For some reason I was surprised that an American ambassador would speak Arabic. Maybe I expected our current administration -- which has done a remarkable job of angering a huge number of foreign countries in a relatively short period of time -- would take a different approach, as in, Damn it, Colin, if them A-Rabs ain't gonna speak English like a good 'ol Texan that I don't want to speak to them at all!

The ambassador was tall, very well dressed, and his tan face was crowned with an authoritative swathe of silver hair. His manner was a little stiff, but it seemed to imply formality rather than nervousness. All in all, quite ambassadorial. Nothing like what I'd heard about the guy, which was that he loved heavy-metal music and nearly caused an international incident a few months ago when his neighbor, a high-ranking member of the Syrian political elite, requested he turn the music down and the ambassador, ignoring all diplomatic instincts, just turned it up louder.

But tonight he was all smiles and handshakes and spoke with what they told me was pretty good Arabic.

In the corner of the courtyard was another well-dressed man. He was shorter, lean but solid looking, and wore a steady gaze. This person, who in the manner of those who write about such things I will call a high-ranking official, was generally believed to be a "company man." His milquetoast title at the embassy gave him access to mingle with the Syrian bigwigs (as he was doing tonight), about whom he could file regular dispatches back to his handlers in Langley.

This was as close as I would ever get to a real-life James Bond scene. The women weren't wearing slinky dresses, but most of the other requirements were here in abundance. We had a classy social event (an art opening) in an exotic locale (deep in the old city of Damascus). Our courtyard lay at the center of a 400 year old Ottoman merchant's inn. Dark sky above, a fountain trickling over mosaic tiles below, and arched doorways with plenty of shadow. No vodka-martinis-shaken-not-stirred, but waiters worked the room with silver platters laden with small food. And, most importantly, the vaguely evil menace of a secret-police force lurked everywhere, unseen, hiding just out of frame, but certain to pounce on Bond, or his chick, at any moment.

We were in the capital of Syria, and it didn't take any great stretch of the imagination to see a room full of espionage and intrigue. Syria with its oldness and its exoticness just puts you in that kind of mood.

In America, Syria is a blank spot on our map. If we hear about it at all, it is undoubtedly something negative: Ayattolah's golfing buddy, Ghadafi's bridge partner, that kind of thing. One certainly never hears anything good about Syria, but usually we just hear nothing at all.

As our bus sped north out of Jordan, Sarah and I didn't really know what to expect. Apparently my face has lost its innocent cherubic glow, because for the first time on this trip I got a real working-over at a border crossing. They didn't search my bags (or my body cavities) but the Syrian officer spent at least 20 minutes examining every inch of every page of my passport. He held it up to the light, he looked at it from different angles. He bent it. He slid his dirty fingernail across the stiching and the covers. Then he did it all over again. Eventually, reluctantly, he graced my passport with the appropriate stamps and we entered the country.

Damascus struck me as a city that had reached a happy medium between the insane crush of Cairo and the bland sterility of the West. It was loud but not too loud, polluted but not sickeningly so. Its sidewalks were packed with vendors and touts, but it also had quiet restaurants and tastefully decorated stores. There were ugly apartment buildings and lovely tree-lined boulevards. Old and new, working pretty well together.

We were here to visit a friend of Sarah's who is living in Damascus for a year studying Arabic. So we don't get her into any trouble, I will call her "Jane." You may think I'm being paranoid, but just three weeks ago a French student was deported for e-mailing a harmless joke about former President Assad to a friend in Paris. She sent it from what she thought was a secure computer at the French Institute, but somehow the mukhabbaret (the secret police) intercepted the message and she was escorted from the country the next day. And in another case, we've just learned that an Italian student we met our first day in Damascus has been barred from re-entering Syria after taking a quick 2-day trip to Turkey to visit friends. She has been at the border now for 36 hours, trying to find out why the mukhabbaret has forbidden her entry.

Foreign students here are warned not to use sensitive words like "Israel" or "Assad" for fear of raising unwanted attention. Most students I've met, especially ones that have been here for a while, refuse to discuss anything even remotely political over the phone, preferring a hushed conversation in a loud coffeehouse if they are to speak at all. In quiet restaurants, taxis, or on the sidewalk you are free to speak about anything at all, as long as it's not about Israel, the ruling Ba'ath party, or the Assad family.

A not-so-subtle reminder that you are constantly being watched are the ubiquitous posters of the "royal family" that are plastered everywhere in this country. Giant billboards line highways and adorn the front of buildings. Statues anchor traffic-circles. Busts watch out over parks and boulevards. Every other car seems to have a sticker in the back window. There are even rugs with Assad's likeness woven right into the pattern. Occasionally when I'm walking down the street I stop in my tracks and look around to how many Assad's watching over me. Even in smaller towns or quiet neighborhoods, I've never counted less than four!

Most of them are poorly executed paintings of Hafiz Assad, the dictator who seized power in 1970 and ruled with an iron first until his death last year. There are also plenty of pictures of Bashar, Assad's younger son who is the current president, and Basil, the older son who was killed in a car accident a few years ago. Basil was a charismatic playboy, a paratrooper and race-car driver, who since his death has been raised to an almost cult-like status. His picture is everywhere. Another motif that we constantly see is a sort of "holy trinity" theme." The heads of the three (father Assad above, the son Bashar, and the dead son Basil below) are floating in blue clouds.

So there you go. I've just confirmed all the American fears and prejudices about Syria. But I don't want to! You see, in spite of its reputation and despite that whole "police-state" thing, you just can't help but like the place.

Damascus claims to be the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world, and whether or not this claim is true there is no denying the sense of history is everywhere. Unlike most historical sites, where history is entombed in museums or fenced off behind paved tourist paths, it comes bubbling up through to surface of every-day life here. A large portion of modern-day Damascus is the Old City, the remains of the old walled city that was built thousands of years ago. Within these walls (the same walls that St. Paul was supposedly lower over in a basket to escape persecution) is a maze of alleys, mosques, churches and houses. Life isn't exactly unchanged here, the occasional taxi or Mercedes motors by now and then, but walking through its alleys one sees bread being baked in old stoves, cobblers working on shoes, and weavers spinning cotton and wool. Islamic Cairo probably has similar ingredients, but there they are too hard to find through all the grime and the crowds.

Even "new Damscus" is exciting and unfamiliar. The Syrian economy has long been isolated from world trade, but unlike the former Eastern Block where this meant stagnation and empty shelves the Syrians have managed to produce enough goods to fill the stores. Street after street is packed with all the usual types of stores -- clothing, electronics, etc. -- but it feels sort of like a parallel universe because there aren't the Gaps and the Sony stores that have taken over the rest of the world, they are unfamiliar brands. Streets are full, restaurants are packed.