Australian Day

Yesterday was "Australia Day"...a national holiday for our Aussie friends, where they celebrate the establishment of the first penal colony on the Australian continent. It's not a big holiday for them, but when you're in the IZ, any excuse for a party is good enough!!
So, our office received an invitation to their party. I thought it'd be at the Australian Embassy, but found out that it wasn't. Of course, it had been raining, and fairly muddy, so it's a good thing that they didn't plan to hold it at the Embassy, or there'd have been a big mess to clean up afterwards. So, our office loaded up into two vehicles and we drove over to a house in the Iraqi section of the IZ, close to where the only liquor store in the IZ is located. (Those clever Aussies, huh?). It was rather low-key...quite atypical for the Aussies, but we had a good time. They had a bonfire and were cooking hot dogs on the grill. There was a cash bar, but not a Fosters or Australian wine to be found! Well, you do have to make sacrifices in a war zone I guess!!
We stayed a couple of hours and left around 9:30.
Like all the houses here, there is a big fence around each yard. I'm still not sure exactly what house we were at for the party, we never went inside, just hung out in the yard around the fire. But, both coming into, and leaving the yard, we passed through a gate with a guard stationed inside the gate. Included in our group was a fellow who had just arrived here a couple of days ago. After we passed through the gate on our way out, he said something that made me think that I've already been here too long! He mentioned that this was the first party that he'd ever been to that had a guard....armed with a machine gun..... at the entrance! It was only then that I thought....."oh yeah, that guy did have a machine gun" and I'd just walked in and out and never even gave that fact a second thought!!! Over here, that is normal!!