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Bowling in Iraq

(Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.)
For the first time in my life, I was frisked at the entrance to a bowling alley. Yes, there is some need for explanation.

I was on my way to the Traffic Police complex the other day to meet someone who works there. It is a labyrinth of a place. Ironic considering traffic here is generally chaos. My interest there has to do with my major in college being criminal justice. But I can elaborate on Third-World bureaucratical police science some other time.

The serendipity of the visit to the Traffic Police is that on the way there I passed a bowling center. What? Bowling in Iraq? A few days later I repeated my path to make sure I actually saw what I thought I saw - a bowling alley in Iraq.

I figured if any one could appreciate a story about a bowling alley, it would be a Wisconsin audience. It was true. After a brief pat-down at the gate - no serious weapons allowed, knife OK - I was waved on in.

The first floor sports a couple dozen bowling lanes. The second floor is reserved for parties. And the third floor is a game arcade. The newness of the place seemed foreign having just lived in the old city for a week.

Back at the old city, a guy working in the Internet shop suggested that as long as I had just been to the bowling alley I should top it off with pizza. I had not yet found or noticed that either in Iraq. Sure enough, once at the place he directed me to - the pizza pans flowed, the oven popped out a continual stream of pizzas not that unlike something from America. Every seat was filled. The pizzas did have more of a deep dish style to them than our thin crust back in the U.S. Of course there was a beer shop next to the pizza shop.

Wisconsin guy finds pizza, bowling, and beer in the war zone - only in the living contradiction I am coming to know and appreciate as Iraq.

Bob Keith
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq

View more pictures from Bob's travels.