Added 17 December:
The flight on United was wonderful, I slept through most of it and woke up in time for a small snack (turckey sandwich with roasted potatoes was the snack, don't get that on travel inside the USA). After arriving in Kuwait, we were met by the Gryphon Airline representatives and taken to our next gate. A few minutes later we boarded the aircraft and pulled away from the gate. The flight was very comfortable and highly unusual. The approach to Baghdad International AirPort (BIAP) is done in blackout conditions. Imagine sitting in a leather seat on an airliner, flying at night, and the only lighting is from the emergency pathway lights. No anti-collision lights, no landing lights, no overhead lights, no reading lights, just the small green lights on the carpet that guide you to an exit in an emergency. The landing was smooth and the flight attendents were great, it just made for a wierd feeling.
After arriving at BIAP, you walk over to the airbase and collect your luggage. Once there, I checked in with the Helo/Sherpa folks to see if there were any flights to Speicher. No luck, so I was off to explore a bit and find my way around the base. I took very few pictures, but did take this one of the Christmas tree.
After a little looking, I managed to start doing the things I really needed to and talked to the Assistant Site Lead who pointed out the e-mail I had seen earlier and ignored the content while reading the powerpoint attachment. It provided several important details that got me back on track. Unfortunately I had barely missed the fixed wing flight for the evening and had to bed down at BIAP. I was however able to get my name ont he Space "A" roster for the next evening. All in all it was a good night, I grabbed some food from the Grab n Go at the passenger terminal and relaxed.
Jeff
ETA: For those not interested in Iraq, we made our first ski trip of the season just over a week ago and the ski blog should be starting up again shortly.
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