Syria Day six

one of my goals in my time in syria was to visit some of the famous ruins of the monasteries that are spread out all over the country. for example there would be "deirmarmusa" which is located in wadi or the "Cherubim Convent" in Saidnaya or the beautiful "St Simeon's" Monastery close to aleppo. gladly i got to visit some of them and i have to say all of them really impressed me. syria has a HUGE history and it really shocked me to find out that i knew nothing about this country at all.

did you know that syria was the first country in the history of the world where the hunters became gatherers? or that syria was invaded by the frensh. or did you know that syria changed the relligion over three times? as soon as one nation took over the country they would change the relligion. it went forth and back from christianity to the islam. or that in the times of the romans one of the most important trade rouds went directly trough syria?
There is not enough paper for me to write down even only the minor events. i was amazed to see how much history one country can hold and how much all of this history had changed the people and does still impact them.

as paul asked me if i would like to join him fr a trip to St Simeon's i was more than happy to accept. it was my first real trip out of aleppo and i was super exited. we packed up some lunch and left the house rather early in the morning in order to get there before the main turists would. syria is normally not a place where people would just travel to as tourists alone. but is it common to see huge buses that travel around the country filled with elderly people.
we took a cap (of course) to the city border and there waited for a bus that would take us to saint simons. i loved taking the bus in syria. there are two kinds of buses. kind one are these huges buses that would take you from city to city and kind two are the smaller ones that fit maybe 10 people or so. you just hop on where ever you see them and they drop you off again where ever you want. kind of like a big taxi. you can even get the whole bus for yourself. well we jumped into a really crouded one and made our way out of aleppo into the desert. as the streets became more dusty and the villaged smaller and smaller the bus got emptier until only paul and i were left. the bus driver drove us all the way to the top of the hill where saint simon's is located and dropped us off. paul asked him if he could pick us up again in the afternoon and the bus driver gave paul his mobile number (AMAZING). as we entered the Monastery it took my breath away. i am easy to impress but this really blew my mind. i had never seen something more amazing then this. sure i had bin to greece and i saw the huge temples and the old buildings but this also touched my heart. the story behind the intire thing does sound a bit unrealistik but still it hit me.
the Monastery was build in remembrance to Simeon Stylites.

i am to lazy to type down the intire story and i am sure that it would bore you to death if you had to read all of it but if your really interested here the link to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_Stylites

i loved out time in the Monastery. it was a warm but not to hot morning and paul and i decided to part ways and to spent some time alone with god. it is funny how many thoughts can go trough your mind at once in such a place. there i was sitting in the grass strying to become still before god with all these voices in my mind asking me all these questions. it wasn't until long that the place became really crouded. as a larger group of people past the place where i lay on the ground i could pick up german. and indeed the intire group was a group of germans. there is nothing more you dislike then meeting germans in a foreign country.

i will keep this post short but i will show you some of the pictures i was able to take.