****IRAQ Part Deux**** July 7, 2012 Day 36 Kurdistan Day 8 - Sulaymaniyah One of the biggest challenges people have of my travels is they argue I don't spend enough time in one place, and therefore never truly experience the countries I visit. Although it is true I have been known to blaze through a country quicker than a redneck polishes off a twelve pack, I disagree one can't come to know a place in just a few days in the main cities (or rural towns/village...

******IRAQ Explosion Part 1***** Day 29 - June 30, 2012 Iraq Day 1 IRAQ, what more is there to say. The country has been blasted all over international headlines since the U.S. led invasion in 2003, and for that matter, since the Iran - Iraq war that lasted the entirety of the 1980's, as well as the first Gulf war in the early 1990's. During the few years of "peace" in between, the country was ravaged by a ruthless dictator whose tyranny against his own peopl...