Somehow, I never thought to include bats in my idea of a romantic dinner setting. Last night, though, we managed to get outdoor seating at Tarin, the estate-like Lebanese restaurant that we've already been treated to twice indoors, and so I found myself sitting at the end of a long table situated over the sprawling many-acred lawn, surrounded by good company, good conversation, plates and wine glasses waiting to be filled, and “Lady in Red” blaring romantically from the lawn speakers, and when I looked up into the starless black sky, I saw dozens of delightful little bats zooming around overhead. Finding them charming rather than alarming, I noted that this was another one of those absurdities that I would probably never experience anywhere else but here...and maybe in the Great Hall at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Before the food arrived, I took a walk with my camera along the smooth, white, paved walkways lined with flowers on either side (the only flowers I've seen in Erbil so far) and fountains lit with colored lights of pink, green and blue, so that they looked like shimmery liquid gardens themselves.
Later, after dinner, we hit the restaurant playground, and I went on a seesaw for the first time in years! Did you know you can defy gravity on a seesaw? It depends on who is on the other end of course. Having muddied my brand new sequined white flipflops on the way to the playground, we decided to dip our feet in the nearby fountain built of jagged beige-colored rocks. We climbed to the very top, where we discovered a sort of jacuzzi where the water was shooting and bubbling forth, destined for the calmer pool below. There we hung out until one of the pantalooned waiters wandered over and kicked us off with a friendly wave.
It is too good to be true, this place! An absurd bat-filled fairy tale set in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by terror a couple hundred miles south and 50 miles west.
...and they lived happily ever after. The End.
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