SYRIA: Ice Cream & John The Baptist

This is the twelfth in a 15-part series of pics from Syria.

First — Second — Third — Fourth — Fifth — Sixth — Seventh — Eighth — Ninth — Tenth — Eleventh — Twelfth — Thirteenth — Fourteenth — Fifteenth.

I flew back to Damascus on SyrianAir and was met by my Lebanese friend, Michel, whom I’d met at St George, Houston, back when he was visiting his daughter in 2009.

A familiar sight for a Carolina boy — look, Mom, they even dye peeps at Easter in Syria!

Everywhere, the ruins. These ancient remnants serve as street buffers on the sidewalks.

I‘d told Michel that I needed to do a little shopping before heading back to the States. Thanks God for him! (Haggling, in Arabic = a must!)

You can read about the famous Bakdash ice cream shop in this recent news story.

The frozen concoction is rolled and pounded with pistachios …

Iwas a good boy. (Or, it could be said, an idiot.) I had none.
(Not sure why, but I feel I should ask for your forgiveness.)

Like night and day, the contrasts between the old and new (new being a relative term) are striking and omnipresent in Old Damascus.

One of the largest and oldest mosques in the world, the Ummayad Mosque.

Why would I enter?

Because tradition holds that the little domed building with the green glass contains the head of St John the Baptist. (Read about it here).

Women are required to be covered — everyone is required to take off their shoes. There were plenty of Muslim women in various “extremes of cover” but I kept wondering: Who are the Hoodies? When I asked Michel, he said: “Westerners … tourists.” Ah! In other words, they give out the hooded trenches to those “inappropriately dressed”.