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July 26, 2005
Tuesday in Tartus.
My first city visit. Plenty of meetings with local officials tomorrow - we've even brought our own team of (much needed)interpreters.
I haven't seen much of the town itself yet, it has a whiff of Bray or Bundoran about it - coastal resort and all that.
There's supposed to be an amazing crusader castle nearby: Krak Des Chevaliers, it looks like it's right out of the Disney guide to Castles.
Our compressed schedule means we won't have time to visit, unfortunately.
Still, I have to leave something undone for next time...
Posted by Richard at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2005
Traffic
It wouldn't matter how long I spent here, I don't think I'd ever get used to the traffic.
Two lane roads jammed with three or four lanes of cars, beeping furiously at the poor fool who won't break the red light. Decrepit minibuses, cabins lit with green and blue flourecent striplights rushing along streets packed with people. Thirty thousand yellow cars, brands and models long forgotten in Europe, serving as the taxi service. Lada's barreling along the dusty lanes of the old city with inches of clearance on either side. The frightening way that cars turning onto a road seems to have precendence to anyone already on it, even if they're doing 50.
I don't think I'll be hiring a car.
Not that I'd need to, the project has a team of drivers to pick us up and drop us off as needed, and taxi's are pretty cheap. A typical cross town trip will cost about 50 or 60 Syrian pounds, less than a Euro.
It seems that all you need to set up in business as a taxi driver is a battered Fiat Mirafiori, a roof sign and a bucket of yellow paint. The better class of car might have a BMW M5 plaque stuck in place of the Lada Riva badge that has fell off 10 or 15 years ago.
The work is progressing well, it's quite challenging, with each day throwing up new obstacles and problems. But in general things are more advanced here than I thought they would be.
Posted by Richard at 07:48 PM | Comments (2)
July 17, 2005
Another day, another dollar
A full day's work today. No meetings, but plenty of research going on.
Sunday is a normal working day here, everywhere is open. The market below my window is in full swing, the plums bloke is flogging 4 kilo bags to beat the band.
We passed the city's main Mosque, the Omayyad, last night. It's surrounded by Roman ruins, you can even see where some of the Roman stone has been reused in the building of the Mosque.
As for eating, I've been following the Lonely Planet's recommendations for restaurants, and they've been on the money so far. There are only about 10 recommendations, and I've been in 3 to date, so I'll have to eat without guidance soon. Of course I've been picking the places which serve alcohol, many restaurants don't.
Friday Night's choice was the best so far, it's in a well preserved 400 year old house in the middle of the Christian quarter.
There are plenty of grilled meats on the menus, no pork of course, but steaks, chicken and veal aplenty. The starters, or mezze, are where you see most of the arabic influence, with hummous, aubergine, chickpeas and pomegranate popping up everywhere. A meal with one or two mezzes to start, a main and 3-4 beers costs about 12 euro. Toto, I ain't in Dublin anymore..
Actually the local brew isn't half bad. I'll have to bring a bottle or two home. I wonder if the Porterhouse are still doing that deal whereby if you bring in a bottle they don't have, you get a free beer?
Posted by Richard at 05:08 PM | Comments (2)
July 16, 2005
Settling in
I've been here for a few days now and I'm beginning to find my feet.
The city itself is very charming, but not without problems. The first impression is that it's pretty grubby by European standards, but once you get past that there are some pretty fantastic buildings here, from the Roman era up to the 19th century. Of course dotted amongst them are some pretty awful soviet style creations from the 70's. We had a short walking tour of the old city yesterday, most places were shut as it was Friday, but there was a real sense of history.
The people I've met have all been very nice and very helpful, but the language barrier is a problem. English is not widely spoken, and the Arabic script makes it impossible to read anything. This is a place where it is very easy to get lost, even with a map.
There is quite a mix of dress to be seen on the streets, most women wear headscarves, some with the full head to toe black garb, or heavy overcoats, which can't be fun in the 35C heat. Walking behind them might be a gang of women who wouldn't look out of place in Milan.
Buying anything from a shop or stall has involved pointing and handing over the cash. I managed to get that a bit wrong last night when I went to this stall outside the hotel to get a few bits of fruit:
I pointed at the plums and indicated that I wanted 4. I came back to him a few seconds later and he handed me a 4 kilo bag. That'll keep me busy for a few days. The cost? 100 Syrian pounds, or Eur 1.60.
My hotel room is your standard business room, with a small kitchenette.
The view is looking west into the Old city.
Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures, these were taken with my phone. I'm still working on getting my camera connected to the laptop.
I'm off now to the Old City in search of a restaurant for tonight's meal. Not too much beer tonight, I have an early start in the morning.
Posted by Richard at 05:15 PM | Comments (2)
July 14, 2005
Tech meltdown
I spent the hour delay in Aleppo angling my mobile any which way in search of a signal, and then doing the same in the hour long queue for visas at Damascus.
Not a sausage.
(well, obviously, 'tis a Muslim country)
So there was I, cursing the Syrian mobile industry when I noticed just about everybody else yammering away on their phones. Nobody texting of course - it can't be too easy with their alphabet.
It turns out that Vodafone Ireland don't have a roaming arrangement in Syria. I'm in a personal GSMless black hole. Maybe that's why Paul turned back on his way to Damascus, he realised he had to pick up an O2 sim card.
It's quite wierd how disconnected I feel. I spent the day at the project office meeting the permanent staff and first wave of short term people like me. There's 3 short-termers here today, with another 3 or 4 arriving over the weekend. All the while I knew that I couldn't be contacted at all, which was strangely disconcerting.
At least there's internet access in the hotel room. Mind you if I want to get sent home in a hurry all I have to do is type something smutty into Google.
I should have some time off tomorrow, so I'll try and stick a few photos up here.
Posted by Richard at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2005
Confirmed.
The man who stamps things has stamped that which needed to be stamped. I'm jetting out at 15.30 tomorrow.
Straight into the thick of it too, there's a presentation which I've been asked to attend on Thursday. I have a feeling I'll learn more from it than the attendees it's aimed at.
Today's temperature in Damascus? 39! I'm gonna melt...
Posted by Richard at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2005
Syria here I come...
The EU's rubber-stamp is inked and poised over the paper. Nothing moves until the bureaucrat puts the stamped form into his out tray. Still, it's looking like I'm leaving for Damascus on Wednesday afternoon, I'll know for sure tomorrow.
The afternoon flight means arriving at 3.30am on Thursday. With a 2-3 hour wait for a visa once I arrive, I hope I'm not expected to be too productive on my first day. Friday is the local day off, and I'm not expected to work on Saturday, so once I get the introductory meetings out of the way I should have a day or two to acclimatise.
Ahead of me lies 30 days of, well, I'm not quite sure what. Sweat for sure, either from the heat (38C today) or the job itself. Culture shock too. The place is about 10% Christian, so there should be such basics as beer available. All the literature I've read has been positive about the people and of course the place is steeped in history, so it's going to be quite a trip.
Posted by Richard at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2005
Exhausted.
Bloody hell, that was a long day.
Drive to airport, an hour with overpriced latte for company, another hour in a fairly grubby 737 (guess who I was flying with) followed by a 3 hour drive on A and B roads through some pretty impressive scenery. If we weren't running late and had a better clue of where we were going it would have almost been enjoyable. As the GIS expert I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to blame our late arrival on getting lost.
Once the meeting was done it was time to do it in reverse. The difference was that instead of pasty looking stag and hen people milling around the airport in matching t-shirts and hangovers, the smell of drink was coming from the 'Ibeefa' crowd who were downing pitchers of cheap lager while awaiting their delayed flight.
I wandered over to the newsstand and was amazed to see a copy of The Economist with it's front page devoted to the previous day's bombings in London. The magazine is goes to press on Thursday, I think, and arrives on shelves on Fridays. So a front cover and a number of articles relating to the bombings must have meant that there was some furiously tight-to-the-wire cramming going on. Either that or they had a number of editions, some of which were out of date before they hit the newsstands.
Posted by Richard at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)
July 07, 2005
Are they trying to tell me something?
First it was the 5 week job in Damascus, now they want me to go to Sellafield!
Ok, not quite Sellafield, but pretty damn close. It's going to be quite a drive too, 3 hours each way and I'm doing the driving.
Posted by Richard at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2005
Google Earth
Wow.
Really.
Another pie that Google have dipped their fingers into. They've taken the next step after Google maps and moved on to imagery with Google Earth.
The data is pretty good. The imagery, for Dublin at least, appears to be about a year old. I'm basing that on the Luas Red Line, which seems to be still under construction. The neatness comes from Google's interface wizardry. There are a number of deft touches, like the fly-through zoom it uses as the user jumps from place to place. The terrain model is impressive too.
The Google Maps street data, which matches up almost perfectly, is a little older - my guide here is the Coombe Bypass which I have yet to see on anyone's digital map.
I wonder how MapFlow feel about this development in their market?
Posted by Richard at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)