| Apr. 23rd, 2005 @ 05:20 pm I guess I can do this again... |
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Ok ok, I know it's been a while. It's just really hard to think up interesting new entries when NOTHING goes on in this place! It takes a mostly significant event to give me something to even waste a paragraph talking about. But THIS time... I actually DO have something to talk about!
This past week (Wednesday through Saturday, specifically), I was granted the luxury of taking a few days off. We were informed that we would gear up on Wednesday morning and head to what is known as the International Zone of Central Baghdad. This is the area where the Embassy is located, as well as a number of other neat little items. The place we were headed, in particular, happened to be a sweet little area within the boundaries known as "Freedom Rest."
Talk about a sweet deal! This place was a PALACE (No really, it belonged to Saddam!). We stayed in two Villas on the property, both of which had a fantastic view of the courtyard area, which held a large swimming pool with olympic diving platforms. There was also a basketball/volleyball/dodgeball court, and even a field for playing football and other field-worthy sports.
Inside the main building, there was a pingpong table, pool tables, a movie theater, rooms with TV's set up for PS2 and X-Box, pinball, a cafe, a dining facility, and a huge lobby filled with comfy couches and chairs and tables. Marble floors were in every building throughout the facility, and they were kept freshly shined, polished and buffed every day. The floors were so slick you could slide a good 20 feet in SOCKS!
I spend most of the day hanging out by the pool, as did a good majority of the other guests. Along with a few other obviously retarded people, I decided that I was more than brave enough to jump off of the high dive, which sat a cosy 40 feet above the water. I must've stood up there for a good 5 - 10 minutes before I garnered up the courage to propell myself from the platform. As my descent began, I quickly realized that there was no turning back, and the inevitable impact was going to hurt. I did my best to shift my body into the highly stylish "pencil" position but to no avail. I ended up landing like I was seated in a rocking chair, with my glutes bearing the full brunt of the force of impact. A minor setback, however, as I was in no way defrayed from jumping a multitude of times afterwards. I probably jumped a good 6 times that day. One of the guys that went with us noted that the small group of masochists dumb enough to jump off the platform were obviously trying to impress the small group of bikini-clad females on the opposite end of the pond. While not entirely accurate, there may have been some truth to this statement.
After we were done hurting ourselves for the afternoon, I headed inside for a fantastic steak, salad and baked potato dinner. Talk about delicious! Definitely the best meal I've had since leaving home. Even got to follow it up with an icecream sundae.
After dinner we played some ping pong and volley ball at the court. We ended up back in the pool around 8:30 pm, when the sun had just gone down and before the pool lights had come on. It seemed like everyone who had shown up for this 4-day period was out there that night, so of course we had to show off our bravery and stupidity in front of everyone. Now, knowing we had jumped off this particular platform a half dozen times earlier that very same day, none of us could explain the newfound fear of heights. One of the guys that actually chickened out summed it up best by saying, "Dude... You can't even see the f***ing water!" He was right. I crept my way to the edge and looked down. Nope, the pool looked empty. As certain as I was that the pool was definitely not empty, I needed someone else to go first to prove my hypothesis. After "Test Subject C" (Subject A chickened out, I was B) slammed into the water at near terminal velocity, I was next to follow amid the cheers of the onlookers now gazed up in our direction.
We stayed in the pool until about midnight, then retired to our villa for the remainder of the evening.
Day 2 opened up with a flag football game, followed by a crazy waterballoon fight and more festivities held inside for the "Indoor Kids" (chess tournament, ping pong tournament, video games, etc.). Amazingly enough, I was able to keep myself outside and away from electronic temptation. I did play a whole hell of a lot of ping pong, however.
The whole day was long and quite eventful. Spent most of the time in the pool, of course, but for the most part I made sure I kept active. We stayed up late that night, watching movies and nightswimming again.
Day 3 started out with a 3 on 3 basketball game which I slept RIGHT through. Well, I was awake to attend the game, but I fell asleep outside by the pool. Got a wicked tan :)
I sat by the pool for the majority of the day, not even going into the water. Around 2pm the organizers of the whole event announced there would be a "Biggest Splash" contest. Participants would be judged on a scale of 1 to 10 in 3 categories: Creativity, Style/Splash, and Pain. My first jump ended up being one dud of a cannonball, so I was forced to make up ground on the second. People were practically begging me to do a flying squirrel. As much as I wanted to (HA!) I decided it would be in my best interests not to. However I did do something similar... I did a flying squirrel backwards. I landed on my back with a brutal smack that would have made God herself cringe. People even reported hearing me let out an "Ooof!" as I struck the water. My third and final jump was some kind of strange inverted cannonball-type thing I tried to do but chickened out milliseconds before impact. The awkwardness in which I landed, however, produced a tidal wave of wetness towards the all-female panel of judges, and also let out quite an audible "SMACK!" as 50% of my body struck the water all at once. PERFECT SCORE! SORE BODY!
We convoyed back to base this morning, returning at around 12pm. I've been sitting here ever since. I'm tired and bored now.
This concludes my update for the... month? We'll see!
Dan |
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