Room Hunting

As soon as I arrived in Damascus, I started to look for a room. It’s not that I didn’t like my hotel but my social needs were not fulfilled (!). The first day I arrived I met a French girl (Marine) who is a friend of a friend of a friend… She was moving out of her room at the beginning of the month, and she offered me to take her room if the landowner agrees. But I wanted to visit more rooms to compare and make my decision. Some people advised me to enter any cafés and ask for an available room but, as I don’t speak Arabic at all, I preferred to start by calling a few numbers I found on the Internet. Unfortunately, the results were quite unsuccessful (room already taken, too expensive, or they didn’t speak English…).

So, I opted to the “Let’s go to a place where I can find people who speak English and ask for help” option. I called the Damascus Hostel, a bagpacker place where the tenant (Raymond) offered me to come for a tea. I gladly accepted and 2 hours later (time to find the place…) I arrived. There, I met 2 Arabic guys who worked there and apparently knew many landlords in the old Damascus (Maher and Saad). The good thing is that Maher speaks English. They offered to help me and 10 minutes later I found myself walking in the little Damascus’ streets with them. In 3 hours, I visited about 6 places in several Arabic families (read: I drank tea 6 times). They also showed me a couple of rooms in very nice old houses full of foreign student who were learning Arabic. In fact, finding a room in Damascus is pretty easy, but finding the right one is a bit more complicated! Basically the price range is about 10 000 Syrian Pounds (SYP) to 17000 SYP for a room in a shared house (220$ to 350$ per month). I wanted to go for the cheapest room so I denied most of the foreign student places in the Christian district of Bab Touma. Finally, one day later I received the confirmation of Marine’s landlord and I decided to take the place (which is quite cheap and has internet, true luxury !!). As the room was free only on the 1st of November, I decided to live in an Arabic family I had visited, for 8 days.

The house is situated in the middle of the Old Damascus, in the Christian district. I will take a video to show you how to go to this house. It is a real labyrinth (main street then small street, then smaller street, then left, right, left, left, left, right, right right, left, ??... right). I share this place with Laurice (the mother), her son Sami (30ish), her daughter Eva (20ish), and an Italian student (Antonino).

Here are some pictures of the houses:


The nice little courtyard



My room is upstairs (the door open that you can see...)

Courtyard From Upstairs 1

Courtyard From Upstairs 2



My Room. I tidied up for the picture !

If you notice, there are 2 Jesus pictures (christian family) and I have a baby sheet so I can only sleep well ! The dirty paper next to Jesus is a a 1991's calendar (jajajaja I live in a "museum"). Finally the light switch is not working so I have to "play" with the bulb to have some light. Don't misread me, I like my room !

The bathroom/shower

The magic red button I have to press 30min before taking my shower if I want to have hot water.


View of the roof surrounding the house

My hotel for the first few days

After a very good night of sleep in the Sultan Hotel (horning noises don’t wake me up when I am exhausted !), I discovered that the price of my room was more expensive that I thought. The room was very clean, with a shower and western toilet. But 39$/night was too much for my budget. I tried to make a deal but the hotel was full so they didn’t really care about my bargaining skills. Direction an internet café to find a cheaper one.

After looking at my mails and seeing that Paulius and Jason were thinking that I was already in a pub (Almost No pub in Syria guys !!), I called a couple of cheap hostels.

Alex : Hello, is it the ……hotel ?

Receptionist : unknown arabic answer

Alex : Do you speak English, French, Spanish... Quebecois ?

Receptionist : unknown different answer but I couldnt understant anything anyway…

5th try.

- Hotel Al Kindi ?

-Speak English ? Yes , a bit ?

Room available ? Yes ? Can I visit ? Naam

OK let’s go.This hotel was actually not very far from my first one and I walked through the crazy Syrian traffic to my destination. (I have to say that the Egyptian traffic keeps the gold medal for crazy traffic !). The place is on the 3rd floor of a very small street and it was pretty hard to find it. Oh, wait, didn’t I tell you ? I don’t speak arabic but most of the streets have no name. Luckilu, the Syrian people are very kind and they are always willing to help you even if they don ‘t talk your language. I will talk about it in another post.

Well, about the hotel, they only had a double room (I came alone guys !!!), but it was very cheap. 600 hundred Syrian Pounds ( about 9 euros). The room is not very clean nor is the bathroom, but as I already said, I am on a short budget and I don’t really need anything more. I even have a small TV in my room with 200 channels . 197 arabic channels, Euronews , CNN, and Al Ahly TV (special hello to Youssef, Mahmoud and Mohamed !). Unfortunately, they didn ‘t broadcast the Marseille game of Champion’s league. So i dediced to leave Syria at the end of the week. Just kidding.

Here are some pictures of my first (actually second) beloved room.

Luxury...

Fancy Shower/Toilet...

Damascus Streets

Straight Street and what my belly will look like in 2 months



For the moment I live in a street like that !



Funny Syrian Boy

Night 1: Late Arrival

Night 1 :

Late arrival After getting my visa on Tuesday morning, I have left Paris…on Tuesday evening ! We can call it « perfect timing »(actually I had no real Plan B if my visa was not ready and I started to freak out when the Syrian lady at the embassy told me that my passport was not here yet !!!). In fact, the Consul didn’t arrive on time at his office because of … I let you guess … Try harder… yeah you almost got it….yesss ! French strikes, of course !

So, I took an Alitalia flight at 7pm at Charles de Gaulles Airport in Paris,with a connection in Roma. There was a plane problem in Roma and the flight took off with 2 hours late. After a safe flight (chatting with a Serbian Guy sat next to me), I finnaly arrived at 3 am in Damascuss ! As it was very late, the visa check was pretty quick. One Syrian policeman even joked with me.

- English ?
-No French.
- Ah, I love France !!! (who doesn’t !) Bienvenue en Syrie ! Comment ca va ?
- Shokrane, ca va mais je suis un peu fatigué ! (Thank you, but I am a bit tired)
- Non non, c’est moi le plus fatigue ! (No, I am the most exhausted !)
- Not sure…

After a 5-minutes debate on how long we have slept during the past week (the people who know me are well aware that some weeks, you litteraly can’t compete with me :-)) , I finnaly met the taxi I had booked earlier during the day. (No I am not a fancy French Man, but there are no public buses after midnight…). He was waiting for me outside , holding a sign with my name and the name of the hotel. It was the first time it happened to me ! (I deliberately forget one time at the Montreal Airport where one of my best canadian friend was waiting for me with a giant sign , full of hearts and rainbows, screaming my name like a 15years-old at a boysband concert).

Well , to come back to my taxi story, I felf very important at this moment, like a VIP. For modesty purpose, I won’t mention that I also went through the VIP line for the passport check (there were actually only 2 open lines for foreigners , « Diplomats » and « VIP ») .

2nd Syrian chat :
Alexis : Salam Aleykoum , I am Alex
Taxi Driver : Aleykoum Salam, me… Tarek!
Alexis : Do you speak English, French ?
Taxi Driver : a bit…un peu…
Alexis: What do you prefer ?
TaxiDriver : well, my best language is...Arabic !

Hahaha ! big surpise ! After a 20min pretty silent drive (« a bit » was closer to « not at all » and for the moment my Arabic level is at the same level !) in direction of Damascus I was finnaly discovering the lights of the city, which appeared like a mirage in the middle of the desert. At this time, I started to feel the first shivers of excitement. I am pretty sure that all of you can remember this kind of feeling, when you first arrive in a new country. I was exhausted but at the same too excited about discovering a new environment , a new city, and new people. Everytime I arrive alone in a new country (especially at night), this set of mixed feeling (happiness, excitement, envy, stress, fear,… joy, etc…) re-appears. And I have to say that it is a f***** good feeling !

Damascus or « Cham » is the capital of Syria and the biggest city of the country with about 4 million of inhabitants. My first night in Damascus was spent in a 2 Stars hotel, the Sultan Hotel. It was the only one (in my price range) able to welcome me at 4 : 30 in the morning. Well, « welcome» was not exactly the best appropriate word as I arrived in front of an empty desk. Where the hell is the hotel receptionist ? After wandering around, I finally met 2 guys sleeping on some sofas and after an in-depht passport check, they finally gave me my key for a well-deserved sleep. « Welcome to Damascus sir, Good night ». Good night for me and good night for them. I was quite thirsty and 5 minutes in my room, I came back downstairs to ask for a bottle of water, but I found them sleeping deeply again…

5 am, time to go to bed, I’ll drink tomorrow !

Some pictures tomorrow…

Blog presentation

Hello everybody,I will write this blog to share with you (at least with those who care about it !) my Syrian adventures. I will try to feed this blog as much as possible with pictures, short stories, and articles. I will try to post about twice a week, but if I don’t , that would mean that I am too busy discovering the Syrian charms !For those who end up on this blog by chance, don’t be offended about bad jokes. It is my (not verry funny) french sense of humour.Hope you will enjoy it !