Visit to the International Zone

This is the most exciting post I've made in a while, because a few days ago was not my normal groundhog day existence. It's always sunny, so you think I would always see my shadow, but sometimes it is sunny and sandy, which obscures the shadow. Either way it looks like 11 more long months of sand. Today I visited the embassy and have many pictures for your viewing pleasure. What makes it more exciting is I also have an exciting picture of our white car.

It's not a minivan, but if you saw it from far away you might think it it, so that has to count for something. Unapparent from this angle is the fact that the grill is missing. It's a fairly big grill, so now looks fairly "ghetto" from the front. Definitely no gold in my grill, not even any grill in my grill. The funny part is we don't really know where it went. I am wearing this fun suit in hopes that it would block the intense heat. It's like an oven- except when I turn on the hair drier, I mean when the wind blows. I stood firm, confident in the eventual success of my apparatus. I kept the heat blocking suit on for a good while before I deemed it a complete failure. Oblivious to me at the time was the fact that you had to wear the exact same suit to fly anywhere. Next time you complain about having to put your liquids in a one quart bag and walk through a metal detector, think about flying in lovely Baghdad. All we have to do is go out in 110 degree heat wearing a forty pound vest with three pounds of weapon and ammuniton hanging off it and a two pound helmet on your head. On the other hand for all you gun lovers out there who get mad you can't carry your gun on the plane, then you probably are jealous becasue we are required to carry it on, with ammunition. Anyway I decided I was wearing all this crap anyway and was already a sweaty mess, so why not go to the US Embassy?

These are just some standard houses in Baghdad.
The US Embassy is located in the International Zone, or IZ (eye-zee). It's also in Baghdad, in an area called the Green Zone. The area between where I am and the Green Zone is called the Red Zone, and that's bad. So you fly or drive in armored cars, and flying's faster.

Here is a CU flag I found after breakfast, it was hanging on the ceiling, Go Buffs!

I will post a few more pictures from this day in my picasa album (link on the right side of the page), but here are some. It may take me a while to get the other ones up, so don't be surprised if you can't find them at that link. This is the Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Baghdad, which is very cool. It is an enormous disc, 42m in diameter, said to represent the traditional shield (dira'a) falling from the grasp of a dying Iraqi warrior. The actual casket is in this artistically styled cube, and there is an impressive room below that has unfortunately been looted. (There are also hidden passages down there!) Even better than this elegant and enormous monument under the hot sun is what it must have looked like at night.

The generator was apparently destroyed in the bombing, but this tower is covered in very thick Murano glass panels with two flourescent bulbs under each section. The entire monument was lit at night, and the room below the tomb was also well lit, when the electricity was available (we had to use flashlights). I wish there was a person standing in the photo for comparison, but this monument is 30-40 m high.

This is at the center of the room below. It also used to be well let and full of memorabilia that has since been looted.
I couldn't find any pictures, but this monument will be very impressive at night once the power is restored and illuminated once again. A crescent shaped pool is also located behind the shield, a symbol of the Islamic faith, and of power for thousands of years in arab culture.

Next we visited the crossed sabers as they're often called, officially the "Hands of Victory" or "The Swords of Qādisiyyah". A pair of crossed swords sit at each end of Saddam's parade grounds. They are crafted from molds of Saddam's actual hands and forearms, down to the actual cast of his thumprint on the thumbs. The bumps in the ground here (beneath the swords) are said to be helmets of Iranian soldiers killed in the war, and thousands more suppossedly lie in the concrete at the base (though much of that was probably looted). Not only did the tyrant built excessive monuments to celebrate himself (look up his dedication of these parade grounds in 1990 when he rode in on a white horse), but he often did so out of turn. In this case, his swords celebrated victory in the Iran-Iraq war which was more of a stalemate. A better example is the "Victory over America Palace," which sits a few miles from me on the American within the walls of US controlled camp where I live.
After the sightseeing I swam some laps.