week from mosques, sickness, tests, to Roman ruins. A week ago I finally went to the Umayyad Mosque, which was really cool. The mosques contains the supposed heads of John the Baptist and the head of Hussein, the grandson of Mohammed. Well I was there there was a choir of men, of course, singing religious songs in Arabic of course. By Monday after class I was beginning to get sick. I had a horrible fever and stomach ache and the next day wasn't any better as it was going to be 105 degrees. I almost passed out on the bus to the university from the heat so I sat on the floor and got off at the next stop and got water and took a cab the rest of the way. I didn't start feeling better until Wednesday which was the day before my midterm so I spent most of my time that night catching up on work and reviewing. The midterm I had on Thursday wasn't too bad, I will find out the results tomorrow. After class some classmates and I celebrated by getting some lunch and argila aka hookah. One of my Norwegian classmates had a cookout on Thursday so I went to that which was a lot of fun and apparently Damascus is a big destination for Norwegians as they have a giant group of them that all hang out. On Friday a classmate and I took a bus to Palmyra to see the Roman ruins there. Four hours later we finally arrived in the desert oasis. There was a town of about 50,000 beside the ancient city and since it was the only thing in the area, the ruins were quite the tourist trap. Most things costed 2-3x as much as things in Damascus, but the ruins were great and our hotel had air conditioning which was awesome to say the least. We went to the citadel on a nearby mountain the overlooked the ruins and town at sunset with other people from our hotel. After that we all got in a van to go to some Beduin themed dinner, which was interesting. Finally after a good nights rest we returned to the ruins for a bit to see the Temple of Bael and some areas of the ruins we didn't get to see the previous day. Then we rehydrated and got the next bus to Damascus and got back around 4PM. Tomorrow my next half of class is starting, I can't believe I have already been here three weeks as it feels like I got here just yesterday. That's all for now next weekend I hope to go to one of the major cities in the north.