Security

Kabul's famous French restaurant, L'Atmosphere, has taken on a decidedly uncongenial tone, frisking the male patrons as they walk in and searching the purses of women. More annoying was being stuck out on the street while customers clotted up the doorway, waiting for their turn to be searched. L'Atmosphere is a fairly high-profile place, and there was an attempted kidnapping nearby last year, so I suppose they feel the higher security necessary, but I don't think I'll be going back there.

In fairness, this sort of thing is standard in Turkey and Pakistan, and I wonder how long it will be before we're impatiently queing up for metal detectors to get into shopping malls in America.