Christmas in Damascus

We got back to Damascus a couple of days before Christmas and after a night staying in a hotel we moved to Rachel's rather swanky flat. Well it was pretty swanky compared to some of the places we've been staying in anyway. We soon discovered much to our surprise that Rachel had volunteered us to cook for twelve people on Christmas Day. Well that was a bit of a surprise. After picking ourselves up off the floor we spent most of Christmas Eve food shopping. Luckily we had done a cooking course in Petra a week or so before and decided to use some of the recipes we had learnt there.

In the evening we went for Christmas Eve drinks at Rachel's friend Darren's flat. There was quite a group of people there and it was a nice relaxed way to spend the evening. We went onto the roof of his apartment which is in the Christian area and Damascus and could see the whole place lit up as people here really got to town with their Christmas lights.

Christmas Day itself began with an early 6am start. I really didn't feel like getting out of bed but had to force myself to attend an 8am Christmas mass in the little village of Maalula. Maalula is about 40km north of Damascus and is a beautiful little village where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken. The village is up in the mountains and much to our surprise there was snow on them so we had our first white Christmas in I can't remember how long. Christmas mass was given in a beautiful small church at the top of the hill. With the service being given in Aramaic we couldn't understand a word of it but that didn't take away from a wonderful morning. After the service we were given a guided tour of the church and then invited to drink some local wine courtesy of the priest himself. We spent another hour so walking through the village. There was a canyon back down to the bottom of the village.

We took the bus back to Damascus and after a quick call back home to wish the family a happy Christmas it was back to Rachel's to begin the task of cooking for everyone. I have to admit if I had given this task on my own I wouldn't have had a clue what to do or where to start. Luckily Phil took charge and the day seemed to go pretty smoothly. We made up a few salads and also served up hommos and mutabal (an aubergine dish) for starters. We then cooked a big chicken casserole and some stuffed aubergines for the mains. The food took a little while to come out but everyone seemed pretty happy with the fair and everyone was stuffed by the end of the day. As the evening went on everyone slowly made there way home, leaving myself Phil, Rachel, Natalie and Leah to have a relaxing evening in the flat. All in all I think the day went very well - it was certainly the best Christmas I've spent away from home.

The following day I came down with the flu. It totally knocked me out and I spent three days on the couch in Rachel's flat watching crap telly. It was nice to have a comfortable apartment to hang out in while I was feeling ill. A few days before new year I was feeling well enough to travel again so we took the bus over to Beirut in Lebanon to sample what is meant to be the best night-life in the Middle East...