TravelChick

Ah, Birthday

My birthday was rather low-key. I got some kiwi-mango-orange juice from my favorite juice place and sat in the park watching some huge, tall-legged ants run around while waiting for my friend to pick me up to go to lunch. He had rented a car so he can travel around Syria with his friend, so we took advantage of this and went up to Jebel Qassion for lunch. Restaurants on the mountain are usually ripoffs but we, surprisingly, managed to end up at one with a menu, admiring the view and saying, over and over 'What a nice view!', 'Oh why yes - did you notice the view?'

Afterwards I went to my friend's shop in the Old City and hung out with him for a while. We sat outside, watching people walk past: a group of four military-looking American men, kids in the neighborhood, and vegetable vendors pushing large wooden carts. My friend jumped up when he saw our tall British friend and his parents, who were in town for a week and a half. His mom was on the hunt for feather dusters (which are rather expensive in the UK) and was insistent that my friend acquire one for his flat in London. He was rather embarassed that the one thing his mother wanted to buy here is feather dusters. I thought it was rather cute.

I went out to dinner with some friends at my favorite restaurant, Beit Shammi. It's a beautifully restored courtyard house and the food and service is always good; I think the fresh, hot bread there really wins me over, though. It's such a disappointment to go to a restaurant and get pita bread in little plastic bags.

I don't expect people to lavish me with attention on my birthday, but a few people turned up and didn't even say hello to me. That's just rude. it was a nice evening, though. I got to see some people that I don't see very often, and I met one of my friend's dad who is visiting for a few weeks.

Afterwards, several of us went to get some stiffly overpriced beers at Oxygen, a deeply red restaurant bar in the Old City, the sort that is decorated fairly well except for the large, plastic pharaoh statue in the middle of the wall. Somehow we got into a discussion about working long hours and the resultant decrease in productivity and I mentioned that I know that, when I had to work 12 hours or more, at some point my productivity and my concentration significantly decreased. To this one of my friends said rather snarkishly, 'What sort of job did *you* ever work where you had to work long hours?' I very cooly said 'I was a journalist working during the war in 2003.' This is from a guy who has casually mentioned to me that he's possibly interested in a career in journalism; I know I've told him I used to be a journalist.

It was definitely a low-key birthday. Fairly relaxing. And now I'm 28.

posted by Travel Chick @ 12:17 AM