Day ??

I have been assigned to work in Baghdad for the next 4-6 mos with my government job. I departed DC on the 5th of January and will be here for three, then back to the states for a week and then back to Baghdad for an undetermined amount of time. I am keeping a blog of my travels.

8 Jan 08 - This is the first minute I’ve had to myself since leaving DC on 5Jan08 at 950pm. The hours have been long – we have spent a lot of time getting oriented, doing administrative stuff and going to meetings. It is much bigger than I ever imagined, although I think after being here a while one might find it rather small. The main area that I work in is the Embassy (Saddam’s old palace) and the villa (where we live).
So far the coolest thing was on the way here. We flew commercial air (United) to Kuwait and then a contracted flight took us into Baghdad. Once we arrived, we had to go about 7 miles to get to the International Zone (IZ/Green Zone) where we will be sequestered until we leave. There are a few ways to get there, you can take this prearranged “taxi like” big armored vehicle (which I have not seen yet) called a Rhino, or you can go in armored SUV’s driven by contracted guards (that work for our group specifically called the PSD) or we could take a helo. Well, someone on the team was being very nice to us newbies (4 of us) and arranged for us to go by helo. It is only like a 5 minute ride, but it takes like over 20 to drive. The helo was absolutely awesome. It was totally dark and we were flying right over the Tigris and then into the IZ.
My first night was a bit of a challenge. I took the strategy of staying up as much as I could during the trip as we would be arriving in the evening and I figured we could go straight to bed. It would have worked out fine except by the time we got to the villa, got moved into our rooms (I got one to myself w/o a roommate), had a mandatory meeting, and found a shower that worked, it was like 130am. I was tired and knew I would get a good night sleep, but sometime during the night, my window a/c unit that doubles as a heater, shut off and I woke up around 2:15am freezing. So, I put on more clothing and got another blanket, but that didn’t really help and by the time I had to be ready at 0730, I hadn’t slept a wink. So, needless to say, my first day was tough not to mention we didn’t end until 1030p that night.
The next day was much better as I was able to move to another room with heat and with a working bathroom right outside the door.
Pam