Sylvia's Journal

Our departure day was as glorious as the day we arrived. We spent the remaining hours, not with a massage as planned, but by walking one last time around Hamra, and sitting down for a latte in the sun at a sidewalk café. We sms-ed with the kids who were playing checkers at Frankfurt airport, who were also whiling away the hours before the last leg of their flight home to Boston. We made our last purchase, cardamon-laced Arabic coffee, to remember this week and then headed home.

The flight to Dubai was crowded and hot and by the time we left the plane I felt the opposite of the refreshed and rested self I was supposed to be and not at all ready to resume work tomorrow.

We had found the Nihal hotel on the internet. It appears to be in the Chinese-Indian section of town, if there is such a thing. It would explain the planeloads of Chinese we had seen at the airport. Not just Chinese but also Philippinos, Bangladeshis and others who, we assumed, come here to work. The economy must be picking up again.

After checking in we walked around the neighborhood and had an 11 PM meal at the authentic Chinese restaurant; this as opposed to the Chinese-Indian restaurant that is in our hotel. Remembering our large ice-cold draft beer on our way in, a week ago, we ordered beers. One of the young waiters whispered something in Axel’s ear he pretended to understand. Soon we did, when the waitress brought a plastic juice jug and two small teacups in which she poured something foamy. Beer was, once again, forbidding, at leas in this restaurant.

We had a great meal of sizzling hot beef and a mystery ‘special seafood’ soup with all sorts of unrecognizable things floating in it but it tasted great. The wait staff was young, and, as they told us in broken English, from all over China, and ‘no, they were not all part of the same family.’ The place was rather well staffed and the kitchen was full of cooks cooking amidst much steam and huge flames dancing around the giant woks. Yet there were very few people in the restaurant actually eating. That it was authentic was obvious since most of the patrons were Chinese.

And now we are at the airport for the last leg home. At check-in we heard that captain Courtney is taking us there so we feel in good hands, especially knowing that the weather forecast for Kabul is ‘very heavy rains’ for the next four days.