Damascus

After over a thousand miles of driving through Syria we are back in Damascus but it wasn't easy. Just as we were a few blocks away we ended up in the wrong lane leaving the freeway and ended up going back out of town. At home you would get off at next off ramp and go back but here if you get off you are likely to be on a one way street going who knows were and soon lost in traffic hell with no way back. We kept going until we got to a construction zone and did a u-turn to get back on right direction on freeway much to the dismay and accompanied blaring horns of numerous drivers. The last few kilometers took us about 60k but after some gridlock intersections and even worse round-a-bouts we got the car back.
It's great to be back in Damascus, we like our neighborhood in old town, feels like home after the other places we have been. We even got to be in our first demonstration. There was a pro- government demonstration by the large mosque complete with camera crew filming it so we jumped in to do some photography.
When we got to the hotel they gave us the key to the room, just as we left it with CNN still on the TV. Our high speed wi-fi still worked and we are not blocked from the blog. I had written a blog each day and saved them with photos figuring I would have to wait to Istanbul to publish them but will put then up today with their original date.