36 Hours in Iraq - Touring with Burgis

By now I hope you've seen the photos from the trip. If you haven't, here's the link again.

Here's the link to Tim's photos. I'm not sure this last one works. If it doesn't, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

After 22 hours of traveling, we decided to get a full night's sleep, alotting 9 hours of shuteye. That didn't actually work very well and, not surprisingly, I slapped my alarm off at 10 am and woke up an hour later. At this point, we hadn't realized that Iraq is an hour ahead of Turkey. We were wasting so much time! We had woken up at noon! Aaaaafh;lk ; adikhgog - spazzing out!!! After about 30 seconds, we were over it. Tim slept like Iraq. (For all you foreigners reading this blog, just say it slowly and you'll get it.)

I really needed a shower (which was in the same "room" as the toilet) and I was craving some hot water. Loh and behold! Hot water!!!! Hallelujah! We each took a shower and got ready for our day in Iraq: camera? check. Water bottle? check. Money? check. Place to stash all the money we're not taking on our person? ummm. ummmm. nope. We settled on the bottom of my sleeping bag. Safe? I'm open to your thoughts loyal readers. Are there any better places in a hotel room with no safe or any cool, secretive drawers?

We had been walking around the streets of Iraq, still a bit amazed that we were actually in the country, when I decided to walk down some shady stairs to check out what was at the end of them. Not much. When we came back up to the street level, there was a guy there named Burgis.

From Iraq and Diyarbakir1

He asked us if we were Army Special Forces - we replied that we weren't, although I don't know how convinced he actually was. Of course we wouldn't say what we were, especially if we WERE Special Forces. We got over it pretty quickly. When I asked him what he would normally do today, he said, "Walk around. Hang out. Nothing much." Then he offerred to take us around Dohuk for the day. Since he didn't seem to have any other plans lined up, we took him up on his offer.

We walked around to the local mall (where things were surprisingly almost as expensive as in America), had a ridiculously large lunch at one of Burgis's favourite restaurants, and played a few games of pool in the local pool hall and card game centre. Pictures...again... online here and here
(different links). I would say that WHERE we went was not as important as simply walking around and experiencing a day in the life of an Iraqi Kurd. It was exhilirating to bargain with people in Arabic, take part in the day-to-day activities of your average male, and see what there is to see in a city claimed to be the most beautiful in Iraqi Kurdistan.

We decided to go to the local souq (market) to walk around, check out the wares, and feel like we were a part of the city. Tim and I both bought nifty red-checkered (sort of) scarves, and I bought an Iraqi soccer team short and jersey set. They're wicked sweet. As I said above, we weren't there to find or do anything specifically, but rather to simply enjoy the experience of Dohuk, Iraq.

As the day wore on, the effects of traveling for 22 hours straight the day before began to take their toll. The thought of an afternoon nap became more tempting than a glass of Jamison to a middle-aged Irishman who just lost a fight in the alleyway behind his local bar. (Roll with it, ok?) Going back to the hotel, we napped, got up, and were suddenly aroused by loud noises coming from the street! What was going on?!??!? We decided to get up to investigate the situation.

Next time - our trip up the mountain...