this place, iraq, is like another planet. many things are different, the landscape, the sounds, the tastes, the smells. back home you wake up in the morning to the sounds of birds singing, traffic, people talking, etc. here i wake up to the sounds of gun fire, military aircraft, bombs exploding, people yelling, and if its none of those then the air is completely silent. back home you if you walk around on a summer day you smell freshly cut grass, in the fall its the smell of rotting leaves, in the winter the freezing cold almost has its own smell, and in the spring you smell the rain. here there are only two seasons, the dry and rainy se