L'Atmosphere

Last night I returned to L’Atmosphere, the most popular of the western nightlife establishments, this time for dinner with Mary. I’d last been there when snow was on the ground as well as on the pool’s blue plastic cover. Now the place was a bit like a secret garden with greenery, a white-gravel path, and hip or antique lamps scattered around resulting in an undeniably romantic setting. Our one night to go out and get crazy, and we sat upstairs in a dining room among empty tables. I had this great rush of excitement about having a drink and plunged quickly into a beer and a whisky only to soon realize this was dinner, not the “Thirsty Thursday” I often subject myself to in New York.

Dinner was great—French cuisine, which I’m not all that familiar with. Nice bread, nice cheese, nice meats. The place is such a stark escape from Kabul—but some kind of refined, artsy, sophisticated escape, unlike the middle America university campus escape that is the US Embassy compound. I went back to the embassy today—Sean brought the folks from his office there as well to talk law with the State people. All of us had lunch together, then walked past the pool and sand volleyball in action on our way to the embassy store and ATM before saying goodbye. I felt a bit sorry for these Camp Phoenix guys, suddenly aware of just how comparatively poor are their living conditions compared to the pampered inhabitants at the embassy compound...

Good luck charm that I am, we ran across the US Ambassador who is freshly arrived from his previous assignment in Columbia.