My Daily Commute

Hey Ya'll. This is going to be something of an odd post since it will be mostly pictures. One of the things that has really surprised me about Baghdad is how green it is and how much water is around. My morning commute is actually pretty nice. What I did the other day was have Stoli drive Trucky Jr and I took some photos. If you're like me, you have pictured Iraq as a wasteland of sand dunes. Granted, parts of the country are like that. But remember that the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are the cradle of civilization and "The Fertile Crescent". I remember reading about all of that in school, but apparently I'd forgotten. Hope you enjoy the pictures. This first picture is on the road just leaving my hootch. Notice the ditch full of bamboo on the left.

As we approach the paved road, there is a nice full tree line. The left side of the road there, as you are looking at it, is where the river is. Didn't think there would be this many trees in Baghdad. We have more trees here than there were in Minot! Although, for those of you who have lived in Minot, that won't surprise you. As you can see, the river is full of greenery. It's interesting because It reminds me of Moses being put in the river among the bullrushes. Don't know why that is. Maybe it's because we're in the Middle East and there's a river with reeds and stuff in it, but that's what it reminds me of.

The waterways surrounding the palace and the other houses and buildings in the area are pretty cool. As you can see here, they even built in some artificial waterfalls to make things look better. Kind of nice.

As you can see on the left here, we go through tons and tons of bottled water here, as you can imagine. We use bottled water for everything, including brushing our teeth because the tap water is just, well, untrustworthy. But we do drink lots of bottled water and with the heat coming up, we'll be drinking even more. We've received a bunch of packages of different flavoring additives that make a huge difference. Water that tastes like water gets old after a while.

Even away from the river, as in this picture here, there are still trees and such. There is no grass or shrubbery, so there is still nothing but dirt and rocks on the ground, but there are lots of trees and stuff. More than I ever imagined before I got here.