Have spent the past week in Baghdad during which my uncle's ex-wife and her two kids stayed over and tomorrow I'll be on my way back to the plantation. During my stay here in Baghdad, it been quite amazing to see the changes and the new optimism in the air. There's a new lahma bi ajeen restaurant near my home and I got Nahida to bring me some over for dinner today, and it wasn't bad. Yesterday, Miz and I bought some booze after sunset. Od and I had hoped that things would start getting better as soon as we graduated, and it's looking like that things are turning out just as we had hoped. Miz and his friend however, see that things are going to flare up after the next big election.

Right now, I'm drinking some Lebanese wine, eating some Turkish pickles from a jar, and watching some documentary on a French language satellite channel about tunnel building. I"m losing interest in the documentary, let's see what's on MTV: 100 best French rock videos.

Nahida also got me some hummous. I'm now trying to choose between another glass of wine or digging into the hummous.