Without further delay- here’s my first ever blog entry!
I’ve been reluctantly thinking of things to write in this blog. Having never written one before, I wasn’t really sure where to start. This is my first time in Syria, I’ve been staring and gawking at images of Mar Musa for months now. Five days after arrival, I’m still taking in the landscape (I’ve been getting over a sniffle, so there’s not much else to do but stare out the windows while I work on the images database). This place is truly and completely breathtaking with scenery taken straight from storybooks. We’re living in castles, built into the mountains. Beautiful open spaces, some very narrow spaces, chipped away from the cliff faces, built up with stone masonry, joined by the tiniest of doorways and some of the most intricate stairways I’ve ever seen. It’s a 1.5-ish km hike up a winding stairway to get to the entrance of the old monastary (a doorway that can’t be more than three feet high). To get to our rooms, located in the neighbouring Hayek building (cave of the weaver), it’s another 20 minute hike (This can be quite the workout for Francesca who keeps forgetting the key)! Jovanna considered taking a real-time video of how long it takes for us to get from point a. to point b. I think we should post it on this blog, for emphasis.
That’s it for now, next time I think I’ll post a list of Arabic words I should use most often--- since I need to be better at using them……often… every day.
Joelle
