The day I arrived in Baghdad, I started feeling ill. I chalked it up to fatigue from having traveled through eight time zones in less than 6 days.

But yesterday morning I woke up with a fever and the WORST sore throat ever.  I downed several Dayquil tabs, aspirin, Cipro, you name it.  I fell asleep about 8pm last night, only to be awaken about 2am drenched in sweat, burning alive, yet freezing and shivering uncontrollably. I had a very high fever, and a sore throat that was so painful I could not swallow.  I popped two NyQuils and went back to sleep. I still don't feel well.  And it doesn't help that I have a million stories to write, and a staff of four to manage.  Ugh.

I was so out of it last night that I slept through two loud explosions just down the street from our hotel.  Doh!

Yesterday me and my security detail drove to the Green Zone (officially called the International Zone) to renew my press ID card.  What a pain in the arse that turned out to be. What should have been a 20-minute, in-and-out process turned into a half a day.  The traffic in Baghdad is absolutely horrendous, partially due to the number of checkpoints that have been thrown up all over town. 

When I got to the Green Zone, every guard who saw my passport wanted to speak with me in Spanish. Why? Because all the guards in the Green Zone are Peruvian soldiers!   We all had a big laugh at being able to converse in Spanish at a US military base in Iraq.  How surreal, but it only further delayed my entrance.

By the time I got to the correct office, the soldiers who process the badges were out to lunch. Great. Sat around for an hour, then two. When it was finally my turn, I had to go through a tedious "biomatrix" screening, where a soldier took my digital fingerprints and several photos of my face & head from different angles. I don't know what they do with all that information, but somehow I get the feeling that my photos are now posted on some G.I.'s wall of shame display. 

Not much else to report, except to say that I had a good laugh this morning at the news that Lindsay Lohan had been arrested on drunk driving and cocaine charges. ROTFLMAO!