Syria (CNN) -- We'd been in Damascus for several weeks, watching out of our windows as smoke hovered almost daily over the city's skyline.
Where we were staying holed up was somewhat safe but it didn't insulate us from the noise of the battles threatening to engulf the Syrian capital.
One day we stood outside a local ice cream seller's shop as tracer fire lit up the night sky. The ice cream seller then tried to give us our cones for free.
As foreigners, we stood out in a crowd of locals, all of whom were weirdly protective of Damascus and put out that we weren't seeing their city at its best.
In a lull in the fighting one man turned and asked me if I'd gotten chance to see the window St. Paul was lowered from before his escape to Europe - a popular attraction for western tourists. I promised I'd put it on my list of things to do.
Where we were staying holed up was somewhat safe but it didn't insulate us from the noise of the battles threatening to engulf the Syrian capital.
One day we stood outside a local ice cream seller's shop as tracer fire lit up the night sky. The ice cream seller then tried to give us our cones for free.
As foreigners, we stood out in a crowd of locals, all of whom were weirdly protective of Damascus and put out that we weren't seeing their city at its best.
In a lull in the fighting one man turned and asked me if I'd gotten chance to see the window St. Paul was lowered from before his escape to Europe - a popular attraction for western tourists. I promised I'd put it on my list of things to do.