The rest of the week, he played tourist. He went to the "green zone", which is secured section of the city. After passing through a check point it was like being in civilian Baghdad with homes, shops, etc. He made some Iraqi acquaintances, especially a coffee shop owner who also sold pirated DVDs.
Nate also visited typical sight-seeing things. He took lots of pictures, but not any of the ones published in this post. Given the difficulty of sending a lot of large files electronically, he will be sending me a DVD with photos to post. The pictures in this post are downloaded from various web sites.He toured the palace that served as Sadam's main residence. It was more than simply a palace. It was an estate that included a large lake, hunting grounds, and mini-mansions for guests. He saw a few other palaces as well, including that of the Republican Guards. At one of the palaces Nate worked on his golf swing on the palace driving range.
En route to one of his destinations they drove past a palace commissioned by Sadam to commemorate his "victory" over American forces in the first Gulf War. The palace was still under construction at the commencement of the second war (which legally was still the first and only war, Iraq having violated the terms of the "first" war's cease fire). The site has a heavily bombed palace surrounded by rusting cranes and other construction equipment.Nate was also impressed by the Hands of Victory monument, the Iraqi memorial to their unknown soldiers, and other things.
He had, it sounds like, the best time of his tour so far. He said it was like a vacation from work and hopes he will be able to go back again in 10 or 15 years as an un-uniformed tourist with some more freedom to wander at will.
Sadly, his return to Balad brought news that his mid-tour leave has, again, been pushed back to May. He's feeling a bit down about that, and some other work-related issues that came up. We're hoping some of that works out as this week passes, but we're getting to the point that it's hard to trust leave plans until his boots hit American soil.
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