Damascus

Hezbollah flags are all around in Syria, as well as lovely pictures of Nasrallah with a small fighter man on a hill in the foreground. The president of Syria and Nasrallah are pals and the love for Hezbollah seems to be far stronger here than in many parts of Lebanon.



Walking around the old city is walking back in time. Old windy streets that barely fit a car, people on bicycles cruising by the Umayyad mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam.




The streets and markets were freakishly empty -- here the light is streaming through the roof of the market making an interesting display of polka dots on the empty souq floor. The streets only inhabitants were young boys dressed in the beige and orange cardigans and carrying around frighteningly realistic fake guns. bizarre.



This boy was enthusiastically cooking up a revolting concoction of chicken livers wrapped in a pita. The pride on his face is evident.