Baghdad Short Finals

I asked for a window seat (am always keen to see where I am going, or have something other than my neighbour to lean on if the snoring starts). And of course I end up with the most heavily scratched, scored and sandblasted semi opaque window I have seen in a long time. At least since I was in India methinks. I made the airport and checked in, worried less about what might be ahead and more about what was happening inside - I had been up all night with Montezuma's Revenge and I suspect that goat head rice dish had something to do with it. Fortunately no embarrassments on the plane. I now have everything squared away and am going to try and catch up on the sleep handed over to Montezuma.

Despite the window here is a photo of us on an understandable "short finals" profile into the Baghdad International Airport. For all the obvious reasons there are a couple of tight turning spirals down to the ground from what looked like about 10-12,000', the turns being carried out directly over the airport - hence this grubby view.

6 September 2007