Saturday, August 20, 2005

Internet, Mailing, and Books in Syria

Internet

As far as I know, there are two options for dial-up in Syria: SCS (Syrian Computer Society) and dial-up from your local phone company. I recommend SCS because you can use a POP account and IP address, so you can use chat programs. ADSL is also available, but I heard it was quite expensive. There are plenty of net cafes around as well.

Mailing

There are various places you can get a PO box. I know that AMIDEAST offers mail services to foreign students. I have heard, however, that it takes a long time for mail to arrive. I had a box in the US Embassy thanks to my grant.

More info

If you are interested in buying books, Beirut is a good bet. There are various western-type bookstores and a huge Virgin Records store that houses a large book section. I love walking around Bliss street in Beirut checking out the bookstores. AUC in Cairo is good also. Syria offers good books for those interested in Arabic literature, but not much for speakers of other languages.

3 Comments:

At 15:06, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Jeremy,

thanks a bunch for the blog. Quite the Godsend to us budding Arabists.

I was wondering if you had any information on Persian studies in Syria? I'm an Oxford Persianist, though i did some Arabic before, and I'm taking a year out to Damascus as part of my course. I heard it's possible in Damascus to study both Persian and Arabic--one of my tutors said she learnt her Persian there. Would you by any know about any institutes that teach intermediate Persian?

thanks!

 
At 14:17, Blogger Jeremy Palmer said...

One of my fellow students who lived in Damascus wrote me the following:

The Iranian cultural center and the University of damascus both have
classes. Quite cheap at that. If the student were willing to commute,
there's some institute south of damascus that has classes as well, but I'd have to ask a friend to get more info. I believe the classes at
that third place are free, but likely with a lot of creepy
fundamentalist types.

 
At 19:00, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the reply. I'll probably stick to the first two!

Since I'm very likely to spend some time in the Damascus univ arabic programme, it shouldn't be too difficult finding out about their Persian resources.

 

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