Grown ups should allow themselves to dream more often and should try to make dreams, other than democracy - given packages, come true. However, this world is nothing but a huge brothel, while we, men and women, are but awesome, skilled whores, trading everything for a politically correct and comme il faut cake.

Back in 2004, due to the bad weather up the Damavend, I got down and found myself in wonder at Persepolis one sunny morning. It was then that I began thinking of the Babylon. It then started haunting me, as this dream followed me everywhere, from Dhaka to Tashkent. When in Syria in 2005, I got on a train that took me to Deir ez-Zur and then I hitched to Dura Europos, on the shore of the Euphrates. Seeing that river, I just knew I had to go to Iraq one day. In the fall of 2009 I learnt there was a new Bradt guidebook of Iraq and I instantly ordered it. The authors - a New Zealand-born of Polish origins and a Briton that had led tours in Iraq when the going was good and not only. And he had just restarted running them. We exchanged a few emails. The piece of good news was (expectedly) that I was on. The bad part was that I did not afford (especially time-wise) the longer version, which included the Ziggurat of Ur; however, as I was to see soon, the ziggurat had been heavily reconstructed and my interest in it diminished. Time passed by and the end of March got nearer, past my birthday, with just a few days to go. I soon realized I had no expectations, I did not want anything of the country, not even the long dreamt of Babylon. Instead I wanted to feel its harsh sun and dry breeze, its poverty, foreign occupation, distant or recent history. People kept on telling me I was to get killed, they could not see my Babylon. Some others told me I did not have an "appropriate road" in life. As if their cattle-like conformism had one, as if one's road should be everyone's. A mere week before a colleague asked me whether my (sharp) sense of humour had ever generated trouble. Fuck cared.

A couple of days later, Mile Carpenisan, a Romanian reporter (that had had assignments in Iraq or wartime Yugoslavia) died. Of a septic shock that did not occur after being shot, tortured or chopped by a machete. His farewell note read: "I've lived a full life, I've traveled every road I had but, well beyond everything, I did it my way". He had been to the Babylon even without getting to the actual archaeological site and he had therefore understood far more about roads than those invoking society rules just to find a comfortable, if not too comfortable shelter to wank it in. People did not get it this was not about war, peace or risks, but about living to see one's dreams come true. And it is far better to die chasing them than of old age. Possibly the only person I talked to that understood my reason of going was a 2 meter tall, muscle acquaintance I met on the early morning train to the mountains one Saturday morning: "If you really feel like going, know what you are getting yourself in and assume it, go, fuck it, go." He had worked as a bodyguard in Baghdad in 2008 and 2009. Everyone else was either mocking or pitying me, exercising crap eating in the best traditional Romanian way.

Then it all started when, while between flights in Istanbul, I went to have a stroll through the city instead of waiting inside the airport, despite it was already 10 PM. While going to have a narghileh at the already familiar Erenler Tea House which could not have been more crowded and lively, I found a place next to an elder gentleman puffing and playing with praying beads. More than half an hour had passed when he broke the silence and a natural discussion soon commenced: he was from Baghdad. Coincidences do not exist buy they do occur. Or maybe they are not that. He had a small plastics plant in the Iraqi capital but it was closed down now and, while he hoped to reopen it in 2011, he had got into importing plastics from Turkey, Syria and Iran so as to survive.

"It used to be better under Saddam's regime. There used to exist a middle class. Now it is gone, there are only very rich and very poor people left. If I dare buy a car, I might get shot or see my family get shot as people are desperate and I shall look rich to them. I hope things will get better and I hope time is the only obstacle but I fear it is not. I feel this gap continues to exist and gets bigger as we speak." He however always kept a broad, kind smile and offered to help in any way with my trip. For a second I wondered what would have happened, had we met before I booked the tour. It was just a crazy thought and it dissipated in that haze created by the many people smoking waterpipes, with those colourful glass traditional lights at the teahouse. But his kindness remained and it kept me there, talking to him longer than I thought, so that I nearly missed the last train to the airport.

It was not that difficult to spot the others in the not so crowded terminal at 1 AM. We had a bit of everything, while I was one of the two youngest in the pack. Mostly elderly people that were so excited about the trip that they looked 30-40 years younger. Among the others, there was Frances, a severe cancer-stricken, but all captivating and cheering British lady. Then I met Kent, a Dane that had lived in Thailand for many years and had traveled extensively, but that had a big share of xenophobia when it came to parts of the Middle East and the Subcontinent. Martin then came along, an old, retired, Prague-born architect with a harsh childhood listening to the screams of anticommunist activists being tortured in one of Prague's secret police buildings he had lived next to in the 1950s; he had then moved to the USA and had joined the tour only given his interest in ante 2nd millennium BC archaeology. US-born Joseph and Theresa had come out of explicit interest in Saddam Hussein's legacy and the Green Zone (they had seen the movie). In the meantime, Patrik, a Finnish guy coming from a Taiwanese family, was always looking for new, challenging destinations and he would be the camera man.

We started on a half full aircraft, joined by some army and NGO personnel, as well as by a few Iraqis. I soon fell asleep, just to wake up with a big bang. No missile had hit us: we had just landed at Baghdad. It was raining and everything looked damp and wet. After formalities that took a reasonable 40 minutes, we got outside, in front of a big concrete wall which had probably hosted one of Saddam's bas relief portraits once. A long negotiation then began, as the taxi drivers that could take us through the first checkpoint where the bus was waiting for us asked for more money. Then, once we were through with that, an army of children assaulted us, trying to part us from our luggage, subsequently carry it for the 10 meters to the bus and then ask for money. Another argument started as to making sure they all got something and nobody got more or less than the others. The whole land seemed like a big, no, endless swamp. There was mire everywhere and the sky was grey, while the clouds were thankfully not compact. Once we got to the city, there began to appear checkpoints every now and then, with army vehicles and helicopters coming and going. One could not ignore the spots where bombs had created heaps of debris, the most recent one on our way in a marketplace. Someway, somehow, life existed and people were walking up and down, there were shops, merchants trying to make a living while selling fruit or clothes in the tiniest place between an army barricade and a ruined building or rubble. The close past and the present were perfectly merging to create a unique, lightly surreal, but so captivating, environment. To put the cherry on the cake, there was the ghostly, dark, far from being finished structure that had been supposed to be Saddam's greatest mosque in the world, complete with the old cranes attached to it. However, if looked at from a lower point of reference and if analyzed at its own pace, the city was vibrant and people were really trying to bring a change and add some colour or music to their lives, hence showing a strong survival nature.

We got lodged at Al Mansur Hotel, a concrete monster that resembled a huge honey comb surrounded by once lush gardens and 3 swimming pools that seemed torn from a soap opera of the 1970s. But the 9th floor room provided a great view towards the Tigris and a part of the city. One could not but think what the image had been 12 centuries before. The sun eventually shone and the whole city looked simply overwhelmed by a glittering haze. Traffic reminded one of that in Tehran, but here drivers seemed willing to stop (at the very last moment) when and if pedestrians dared cross the street. There were not but very few traffic lights and nobody respected them. As many roads and even narrow streets were blocked by large reinforced concrete barricades, one often needed go around for 10 minutes for a mere 100 meters drive in a straight line. Checkpoints were routine, but this very routine (and one's papers) was often subject to the respective guard's understanding and own set of (often self-made) rules. Furthermore, even the official line changed quite often. As we intended to visit the Babylonian era site of Tell Harmal, after thrice going around the neighbourhood, we happily found it, but unhappily learnt that visiting it now required a paper from the Department of Antiquities and not only from the Tourism Board; the rule had changed a few days before. The caretaker went flipping mad at the very thought that we might peek in. Even though that was final, a 20 minute argument began between Talal and Mohammad, our tourism board staff, respectively the otherwise meagre, old caretaker. The shouting drew all children in the neighbourhood around us, while dogs started barking and howling. Had we visited the site in peace (which we did not at all), I would not have enjoyed it more.

We next went to Kadhimain, a shrine that, apart from anything else, brought me back to colourful crowds of pilgrims, endless clusters of small shops and street vendors selling everything, all filled in by imam's voice calling people for the evening prayer. Large Iranian families with wives and daughters wearing black chadors (but simultaneously joking and grinning at feringhis). The intense fragrance coming from colourful Ismailite families consisting of men wearing impeccably white kamises and women dressed in bright colour sarees, as well as a flow of noisy children, all made the image complete. Even in the environment provided by the Middle East, time stood irrelevant a matter to Iraqis. Everything was argued over and over, quiet debate was the rule, as well as the fact that everyone had - or created - his or her own rules and interpreted others' at will. Getting to the shrine gate, we waited for some score minutes for someone to come and show us in (as in most mosques in Iraq, foreigners needed be invited to enter a mosque or shrine), then an argument occurred, as they had brought 9 camera permits and there were only 8 of us, with one remaining at the hotel. Sorting out the missing person's - and extra permit - issue took another 20 minutes. Eventually we could enter, but had to stay in a single spot for a while and a long discussion started when one of us asked where a toilet was. While apparently frustrating and annoying, people did not react so out of hatred or bad will, but rather because they were all eager to communicate with each other, so curious and so happy to help, that they often thought of more than a single, simple way of solving a matter. As for our time, it was irrelevant to them, just as it should have been to us and I slowly got this sense of normality back. I could then feel happiness emerging from that busy street dotted with army personnel and curious shrine staff...

After a night during which not even the 4 AM call to prayer woke me up, we started the day with the Iraqi Museum. I am generally not keen on museums - even though I was to see later that exceptions do occur - and even my interest in historical sights is diminishing every day. So, except for a wonderful 3rd millennium BC clay tablet and the fine way of arranging the Assyrian Hall, I did not enjoy much pieces belonging to a past so remote that they had little connection with the current Iraq. But I became one of Iraqis for a while, curiously (and boldly for that matter) peeking in the score offices we passed by on the way to the museum halls: the main entrance was fenced off with reinforced concrete slabs and we had to use the staff's entrance and pass by their quarters. The bureaucratic apparatus was enormous. Every office hosted at least a couple of desks and clerks were carefully filling in thousands of forms or reports. Doors were most times wide open, as staff came and went carrying more papers. Other than that, Orwell's system leaked, as we often met ladies chatting, having a good laugh or exchanging politeness. Once again, patience was the rule: we waited for a quarter at the gate, another one at the reception lobby before someone came to lead us in, while going out was easier, with some 20 minutes of wait. I had started to enjoy it enormously, as it allowed great insights in people's routine. So I stopped keeping track of time and kept track of people only.

We then went to see the graveyard hosting the shrines of Zummurud Khatun and Shaikh Maruf. The buildings themselves did not stir my interest, but the view was well worth: scattered tombstones among palmtrees stretched to as far as the eye could see, while the heat and that Baghdadi glittering haze felt like a drug taking one into another world, a world where a couple of military helicopters did not cross the sky every half an hour.

During the late afternoon, Mohammad, our government connection, allowed us to go to the old town. Upon getting to Mustansiriyya School, an Uzbek-like image hit me. Its brick walls had been so exhaustively restored that they no longer spoke of the past, but rather of a Lego-like , do-it-yourself replica. I felt no regret it was closed and we could not find the caretaker. The young men playing football between the old, but artificially reconstructed structure and the Tigris were at least alive, so much unlike the new brick package the old school had been wrapped in. Walking by the Tigris and then across the souq, it was impossible to ignore the striking poverty and the omnipresent ruin that filled this part of the city I had read so much about. Decaying, half collapsed houses had been painted in bright, Paharganj colours and they hosted shops on the ground floor, while the upper floors were abandoned or destroyed by war or the passing of time. Mire, litter and poverty blended in to create a sticky paste one walked through. There was so much garbage that three trucks came to pick it and a bulldozer was filling them up. Springing of this environment like a most precious, carefully inlaid jewel, there was Marjan Mosque with its intricate carvings on the brick facade, but also with no electricity. The bad state of the surrounding garden (or rather of what had once been a garden), as well as the structure itself and the souq around it, all stimulated one's imagination to produce flashes of what this place had once been like. Day dreaming is supposedly childish and bad for one's ordnung, but in that particular place and at that particular moment it was like one of childhood's stories from "1001 Nights". In the end of the day, we all observed things we liked more or less, while there were, are and shall always be many things to embetter in Baghdad, but the beat of the people living in the city and their eagerness to live is the one thing I hope never to see change. As for that sticky paste I had walked through, it could not have emphasized better this life beat.

In the morning, we needed be joined by a political liaison officer and an armed escort, as we were to cross the Sunni Triangle. Getting to Samarra had been one of the two tangible issues that had brought me to Iraq. So, as we approached the city I could hear and see nothing but the 1200 year old minaret with its spiral stairway, Led Zeppelin's song in my ears. It looked simpler than I had thought, but its very simplicity made it amazing. The mosque walls had been (typically) clumsily restored, while the typical idiot playing god had thought to reconstruct the pillars inside from scratch. The mosque looked artificial and new, the perfect set for a TV reporter wearing a Bollywood fashion pink shirt, that had somehow learnt of our presence and wanted to do a report on us for the local TV station. Yet the show was not over: Obelix and Asterix, i.e. the local army general and director of antiquities soon arrived and two speeches followed, aiming to show the world how safe and heritage rich Samarra was. So safe that anyone could walk anywhere in town without any issues whatsoever. The "anywhere in town" did not however include the main religious site around we were denied access to "for safety reasons" (Al-Askari Mosque). The same applied to actually going anywhere in Samarra, as we had to go only followed by index on trigger armed guards, even to a shawarma stand, which could not have been more ridiculous. While I admit this was part of one's duty, a reconstructed, reinforced concrete shrine dome was not among the things I like in life while, to add too stirred a spoonful of cream on the cake, hypocrisy was part of the day's speech. Or preaching, as the general sounded more like it.

For a long while, getting shot seemed preferable an option to circus.

We continued to the North and made a brief stop at Abu Duluf Mosque, with its more appealing location, surrounded by the desert, respectively with far less moronic reconstruction. A large local family was having a picnic and invited us for some dolmas that reminded me of the sarmale at home. Women started looking more Turkic both in profile and outfits, wearing colourful jewelry and scarves. Farther North, the reddish dry scenery slowly gave way to green fields, extensive vineyards and orchards. North of Kirkuk, the road suddenly got better. Not long afterwards, we had to stop at a border crossing, or at least at a place that very much resembled one. As a Kurdish friend of our tourism board guardian angel joined us for the two days we were to spend in the autonomous region, we turned to 6 staff for 12 foreigners: we had one driver (which was incidentally far more knowledgeable than the tourism board staff), the two old school tourism board staff, two guards (of which one was the unarmed boss and the other one was the armed guy that actually did the running around) and every now and then one or two local liaison persons. Without denying the obvious threats there were, one wondered whether walking down the street or riding a minibus under such obvious surveillance did not make it all more dangerous. As for some of these staff's inefficiency and lack of knowledge, that is another story.

Passports checked, there started a long (but already familiar) quarrel over Omar, our Baghdad guard's pistol: he could not take it into Kurdistan, as the province did not recognize his authority or rank. He therefore left it there and, after some further discussions, we could go and got lodged in a hotel at Erbil's city limits. Given his interest in ante 2nd millennium history, Martin had read there was an interesting archaeology museum in Erbil and wanted to sneak out and visit it the following day. As none of our staff could help with the location of the museum and we did not want make too much ado around it, we managed to vanish during dinner and got on a taxi to the centre. After a 30 minute walk and after asking a dozen of people of all ages but none of which spoke anything but Kurdish, Arabic and sometimes Turkish, we found it. On the way one could not however but notice the clean, well organized city that bore little proof of war. Even though it was not - by far - my kind of a place, lacking the city beat I feel captivated by, it was simply different. Back at the hotel, we sneaked in by the government official that had told us breaking away from the group was illegal. And so was their Saddam era stiff mentality, which often created trouble with the local people they always tried to patronize, rather than solve anything. But then, that felt both familiar coming from a country like Romania, and it did not really matter as far as one managed to get where one wanted. And we did.

We started early towards Der Mar Matti Monastery, while Martin did not come down for breakfast and was lucky enough his absence went unnoticed by the tourism board staff as we got on the bus. Two hours later, just before reaching the mountain area the monastery was located in, they eventually noticed that and got very upset at our not letting them know Martin had been (supposedly) sick and could not have come with us, rather choosing to sleep (indeed). Tears shed and egos caressed, we eventually got to the perfectly restored monastery. It was beautifully located on a rocky slope dotted with green, grassy spots and flowers. It provided a fine view to the green low hills around, reminding one of similar sites near Damascus. Even though we were told a different story, the exquisitely done (if not typically overdone) and expensive restoration smelt like Al Assad and not like Hussein.

The driver rushed on the way back to Erbil as if the gates of hell had been slummed open and an army of fire spitting tourist board dragons were chasing him while waving hundreds of documents bearing a plethora of menacing stamps of all colours and shapes. Actually this was only about the aforementioned dragons' "fear of the dark" in Kurdistan, a land where they had little (if any) authority despite the much safer environment. Martin had luckily returned to the hotel, he was waiting for us in the lobby and his happy face spoke of anything but illness: he could not have been happier, as he had found very interesting (for him) items at the museum. The board man however was exhausted by all this story and his face was begging for some rest. Yet we wanted to see the fortress and an ad hoc resolution was immediately reached. He could not but comply, so we went and he dragged us to a cheezy carpet museum-cum souvenir shop, where we met Kurds from Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Some wore the traditional shalwar, while others preferred shiny (ad literam) suits and pointy shoes. While this was fairly nice, I for one wanted air and real life, so I started crisscrossing the citadel, just to find a city that had died of the familiar Uzbek Symptom. Whoever had taken all inhabitants out so as to restore the whole thing like new was a total and incurable idiot. Especially as restoration would probably mean creating a sterile environment where houses would be turned into anything but houses: souvenir shops, touristy restaurants, travel agent offices and hotels. For the time being however, the place could not have looked more desolate, with crumbling houses still bearing fine, if not almost entirely washed away, decorations. Once great vaulted ways, carefully carved wooden pillars, wooden frames with simple, but appealing plaster patterns, as well as the odd column-bordered patio, all smiled to the stranger from behind the weed-infested alleys, but it felt like the frozen smile on a corpse's face. At the same time, a huge Kurdish flag was blown by the mild wind on a tall pole at the very centre of the citadel, while a few barracks housed guards and staff that probably made daily records of the weed harvest and spreading. Other than that, as I was to see later, Erbil struggled at all costs to resemble Istanbul, with its commercials, fast-food joints, hotels and diversity that aimed at pleasing the visitor. Its people were kind, helpful and eager to communicate. At the very same time, communities that tend to ignore their past and embrace others' values at all and any costs are looking towards losing their identity, just like Romanians do.

I came down the citadel hill and rushed in the souq to meet people and balance the ruin and neglect up there. Dried fruits and seeds, spices and dairy products (cheese, kaymak, yoghurt, sour cream) were plentiful. A wide variety of (Kurdish) delight, halva and pastry simply enchanted one's senses, while next to every corner hosted a couple of chairs where merchants had tea in large glasses. The streets hosted a seemingly contrasting crowd, from flashy youngsters in colourful football shirts, to mid-aged men wearing Alain Delon trousers or women dressed in long, dark robes bearing a bright front stripe with floral designs. The odd elder man with a turban and shalwar, as well as the young girl in a crazily red dress completed the picture. After visiting the Minaret Park and its 1232 Choly Minaret with fine brickwork patterns (that could not but remind me in a modest way of the Qutb Minar or the Minaret of Jam), I walked for over one hour, enjoying this tumultuous city that wanted so much to show the world it existed and it was unique that it risked losing its own sense.

All morning we struggled to determine the local military police to let us also go to Ashur, but to no avail. Initially they said we might have a chance to go (which translated in "no way"), then it got a bit better and then it all died as it was "not safe and not possible". So we went to Nimrud alone. While they bore similar patterns with those at Baghdad's Iraqi Museum that had been brought from Khorsabad, the base reliefs at Nimrud were absolutely superb, especially with the great images depicting the Tree of Life and king's winged figure. While the mound next to the palace site bore little resemblance with the ziggurat it had once been, simply letting one's imagination loose given its proportions resulted in an overwhelming image of what this place had once been. Before starting to the South, we made a detour to Mar Behnam Monastery, which preserved an interesting mixture of styles, including a synagogue-like facade, Islamic art niches and domes, as well as the typical crucifixes and patterns.

As we drove West to meet the Mosul - Baghdad highway, we had to cross a part of Mosul. At a certain moment we heard some shooting and our guards, armed police to the front and rear, got all of a sudden very concerned. We started driving against the flow, on the opposite lane and eventually along the sidewalk, blocking crossings and pushing other drivers off the road. Despite anything, it felt shitty, as if we were some different species from the others. I would have preferred dying that moment to surviving to remember that crap. Past Mosul, we started crossing the vast desert that hosted very rare human communities and traces. We passed in full speed by Hasuna and then by Ashur, staring into the desert and thinking of the people that had settled in these places millennia before.

A couple of hours later, we reached Tikrit and were met by no less than 4 local officials. The Samarra show was on again, we were shown to the foot of the bridge, where the local river police chief invited us for a ride in rowing boats. As we politely declined, we were shown one of the many palaces built for Saddam Hussein in a huge park there in 1992. The resemblance with Bucharest's Palace of the Parliament and the Civic Centre (designed in the late 80s) was next to incredible: a soup-like mixture of architectural styles topped by a huge veneration of bad taste, expensive materials, lousy and hurried craftsmanship and grandeur for the sake of size alone. And, of course, all these were in a severe state of decay. I could only hope vegetation would cover this orgasmic kitsch once and for good. For a moment, we were shown to the simple, but interesting and appealing for a change, remains of the 600 AD Jacobite Monastery with its fine arches. I thought, I hoped the day would be over with this pleasant spot of simplicity and beauty. Yet it was certainly not, as we were shown to Saddam's grave. A large, baked brick, covered building hosted the coffin that had been wrapped up in the national flag, topped by flowers and placed in the centre of an imposing room, under a heavy chandelier. The walls were adorned with many pictures of his glorious period the deceased himself would have loved to have around: Saddam the army leader, the hunter, the imam, the worker, the fighter, the nation's father, mother and phallus, the martyr, and ultimately the saint. A large portrait in one corner pictured him as Father of all Grandmothers of the sort all classrooms and official offices had displayed one on the wall for decades. The only thing that missed was some army music with aspirational lyrics pointing at the Iranians, Kuwaitis and 100 other enemy ethnic groups of the Iraqis that had to be killed. This grotesque etude was cut short, as we were shown out and, after passing by Chemical Ali's recent grave still lacking a tombstone but covered however in the national flag, we got on the bus and started to Baghdad. Thankfully there no longer was any official, dead or alive, to meet us, talk to us in metaphors or show us to places. By the time we got to the hotel, it was night already, but it felt like getting home. The city had developed a sense of comfort and appeal to me, even though I could not and would not care explain why and how this had occurred.

Not visiting Ctesiphon would have been a remarkable mistake. The apparently fragile, imposing arch could only give one a vague idea of this place's greatness in the first centuries AD. The now only partly plastered walls had probably bore painting, while the arcaded decoration of the two wings, even if overloaded with patterns, was simply captivating, even given the current location, on a patch of barren desert with only several palm trees separating the structure from Saddam's ugly viewpoint that looked like a beheaded pyramid. We kept on wandering around the place for a long while, in the constant noise made by men's shooting in the air at a wedding party nearby. A couple of large Iranian families coming to visit the shrine nearby joined us, while the dark chadors of their young, giggling women, made a great, so welcome contrast from the desert colour all around us. Had time frozen there and then, I could not have been happier. But it didn't and, even though I resented the idea, I joined the others in the Green Zone.

Passports, driving licences, luggage and our bodies checked a few times by some otherwise natural and cheering Ugandan soldiers, we got to the Al Rashid Hotel, where the cheapest sort of tacky theatre act began. We were greeted by Mouayad Catcho, an US Embassy civilian dressed official which presented the area and gave us a tour that ended with a two hour visit (the North Korea type) to Saddam's Grand Festivities Square or, as Martin much more appropriately put it, a sunburnt parking lot. A fierce competition began, as in which of the two, the places we were shown to or Mr. Catcho's speech and rhetoric, were more ridiculous. The places included a vast stretch of land hosting small parks, many palm trees, imposing, actually rather huge and absurd official buildings (of the "look at me and at how big I am" sort), enormous monuments with such complicated meanings that they had lost any sort of connection with us, poor mortals. As for Mr. Catcho, he could not have staged it any better. Every second statement he made contained some arrogant remark referring to the Iraqis: "Now that we have given Iraqis the control and they are in charge of the country, I am sure they will clean up everything, so much unlike us.". On the other hand, the tour to the anyway huge and grotesque Monument of the Unknown Soldier (dedicated to the Iran - Iraq war martyrs) was a 'delight': we were supposed to be the first ones to visit the underground museum in a long while (even though the fresh footsteps imprinted in the thick layer of dust on the marble floor proved the contrary). Then the main door would not open and we had to enter through a dungeon-like, pitch dark corridor, respectively be shown to the main hall in the dark. Only at the very last moment, wonder wonder, the lights started. The show, meant to point at Iraqis' inability to do things by themselves, could not have ended more pathetically than in the middle of Saddam's arena, half the way between the two pairs of crossed swords. This place was also celebrating the so-called victory at the end of the Iran - Iraq war (which neither of the two actually won); many helmets taken from Iranian POWs had been incorporated in the pavement so that people could walk over them, Mr. Catcho proudly pointed out as if he himself had commissioned the monument. I almost had a diarrhea strike. Someone asked me whether I had liked the tour in the Green Zone. No, I had not come to Iraq for such aberrant performances and it did not really matter whether crap came from tourism board or from Western staff, as long as it was only that: crap, the nearly liquid sort.

The day started without too glorious prospects, with an urge to go see the colours of Babylon at the Pergamom Museum in Berlin (where they had been carted away) and with yet another a dime a dozen Saddam's heap of kitsch, self-entitled palace. Yet it was to turn into the most inspiring day of all my otherwise short trip to the country.

I had learnt many of the decoration treasures of Babylon had been taken away to European museums. Yet I did not expect such an extent to it. The immense archaeological site had been deprived of its colour, joy and very character. Furthermore, the familiar but still absurd and hugely overdone restoration (no, actually rebuilding) of the 1980s was simply staggering. It felt as if one was on a movie set and not in a historical site. A part of Nebuchadnezzar the Second's  palace had been thankfully left unrestored, which made a sensible contrast from most of the rest, but, even so, it all had an undeservedly artificial touch. The only way I found to enjoy this site I had long dreamt of seeing was by contrast. The intricate baked brick animal figures enchanted the eye and one could not but let his or her imagination rebuild the original Ishtar Gate in its former place. Going to Berlin which I had never seriously considered, suddenly turned into a must. Then, the extensive site of the palace with its maze of narrow alleys was (only apparently) overshaded by Saddam's so-called "palace" on the top of a hill nearby. The very fact of calling it a palace and therefore putting it in the same line with Nebuchadnezzar's was outrageous. What Mesopotamians had achieved starting from earth, water and fire, therefore building a simply beautiful town, former Iraqi president's architects' imposture could not have even dreamt of, even though they had made use of the best materials they could get. While simplicity, beauty and harmony prevailed in the structures at the bottom of the hill, grotesque, hideous taste and megalomania prevailed at the top of the hill. As for the latter, whoever had placed a basketball hoop on the main ceremony hall's decaying marble-plated walls, had done a great job, by adding the only trace of normality in that ugly, ghostly place.

After a short stop at the ruined ziggurat of Borsippa, with its fine location in the desert overlooking distant palm tree plantations and Prophet Abraham's Shrine, we continued to Kerbala. As evening fell, we walked around the two shrines of Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein. While their golden domes and minarets adorned with bright green lights looked similar to the profane visitor, entering Hussein's shrine was interesting, with hundreds of people moving back and forth or praying as the imam was holding a speech in a sharp voice. We did not have access to the actual shrine room, but we could peek over and cast a glance at the golden ceiling with fine decoration. The large hall we were in however had some great round panels that incorporated floral elements and verses from the Qur'an. There were thousands of pilgrims along the wide pedestrian street linking the two shrines, sitting down on carpets, sleeping, eating. A whole city within a city had developed there, from children running around and all the way to old people that could no longer all by themselves. An extensive bazaar buzzed of life, with sweets, praying beads, cloth, shawls, juice or jewelry being among the most frequent merchandise on display. Yet the whole place had a strong Iranian atmosphere, certainly given many pilgrims' origin.

I had thought of escaping that night, right after returning to the hotel, as I wanted to have a narghileh and some chai in one of those poor, but full of life places in the street, among local people. However I gave it a last try, asking Omar, one of the guards, whether I could do so. He mentioned something about the hotel I did not want to understand, so he eventually gave up and came with me, while one of his local friends joined us. It sounds extremely stupid to go somewhere joined by guards, but it is all a matter of how much one wants to get there and what one actually sees when there. And then, this way I had a chance to get to know him better. He had fought in Mosul in 2007 and the extent to which he made fun of the war was just the best proof of his survival nature. The street was lined up with narghileh and chai places and the cool evening breeze was a relief after a hot, dry day. The power went off and the street started buzzing with the noise coming from the many generators, while people were not at all disturbed and kept on talking, puffing and sipping chai. Had not it been for the sound of motorbikes, cars and generators or had all this been replaced in one's imagination by the sound of merchants' call for customers and muezzin's call to prayer, it probably would not have been too different from the same place some 1000 years before.

With all my persistence, even after offering to pay for chai and narghilehs for the usual four times, Omar's friend would not let me do so. I felt I needed give something back to that community of people that very night, as I knew Omar or his friend would accept no presents. So, all of a sudden I decided to buy a waterpipe. There was a place selling new ones just 20 meters away, but I wanted to buy a used one from the very place we were sitting at. The attendant was intrigued at first, he then smiled, continued by asking me whether, however, I did not prefer a new one and ended by taking the old one to pieces and wrapping it up in an used newspaper for me. It had a fine, nicely carved wooden pipe and the paint on the glass had been long wiped out, but it would be the best piece of tangible memory I would have from that evening.

Back at the hotel, when I was about to go to bed, I was greeted by two rather young Iranians I had briefly talked to in the afternoon. Reza and Nima worked in civil engineering in Kerbala and, in the middle of this shrine city of major importance for Iranian (and not only) Shias, they were against both religion (preferring God alone to it), respectively against its political influence and intrusion in one's life. We sat there and talked for a couple of hours, with topics ranging from the Shah, life, music and all the way to what living and working in Iraq meant for them. However, after the first couple of minutes, I had this strong deja vu, that captivating feeling I had had back in 2004 when crossing Iran and talking to its people, whether in the mountains, while changing buses in the middle of the night or sipping chai. And it felt great to feel that once again, it was like listening to that familiar music over and over again. The discussion soon dived into our daily lives and I for one shall never forget Nima's words: "At a certain moment, I had to manage a company of around 150 people. After 3 years of doing it, I could feel dictatorship growing in me and I gave up." If only people stopped when they could no longer smile without laughing, and the world would be a better place to live in.

In the afternoon we had settled with both the tourism board staff and the two guards that, according to our schedule, we would start at 6 AM and go to Baghdad with a detour to the South, via Najaf. At 6:15 there was still nobody around, so I went off and had a walk around the shrines. Checkpoints were an easy affair. Pretending to be a Shia from abroad worked in one case, while my 3 day old beard and olive skin alone worked in two other situations. The town was already up and living, with many open shops, bakeries and chai places. Busloads of pilgrims were quietly walking to and from the shrines, while the clear, but definitely not blue (rather of a grey-light blue colour) sky created a fine background for the golden domes and minarets. For a moment, time stood still like in one of Lucian Blaga's poems, but I soon started towards the hotel.

The tourism board staff were late even past the already familiar hour, but I hardly noticed that. When we started, Patrik wanted to double check the route we were going to take passed by Najaf and Mohammad answered in the most natural of his twelve voices that we were going straight to Baghdad. He sounded so sincere that for once I wondered whether the agreement we had reached the previous day had not been but a dream. We returned to the hotel and a long, otherwise pointless discussion began. They denied we had reached any agreement, relying on the fact that the UK agent had indeed sent them incomplete information (which it had), like in 'not mentioning Najaf'. An otherwise enjoyable and full of flavour act commenced, as I lay back on a quite comfortable sofa and watched, ignoring time or any constraints for a long while. The guards, followed by the tourism board staff, stack to the issue that they did not have the authorization for our journey to Najaf and that we would therefore be stopped at checkpoints and turned back. Score phone calls were made, but that was only to inform the huge bureaucratic apparatus of foreigners' wish and persistence. Even on the sofa where I was lying, I was hit by a fine blend: fear of action and declination of responsibility, the irrelevance of time and the joy of discussing everything over and over again, however at the same time the impossible to define in words respect and care for guests. Always, when discussing to solve the issue, they avoided looking at us because they thought we were unhappy with this problem. The fact that there was no finality, no point in letting this discussion go over and over was captivating through its very shape and it had a music of its own.

It was hot on the way to Baghdad, so I fell asleep a few times. I woke up just upon entering the city. Soon afterwards, we heard a big noise and at first I thought it had come from some truck's going over the frequent pothole. With no truck in sight, we could however see a big, dark cloud of smoke some 200-300 meters off the road we were driving along. A car bomb had exploded near the Iranian Embassy. Less than 10 minutes later, as we had got closer to the smoking site, a second blast occurred. Our driver started to speed up, while I was looking at people. While a few (and especially drivers) got in a furious hurry, many pedestrians continued walking as if nothing had happened. War had grown in them and vice versa, to the extent where it turned into routine. As we passed by the railway station and continued to the Al Mansur, police pick-up trucks were coming from the opposite direction, carrying dozens of wounded people. At the very same time, on the opposite (sort of) sidewalk, a group of young school children were walking back from school, playing and singing. We could not get even close to our hotel, as police would not allow it and they were very firm about it. We were to find out later two bombs had exploded near the hotel, probably targeting the head office of a pro-Iranian party (the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmed Chalabi). In the same area there were the Egyptian, Syrian and German missions, which could also have been targeted.

We turned back and Omar decided to take us to his base. So, we ended up at the VIP Protection service of the Baghdadi Police. Even there a 5 minute discussion between officers preceded any action: they were actually discussing about the way to handle our luggage. We were invited in Brigadier General's office, where we were served refreshments while the general held a speech that was very optimistic regarding the state of things in the country, even though "such things still happen every now and then, but we are doing our best to make them stop". His duty and official status finely blended in with his country's Islamic tradition, when he used a familiar saying: "when you are a guest in an Iraqi house, our people will make you feel you are the host and they are the guests".

Eventually, things had cooled down and the general provided a police truck that took us to the hotel. The traffic had been banned and the streets were crowded with people walking, buying or selling merchandise. Nearby street stalls were popular with customers looking for T-shirts, plastics, refreshments and snacks. We got to the hotel. Some of the windows in the lobby and throughout the building had been broken by the bomb blast. The news reports mentioned some 32 dead and around 200 wounded in the three blasts that day, while a fourth bomber had been shot before he could detonate himself. Even though hotel staff were busy sweeping the floors and cleaning the fallen plaster, business was as usual. A teachers' conference had not been interrupted by the blast and they were now having lunch. A maid was clearing the way to the internet cafe of dirt and broken glass while a few gentlemen were sitting in the comfortable armchairs in the cafeteria, sipping chai. I later realized I should have joined them, yet it was already too late.

As the sun went down, yet another warm evening seemed to embrace the city, while traffic had gone back to routine and life was - as always - flowing in Baghdad's veins just like Tigris' water, without either hurry or slowness, but with great patience, low expectations, yet often with outstanding results. I do not remember how many checkpoints there were on the way to the airport the following morning, or how many times we had ourselves, our passports and luggage checked. It no longer mattered. A couple of days later, after getting home, I received an e-mail from Geoff: Theresa had a strike and instantly died upon arriving back to the United States. Less than two months later, during the early afternoon, I got to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Yet it was not the Pergamon part that interested me, but the colourful part. Those colours that had been born in the desert and that are unlike anything else. It felt like reaching the end of the road and touching, feeling that blue sky we cannot usually but contemplate from afar.