Shopping at the Souk

This morning, Craig, Anna and I went to the New/Old Souk. First of all a Souk is the Arab Market place. There are Souks in every city. I expected something like a large flea market, but it is much nicer than that. The reason that Craig calls it the New/Old Souk is that the city decided to tear down the old Souk and build a new, modern, building with lots of glass. Well they built it and nobody came. It lacked the feel of the traditional Souk. So they proceeded to tear down the New Souk and build a new place that looked like the old place. It is a large building with lots of narrow "alley ways" and hundreds of tiny shops. We saw spice shops, many fabric and tailor shops, shoes, hardware, antiques, toys, falcons, candy, clothing. Wait! Did you catch that? Falcons? Yes, they had falcons for sale. Falconry is big here. We passed on the falcons, but that contributed to the exotic feel, along with the smell of incense and curry and the donkey ride. Yes, Anna got to sit on a donkey. We didn't really understand why the old man was sitting there with a donkey. He didn't charge anything for Anna to touch and sit on the donkey. I took a picture which I will have to post when I get home. The inside of the Souk looks like a medieval village with alleys running every which way, lined with wares and actual stores. It was so interesting. I am so glad that we went. One odd thing I saw was currency from Iraq engraved with Saddam Hussein's picture. This was available at one of the many antique shops. No, I didn't buy it.

After the Souk we went to another compound called Al Jazi. It is really nice there. They have lots of mature plants, flowers and trees. It feels much more lush there. I think that Craig and Becky's compound is quite new, so the plants are really small. This villa is supposed to be temporary. If they weren't moving to S. Korea, I think that their permanent place would have been at Al Jazi. We went to a club for employees of Craig's company and had a delicious lemonade. Craig and Becky can go over there to eat at great prices and get American style food if they want to. We came home after that and decided to order pizza. Craig couldn't find a phone number on their menu, so he drove over there. They were closed!! Today is Saturday. I don't know if they were closed because it is the week-end or if they are just independent and open when they feel like it. The city looked really pretty today. The sky is bluer and there were huge expanses of green lawns on our drive over to the Souk. It was a little cooler out this morning, so that helps. The number of sky scrapers that they are building here is amazing and the architecture is exciting and unique.