What have I been up to?

Well, after Petra (where I got asked out on a date by a cute young man, but declined), we went to Damascus.

Damascus was cool:
* The big souq/market is great and everything is pretty cheap too, especially afterJordan which is mostly England prices (damn their strong currency!!!)
* The old mosque in Damascus is awesome. However us girls had to wear these horrible hooded gowns to cover our western clothes - a headscarf wasn't enough. We looked like dorks. I'll have to post a pic when I can of us. Locals were laughing at us!!! Then to get into the shrine in the mosque is fight and a half. Everyone's pushing - especially the little old ladies! We barely got out alive! I would recommend having another door put in. Maybe having one as an entrance and one as an exit door? I'll write a letter to the mosque's Imam about it when I get back to London.
* We also went to an old palace which is the best old building besides the mosque, to go to apparently. Lots of wood carving, inlaid stuff and fancy pieces. Was cool. However my favourite bit were the tranny manniquins. They were obviously male manniquins dressed and made-up as women. Badly. Hahahaha!!! At first I thought, 'well, maybe they're supposed to be trannies', but it became clear that they weren't. They totally made my trip to the palace :)

Then, after saying goodbye to some people who werent' doing the whole 35 days, we went to Palmyra (there are 11 people on the tour, including me, now)

The ruins at Palmyra were great. Me, Julia and Jenny got a guide and that really added to the experience. Would've been an amazing city in its hayday! That night we camped out there too, pretty much surrounded by tombs. I went looking in some of them before dinner and found some human (probably) bones in one. You had slide on your back to get in and crawl on your belly to get out. Then I took some of the others to have a look and they couldn't believeI went by myself down the tomb, in the dark. Well, like I said to them, I didn't have anything else to do before dinner ;)

And today we saw some crap waterwheels at some city beginning with H - maybe Hamma? - and drove to Aleppo

Tomorrow we're doing a city tour and then we've got a free day. Should be fun - lots of markets and somethings to see :)

Then on to Turkey!!!...