The most common site on the Syrian street. . .
Snowflakes in stone at the cathedralic ruins of St. Simeon, an eccentric monk who, after seeking seclusion and then attracting unwanted visitors to leer and peer, climbed and lived atop ever-higher pillars for years on end.
Smiling Syrian children waving at us from the back of a pickup truck. . .
The sheep run EXTREMELY fast in Syria. . .
I look thrilled don’t I?Maybe I’m not into rocks. Maybe my history-obsessed friend Nicole drug me toward too many ruins when we backpacked in Greece. Maybe I’m just ignorant. But once you’ve seen a bunch of columns, you’ve already seen a few too many.This was a latrine. That was a slave quarters. Over here was where the Romans had sex.I actually DO like history. I adore antiques. I hear there are seven wonders worth seeing. The Acropolis was cool. So was St. Peters. I have romped through many a castle and monument with fascination. And I can honestly tell you that if I found a genie in a bottle I would go back in time.But a field of rubble and ruins, with sometimes English-translated facts that I will soon forget just doesn’t do it for me.When they unearth new treasures, new tombs, new teeth, I always think about what my husband once said after reading an article about recently discovered dinosaur bones:Put them with the rest.
