Never in my life did I expect to see the sun rise over Baghdad. But I did this morning.

Seriously.

Instead of flying the normal Bangkok routes via Tokyo and Seoul, I decided to change things up on this trip and go through Dubai. While you may think it’s because of my excellent sense of adventure, in reality, Emirates was a helluva lot cheaper than Korean Air and ANA. So Dubai it was, and the route from Dulles to the United Arab Emirates featured a route through Europe and the Middle East.

I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that the flight goes through Iraqi airspace, but honestly, I never even thought about the route.

So this morning, while watching the plane’s on-board satellite navigation, I realized I was flying over Iraq. And just as the sun was coming up, we flew very close Baghdad, which couldn’t have been more than 10 or 15 miles away (I was on the wrong side of the plane so I only saw Baghdad on the map).

How’s that for a Sunday morning sunrise?