Leaving Iraq for home sweet Amman

Iraq was a an isolating experience.  I would wake up,  go to work, get lunch, go to work, go to dinner, go running and go to sleep.  In between, there would be walking in a 115 degree dust storm.  There were a few moments of interest.  Hugh, my co-worker, and I ventured out of the Embassy for lunch once to Freedom Chinese Restaurant across the street.  A dusty Chinese restaurant in a trailer, Freedom employed two Chinese waitresses who came to Iraq on year-long contracts.  They hated it there, but their Iraqi employer took their passports so they couldn't run away.  They called Hugh who speak Chinese once a week, but otherwise had no contact with anyone who spoke their language.

I got to tour the old stadium where Saddam would make his speeches.  The entrance has a memorial to the "victory" over the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War.  The monument is in disrepair and one of the hands fell or was torn off.  Its a brutal memorial with hundreds of Iranian helmets at the base of the monument.  Speed bumps in are made with the helmets as

 well.  We then went through the dust storm to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a very modern and now spooky place, especially in the fog of a dust storm.  We then went to the Tigris to the see the 10 feet grass.

Getting out of Iraq, though, was fairly exciting.  I took a helicopter for the first time, spent the night at Sully Air Force Base and then took one of those military planes where we're all strapped in sideways back to Amman.  The safety instruction was literally screamed in 5 seconds.  "In these bags are the air masks.  Use them if we lose pressure!"  It was all very surreal.

Back in sweet Amman with its cool evenings and blue skies.  I can't say I'll miss Iraq, a land of T-walls and dust.  Sadly, I have to go back in a little over a month.