Train ride

November 6th
If you could see my journal, you would see that I wrote the date in Arabic, but my dad said that he can't find all the right arabic letters. I had to use some creativity as not all the letters in November are in Arabic script. Since we are in Syria now I guess I better get used to reading back to front. We got to Syria yesterday by train. The train ride started at 9:00 AM the day before and was supposed to end at 3:00 the next day, 30 hours later, but due to many delays we arrived in Aleppo thirty five and a half hours later. During the train ride, near the beginning, Matthew and I set up a pulley system made of dental floss. For the duration of the ride there were many things carrying stuff across. First it was a tea stick and twist tie combination but then the tea stick broke so we used Matthew's change purse and then more than half way finished our journey, speed became more popular, then reliability and flexibility, so out came the plastic cups.
There were many people that Mama and Papa met on the train too.
The toilet was at the back of the train and there was a window at the back too. Since we were the last car you could see the track disappear behind us.
The toilet had a peeling paint wooden seat and when you flushed, a trap door opened in the bottom and the waste fell onto the track. Gross. It was for this reason they did not permit flushing whilst the train was in the station.
We stopped once for a new engine and Mama got some candy and Matthew and I ran around. The story was, the rest of the train ditched us at a station and went on to Aleppo without us. When we finally got to Aleppo we got a hotel and went to bed.
Today we went to the souq which was just like I thought the Grand Bazaar would be like. Not like a big tourist trap but a place where people go to get everything. I liked it a lot better than the Grand Bazaar.
We saw just about everyone from the train at a textile shop in the souq and when we told the shop keeper he said to me "Something sushi's going on. Oh, no, it's something fishy. Sorry." He made a couple other mistakes like "cheap and nasty...nice! I meant nice!" and "To be or not to be. That is the problem. Or do you say question?" He was quite funny.