A mildly amusing anecdote from the last 24 hours:

Yesterday, at ten o'clock in the morning, I walked in on the owner of the hostel where I'm staying, gazing lovingly and whispering sweet nothings to a bottle of Scotland's finest. He didn't appear to be even slightly inebriated, and there was definitely no one else in the room, but he was definitely having a full fledged conversation with a bottle of scotch whiskey. I always wonder a little about people who speak out loud to inanimate objects, but he seems like a harmless enough guy, and to be honest, I may find myself doing the same thing to the next bottle of decent red wine that I get my hands on. Anyhow, when he realized that he wasn't alone with his beloved, it led to an awkward moment where neither of us knew what to say, but after five seconds he just shrugged and smiled sheepishly, and then offered me a glass. Normally I'm not the kind of girl to turn down a good scotch, but 10AM is a little early for me to be cracking out the booze, so I wound up taking a pass.

It's Friday afternoon in Damascus, and the city is eerily quiet. The streets are all but deserted, and most shops are closed. Knowing that Friday is the quietest day of the week in most Arab cities, I had originally been planning to take a day trip down to Bosra to check out some roman ruins, but I think that I've just about reached my personal limit for the number of ruins that I can see and appreciate in one trip, so instead I'm spending a quiet day in Damascus. I had originally been planning on leaving for Beirut tomorrow morning, but after giving it some thought, I've decided to bypass Lebanon completely, and will be heading to Amman instead. Why the sudden change of plans, you might ask? It's a combination of visa, time and budget concerns. Simply put, I'm running out of time and money, and I don't want to run the risk of not being able to make it to Jordan, should I get knocked back at the Lebanese-Syrian border. Also, travel fatigue is definitely beginning to set in, as I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately, so I'm really just becoming lazy, and want to minimize the amount of time that I spend getting from place to place. The new plan is to spend just a couple of days in Jordan to visit Petra (the ruins to end all ruins!), and then spend the remainder of my time in the Middle East in the Holy Land.

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