International Zone!

Tonite I made my first jump, well when I say jump, I don't mean literally! I took my first convoy outside the walls of Camp Victory to the friendly confines of Camp Greywolf, in the Intl. zone(Green zone) of downtown Baghdad! I gotta tell you I was VERY nervous before the convoy, being as it was 2 Humvee gun trucks that picked us up at 1st CAV HQ! But as I left the gate, and had to load my weapon, I had a lot of adreneline pumping, because all the video I had seen and all the training I had was being tested as far as keeping my eyes open, and watching everything like a Hawk! We were on streets and highways that looked pretty normal, but the traffic was weird. The people drive here worse than anywhere I have ever seen. There are NO lanes, and they wouldn't follow them anyway. I think there might have been stop lights, but they did not work, and I didn't see any stop signs. The convoys in downtown have right of way, because of the fact they have the weapons on them. So, when cars were in our way we barely slowed down, and they shined spotlights on them, like an american emergency vehicle! Anyways, we got here fine, and I will start doing PDHA's for a Brigade tommorow! I am scheduled to be here til the 2nd of March, but they aren't doing anything Sun, and Mon. so I'll probably catch a flight back to Victory Sat afternoon! I could stay here, but this is a small FOB and there is not a PX here! Although the rest of the area around here has all the things to do! And the main palace for this area is close! I will tell you that this area has A LOT of Palaces, and I don't know why you need this many palaces in a city, but I guess he had the $, so why spend it on the people, build more palaces, right! I have seen, and I haven't been around that much, 5 palaces so far, and there are MANY more!
I am at an internet cafe deal, and it says its .15/min, but I don't know where you put the $, but it let me on, so is that stealing? I call it FREE! Hope everybody is well, and my son Hunter lost a tooth yesterday, so that makes me homesick a little, and Missy is getting closer to delivery, so that does as well, but I appreciate all the emails and comments, and I got 2 letters from Madison today, so that helped a lot!
Later,
Erik