Damascene voices

Yesterday evening, I was welcomed back to Graz by the powerful stench of cowdung at the airport and Austrian folk music blasting out of Radio Steiermark on the bus downtown. Rewind to an hour earlier, when I met Thomas at Vienna airport, starting his long long trip to Ushuaia, Argentina. Yet another hour earlier, I finally summoned the courage to ask my Syrian fellow passengers - a heavily maked-up mother with her daughter who was reading "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" with a pen in hand to underline unknown words (one of them was "intuitive") - where they were heading, and they turned out to be friends of my mother's aunt. Going back some hours more, our flight's absolutely terrifying purser Sieglinde Bussbaumer welcomed us on her flight "on behalf of the whole crow". Sounds like fun? Travelling is!

Vienna airport: Thomas, Transfer Flatmate C & company head for South America in Iberia's flight 3575 to Madrid.
Damascus in April is nothing like it is in the summer. I never thought I would need two warm blankets there and the raging hailstorms were like something out of science fiction. In general, the city seemed a lot more crowded and hectic than before - probably owing much to the over 1 million Iraqis who have decided to make Syria their new home. The general opinion in Damascus seems to be that this has contributed to a rise in the crime rate (usually very low for a city of this size) as well as prices of apartments shooting through the roof.

Pick your candidate! Election posters on Street Al-Malki.
Lonely Planet's city guides usually feature a "city talk" section about current hot conversation topics. If I were asked to write one on Damascus based on this latest trip, my top three current issues would probably be:
-"How many more refugees can this city take before it turns into New Baghdad?"
-"Plastic surgery: liplifts are all the newest rage! Has your neighbour already had one?"
-"US top politician Nancy Pelosi's visit: what effect do you think it will have on US foreign policy towards Syria?"

My grandparents' traditional "arrival countdown" in full swing.
The main sights and the essential Damascus walks seemed a bit "been there, done that" by now, but still there were new places to see this time as well, even if they were such dubious attractions as the reopened office of Iraqi Airways (absolutely packed, with outdated posters on the walls proclaiming "A trip to Iraq is an unforgettable experience"), the finally finished top-notch Four Seasons hotel (see quote of the day on sidebar) and a new American-style shopping mall in the suburbs of Kafarsuse (eerily empty).

Part of the Damascus skyline: The Four Seasons, with the hideous Damascus tower in the background.

Back here at home, I was greeted by a birthday present from Petra (see picture below), some leftover chocolate cake Thomas and his girlfriend had made and my bed, which was not quite the way I left it after her visit (no comment). This house has had a lot of visitors this month, and yesterday Maria and her visiting brother B were hosting a candlelight balcony party as I arrived. They had big plans to go to Vienna today, but nevertheless I saw them strolling on the street in the late afternoon near the Kunstuni, where I also saw a motorcyclist who had been hit by a tram - at the speed those things swerve into Leonhardstrasse from behind the corner, it's probably no wonder. Everything is very green now here and our garden is flourishing beautifully. I'll now go to see whether the bathroom is free, brush my teeth, and go to bed.