On the lighter side-Travel- Iraq-3

Just to warn you in advance that the garbage situation in Iraq is really bad. You can throw your stuff on the road or on the side of the road and nobody would care. But you have to understand that the Iraqis are trying to secure the land and security is the number one issue, so it can be understandable that garbage collection and disposable would be the last on the minds of Iraqi officials running the government. Other thing that I noticed was that it is no use being courteous and saying Thank you, sorry or excuse me as you would not be heard or ignored by the people. You have to blend in with the crowd and leave your manners at home.

We reached hotel finally and then found out about our rooms and there to have a brief rest and then come down again for lunch. As with the food in Syria, the food in the hotel was good. The utilities situation is not that great but you can be rest assured that all the stores and the hotels have standby generators whenever there are breakdowns in electricity. The water situation was really good and there is plenty of it. But overwhelming majority of the people use bottled water which is available everywhere and cheaply at about 21 cents a half liter bottle. Iraqi uses the currency called Dinar which is right now equivalent to 1185 to a U.S. dollar.