Huey, Deweys, no Louie

For those of you not as uber cool as those of us who live in a war zone, a Huey is a helo or helicopter.  I did not know this, but when James kept talking about the huey, shortly after riding in a helicopter, I used my amazing powers of deduction and figured out he meant the helicopter.

Due to the critical threat we have been facing here in Baghdad, we are no longer allowed to take the armored vehicles to the airport.  Instead, we go to our landing pad, wait for 3-6 hours, climb in a helicopter and fly for 5 minutes to the airport.  It's a huge time suck and it made our 36 hour journey longer, but for James it was a dream come true. 

(Aside:  Here's why our journey is so long:  3 hours to get from home to airbase (4 miles), 6 hours to get from Baghdad air base to airport (100 yards), 4 hours to get from Baghdad airport to Kuwait airport (1 hour flight).  So 13 hours JUST getting to our jumping off point which is a one hour flight.  Nightmare.) 

Here are some pictures of us taking the helicopter on our way home.  These helicopters sat about 10-12 people and were pretty stable.  Note how happy James is.  Note how cool I am.

For our return to Baghdad we also took the "hueys", but because of our place in line we were selected with 3 other people to ride in a very tiny helicopter back to the Embassy while the others went in the 10 passenger ones.  Our helicopter sat 5 people, and flew with the door open, and a guy with a gun hanging out that door, and me sitting about two inches from, and facing that open door. 

James was thrilled.  I was less than thrilled in the pitch black, and in my jet-lagged state to re-enter Baghdad this way, but it did feel appropriate.  And it was lovely to see Baghdad from the air at night.  It seemed so much more peaceful and lovely.  Except for the guy next to me with the gun of course.   No pictures allowed on this trip.

Home sweet home.  It's odd to think of this place as home, but that's what it is for a year, and truthfully there was some sense of relief to be in a place where we weren't living out of a suitcase and we had our own space.  3 months down, 9 to go.