That’s what I thought, anyway, as we rode in the sweet-smelling car, through the garden estate of the emir, past marble beds full of black tulips, to his castle by the sea. I hadn’t seen Aladdin yet, but when I got to Oklahoma years later, it was the reference I had to explain this part to people. The palace towers weren’t so round as the ones in the movie, and the real castle had helicopters. But it was all close enough.
