The Iraq you never see

Strange things about Kurdistan:

* They don't allow cars older than three years to be imported into the country.

* If you buy a new car, you also then have to purchase (if you don't already have one) a much older car and cut it in half! (they're trying to keep junk of the roads) But you have to show proof of this before they'll give you a license plate.

* The color orange here is really popular, carpets, couches, curtains, clothing... you name it you can get it orange! They must all be VOLS fans!

* This is the one place in the world I've been where Pepsi is more popular than Coca Cola, though they have plants here for both. I don't drink either, so it doesn't affect me much, can we get a Dr. Pepper plant here please?

* There is a full fledged film school here, professionally accredited and doing great work, who knew!?


Just some insights from this week. So last week I had the pleasure of going to a wonderful Christian village, called Bedial. More beautiful scenery along the way, this time there was snow on the distant mountains in Iran and Turkey.
This cross was on top of a small chapel, but as you can see its a bit broken!
This is the head of Bedial in front of the old church. This village was destroyed in Saddam's Anfal campaign, but because the church was of stone, it wasn't fully destroyed like the houses and such. They've since built a new church where they worship, but this one is pretty awesome. No one really knows how old it is... someone said several hundred years... but we don't really know!

I'll post a few pictures here, but you can go HERE: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125291&l=4a2d7&id=7413237 and see alot more.



Also I got my hair cut here and its the best hair cut I've had in years!! I love the J&K women's center!!!! I still have a free full body massage and free facial to use at some point before January. :) They've torn up the road in front of and behind the center though and I'm afraid its hurting their business. So many of the business men here want to see them fail, b/c its two women owning a business that caters to nothing but women. So I love supporting them and really hope they're able to hang on! I should be headed there in about an hour... its by far my favorite place in Erbil!

Photos

Here are some photos, I'm going to post alot more onto Picassa (click on one of the slideshows to the left to take you there) in the next few days. My internet is really slow so it takes forever to upload them.

Crossing the Tigris on a military floating bridge

Traditional Kurdish meal, pickles, soup, salad, rice, goat, chicken and rice and almonds, repeated all the way down the floor.

Excursion day.

The entry to the awesome cafe I spoke about a few entries ago.

From the bottom of the deepest canyon in the Middle East.

The waterfall at Gali Ali Baig... its dry season and there's been a drought for over a year, so its volume is really low. This is at the bottom of the deepest canyon in the Middle East,which is in the picture above this one.

These are the steps up to the Citadel, which is the center of Erbil. Its an old walled city that is one of the longest inhabited cities in the world. Right now there's almost nothing in it, only that they keep one or two families living there so they can claim that title... but the whole thing is falling apart and needs to be both excavated and restored.