"So, how can we help you?" asked the police translator, who I later found out was a computer engineer but was for some reason working for the police as a lieutenant. Hmmm, I didn't quite get it. I thought I had been summoned to the police? Turned out to be just a friendly chat, a tea, and an offer to help me out with with money exchange in town and the purchase of a sim card (KOREK, $18 with 10 days unlimited slow internet). Quite amusing sitting in the police car watching Kurdish music videos, running around in the rain doing my shopping with them. They dropped me off at the bus station, bought my ticket, refused payment, and said goodbye. The Iraqi Kurds are even more fierce with their 't'aarof' (one aspect being gift offering by a host) than the Persians.
A fast bus ride through the gorge, in the rain, and before long I was in the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil, in front of the spectacular walled hilltop citadel, with the appealing month-old fountain as the foreground. The honeymoon was over in a jiffy though, as I checked into the crappiest cheap hotel of my life. $9 for the worst accommodation I had ever seen. $9 for an average meal that would have been three or four dollars in Iran. Ahhhh, but I was back in the lands of the $1 shwarma, otherwise known as kebab or souvlaki in many Western countries. Very good.
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