Day One Under My Belt

Well, I've had my first in Iraq. It's interesting, really. Camp Liberty is a nice place. Parts of the post have some water- artficial lakes built by Saddam, apparently. His palace is a large, extravagant place, that can be seen from many part of Liberty. Other parts of his compound have been turned into offices and PXs and so on.

This is all part of a large complex, so we are really relatively safe here, though one can hear explosions from time to time, and see plumes of smoke. I have heard small arms fire as well. But by and large is very secure.

I went to the PX today, and picked up some things, such as a converter. The electricity here comes out as 220 volts, instead of 110 like in the states. You need an adapter to plug things in, but the converter actually converts it down to 110v. For some appliances, you don't need the converter; they can take he extra electrial input. However, when I connected my alarm clock in, and broke it, I realized I probably needed a converter!

People always wonder about the weather over here; it's hot, obviously, but probably not that dissimilar from Arizona. It feels better than the humidity of the south US, but it is awfully hot here.

On a totally random note, Iraq is 9 hours ahead of central US time.