Week update...well, the fun stuff

This week I pretty much stayed cooped up in my house...and almost lost my mind.  By the time I finished homework and such it was too late to go out and I just laid in my bed being excited about all the things I wanted to go out and do, but also be frustrated that I hadn't gone out that day.  I was so busy because I actually did all of my homework this week!  I know, novel.   But today I got to shake a leg in the old city with a friend and it was one of my favorite wandery days.  I feel like I'm "seeing the sights" but also "getting down with the people".

These are some of the people I met today:

Hadda and her mother were making date cookies to sell at the Arab Orthodox Society Holiday Bazaar tomorrow.  I made eye contact with Hadda as we were walking down the road through the open front door and she invited us in.  We sat in her kitchen for a short while exchanging what little Arabic/English we knew (respectively) and she kept thrusting blobs of brown date past at us to eat.  I might be sick tomorrow, but it was certainly worth it.  Max and I are going to drop by the Bazaar tomorrow and see if we can find her.

I didn't get Mr. Painterman's name, but he showed me how he stencils and then paints his Armenian Pottery before glazing and cooking it.  Actually, I asked if he "cooked" it and he said yes,  but after I left I realized that you "fire" pottery.  "Amateur hour!"  Anyway, his shop was really neat and he let me take a picture only if he didn't have to look up.

I have literally been waiting for months to take this picture.  I saw this man (who I call CobblerWobbler in my mind, for no reason at all) on one of our very first visits to the old city and I wanted so desperately to catch him "in the act" as it were. The time never came because of the light, I was without my camera, there were a lot of people, I was too shy and many other reasons.  Today it wasn't very crowded and when I saw him fixing what looked to be one of these girl's shoes (or maybe there mother's) I sneaked out my camera and took this picture.  Well worth the wait.

His shop is just wide enough for him and his sewing machine to fit in the mouth of...well, a cave in the old city.  Rad.

Not a person, but an awesome thousand year old book that Justina at showed me at St. Mark's Church (alternate "last supper/Pentecost location, home of Mother of Mark, baptismal sight of the Virgin Mary, and self proclaimed "First Church in Christianity").  I'm not sure if it's the 4 gospels, or just the gospel of Mark.
 

A donkey.  Don't worry Burt, you are still our number one burro.   

In other news, I have the world's nerdiest secret date planned for Max tomorrow.  Sshhh, I'll tell you about later....but it involves Aramaic!