Should have read the fine print...: Moving on – eventually… plus Fodor’s Guide to Iraq, part 1

My nomadic existence continues – sort of. Besides that fact that other than some fortunate red tape I would be in Kabul right now, my original orders had me going to a ‘liaison officer’ role in a different country. The folks I work for now in Bahrain opted to use me to cover Iraq from the HQ instead, which is a pretty cool job. However, a couple of factors have conspired against me, and it looks like I am going to end up going to country ‘X’ as originally planned. Not for several weeks, however.

Alas, I will be pretty much the only US Navy person in the country at times, and country ‘X’ is a just a bit more conservative than Bahrain. Of course, Bahrain surprised me recently – I was going to a video site (NOT porn…) and this is what popped up:

Site Blocked

This web site has been blocked for violating regulations and laws of Kingdom of Bahrain.

I cut and pasted the English text, but there was Arabic too. Hopefully the secret police don’t show up at my door – and good thing I am not an internet porn addict.

I just completed a several day trip to Iraq and will be documenting it over the next several posts. Too much for one post, though not enough pictures unfortunately. Part of it is that many of the areas I was at are sensitive enough that photos are forbidden, and part was that I was in a hurry a lot of the time. Lots of interesting modes of travel, with today being the most interesting – did my first convoy ‘outside the wire’ in an MRAP (a big armored truck). It was a quick convoy and there were no issues.

Sunset over Baghdad – headed home to Camp Victory after a day trip to somewhere north of the city. The haze in the air is a leftover from the morning ‘sandfog’ that delayed our planned morning trip until the afternoon – visibility was too low.