lets get 'er done

Move into the apartment tomorrow, got our mandatory AIDs test for Damascus University yesterday, went to the U.S. Embassy today, all set with passport photos/ copies/ all that good stuff... lotsa progress. We're also planning on going to Latakia, one of the coastal cities, this weekend, and hopefully we will go down to Jordan and the Dead sea after our placement exam on Monday.

It's gonna be sad to leave the hostel. The rabbits (Baba Ghanoush and Fattoush) are sort of amazing. Everyone who is staying in the hostel and all of the staff who work there have been indescribably helpful this past week. Alice, a sweet girl from London who goes to St. Andrew's University, has been the person who we've spent the most time with. She told us exactly how to go about registering with Damascus U, and she showed us around the Old City on our first few days. Without her we would have, literally, been lost here. There are a few other girls who also go to school in Scotland, one from Texas, who will attend the same Arabic session as us. And of course the older woman from Austria, who left today. The night we arrived we had a pretty intense debate about healthcare and immigration policies with her... even in Damascus, we soooo go to GW...

There are about 4 men who work at the hostel who have been so warm to us. Raymond, the owner, is from Australia but has been living here for a long time. He is the quirkiest man, and now that he's realized that it will freak me out, he keeps on "threatening" to cook the rabbits. The others are all Syrian. We sometimes have language barriers, but speaking with them has helped us understand a lot more Syrian amayaa. The day that Myles and I practiced Ramadan, and didn't eat or drink anything for about 17 hours, they included us in their feast afterwards.

We have also befriended the Kabboush family :) They were the ones who helped us find our apartment. We've gone out a few times with their two sons, Simone and Ivan, and the mother, Nada, is going to help us with our amayaa. Nada is coolest woman. Every word we say in Arabic, she makes us repeat it until we have the perfect pronunciation. When she saw me laughing at Adam, she whacked my arm. I feel like she is the classic tough-love yet motherly type of woman. The family has an art shop down the street from us, so I'm sure we will be seeing them a lot.