At Darryl's Stuff, we take requests!

Shirley wanted to see the Tigris River, so I took advantage of a recent helicopter ride to get some shots. First, here are a couple of pictures off the Internet to get you oriented...

This is how the Tigris is oriented relative to stuff you'll see below... 

And here it is! The Tigris River! 

Another view. Pardon the streaks. The Helo's windows were dirty! 

Baghdad straddles a bend in the Tigris river. We're over the Red Zone here. Green Zone's on the other side. 

Another shot of the bend of the Tigris. 

Flying over western Baghdad. That's the 14th of July bridge over the Tigris in the center background. July 14th, 1958 was the day the Iraqis overthrew a repressive monarchy in the culmination of a 4 1/2 year revolution. They established a parliamentary government that only lasted until 1963, when the Ba'ath party, led by the military, staged a coup. Saddam would later become the leader of the Ba'ath party. 

Getting closer to BIAP (Baghdad International Airport). This is the Baghdad suburbs. Pretty nice houses. Some even have swimming pools! 

Overhead shot of a Baghdad neighborhood. I think this one must be pretty well-to-do. The houses appear larger than typical, and one driveway had a boat in it! 

From this range, I can't tell whether the Mosque in the background is actually being worked on, or if it was abandoned when Saddam fell. You can see that it's huge! 

In an earlier e-mail, I told you that this is the rainy season. When it rains, it comes down in buckets! And this is the effect. Some of the low-lying neighborhoods flood pretty badly, and many parts of Baghdad don't have storm drains. This photo was taken a couple of days after the last storm! 

A different angle on the flooded neighborhood. 

Me in the rotunda of the Al Faw palace. This photo is from an earlier visit--I already posted a similar shot. But this one gives you a better idea of how big the place is. Notice the light over my head. That's the tip of a three story high chandelier that's in the next shot... 

The chandelier in the rotunda. It looks like crystal, but it's actually plastic! Saddam could be pretty chintzy! 

I'm really not obsessed with bathrooms, but apparently Saddam's decorator was! One more example of how outrageous his tastes were! Check out the scalloped toilet tank! 

We didn't take this picture. It's from 2003. Just another example of how Saddam spent his money! 

Picnic, Iraqi style!

The fare at Quentin Rashid's farewell was all traditional Iraqi--even the Coke cans were in printed in Arabic! We had grilled lamb kebobs prepared with several different spice combinations. To eat them, you put them on a piece of pita bread, add tomatoes, pickled red onion strands, Iraqi pickles and more spices; roll them up in the pita and eat it like an egg roll or taco. They also had Iraqi pastries for desert. They're a lot like souvlaki (spelling?)--light and very flaky. Of course, I had to try at least one of each! My favorite were the ones where the pastry was wrapped around honey and pistachio nuts. The pistachios are different--and better tasting--than the ones we get Stateside. I've found most of their produce to be smaller, but fresher and tastier than typical U.S. stuff.

Soseek, Alice, Sunny and Big Dog explain how to eat Iraqi food. (I've never needed an explanation before...) 

We obviously weren't going to run out of food! 

At The Mini Bazaar...

Every Friday, some locals bring in a "mini-bazaar" and set up behind our building. Hottest selling items seem to be bootleg DVDs--$2 a piece, and $30 for all five seasons of CSI! I'm not buying any--they only work with european-spec DVD players, and the one in my trailer is U.S. spec!

A better shot of the bazaar. Unfortunately, my batteries went dead before I could get a shot inside! 

Oriental rugs and "hookahs" for sale. Smoking is an unconstrained habit in the Middle East. When I was in Kuwait last summer, we visited some upscale restaurants that offer hookahs to guest parties--the tips are sterilized and come in plastic bags. What do they smoke? Tobacco, of course! 

Through the Green Zone, and Beyond!

Jantzen asked me to take some pictures of what it's like outside of the American controlled areas, so here are a few. I took these on a trip to Camp Victory near the Baghdad Airport on the way to a meeting. Driving from the Green Zone to the Airport is about like driving from Arlington to Dulles used to be before suburban sprawl set in!
This first shot is still in the Green Zone. This is Iraq's "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" from their war with Iran. It's really quite spectacular. If the weather had been clearer, you could see the color patterns on the walls better. There is a perpetual flame burning under the "hood" in the center.

Me in the rotunda of the Al Faw Palace. It used to be one of Saddam's vacation homes, now it's surrounded by Camp Victory, and it's the HQ for the Multi-National Forces-Iraq. How did I get here? Scroll down and find out! 

...Around this circle, past a checkpoint (which we're not allowed to photograph), then it's out into the Red Zone! 

I think this is some sort of public building. It has an Iraqi flag flying in front of it.