The Talisman Hotel, Damascus
We have always loved Damascus. We used to hang out there a lot when we were with the embassy in Amman. Weekends we would drive up and stay with friends at the embassy there, or they might drive down and stay with us. I remember shopping at one time, and in a shop along the Street Called Straight when I caught a glimpse of the shopkeeper and his friends, drinking tea, not oblivious to us, but also not attentive to us, and all of a sudden, I could see through the centuries, I could feel the weight of the history of this city, that the citizens of Damascus have seen so much of civilization and we were mere mists, appearing for a short time and disappearing again, nothing of substance, nothing of importance in a city which endures and endures.
You really have to love Damascus to go through what we had to go through to get to Damascus – it took months for us to get visas. Our government publishes advisories telling us NOT to go there, and we in our arrogance, figure we will be OK. We also know that when we re-enter our own country, we will get additional scrutiny for having put Syria in that little block where they ask where you have travelled between your last visit and this visit.
When the blogger Gastronomica was blogging, he wrote about staying in the same hotel in Sidi bou Said, Tunisia that we had stayed in and thoroughly enjoyed, (the Dar Said for anyone going to Tunisia, is just minutes from the Tunis airport in the beautiful hillside village of Sidi bou Said, minutes up the road from the old city of Carthage). He wrote about a hotel in Damascus called The Talisman which I immediately looked up online, and immediately bookmarked.
The Talisman was formerly a family palace, fallen on hard times, gutted and renovated with enormous care. No matter where you set your eyes, there is something of beauty. The furnishings are beautiful, chosen with taste and restraint. The colors are both traditional – and modern – and very exciting.
The entrance to the Talisman is on a tiny little hard-to-find street, barely big enough for a taxi:
We would never have heard of The Talisman without Gastronomica’s recommendation, but on our very first morning there, we met a woman with the December 2007 Conde Nast Traveller featuring Damascus, and recommending The Talisman if you couldn’t get into Dar al Mamluk, a much smaller hotel not too far from The Talisman. We saw the Dar al Mamluk, and a nearby merchant said the rooms are much smaller than the Talisman, and not so exquisitely furnished. We have not seen the rooms for ourselves.
From the moment we arrived, we loved The Talisman. You are located a mere minute’s walk from the Street Called Straight. You can get anywhere in the old city in ten – fifteen minutes walk. You are one minute from a nearby Amin Street where you can catch a taxi anywhere in the city. What we loved the most about the location was that we could walk and walk and walk – and we did. Every day, we walked the city.
The service you get at the Talisman is personal and attentive, without being intrusive. Breakfast is cheerful and plentiful, served buffet-style in a rosy-red room filled with antiques and two bustling, good-humored waiters who keep your coffee and tea cups full.
The rooms are huge. We only reserved a regular room; you just never know looking at pictures on the internet what a place is really going to look like, so we had thought that if the room was too small we would ask if any suites were available.
When we got to our room, we were blown away by their concept of “regular”. It was spacious. Compared to most hotels, the “regular” rooms were HUGE! The bathroom had both a huge bathtub and a modern shower, and they both worked and had plenty of hot water. We had space enough to invite an old friend to our room; we had our own seating area.
We loved the attention to detail, the room furnishings, even the light fixtures:
There are also two lounges, one outside, one inside, and tables around the pool where you can sit and soak up some sunshine, even in the midst of winter.
The Talisman is a treasure, with its attention to detail and to cheerful, attentive service. One of the things we liked the very best about the Talisman is the pride the Damascus citizens take in its restoration. One shop, where we had bought from the current owner’s father, told us with pride that his shop had provided many of the lamp fixtures for the hotel. Most shopkeepers and restaurant people had visited the Talisman at some time or other; they all spoke of it with pride. Who can blame them? The place is a gem.
There were many families staying there. There were many English and French, and even . . . yes, Kuwaitis. If there were one drawback, it would be that there is a mosque nearby whose muezzin at 4 in the morning is purely awful; the call to prayer is flat, and garbled, and awfully loud in addition, but the hotel can’t be faulted for that which it cannot control.
We would stay there again in a heartbeat – and hope to.
Tagged by This Lady
Some tags are silly, but fun. This one . . . someone took some time. These questions are genuinely thought provoking. Thanks for tagging me, Lady.
*Do your closest friends have any nicknames for you? No. If they do, they don’t use it to my face! But when I have grandchildren, I am going to be called “Shisha.” I won’t tell you why, but it has nothing to do with smoking.
*What would your ex-(boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse) say about you in one sentence? “Life just isn’t the same without you.”
*What is the greatest achievement of your life so far? Staying married for years and years and years, and producing a son who is a successful adult. Sharing the triumphs of his graduation(s) and career and marriage with his father/ my husband.
*How should people think of sex in this, the 21st century? Often, and with joy.
*Where would you live if anywhere was possible? If anything were possible, I would live in a house with a view of the sea and mountains.
*Is there a religion that’s fulfilling for you and/or the masses? I am a Christian, and one who has come to believe that the ultimate truth will be a grand adventure. We all have glimpses, and we are limited. One day, we will see clearly, and not “through the glass, darkly.”
*What inspires awe in your life’s experience? People who create something out of nothing. People with vision who make things happen.
*What was/is your best pick-up line? The most interesting women don’t need a line; they are good listeners.
*What and when is the most potent emotion you’ve ever experienced and why? Anger. I am not an angry person, but once I knew I could kill to protect my son. On the very rare occasion when I get angry, my anger scares me, my primitive nature scares me.
*On what occasions do you act self-absorbed or just plain selfish? When I am tired past being able to sleep, or sick past being able to be gracious, or depressed beyond my ability to fight on. Then I need quiet, and rest, and miso soup, and to just curl into a ball until it’s passed.
*If someone assigned you a quest, or if you decided your own, what would you be looking to find? I would want to find the secret to helping us all just get along.
*If you had to choose between them, would you live in Hollywood, Washington D.C. or New York, and why? Oh please! Spare me. Neither!
*Who or what makes you feel “whole”? I feel whole when my spiritual life, my family life and my friend-life are all in order.
*Where is your greatest opportunity for change? I love living in places where my husband and I can walk. I feel the need for walking as exercise.
*What do you consider to be the greatest opportunity for humankind? To learn to live together, and to find a fair way to allocate resources.
*What surprises you about getting older? The betrayals of the body. Inside, you are still young!
*What or who makes you feel younger or rejuvenated? Walking, a good haircut, a great conversation.
*Where or when do you feel most alone? When my husband and I disagree.
*Where or how is society most ripe for change? When people are willing to step forward and take their part in making changes.
*Do you think of yourself as attractive to the opposite sex? 😉
*When or where do you feel the most free? In Seatttle, on the west coast, women are about as close to being equal people as I have ever hoped to see. I feel most free there.
*What is the greatest memory of your life to date? The night I discovered my brain had not turned to jello during childbirth and child-raising. You can read about it here.
*Where and when did you find out who you really are? A female mentor laughed and said “you have no idea yet what you are capable of” and I was so shocked I decided to start finding out.
*How and when do you collect your thoughts and why? I take a bath. I wash off any defilement and pray for discernment.
*If someone told you when and where you would die, what would you do immediately after being told? I would thank God for the many many blessings he has given me, especially seeing our son dance at his wedding, and living happily, and for the years I have had with my husband, and the lively and exciting life we have had together, then I would make lunch dates with my dearest friends one-on-one, to say goodbye and thank them for their contributions to my life.
*What are the best parts of being in love? Learning how many many kinds of love their are, and that love is a verb, and a choice.
*What’s your favorite libation (a drink offered to a god)? I really like coffee! And ginger beer (it is not really beer)
*What “life philosophies” have you adopted since you’ve become an adult? Serve God first, live life so that you have no regrets, stay out of debt, invest for the future, life’s true riches are the blessings of the angels God sends you in family and friends and even brief moments of connection with others.
*How would you like to be remembered? I would love for people to say “Whoa! She was a pistol!” 🙂
I TAG star blogger FONZY, Kuwait’s premier blogger Don Veto, sweet True Faith, Touche, who thinks outside the box, Chirp, because I want to know the answers, and a blogger I think is going to have a very interesting life, MirimtheMirim. I also tag my niece, Beiruti-blogger Little Diamond.
As It Snows . . .
Catching up with the news, I was looking at the Thursday Kuwait Times when I came across a photo. I am not going to print the photo in my blog, but if you want to look at it, or one like it, you can see it at Yahoo News, just click here on the blue type.
The photo of the execution, titled Iran hangs 13 on a single day is extraordinary enough. I don’t think we print those kind of photos in American newspapers. Maybe in the tabloids; these photos are considered disturbing. I know they disturb me. This one in the Kuwait Times has big white balls in it and the caption reads: QOM, Iran: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses as it snows in a square in this central city yesterday.
I remember cutting out a similar one from a paper in Saudi Arabia when I lived there. It didn’t have a photo, but the article was about the Taliban hanging of a convicted man in the stadium in Kabul. It stated the man was wearing a blue sharwal khamis. There was no mention of why this man was hung, of what he was convicted.
The Yahoo version of the same hanging of 13 states: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses after being executed in a square.
To me, the mention of snow falling as people are executed, of the executed man seems . . . maybe poetic? Maybe some way of softening the horror? I don’t know. It’s not something we would do. Bad news is left bare, without a lot of dressing it up. I would love to get your input on this. For me, it’s a different way of thinking.
Feeding MY Soul: Blog comments
Today, on the day we honor the Wise Men following the star, I got the following comment on a blog entry I wrote back in August, on Buck Naked and the Yemeni Star from PetroOps, no hot link, so maybe he/she is a blogger and maybe not. This kind of comment feeds my soul.
Well that Star is called (Sohail) it is a Yemeni Star because it holds its place on the southern sphere’s sky. so it is to the Yemen side for Kuwait and other GCC countries. on the opposite side there is the (Thoraia – Star) to the northwest of our Sky and that was mentioned together in some poetries as the lovers that will never meet with each others.
I never knew that! I have sort of kept Sohail in mind as a name for the next female cat that comes into my life, and now I can see that the next cat will probably have a brother, whose name will be Thoraia. If those names are male and femaie, and I have assigned the wrong sex (in English, if a name ends in an “a” it is most likely a female name) somebody please clue me in so I don’t make a terrible mistake. Anyway, I don’t see adopting another cat any time soon, as we have our hands full with The Qatteri Cat.
A week after the first Yemeni Star entry, I wrote another, Yemeni Star to which I received all kinds of great informative comments.
A lot of time on blogs, every blog, it is just blah blah blah. What feeds my soul are comments like this one above, and the ones to the Yemeni star entry, comments that add something to my knowledge base, often comments that help me think in a totally new direction. You do that for me, my readers, my commenters. Thank you for delighting my heart.
Freecycle
There was an article within the last few days in the Kuwait Times about Freecycle but this is not the recent article. It was the only article I could fine, from April 2007. The important thing is that it exists, and that setting up a Kuwait freecycle would be of benefit to many.
In the expat community, we do a lot of Freecycle on an informal basis. When we come, people help us out with things, and when we leave, we pass our things along. Sometimes we sell them, but often as not, we give them away and would love for them to fall into the right hands. We all hate waste.
(Oh my gosh! I just went to the Freecycle Website and found the Kuwait group and it has 122 members! Holy Smokes!) Click on the blue type and you can join the Kuwait group, too!
Don’t throw it away, someone might want it
Published Date: April 25, 2007
By Pete May
Our houses are full of them: old computers, fax machines, video players, fridges in the garage, vinyl records, unwanted armchairs – things we don’t want but still work. Research by gumtree.com reveals the British dispose of over £5.6bn worth of usable household items a year, including 1.35m working fridges and freezers, and 2.6m sofas. People out there want our redundant stuff – but how do we find them? A few weeks ago, I tried to shift a 10-year-old Apple Power Mac and a similarly ancient (in computer terms) Mac laptop. Both worked, so to throw them in a skip would have been wasteful and created toxic waste (computers can contain heavy metals and chemicals). I’d checked the likes of Computer Aid International (computeraid.org) and the Community Recycling Network (crn.org.uk). Both accepted PCs, but the words “10-year-old Apple Mac” resulted in polite rejection.
So I tried Freecycle, an online forum where people give away and pick up unwanted stuff, free of charge. It has 4,009 communities worldwide and, according to its online counter, 3,401,532 users. I joined my local group and tentatively posted my message: “Offered: Power Mac with printer and Powerbook laptop, bought in 1997 but working fine, need to be collected.” Within three hours I’d had 30 replies. Suddenly my Macs were seen as a valuable resource. Jenny wanted the laptop for her 11-year-old son who was “a Mac fanatic”, while Julie wanted it for her soon-to-be daughter-in-law; Ben needed computers for his charity in Zimbabwe. It wasn’t easy to decide whom to give them to.
Freecycle etiquette dictates that you don’t necessarily give things to the first emailer – and you must reject anyone you suspect wants to sell the goods. I opted for friendly sounding people who could collect immediately: Andy, who’d been on disability benefit for three years, and Ruth, a cash-starved student. Since then I’ve used Freecycle to shift two fax machines, a Zip drive, an office desk, a child’s desk, a malfunctioning Hoover, some kitchen shelves, a washing machine and my local vicar’s sofa bed. Our fridge-freezer went to a woman with cancer who was on a special diet and needed it for her store of juices. Our rubbish was helping someone fight for life. Then I visited SwapXchange, which offers items to swap from all over the country via its website (swapxchange.org). I exchanged a juicer and a Kenwood mixer for a bottle of organic wine apiece.
(Read the rest of the article by clicking on the BLUE Kuwait Times type, above.)
Pass it along. . . !
“I Sparkle Like a Crystal . . .
. . . when I am with my pistol” sings Annie Oakley, from Annie Get Your Gun. It’s been running through my head ever since I heard about the Kuwait Bloggerettes outing to the shooting range. You’ve seen Megan Mullally on Will and Grace, but here she is, singing Annie’s song and hitting her target dead on:
And here are the lyrics:
Oh my mother was frightened by a shotgun they say
That’s why I’m such a wonderful shot
I’d be out in the cactus and I’d practice all day
And now tell me, what have I got
I’m quick on the trigger
With targets not much bigger than a pinpoint
I’m number one
But my score with a feller
Is lower than a cellar
No you can’t get a man with a gun
When I’m with a pistol
I sparkle like a crystal
Yes I shine like the morning sun
But I lose all my luster when with a crumple buster
Oh, you can’t get a man with a gun
With a gun! With a gun!
No you can’t get a man with a gun
If I went to battle with someone’s herd of cattle
You’d have steak when the job was done
But if I shot the herder
They’d holler bloody murder!
And you can’t get a hug from a mug with a slug
Oh, you can’t get a man with a gun
I’m cool, brave and darin’
To see a lion glaring when I’m out with my Remmington,
But a look from a mister
Will raise a fever blister
Oh, you can’t get a man with a gun
The gals with umbrellers
Are always out with fellers
In the rain or the blazing sun
But a man never trifles with gals who carry rifles
Oh, you can’t get a man with a gun
With a gun! With a gun!
No you can’t get a man with a gun
A Tom, Dick, or Harry
Will build a house for Carrie when the preacher has made ’em one
But he can’t build ya houses with buckshot in his trousers
And you can’t shoot a man in the tail like a quail,
Oh, you can’t get a man with a gun
A man’s love is mighty
He’ll even buy a nightie for a gal who he thinks is fun
But they don’t by pajamas for pistol-packin’ mamas!
Oh, a man may be hot, but he’s not
When he’s shot!
Oh you can’t get a man with a gun!
Deadwood
AdventureMan and I are in the midst of a DVD-watching-marathon. Our son packaged up three entire seasons of the HBO show Deadwood, and we are in the middle of season two, now. I had seen occasional episodes now and then on AmericaPlus, here in Kuwait, but what we see here in Kuwait is heavily censored. I made the mistake of watching one episode with my son when I was back in Florida last summer.
Everything was OK (you get de-sensitized to the language after a while) until one very graphic sex scene which sort of happened before we knew it was going to happen. Believe me, there is nothing LESS sexy than watching a graphic sex scene in the same room as your own son. He said it works the same way being in the same room watching with your mother! (no kidding). I never watched another episode with him; couldn’t take that chance, it was just too awful for words.
But watching with AdventureMan, now that is something else entirely.
One of the things I love about the HBO series is that you find the same people appearing as totally different characters in different series, and you start kind of looking for them. For example, Charlie Utter in Deadwood, was also the California drug dealer in John from Cincinnati. Kristin Scott Bell (who will always be Veronica Mars to me) shows up in Deadwood as a young woman with a con game. When she loses, she loses big. Again, this series is both graphic and gruesome, not something to watch with your parents or your children.
(Hard to believe, but that is Kristin Bell as Flora)
Deadwood is the story of life in the days of the California gold rush. In the very first episode, we see how basic and crude and violent life can be without any rule-of-law. From the very beginning, might makes right, the strong take what they want, and the weak suffer, are exploited, die or are killed.
In succeeding episodes, we watch power struggles, and also the inward creeping of small signs of civilization . . . and the strong men have to share a little of their power, the tiniest threads of government begin to creep in. That is what keeps this show alive for me, and why I watch, in spite of the violence and incredibly vulgar language. It is a society in transition, from lawlessness to civilization. Those who prosper under lawlessness have to learn new ways of coping as rule-of-law creeps in.
There is one episode about plague, how it creeps into the community, and it seems to be to be an allegory for how rule-or-law creeps in, first the tiny threads, and slowly those threads weave themselves into the texture of daily life. The town bullies don’t like it, but as men who have survived – they adapt or they have to move on. We are held captivated by this series, and fascinated at how this crude society is transitioning and transforming into something else entirely.
I have two favorite characters, Calamity Jane and the Doctor. Calamity Jane has lived a tough life, had a tough beginning, and – so far – keeps herself pickled in liquor to bear her daily life, especially after Wild Bill dies. She dresses in men’s clothes, swears worse than many of the men, and at the same time . . . there is something insightful and whimsical in her character.
The Doc is a straight talking character, doing his best to patch people up and keep them alive under the very worst circumstances. He treats the town whores, treats the plague victims, treats the town leaders – he is it, he is the only source of medical services in the town. He is practical, and tough, and compassionate.
If you get a chance to watch Deadwood, it will hold your attention – there has not been a boring episode so far. Just don’t watch with your parents or your children!
Insha’allah
One of the best things about moving between cultures as often as I have is that I get a chance to learn how much I don’t know. One of the things I have learned living in the Middle Eastern countries was how little I knew about my own religion. Knowing how little I knew sent me into a bible-study program that I look forward to resuming one day when I am living back in the US, or someplace that offers it – Bible Study Fellowship. They do an in-depth study of different books, or sections, of the bible, very serious, and you learn so much.
Apart from that, the church with which I affiliate, the Episcopal Church, has daily readings – I’ve mentioned this before – you can see them yourself by clicking on The Lectionary over in my Blogroll, and then going to the Daily Office Readings and clicking on the right week. Once there, you have to click on the day of the week, and it will take you to the readings for today.
One of the readings for today, the New Testament reading, made me smile:
James 4:13-17,5:7-11
13 Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’
14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15 Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
17 Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.
7 Be patient, therefore, beloved,* until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.
8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.*
9 Beloved,* do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors!
10 As an example of suffering and patience, beloved,* take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
11 Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
In the first section, verse 15 tells us that we should be like good Moslems, never saying we are going to do something without adding “if God wills it,” or (big grin) in Arabic, “Insha’allah.” How often we hear Westerners saying “None of this ‘Insha’allah!’ I want you to DO it, dammit!” I never looked twice at this verse until I had lived in the Middle East.
In the second part, there is a message just meant for me, maybe not for you, in verse 9. It tells me not to grumble against another person, of I will be judged by the same standard. Hmmmm, now there’s a scary thought!
But / And
Several years ago I was working for a charismatic leader. He was amazing, he built something out of nothing, and changed countless lives. I felt very privileged to be a part of his team.
I managed a particular program for him, and I raised money for college scholarships so that poor kids, who were smart but had very small chance of going on to university without outside help, would have the promise of a full-tuition paid scholarship if they kept their grades up, stayed drug free, attended cultural events for which we provided free tickets, donated by our very generous sponsors (museums! baseball games! fishing trips! opera! symphony! our sponsors were SO generous!)
From this leader I learned many things, and one sticks with me in my daily life – using “and” instead of “but.”
Here is what he explained to me – when you reply with “but”, you are negating what the previous speaker – or even you, yourself – said. When you use “and” instead of “but”, you open up the possibility of two different things co-existing.
I challenge you to try it.
It will change your life.
Eliminate “but” from your vocabulary. Replace it with “and.” It opens an amazing new world.
Here is an example:
“She wants to go to the mall, but I want to go to the movies.” (Implies that these things are mutually exclusive)
“She wants to go to the mall, and I want to go to the movies.” (Implies we can do both!)
“And” gives room for negotiation, for finding a bigger frame that includes all the wants and needs, with a little co-operation.
I challenge YOU to give it a try. Give it a try for just one day – see how it works. Come back here and tell us how it worked for you.
End of Year Musings
Hello, friends, I am back. We had the most amazing and wonderful adventure, and we are refreshed and happy to be back sleeping in our own bed again.
So of course, one of the first things I do when I get back is go through all my e-mail and then take a quick look at the blog. Even in my absence, the stats stayed high – until Christmas Day, when they dropped to about half. . . and there they stay. (Big grin) If this hadn’t happened last year, too, I would be shocked, but remember last year when I published all those great Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes? Those are what has pumped up the statistics. Most days in November and December, the Christmas Punch – Rum, and Rumless and the Christmas Divinity Candy have pumped those stats up above the thousand visitors / day mark several times.
Last year, it took me until September to match my December statistics. I wonder if I will ever match this December’s?
Like many bloggers, I write this blog for the sheer joy of writing. I don’t want to be a person who watches my stats, and at the same time, it interests me what interests YOU, the reader. What interests me also is that many times the most visited entries keep getting visits months later, even over a year later, and from time to time these earlier entries get a comment. I have seen the same thing on Jewaira’s blog, and although we are very different bloggers, she is still my primary blog-role-model. She is a blogger who, through sheer imagination and good writing has kept a loyal and enthusiastic readership. . . I want to be Jewaira when I grow up, bloggily speaking.
Don’t we all do a little personal inventory as the old year ends and the new year is about to begin? I’m not big on resolutions, but I am big on behavioral changes, and this week is a good week to muse, to ruminate, to think about what I want the future year to look like.
Is there some area YOU would like to explore in the new year? Some aspect of your character you would like to develop? Some talent you would like to give an opportunity to grow?
Recent Comments
Kitchen on Isiais: Winding Down intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
