we flew into aleppo, syria. it is in the northern part of the country. our dear middle east studies program intern, barrett, was denied entrance to syria upon his arrival because he had evidence in his passport of being in israel, and syria doesn’t allow anyone who has been there into the country. this was really too bad because he was going to be the main one showing us around and he is just really fun to hang out with. he had to fly back to istanbul and meet us later in jordan.
syria is an extremely restrictive country. for example, youtube, facebook, and any website allowing a discussion about democracy is blocked. the united states recently launched an attack against some rebels in syria so our relations aren’t very good at all right now. apparently there are no less than 16 different syrian intelligence agencies and they all spy on each other. they also spy on us – they seemed to know everything we were doing and were watching us throughout our stay. anyway, by the time we finally got done at the airport and they got barrett deported it was about 3 am. aleppo is a dirty, poverty stricken city. american sanctions against syria certainly aren’t helping.
