Sorry no photos- tomorrow I hope.
In one word- Syria is fantastic! We spent 8 days in Damascus. It took about 2 days to set up Across Australia in Khan Assad Pasha an 18th century carvanserai and it was freezing inside the big stone building. We then spent the next five days taking turns sitting the exhibition and scouring the souq with Jenny. Damascus is a textile artists' paradise-and alas we are on a limited budget. Still the stall holders we met, kindly allowed us to photograph try on and touch- Syrian embroidered dresses, silk woven in Damascus, embroidered over dresses , hats ,scarves, tassels, threads and you name it- and then the Yemeny jewellery and ear rings and and....
Syrians seriously love food and sweets. The food has been wonderful and very affordable- the mezze table is a delight.We visited some wonderful restaurants situated in the old style houses in the inner part of the city- the ambience of these is just delightful and the fruit juice in one, Beit Shamy was just the best- seriously wonderful lemon and mint juice!
The response to Across Australia was also fantastic- quilters listen to this..... more men visited the exhibition than women ( and Syria is a very secular country, so women are out and about just as much as the men) and they looked very intently asked pertinent questions and were full of praise for our quilts. The deputy minister who opened the exhibition spent more than an hour and a half at the exhibition and asked to be told about each quilt .
More tomorrow!
3 comments:
wow, how interesting!! more men than women and all that fabric. cant wait to see the photos.
Cheers
Claire
Dijanne, the souq sounds wonderful! I hope you took lots of photos even if you weren't able to buy it all, so we can feast on the goodies too. How interesting that you had so many men at the show.
Shirley in New Zealand
Tomorrow has come and gone!!! where are you guys we miss you!
and yes you promised pictures you must be taking tons of them :)
See you soon I hope
Sandy
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