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My stay in Damascus is finally winding down. On Sunday I leave for Cairo for 5 days and then finally back to the USA next Thursday, which is less then a week from today. This past week I finished up my travels in Syria. On Monday I went to the coast to the city of Lattakia with my roommates. The city itself was pretty boring, but there was old Pre-Phoenician ruins outside the city where the first alphabet was created. After that we took the train to Aleppo as the train ride is far more scenic and cheaper than a bus ride. We used Aleppo as our base to visit various "dead cities" in the area from Roman and Byzantine times. That night our one roommate left Syria to catch his flight in Istanbul so we said goodbye to him. The next day we did a little site seeing, we went to the Grand Omayyad Mosque, the Citadel and went to Aleppo's famous vast covered markets. Finally we got back to Damascus yesterday around 4PM. In the day I have various things I must still do; last minute gift shopping, saying goodbye to friends and of course packing so I won't probably write until after my first full day in Egypt which will consist of the Pyramids and Egyptian Museum.