Sunday, March 29, 2009

Jisr Al Shougour (جسر الشغور)

That is the name of the small little town I'm living in now, somewhere in the north of Syria. This small, obscure little place is hard to come by in the Internet. It is approximately 3-4 hours away from Damascus. The nearest city is Aleppo which is about 1+ hour away.

Located about 170m above sea level, the town is pretty mountainous with houses and shops built all around the hill side. Pretty a dead town although it has some shops for provisions and restaurants. But that is pretty much all there is here. There seems to be hardly any industry here. The only ones are a sugar factory (which looks like it's crumbling) and the power station where I work in. I guess the rest of the population is preoccupied with agriculture. They do have very fresh vegetables, fruits and meat here.

And by the way, summer daylight saving just kicked in on the 27th March in Syria. I had to advance my clock from GMT+2 to GMT+3. Feels so weird, first time I had to do this. It was on a Friday which is a weekend here. Thank God, otherwise it may have created some confusion. Or maybe it only confuses people like me who come from a place where there is no such thing as winter or summer - just plain hot weather all year round.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

I am in Syria!

I'm blogging for the first time from Syria. Have been here since 16.03.09 and may continue to be here for the next couple of months. I'm staying in a small town called Jiser Al Shoghour, which is almost 4 hours north of Damascus. The scenery here is very beautiful - lotsa greens and the weather is now still cold as it is winter.

I've nothing in particular to blog about as I've just arrived here and still trying to fit in with a completely different culture. The people are nice and the environment really authentically Arabic unlike Abu Dhabi. Will blog more often with details when I find time.