Still no set schedule.

Today I went into the Academy again. I thought I had a discussion class in the afternoon so I prepared a bunch of topics for the students to chose from since they’re a bit whiney, and prepared a bunch of questions to ask in case they weren’t feeling chatty. I had also told one of the teachers that I would help her out. So I went in and talked to some of her students for about 30 minutes, but they weren’t in the most cooperative mood. She said later she was embarrassed since they weren’t prepared, but it was all a little weird. Oh well. I’m just glad they’re trying to use me more. I prattled away about random stuff and asked them questions. One of their first questions for me was what I thought about Nagorno-Karabagh and whose territory it rightfully belongs to (although they worded it much more strongly). I pretty much refused to answer that one. They also asked a bunch of questions about Obama and my political party, and what I thought about the health care plan. That’s not the first time I’ve been asked about the health care stuff too- it’s interesting to note how much they follow our news and partisan debates.

So then I went back and hung out, talked to another class for about five minutes again (the usual questions- where are you from, are you married, I love American girls!). It turns out I didn’t have the discussion class today, although no one told me this. I asked if I have it Friday and the teachers just kind of shrugged and said maybe. But then they said how much the students like me and enjoyed the class, so I don’t get why it’s not happening again. So I told some other students we could have a discussion class on Friday. I’m getting a bit irritated that I don’t have a concrete schedule. I was excited at the prospect of having set students on set days, but it seems that nothing is nailed down. I’m just going to keep going with the flow.

I’m still waiting from the director of the Museum to call me and let me know what’s going on. I have all these other people in the area who have been calling/ e-mailing me to ask for help with English language courses and I would be willing to take at least one of them up on them, but I honestly don’t know my schedule yet with my assigned places so I can’t take anything on yet. I feel badly for some of these people since I do want to genuinely help some of them out, and I don’t want them to think that I’m putting them off on purpose. I just really don’t know when I’ll be free to help. I keep telling them I’ll call them once I know, so hopefully that’s satisfactory.

Tomorrow I’m going in to speak with an organization about an internship. Hopefully this will pan out and I’ll have at least something structured in my time. Then, tomorrow night it’s salsa time again! Woohoo!

Observations Part Pyat'

Smoking: Only men smoke here, and from what I’ve gathered all men smoke. And by smoke I mean they all pretty much chain smoke. I thought that the guy in charge of me didn’t smoke since he never lit up in the car but then I saw him smoking outside one of the buildings one day. Sometimes the cab drivers will ask if it’s ok if they smoke in the car, which strikes me as pretty polite. All the bus drivers smoke, which is especially detrimental when you’re located near the front of the bus and stuck in traffic.
Apparently women smoke, but only indoors. I’ve actually seen this proven. At the upscale ex-pat/ rich Azerbaijani café I’ve seen women smoking. And they chain smoke too. It’s a really lovely habit.
The one funny thing I have to say about the smoking here is the cigarette cartons. In the States they have big warnings on the cartons that will say “WARNING: Smoking causes cancer of the lungs, birth defects, etc.” Here, they have warnings but they’re a bit different. The typical cigarette carton warning here is: “WARNING: Smoking causes ageing of the skin.” Right. As if that’s your only problem if you’re smoking.

Pomegranates: I’d never tried a pomegranate before and my friend here made me try one since they’re a local fruit. They’re a bit tough to eat, but I’ve discovered they might be the most delicious fruit ever. How I’ve never had one before is beyond me. You have to cut it open but once you start eating the little sour red seeds… it’s so worth it. I wish they were plentiful in the U.S. since I’m going to start eating them regularly here. I could seriously eat them in lieu of cheesecake for dessert, they’re that good. Now I’m craving one.

Redheads: I’ve described the typical features of Azerbaijanis, so this subject might seem a little strange. I would never have guessed I would see redheads in Azerbaijan but there’s actually a fair amount. Not the ginger-flaming-red-hair type, but something closer to my hair color. I’ve made the mistake of thinking they’re a foreigner but then when I hear them jabbering away in Azerbaijani I realize I’m mistaken. I still don’t get this.

License Plates: Azerbaijan has the typical European-esque license plates. A blue plate means a Taxi. Yellow means public transportation (with some exceptions, which I haven’t figured out). Red is diplomatic, and if you’re embassy-savvy you can tell which country by the numbers. However, I just recently noticed that ALL the license plates begin with either 90- or 10-. I find this surprising since there’s only 7 numbers/ letters on the plate, so the possibilities seem a bit limited when every car has those two numbers in the beginning. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were several license plates that are repeated.

Men giving up seats: I touched briefly on this before with my bus etiquette section, but I just want to reiterate it. It’s been happening more and more frequently as I take public transportation. In the past three days on at least one method of transportation I’ve had a man either get up for me, or make sure I find an empty seat on a bus. The other day some men were gesturing for my attention (and I was ignoring them at first, the skeptical person that I am) and it turns out they were adamant that I sit down in the empty seat in the front of the bus. Today a man got up for me on the metro. It happens really often. Sometimes I’ll look around on the bus/ metro and it’s usually only men standing. The states could take some lessons from Azerbaijan in this department.

Foreigners: Since Baku isn’t exactly your typical tourist spot, there aren’t many foreigners here. This also means that foreigners are increasingly easy to spot. I’ve taken to playing a little game in my head guessing what country a foreigner is from until I’m close enough to hear the language. The two biggest groups of foreigners here are Brits and Germans. I also tend to feel a bit of an affinity for any foreigner I see since I know they probably feel just as out of place as I do. The best part is that now that I’m starting to feel at ease walking around here, and I see confused men wandering around in obviously American clothing trying to find the bars. It makes me feel a bit more accomplished since I’m a young woman who has grasped the city and they haven’t yet.

My name: As I’ve already mentioned, my name means ‘mother’ in Azerbaijani. But beyond that it seems that it’s a bit difficult for most Azerbaijanis to grasp, and I’ve become ‘Ann’ to half the women at the academy. I don’t really mind this, to be perfectly honest, since it actually happened a fair amount in the States. I don’t get why everyone insists on calling me ‘Ann’ but here I figure it’s close enough to my name to not correct. One of the annoying things about my name though is the similarity to the Russian word for ‘she’. (She in Russian is pronounced ‘ah-na’, and I usually introduce myself as ‘Ahh-na’, if that makes any sense.) Anyways, a lot of time when I’m sitting around I can’t figure out if the other teachers are talking about me, or talking about another female and using the word ‘she’. It also means that when I walk around I keep thinking I’m hearing my name. Combine that also with the Azeri meaning of my name, and I’m totally confused. If only my name was something whole-heartedly American, like Jessica. Although I supposed that actually has its own drawbacks since no one knows how to pronounce that here.

Change collectors: At the front of the bus there’s usually a man, but sometimes a boy, who stands there and helps coordinate when to stop the bus, how long to wait at stops, and help collect the fares. On the buses you pay once you get off, and if you exit the bus from one of the back entrances you have to run up and give it to the change collector. This is helpful when the bus is crowded and there’s like five people standing in front of the driver. However, I don’t get if these men work independently from the buses and maybe get a cut at the end of the day, or if they’re commissioned by the transportation companies (if that exists?). It’s also strange because the age in these men varies so much. Sometimes it’s a guy younger than me, a guy my age, or a 40-something man. They also sometimes like to hang out the side of the bus and yell at pedestrians (no clue what they’re saying) or chat with the other men who are pseudo-in charge of these buses. They also ‘advertise’ their bus (or I think they are) and try to get as many people on as possible. This whole system confuses me but when I’m on the bus I pretend it’s all totally normal.

My boyfriend: I’ve officially had it with the marriage questions. Today I faced a slew of more questions. One of my co-workers showed me a picture of her kid and asked if I was married and then asked ‘well don’t you want to be in love someday?’ Subtle. I’ve actually encountered a couple of men who understand my desire to not be married. However, they don’t understand how I don’t have a boyfriend who’s waiting for me in the States. And once they get wind of this, it’s an open invitation to ask five million questions about my personal life in addition to my e-mail and phone number. I try to skate around this. I think it’s time I make up a boyfriend back home. I don’t condone lying but if I say I have someone waiting for me back home, it’s technically true- I just haven’t met him yet. Minor detail. I might test this out soon.

The Metro: I’ve lived in three major cities in my life: Boston, St. Petersburg, and Washington, D.C. In every city (albeit Boston doesn’t really count since about 4 people use the T) those who are getting on wait for the passengers to get off. This was even true in St. Petersburg, bless their Russian hearts.
Not here. Which is actually surprising, considering Bakuvians’ love for hospitality and kindness. But getting into a metro car is every man for himself, including trying to get off the car. It gives new meaning to the phrase ‘throw them ‘bows’ (elbows, for you older folk). You have to forcibly push past people to get off the car and same to get on. I made the mistake of trying to wait for someone to get off this morning until I noticed that everyone was surging ahead so I just followed suit. I only just made it onto the train.

Trip to the Academy: I was asking around on Monday how to get to the Academy via public transportation since a) I felt bad always asking to get a ride and b) I figured I wouldn’t have to sit around and wait hours for my one mere lesson if I could get there on my own time. So this morning I plucked up the courage and decided today was the day I would attempt the trip. While it’s walkable from my apartment to the metro, it’s much faster to get on a bus if in a hurry, so I started off my journey on a quick bus ride down to the metro. If it’s rush hour, this bus ride takes about a half an hour. I figured 8:30 would mean rush hour. Apparently not. My bus ride was under 10 minutes and so then I started leg #2- the metro.
The metro arrived right away and I had to go 5 stops. Again, this can sometimes take about half an hour if it’s rush hour. Again, I was wrong in my estimating time, since this took about 12 minutes.
After the metro ride I had to find bus #160, #171 or #24. I found bus #160 (it took me a little while) and it departed pretty quick. This bus ride took about 25-30 minutes.
All in all, I gave myself 2 hours to get there, and it took a little over an hour and that’s because I dallied a bit in finding the bus. Clearly I got to the Academy way too early this morning. BUT- I did it! All on my own! And the total cost of the entire trip is 65 geppik- so like 72 cents. Amazing how cheap public transportation is here.

Students and Salsa

Life is moving pretty fast here. It’s hard to believe I’ve been here almost a month! Also strange because I’ve been here a month and my schedule still isn’t totally set up yet.

I had another discussion group with the students on Friday, where some new students who joined and clearly did not want to speak English. It was a bit frustrating but finally they left and things got a bit better. We had decided on a topic to talk about but then when it came time to talk about it, they said they were ‘bored’ by the topic. Greattt. But when I asked them what they wanted to talk about they were silent. How can I know what interests you unless you tell me? So for this upcoming Wednesday I’m going to a) prepare more structure and b) hope that the silent boys don’t show up. (I’ve only taught classes of men so far. Twenty-two year old guys are really no fun… and they wonder why I’m not married.)

On Friday I finally sucked it up and called the director of the museum where I’m going to teach English as well so that the tour guides can communicate better. I was so nervous to call him because I know he doesn’t speak a lick of English, and my Russian abilities usually rely on a lot of pointing, gesturing and body language. Basically, I act like a five year old. Clearly this isn’t possible on the phone. So I prepared for about an hour on what I was going to say, wrote down a bunch of words and rehearsed it to myself, and finally worked up the cajones to press ‘send’ on his number. Once he answered and I identified myself, he starts saying (in Russian) ‘wait, wait, wait! One moment!!’ and then puts his son on the phone who can speak English. All that for nothing. I’ve noticed that the things you expect to be difficult are always easier and the things that you expect to be easy inevitably end up harder than expected.

Anyways we decided I would get picked up at 10 AM on Monday and go out to the museum (it’s far away from the city, hence the need for a ride) and they would just call me again on Sunday night to confirm this. So Sunday rolls around, I prepare this whole test to the give to the students so I can see what their level is, and a whole introductory lesson, and I wait for my call. No phone call. I eventually call the director again and this time his son isn’t around so I have to stumble through Russian to communicate with him and eventually I figure out he hasn’t been able to find a driver or gather the tour guides, so I won’t be coming in on Monday. He’s going to call me when he has it figured it out. I guess it’s good that I prepared the lesson already so I won’t have to later. I was honestly getting pretty excited to do some substantive English teaching where I would be more in control and having a class to myself. I really enjoy all the other teachers at the Academy and the students (who participate) are really great, but I feel a bit under-utilized there.

On that note though, today I went in to have my discussion class with the teachers and they all asked if I could come in and help out with some of their classes. They said they would tell me what they wanted me to talk about- they basically just want their students to hear a native speaker and be forced to speak in English since I won’t understand Azerbaijani. I jumped on this opportunity and said ‘of course of course!!’. I told two or three (not sure who was asking what) of the teachers I would help them out this upcoming Wednesday. At which point the other women were like ‘well, don’t you have your discussion club that day as well?’. My discussion club is an hour. They also said some stuff ‘but you’ll be so tired if you do all that!’. I told them I could handle it, considering all I’ll be doing is chatting in my native language, and I again reminded them that I’m there to help them with whatever they need. It’s as if they don’t think I’m up for anything substantive. I think part of this revolves around the fact that the Academy is very structured and a lot of these women have been there for a while so they already have their schedules and structure all figured out, so they weren’t necessarily prepared for me to come and help out. I’m hoping they start to realize more that I’m a resource for them, and that my assignment for the next ten months is to help teach English. Regardless, the women are all very nice and I like spending time with them.

Anyways today I had an adventure. My friend and I heard about beginner Salsa lessons for 30 manat (about $35) a month and they meet twice a week, so it’s a pretty decent deal. I figure I should probably learn how to move my body around since I realize I look a bit dorky attempting rhythm. My moves at the wedding consisting of tapping my feet together intermittently, trying to sway to the beat, and twisting my arms. Smooth, Anna.

The placement of these lessons is probably funnier than my moves, however. It’s actually pretty close to my apartment and the main train station. We had some directions from our friend where to go who does the advanced lessons because he’s super good, so he wasn’t there tonight. We had to walk down this one street and then look for a gray metal door (there’s a gray metal door every 5 feet in Baku) and (here’s the best part) next to it a sign that says “AZERBAIJAN DEAF SOCIETY”. Enter through this gray metal door and walk through the theatre. (Cue roughly 20 ripped-up red velvet seats with an antiquated stage.) Then wander up to someone who looks like they know what’s going on and stand there until they ask what you’re doing, and attempt in Russian/ English that you want to “tansevatz” (still can’t figure out Cyrillic- but that’s Russian for ‘to dance’). Luckily this woman put me out of my misery in stumbling through explaining salsa (remember how I revert to a 5 year old when speaking Russian so my next step would have been pantomiming salsa dancing to this woman. I’m such a foreigner) in Russian and she spoke English and brought us into a dance studio. (A dance studio in the deaf society… I really wish I understood this place, sometimes.) Anyways we met the instructor who spoke no English but was friendly. There were actually a lot of people and we met some other Americans there, some Texans working in oil and a Californian from the Embassy. Mostly it was Azeris though. I’d say there were about 30 people there in this cramped dance studio dancing salsa underneath the Azerbaijani flag. It was great- I love CIS countries. The woman who spoke English took the first-timers over in a corner and showed us the basic moves. I was paired up with the Californian guy who thankfully was around my level (read: very novice). The lessons lasted an hour and half, and then we paid the main instructor 30 manat with a plan to come back on Thursday. The instructor told me to practice at home. I guess he caught some of my moves.

I will conquer salsa dancing while here. I can’t look like a fool anymore when forced to dance. Who woulda thunk I would have come to Azerbaijan to learn how to salsa dance?

Day 4 at the Academy...

So I had my first day leading my discussion group with students at the Academy today. I got there early again since that’s the only time I can get a ride in and no one seems to think I can master the metro/ bus system by myself, regardless of the fact that I’ve lived in a couple cities now. I pretty much sat around and read one of my TOEFL books. At one point one of the fifth-year students blind-sided me and made me tutor him one-on-one for about forty minutes which was a bit of an awkward encounter since I had no clue what he wanted, and no preparation. He also kept asking me if I could help him every day and he didn’t seem to get that I have other commitments as well. I realize I’m just going to have to continue to put my foot down and say no to people.

At one point I was sitting in the department room completely by myself and this random man in a suit walks in. He starts speaking in Azerbaijani so I just respond in Russian saying “I don’t understand.” Eventually I explain to him that I’m teaching English at the Academy and he starts asking me a bunch of questions and sits down and has a 20-minute conversation with me. I was actually able to function and speak with him and understood most of what he said. It’s really strange to me how I can understand some people in Russian a lot better than others, and I’m not really sure what defines it. He definitely wasn’t a native Russian (since he was telling me I should learn Azerbaijani because it’s the national language) but I could communicate with him pretty well. With other people though I can barely understand what they’re saying when they speak Russian and they’ll be speaking about similar things that I did with this man. It’s very strange. Anyways, I still have no clue who this man was. He could have been someone important for all I know.

I had my class at 2:00 pm and the chair of the department was absent for the day so around 1:55 I was starting to freak out wondering what I was supposed to do, since there really wasn’t anyone in the main room coming to my aid. Sure enough one of the women whisks in and tells me “it’s time” and takes me to another room where I see 8 very boisterous guys in uniform. I chit-chat a little with two of the other English teachers who are in charge of these guys and then they leave and I had about a split second to regain my thoughts as to what I was doing. They quieted down when I told them to, and then started asking me about a hundred questions.

Since I’m really just leading a discussion club it’s pretty informal and the point is for them to just speak English. I had them go around and introduce themselves to me so I could get a handle on how comfortable they are with English and then I sat down amongst them and took all of their questions in turn. Since they’re fifth-year students their language abilities are all pretty good and they’re all comfortable with one another, which is good. Some of them are definitely more comfortable speaking English than the others, and there’s one guy who essentially speaks for the class. He did it in a good way, and he would frequently tell them to quiet down when I wanted to say something. Some of the guys were a little more shy, and I could tell they wanted to speak they were just nervous so they would only answer when I looked directly at them. They’re all my age, and started laughing when I said I was 22. I think there was a bet if I was married or not because one of them finally got the guts up to ask me and then when I answered “no” there was a lot of noise, and Azerbaijani.

We basically just talked about a variety of subjects, whatever they felt like. It was clear that some of them wanted to talk about more serious things (what Americans think of Russia and the former Soviet Union) and others wanted to talk about more 22-year-old topics (American girls… ha ha.) It was interesting to hear what some of them said and they were insistent that they help show me around the city and get my phone number. Once one of them asked for my number they literally all whipped out their phones and asked if they could take a picture with me. It was really weird, being ogled at like a zoo animal, and I had to remind them that I would be there the whole year, so we would have plenty of opportunities to chat. They apologized later for asking so many questions and they straight up admitted that they were just really intrigued by an American and had never really heard of an American coming to their part of the world.

We decided on a topic for next week- films, despite the strongest student’s insistence that they talk about aeronautical terms. I have another small group on Monday that will be the same level and I’m sure they will be quite similar. I had a whole lesson planned for today and once I walked through the door it was evident that none of it was really going to work so I just went with whatever happened. Now I know what to expect, and my biggest fear –that no one would talk- is obviously something I don’t have to worry about. Controlling them might be a little difficult considering they’re a bit rowdy and continually joked around in Azerbaijani and smacked each other with books, but they might have just been showing off. I think it will get easier with time. I’m just going to continue to prepare some ideas of what to do but I think the students will generally just ask the questions themselves and supply most of the talking. My only trouble will be to get the shyer students talking but I told this to one of the other women in the department and she told me they would be more talkative next week.

All in all… not too shabby! Now I just have to coordinate with the museum and start my next adventure in teaching.

Also random side note: I’ve been asked not once, but twice in the past twenty-four hours how to become a citizen of the U.S. and how to obtain a green card. I’ve stumbled through some vague explanation but clearly I should brush up on this.

My Big Fat Azerbaijani Wedding

No, I'm not engaged.

So as I said one of my co-workers, Dura, offered to take me to an Azerbaijani wedding on Tuesday. She picked me up promptly at 1 o’clock and right away I met her cousin who works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I only managed to figure that one out after he had grilled me on every political subject possible and I tried to worm my way through diplomatic answers. Dura also decided en route that she needed to show me proper Azerbaijani cooking before the wedding (which didn’t start until 5 o’clock but she wanted my assistance in getting ready/ showing me off to her family) so she grabbed my hand and led me through the supermarket and bought a bunch of pastries and explained what they all were. I had been wondering what they called since I've been seeing these pastries in various places and it was good to finally get an explanation about all of them!

Once we got to her apartment I met her husband, son-in-law, son, and seven-month-old granddaughter. Everyone was very pleasant and I immediately was shown pictures of her daughter’s wedding. I really enjoyed talking with her family and husband about various subjects. They showed me pictures of Iman Reza, a holy Muslim site they visited and we talked about religion for awhile. Her cousin asked me if I was Protestant or Catholic (no dice) and when I told him I was actually Jewish he wished me a happy new year, which was very thoughtful. Once I said I was Jewish Dura got very excited because she has Jewish friends who live in Germany who are originally from Azerbaijan and said we would go visit them together. Then we all had tea (of course) and I had to eat about 10 pastries (which were all very good) and then about an hour later we had dinner, even though we were going to a wedding later. They also told me I wasn't eating enough. I swear, I’m convinced everyone I meet wants to make sure I gain as much weight here as possible. I also drank about 7 cups of tea (I wish I was kidding) since they kept pouring me more once I finished my cup.

So Dura tried on several dresses and then it’s time to go. Her neighbor was the groom and his family is Russian and Dura literally just dropped me off at their doorstep and I awkwardly sat inside alone and stumbled through Russian conversation with his mother and brother. No one seemed to care that some random American was hanging out with the family of the groom on the wedding day. Mind you, there were about three people there so it wasn’t like there was a big party- just me hanging out. Then Dura came back with her daughter, Tutu. Tutu is a year younger than I am, married and has a 7-month-old girl. Tutu was reluctant to use her English with me around but she was very sweet and would hold my hand whenever we wandered around for the rest of the night, which is typical here. (Dura did this too- she grabbed my hand and didn’t let go while we navigated the grocery store. I felt like a toddler but I know it’s completely normal for both sexes to do here.)

Then the actual ceremony began. We were in the groom’s wedding party and watched as three men with a clarinet, drums and accordion played Azerbaijani music in the dining room and the women in the apartment danced. Then the groom solemnly walked out of the apartment with 2 women holding a candle each, and a woman holding a mirror tied with a red ribbon. We all then ran into a 10-car caravan of Mercedes and Hyundais (random mix, I know) adorned with red ribbons and drove like maniacs throughout town to the bride’s apartment. Clearly en route the honking was non-stop since they were all trying to travel together and let everyone within a 10-mile radius know that someone’s getting married.

So we arrive at the bride’s apartment and the music begins again. The women with the candles and mirror stand up near the bride and groom and the father of the bride came over and tied a red ribbon around the bride. This is customary and signifies that the woman is the perfect match. The father of the bride and the father of the groom both said some words (I wish I knew what) and then all the women in the room danced. All of a sudden we pretty much ran out of the apartment and back into the cars to race to the restaurant where the reception was. At this point those 7 cups of tea were really starting to make themselves known so I was almost in pain by the time we got to the reception hall.

So we park the car and go into the hall. Everyone is supposed to sit down and the bride and groom wait in the limo for everyone to arrive and then make their grand entrance, set off by sparklers. Once they enter they say their vows, exchange rings and sign a marriage license. After that they drink champagne and proceed to their own table at the front of the room where they take about a thousand pictures throughout the night with the various guests (including me).

Clearly they were serving more food than I could even handle at this point, but I gamely kept eating (rough life, I know). The only people I saw drinking any alcohol were the Russian men (vodka, of course). Dura made a comment to me later in the night about how they only started dancing once they were drunk which is no doubt true. For the first four hours they played traditional Azerbaijani/ Russian music and yes, I danced. I don’t know what I did but Tutu and Dura grabbed me and pulled me onto the dance floor so I tried my best to twirl my arms and sway. I’m sure I looked foolish but I didn’t want to insult anyone. Dura, the ever-Azerbaijani mother matchmaker, made me dance with one of her son’s friends (he’s 19) and later told me he attends the Academy, where I teach. Tutu took pictures of me dancing with this fellow (on my camera!), which none of you will ever see. They all thought this was hilarious and they were quite clever for humiliating me. Even her son started laughing at me. I love being a foreigner.

We pretty much danced/ ate the rest of the night. The wedding started around 6:30 and went until midnight but we all decided to leave around 11. Dura said that the bride would throw the bouquet at the very end but neither one of us wanted to stick around, although I’m sure she would have gotten a great kick if I had caught it. Everyone was very nice and pleasant to me (as usual) and asked how I liked an Azerbaijani wedding. I even have some pictures with the mother of the groom and the grandmother.

The next day at work everyone asked me how I liked the wedding, what I liked about it, and if I danced. When I told them I did indeed dance they seemed very impressed. Clearly they didn’t see my dancing skills.

Vodka shots, vodka sanitizer... vodka medicine!

So on Saturday I made the trek out to this little village Xinadliq (pronounced Hah-nah-ligg). It’s in northern Azerbaijan about an hour away from the Russian border of Dagestan. It’s set completely in this little hill, almost frozen in time which great hiking and gorgeous views. It’s very remote and hard to get to and thus takes a lot of peserverance to get out there. There’s also no hotels to speak of, and no one speaks English or really an Azeri or Russian, they have their own dialect called Chekt.

To get there we met in the morning at the bus station to take a marshutka out to Quba, which is about 3 hours north. I went with my American friend, Pam, and a British guy, Tim. We got off to a bit of a late start and wandered around a little confused at the Avtovokzal, but finally managed to get on a normal sized bus (!!) with legitimate single-sized seats and everything. Usually the marshutkas are a tiny van jammed-packed with people, so we were really lucky. The bus left Baku around 12:40 and it’s around a 3-hour journey to Quba, but the bus also makes frequent stops for hitch-hikers and random people getting on and off, so factor in another half an hour. When we finally get to Quba it’s about 10 degrees cooler, overcast and we have no clue where to go next. The three of us all have on these big backpacks that scream “foreigners”. We immediately get harassed for our passports by a policeman who is confused by the three of us and asks if I’m married to Tim. Apparently men are also overtaken by the national obsession with marriage. After this we wander around a bit and it turns out Pam’s co-worker who has family in Quba is there so we head out to meet her.

Pam’s co-worker’s mother owns a carpet factory in the area that’s funded by USAID and the UN because she’s a woman entrepreneur in Azerbaijan and has one of the only all-women factories. It was actually quite amazing, there were huge looms set up with all these beautiful carpets, spools of thread and tons of wool. Since Pam had been there before she explained a lot of the technique to us and then we had tea with their family. It was really pleasant and they were very accommodating and very nice. They helped arrange for a taxi to drive us out to Xinadliq and they even bought us dinner to take with us for the ride.

Once we got into the taxi our driver took us down these windy roads where we had to frequently stop for cattle or sheep. After about a half an hour of this we were in the middle of nowhere driving on a semi-paved single lane road with no guard rails along these deep ravines, through waterfalls and under giant mountains. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, once you got over the fact that one false move in the Neva (another Russian car) and we were dead. The driver was really nice and made frequent stops so we could take pictures. This bumpy car ride went on for about an hour and a half until around dusk we arrived in the sleepy town of Xinadliq.

Our driver took us to this guest house where a man appeared and after some mixed communication we ended up paying 20 manat for dinner, lodging and breakfast. At this point it was nightfall and totally pitch black outside. All we could hear were the noises of the animals, and we could only see a million stars in the sky. Xinadliq is set into a hill and we were at the bottom so when we looked up there were about 40 houses with little lights set into a hill. It’s really unfortunate cameras can’t capture those kind of images.

So we ate dinner- lamb, potatoes and fresh vegetables and of course, tea. After that we put on some warmer gear (it was pretty cold at night) and sat outside and looked up at the stars for about 40 minutes. It was blissfully quiet and peaceful. At a nearby house all these dogs started barking and the neighbors had to come out with their flashlights so like the city girl that I am, I started getting spooked about wolves and we soon went inside. At one point Pam and I went to the bathroom (an outhouse, by the way) and as we were walking back another man staying in the guest house goes, “I hear someone speaking English!!”. So we talked to this guy and discovered that he and his crew were working up in the mountains. Little did we know how much we would be together the next day.

We finally all go to bed, and thankfully the room has a heater and very heavy blankets. The next morning we wake up early and get our first view of Xinadliq in the daytime- again, it was absolutely breathtaking. It’s set in a valley of all these hills and beyond them are huge mountains of different terrain. There are 11 climate zones in the world, Azerbaijan has 9 of them, and 7 of those are within this region. So that means in one part of the region it’s very hot, in another it’s snowing, in another it’s humid, etc.

Our original plan was to just wander into the village and try to find a guide to take us up into the mountains. However, at breakfast Tim ended up chatting with our English-speaking friend from the night before and he offered to show us around and take us up into the mountains where him and his crew were doing their work. Since it’s Ramadan, their driver wasn’t taking them up until noon so he had some free time on his hands.

So we drive into Xinadliq and wander around. There was a museum (closed) but we just wandered up and down the “roads”. There were tons of little kids running around who took an interest in us since we were obviously foreigners. All of the women had their heads covered. There were chickens wandering around just about everywhere and lots of men in the typical Russian-style furry hat. The houses are all made out of stones and since they’re set into the hill the top of each house is the yard of the one behind it.

The man whose house we stayed in invited us over for lunch and it was one of the most amazing experiences ever. We walked into his house and into the dining room where there was an elaborate spread of traditional food. His wife served us tea and then brought in plate after plate of food. We had plov (rice), lamb, fruit, vegetables, and pastries. This man was 23 (although he looked much older) and had a 4-month old son. They also owned a bakery, which explains the pastries. The people were just so accommodating to us and insistent upon giving us everything they had, it was unbelievable. Elman (our friend from the guest house) explained a lot of the history of the area and helped translate for us.

So after we left his house we went back down to the guest house and got ready to explore the mountains. The crew that we were with was Elman (Azeri), Dima and Alek (both Russian). Elman speaks English really well, Dima knows words and phrases and Alek was pretty silent. They told us we didn’t have enough warm clothing so the three of us ended up borrowing clothing from these guys (which we all looked a little ridiculous in) and then we headed off. The vehicle getting us up to the mountains was this retired military-grade truck where we had to sit in the back in the open air and hold on for dear life hoping it didn’t throw us off into a ravine. (Mom, you might want to stop reading now.)

So we clamber into the truck, and Dima makes sure that Pam and I have the most secure spots in the corner of the truck. Then we head off to border patrol. Since this part of Azerbaijan borders Russia (read: it borders Dagestan which is where Chechnya is) they have some pretty strict border patrol. There are only two spots where you can enter Dagestan from on the Azerbaijan side and we were trying to get through one. They knew the men we were with but since there were three obvious foreigners in the truck we had to give them our passports and they called them in to headquarters and everything. It was all very official and little off-putting. But they let us through and then we continued our journey.

It took about an hour to get to the site where the guys had to go and we were on this treacherous bumpy path where if it was one wrong turn all of us would have been flung over a cliff. I was not enjoying the heights so much which amused the Russians to no end and made me the subject of many jokes for the rest of the day. At a lot of points I was clinging to the railing of the truck and trying to ground myself from being tossed around. The car waded through a lot of water, mud and sheep to get to our destination.

When we finally got there we climbed up a hill and saw the mountains from even further up. Words really cannot describe how gorgeous it was. There were about 5 different visible mountains, one called the golden mountain, another is the sun mountain, another called the king mountain and I honestly forget the other ones since they didn’t translate into English. Some were entirely orange rock, others were snow-capped. So we wandered around the top of this hill for a bit where these men were repairing energy installations.

Elman called us back down and we went into this little shelter and then starts brandishing a bottle of vodka. (It’s 2 pm, by the way.) He asks if we’re cold and starts pouring the vodka into a cup. Dima appears out of nowhere and drinks it and then goes back to work, totally normal. We’re standing there agog and then Elman tells us to put out our hands and starts pouring vodka into our hands. He tells us this is sanitizer. Right. Then he tried to offer us vodka so we’ll get warmer, which we all politely refuse. Dima wanders back in with his broken English and tells us that it’s medicine, and starts saying how much medicine you need in order to get warmer, feel better, etc. This conversation continued throughout the day.

After this Elman took us back into the truck while the other men did their repairs and took us for a little tour around the valley. We went to some random shepherd and dropped off about 5 bags of salt, which I thought was a little strange. As we drove around we encountered flocks of sheep heavily guarded by sheep dogs which all the men described as vicious and whenever they would near they would tell us to keep all our limbs in the truck while the dogs barked and ran after us. Then Elman took us to a nature conservatory where they were making guest houses as well. It was completely alone in the middle of a valley and under construction. When Pam and I got off the truck we joked about when the last time a woman was at this conservatory which could quite possibly be never. However, we were greeted with hospitality (as usual) and given a grand tour.

Pam and I had to use the bathroom (again) and so Elman took us to yet another charming outhouse. This one was a bit more rudimentary (if you’ve ever seen Slumdog Millionaire… think of that first scene.) On the way Elman lectured us that since we had been sitting on stones we were going to develop bladder problems. We both just kind of smiled and nodded and then walked off to the bathroom. After this we wandered up back to the truck where there was sheep tied together and occasionally making noises. Then it got tied to a stick… then a man emerged from a little hut sharpening a knife on a stone. They were making a sacrifice since it’s Ramadan and I didn’t stick around to see anything after that.

So we clambered back into the truck and made our way back to the site where the men were working. They were almost done so we were offered bread and cheese (and vodka again) and then we descended down to the truck and made our way back to the hotel. Clumsy fool that I am I fell down in the mud so I had to change all my clothes before we departed. Since the crew were all going back to Baku that night we hitched a ride home with them. However, there were 6 of us total and 5 spots in the car, so 4 of us had to squish into the back. Pam and I had to wiggle around about every 30 minutes since some part of our body would be numb from falling asleep. This continued for 6 hours. Not exactly the most comfortable thing.

The worst part of our journey was getting out of Xinadliq. We left at dusk and clouds (read: thunderstorms) were descending into the valley making parts of the drive virtually impossible to see. And this was around windy cliffs and steep drop-offs. At one point Dima had to get out of the car with a flashlight and direct Elman to drive. Not exactly reassuring. Once we got to Quba (aka a normal road) we stopped for dinner. They ordered a plethora of food and tea and instructed us in the proper way to eat it. They also were insisted that we all drink vodka since we were getting pretty cold (vodka medicine). It was a hilarious endeavor with all the different languages at the table but the common communication of just laughing about various food and drink items.

We loaded once again into the car and had about 3 hours left to Baku. We stopped again for tea and this time we were all pretty much exhausted from the day. We were dropped off at our respective homes around 2:30/3:00 AM and I collapsed into bed.

All in all, it was quite an amazing journey. The scenery was beautiful and it was nice to get out of the city and see more of Azerbaijani culture. I also got my first taste of traditional Azerbaijani food, which was really good. I’m beginning to learn that the best trips and experiences come from those experiences which aren’t planned and are totally on the fly. Had we never taken Elman up on his offer to show us around we would have missed out on so many experiences.

Still not married.

I know, I know… I haven’t updated in a while. I was sick for a couple days last week so I didn’t do much except watch ’30 Rock’ (which is a great show- everyone should watch it!) and I was lazy about connecting to the internet. I have also been having trouble accessing Blogger since apparently it’s blocked now in Azerbaijan so I might have to sneakily find a way to do my postings.

I had my first day on Friday leading a discussion group with the teachers at the Academy which just ended up being all the women in the English Department wanting to practice their English. We chatted for about 40 minutes, and then in their typical fashion we were down and I was being whisked downstairs and shoved into the front seat of the car. As for the discussion group, I just tried to make sure everyone talked at least one about some sort of holiday or cultural tradition, asked questions, and spoke about my own experiences. It didn’t last as long as I had hoped, so I might need to work on a better format. This Wednesday I have my first discussion group with students, and the topic is still undecided. I have Monday and Tuesday off since it is the end of Ramadan (Ramazan as they call it here), so I have to kind of get some stuff together in the next two days in terms of figuring out my schedule with the Museum. The director doesn’t speak much English and I have to call him and attempt my Russian, which should be a fun phone call.

Anyways, I learned a fair amount from the women during our discussion group and then afterwards. They were eager to talk about Ramazan and explain it to me despite my protests that I do know about it and we have Muslims in the states who observe the holiday. The man who drives me in seemed pretty impressed when I said that there were people in the U.S. who observed Ramadan. I thought that was interesting- I had heard some hints from various people that a lot of Azerbaijanis don’t believe that there are really many Muslims, or even observant Muslims in the U.S. (which is clearly not true) and here was the first sign of that. Moreover everyone assumed that I would have no clue about any Muslim holidays since I’m an American.

After this discussion we talked a bit about weddings and I got more information about marriage. By the way- I had already been asked several times that day if I was married. I finally found another woman my age who is not married! She said she was still looking and seemed upbeat about it but then about five minutes later she got pretty sad and said she wanted to have children. But she also seemed reassured when I said I wasn’t married. Another woman asked me if I ever wanted to get married and I assured her that I do, just not now. I tried explaining how it goes in the U.S. but they don’t seem too interested. Most women get married at 22, so it turns out I’m actually at my prime age and I guess I should be looking this year. However, you can get married younger. Once you’re married, the woman pops out a kid right away and I think the race is on soon to have another. Neither men nor women really wear wedding bands on their fingers here so it makes it really difficult to figure out who is married and who isn’t. I thought that this one woman who worked in the Department was my age and probably not married yet, but it turns out she is and she has a two-year old daughter.

As we were discussing marriages and weddings one of the women said she was going to a wedding on Tuesday and if I wanted to see an Azeri wedding that I should come along. I told her I would love to see it, and she got all excited and told me she would take me, and I would meet her family, and I would get to observe the wedding. I have her number and I’m supposed to give her a call later and figure out the details. Needless to say, this should be an interesting experience.

I’ve also been encountering the problem of a lot of people asking me for help with their English. A lot of the women in the faculty have been asking me to work with them one-on-one, or to help their children. The students have also found out about me and one of them cornered me and asked for individual help since he needs a special certification. I want to help them but I know that I can’t take everyone’s requests so I keep telling them to ask me in a week once I know my schedule a bit better. The problem is, once I do figure out what I’ll have time for, I’ll have to pick which people I help and that presents a problem. I’m sure I have time for a couple people, but once I take one person on in the department then I think I will have to help everyone.

Observations part chityere

Scales:
This is probably one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. I’ve become pretty accepting of what goes on here, probably because of my time in Russia, so out-of-the-ordinary things are becoming harder to notice, but this is really just downright odd.
All over Baku, especially in the main area in Fountain Square, there are men standing in completely arbitrary spots on the sidewalk with a scale. On the scale is a little paper sign that says ’20 geppik’ and whenever you walk by the men will frantically gesture at you so you can weigh yourself. In public. In front of people. In front of an Azeri man. This concept is so strange to me: why on earth would you ever pay someone to be humiliated and weigh yourself on a probably faulty scale? It’s not even the scales are the ones that are large and immobile and you get a fortune with that you see in public restrooms in the States (which I’ve never understood either but I can see how people would get duped into the fortune-teller/ astrological sign business). Nope, these are just ordinary bathroom scales. About the size of my computer- easy to pick up and walk around with. It’s as if someone sat in their apartment and wondered, ‘What is the most random household item I can possibly make a profit off of and still be able to keep? A scale! Ingenious. I will run downtown now and charge people to weigh themselves.’ Believe it or not buddy, but I don’t like to know my weight, and I certainly don’t tell people what is, let alone men or strangers.
I can’t figure out if people don’t regularly own scales in their houses, but I find this pretty hard to believe. The really odd part about this is that I’ve seen people actually weighing themselves on these scales. I once saw a whole family huddled around the scale comparing weights and seeing what the youngest daughter weighed.

Dogs:
There aren’t many stray dogs here, I’ve seen less than a handful. I have seen a fair amount of dogs as pets and they are either one of three breeds: pit bull, rottweiler or German shepherd. People will walk their very large dogs in very public areas and these dogs are usually charging forward and pulling their owner all over the place while the owner is trying to leisurely stroll through Fountain Square. This actually makes watching these people pretty entertaining since I can only think, that’s what you get for taking a large dog that needs a lot more exercise into a public place. I guess the only kind of popular dog here is one that is very intimidating. I swear the other day I heard the sound of a hound dog howling (at which point I got very homesick for my little beagle, Rosie) but I couldn’t actually spot the dog and in all reality it was probably some crazy car horn made to sound like a dog.

Public transportation etiquette:
Americans are their own special breed when it comes to public transportation. We believe in personal bubbles around each person that are not to be invaded unless it’s a life or death situation, and even then you have to ask permission. Americans will wait for the next bus/ train if the current one looks too crowded. When riding public transportation Americans will choose to stand and hold onto the railing even if there are 10 empty seats on a bus if it means you have to actually sit next to someone and touch them, since this is an invasion of privacy or could be construed as sexual harassment. People will move to get away from each other as fast as possible, and generally no one touches your stuff or helps you out since again, Americans can’t be bothered with doing anything overly helpful or friendly. (At least, this is the case up north where I’m from.)
Not the case here. In fact, the closer and more awkwardly entwined you are with someone on public transportation, the better. While sometimes this can be detrimental, i.e. having to breathe through your mouth because of a serious case of B.O., I like to think of it in a positive way. The people here are very friendly and helpful once you can get past the American personal bubble. I have several examples to back up my theory.
Firstly, if someone sees that you’re trying to get onto the bus and it’s uber-crowded, they’ll help you up. And by help you up, I mean they will grab onto any part of your body they can reach, and haul you up to steps so forcefully there really isn’t a choice in the matter. Once you’re up, they’ll either let you hold on to them, ask people to make room on the railing, or simply hold on to you. If it’s hot and sweaty this can be gross, but at least people here are considerate enough where they’re willing to help you get where you want to go. They could just stand there and let you fend for yourself on a crowded bus, but instead they’ll take your bags (if you have any) and lend a hand. I find this quite refreshing.
Most people are also really nice and helpful about holding your bags or helping you move throughout the bus. If someone senses that you’re trying to get through, a man will usually help part the way for you. The other day I was on the bus with a couple of bags and I didn’t have the best grip. The man I was standing above grabbed my bags from my hands and held them on his lap. Another woman grabbed my raincoat so I wouldn’t fall down when the bus came to a sudden stop. Yeah, they were a little touchy-feely but it wasn’t creepy, they were simply trying to be helpful.
There’s also a really big effort to make sure that young children are ok while on public transportation. I’ve actually seen mothers willingly let totally strangers whisk their child up to the top of the bus away from the wide open doors so there’s no chance that their kid could fall out while the bus was moving. Other times I’ve seen random people grab kids and attempt to calm them down or play with them if the bus is particularly crowded or hot and the child is upset. It’s completely opposite the attitude we hold in the U.S.- to shield our kids from any strangers. However, here there’s a sense of community and trust, and that everybody is genuinely looking out for one another. I really like this aspect of the culture, and it’s one that I hold a lot of respect for. I can see the reasons for this on both sides of the cultures, but as I’m here I’m starting to think that Americans can be pretty uptight about these matters.
Another aspect to this is that men will almost always give up their seat for a woman. I’ve had this happen to me several times on both the bus and train. Once I had a huge backpack so it was probably better for me to sit down than get thrown all over the place, but other times I’ve only had to go a couple stops and men have quickly gotten up for me so I could take the seat. While I guess this goes against the feminist grain, I still like to think that chivalry isn’t dead and I’ll take the seat anyday.

Apartment guards:
Our building has two quasi-“guards”. One is a man who stands on the opposite side of the courtyard and will charge you money to park your car because he’s “protecting it”. Right.
The other is a very friendly and very large man who sits just outside of the staircase leading up to our apartment. Our apartment is located next to the other entrance into our courtyard, so I think he’s the side street guard. He always wears the same thing: a massive white button-up, black felt pants, a black tie, and sometimes he’ll have his black felt suit jacket. He has a big handlebar mustache and long white hair and usually he’s just sitting on a bench, but sometimes he’s messing around with some shed. He’s always very friendly, but I have no clue what he actually does. Or if he’s maybe just a resident here who likes to socialize.

City signs:
I know they have these throughout Europe but I still think they’re hilarious. You know how when you enter a city there’s a sign that will label what area you’re in? For example, when entering Boston, there will be a big sign that says ‘Boston’. They do that here as well (obviously). The funny part is, however, what happens when you’re leaving the city. Upon leaving the territory there’s a big sign that will say the town but it will have a huge red X through it. Just as a reminder, this is no longer (for example) Sumgayit. But it doesn’t tell you where you’re headed next, just that you can be damn sure you’re not in Sumgayit.

Cab rides:
This is more of a little vignette but I have finally managed to 1) negotiate with cab drives, 2) successfully tell them where I live, 3) successfully do this in Russian, and 4) have gotten a free cab ride. I felt very proud of myself the first time I talked a driver down from 7 manat to 5. I should have done 4, but I was irritated at that point. Another time I talked a driver down to 4 manat to take me home, and then spent the whole cab conversing in Russian with the driver. Then when he dropped me off, he didn’t have change for my 5 manat bill, so he gave me the cab ride free! I was almost in shock. I have a feeling it’s because I was American and I chatted with him the whole way, but I’ll take a free cab ride any day.

Other Fulbright blogs

Not as much to report since I have a couple days off and I've come down with a nasty cold so I'm just catching up on some work and staying indoors.

Since I've been getting a lot of feedback on my adventures, I just wanted to let everyone know that I've started following some of the other Fulbright ETA-ers blogs that I met in DC, so if you're interested in reading in some of their experiences in Russia and Eurasia then definitely check them out! They've been up to some really cool stuff as well, and their experiences are all very different and interesting. I think if you click on my info the blogs that I'm following are listed.

My roommate bought a guinea pig, so we are now the proud parents of Phinneaus. He seems real nervous so far and squeaks a lot, but he's pretty cute.

That's all for now, folks.

Second day at the Academy

Today I had my second day at the Academy. I had to give a presentation to the other teachers on American TOEFL methods and practices, which I was a bit apprehensive about, but I used some of the notes I took from when I was in DC. I introduced myself again, and then talked about some of the practices Americans use in determining how students learn. Then I spoke about different activities using original and primary sources- such as songs, newspapers, movies, etc. I gave the teachers some other websites I had heard of, and then showed them the books I received in DC. It was a little odd giving a talk on American teaching practices to a group of teachers (all of whom are at least older than me and most of them are older by a lot). I was a little nervous about coming off that I was talking down to them, but I had to keep reminding myself that the head of the department asked me to do it. They wrote stuff down that I talked about (!!!) and seemed to like some of my ideas about using primary sources from America, especially when I gave more details on how to actually do it. I also interjected a lot of my personal experiences and opinions into it, saying what I thought worked and when I had used it.
They liked the books I gave them and asked if they could hold onto them for a while, which I said was fine. Then we had a ‘beginning of the semester’ lunch with tea, sandwiches and cake. Sometimes they would ask me questions or talk to me but a lot of the time they spoke in Russian about various things. I was able to follow some of the conversation about driving and traffic, which was good. I’m not sure what else they were talking about. At one point they just turned to me and said (again) “are you married?” to which I again responded, “no”. Regardless, one woman said to me “I wish you many children!” I smiled and thanked her while internally thinking “that is so not on my agenda right now”.

I’m going back on Friday to lead my first discussion group with the actual teachers at the Academy. I’m going to basically have three groups (or this is what I’ve discerned so far). One group is going to be teachers at the Academy who want to improve their English. The other two are going to be groups of about 15 students each. They have to figure out which students are going to be in my group though, since a lot of people will want to be in my discussion club since I’m a native speaker. I think they're going to be picking the more important students, or the ones who will actually need English in their line of work. That’s why I don’t really have to do much for this first week since classes are just starting tomorrow and they want to get a lot of things organized. Next week I will at least have the teacher discussion group. I’m actually pretty excited for the discussion group- we’re going to be talking about U.S. and Azeri traditions and holidays and I’m really interested in hear what the Azeribaijanis have to say.

So after our lunch party was over, on cue everyone left. I’ve noticed this a couple times before, for example at the birthday celebration. It’s as if everyone knows that it’s time to go (even though no one says it) and all of a sudden everyone is gone and there are two people standing, including yourself. All of a sudden almost everyone was gone, and then one of the teachers said she would drive me home, so five of us piled into her car. On this car ride home I got almost all of the questions that are generally taboo in America. (By the way, I asked all the women their names and they just laughed at me and said I would never remember them since they were so difficult. They were right. I’m determined to learn but I think it’s going to have to be one name a day. So I really have no way to distinguish between any of these women at this point.) The woman driving me home asked me how old I am, and then told me about her 20 year-old daughter who’s been married for two years and already has a baby girl. I guess I’m an old hag. Then they started asking me about how many siblings I had and when I said I was an only child I think they were in a mild state of shock (sorry, Mom.) They thought my family was here in Azerbaijan with me and kept asking how I could be so far from my family. I told them it was hard but my university was pretty far away too. All of these are quite obviously big cultural differences.

They asked me a lot of other questions too- about Baku and Boston, which one I liked better. I told them that Baku is really nice and very friendly but Boston is where my family is. They accepted that. They wanted to know what I liked about Baku, how I was feeling about it, what I’ve been doing, etc. When I told them that I had spent some time in Russia they started declaring that Russians were unattractive and that Baku was far better, and of course I agreed. Then they started asking me if I thought the women in Baku were gorgeous, and I replied of course, they’re very beautiful, and then they asked my opinion of the men, I said oh yes, the men here are very attractive. Then they started in on questions about my apartment and how much it cost. I tried to avoid giving them a direct number at first and I said it was pretty average, not inexpensive but not expensive, but they kept throwing out numbers so I finally told them I pay about $400 a month. They started gasping at this and saying how expensive it was and then I quickly realized the language barrier made them think I was paying $4,000 a month. I would have gasped too. Once they understood it was 4-0-0, they calmed down and said that was very reasonable. I was nervous about this since I didn’t want them to start comparing salary and ways of life but they seemed to think 400 was normal for someone like me, so it worked out. I’m sure the salary questions would have come next but it was time for me to get out of the car. I can only imagine what questions they will come up with next.

By the way, it was a woman who drove me home, and we had a bit of a discussion about driving. She just got her license 6 months ago and she said she was still very nervous driving but it’s just so convenient to have a car. I noticed a lot of women (either 4 or 5) driving yesterday as well, maybe they drive more on the weekends when they have access to a car? The other woman in the car with us doesn’t have a license but she also wants to get hers. I thought it was very interesting. I tried to ask how old you had to be to get your license in Azerbaijan but she kept thinking I was asking her how old the car was and then I felt kind of like an idiot since she got a little defensive about the car (which was a Mercedes anyway.)

It seemed like an overall successful day. I need to get stuff coordinated with the museum but I’m still not quite sure what my actual schedule is going to look like. I’m hoping that by Friday or by Monday of next week I will know exactly when I will be at the Academy and then I can try to coordinate it with the museum. Since I seem to have some free time, I’m going to try to write an application for this internship tonight. Hopefully I get around to it.

It’s almost 5 o’clock and the sweet sound of continuous honking has started up. Ahh, city noise.

Azeri birthday dares and off-roading in a Lada

What a weekend. On Saturday night I went out to dinner with two friends. We went to a really great Ukrainian restaurant that’s very close to my apartment. I figured it would be a relaxing dinner and we would probably walk around a bit after or maybe hang out in our apartment. Oh, how my expectations were exceeded.

Shortly after we finished our dinner a woman approached our table asking (in Russian) if we would give her friend a toast because it was her birthday. The whole time were in the restaurant we could tell there was a large party of all women in the other room, and figured that there was some sort of celebration. We agreed and thought we would just awkwardly stand in the room and wish this random woman a happy birthday. Once we walked into the other room the women pounced on us and started chatting with us and told us to sit down at the end of the table. Then we met the birthday woman (Lyama) and she told us to sit for a while. So there we were, 3 American women crashing an Azeri birthday party. One of the Americans I was with can’t speak either Azerbaijani or Russian, while my roommate and I understood a fair amount of what the women were saying because they were all speaking Russian. A lot of the women started talking with us about where we were from, what they were doing, etc. One of the women worked for BP, another had really excellent English (probably the best I’ve heard) and it turns out she worked in DC for a while. These women were probably in their late 20’s, early 30’s, with the exception of what must have been their mothers and relatives at the other side of the table (who looked at us rather suspiciously the whole time, I should add.) The women were all wearing pretty nice clothing and were all very attractive. The woman with excellent English (Uyliva) finally told us that they were playing a game, a sort of Azerbaijani ‘Truth or Dare’ except with just Dares, and the woman who told us to come make a toast picked a card that said she had to bring foreigners to the party. Ahh- so we were the token foreigners. Then they made us pick a dare, so obviously at this point we figured we would join the party so we did. Our dare was to sing a song, and we took the easy route and sang “Happy Birthday” to the birthday gal.

After this we were a little confused as to what we should do so we tried to get up since we didn’t want to overstay our welcome at which point all the women made us sit back down since they were going to start dancing. There were a bunch of CDs and they put on Azerbaijani music and started dancing together and then eventually pulled us up and made us dance with them. Of course the three of us have NO idea how to dance to Azerbaijani music. The women were all doing this flamenco-like dancing where they twisted their hands, arms, fingers and twirled around. I finally just threw in the towel and attempted to copy them, although I’m positive I looked like an idiot. When in Rome, right? Once I realized I didn’t care what I looked like and just tried to go with the flow it was actually pretty fun, and quite the experience. They were all having mini ‘dance-off’s’ in a circle where they would hold an ashtray in each hand and rotate their arms so that it never fell. It was really impressive and a very beautiful way of dancing. I asked one of the women where they learned to do that and she said “all Azeri women can do this- we are born like this!” Touche.

So then we sat down and tried to leave again but Uyliva (the one with amazing English) told us she was going to dance to ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson for us and we had to stay and watch. So we dutifully stayed. It turns out that Uyliva did the ‘Thriller’ dance at her wedding with her husband and it’s pretty famous in Azerbaijan. If you YouTube “Thriller wedding Azerbaijan” and click the first hit, the woman in the wedding dress is our friend from dinner. It has over 26,000 hits! The women all started bustin’ a move to MJ, but then the CD started skipping so we didn’t get to see the whole thing.

By this time we had been crashing Lyama’s birthday party for about an hour and we figured we were probably wearing out our welcome. So again we tried to leave and again we were hastily told to sit down because tea and cake was coming. We sang ‘happy birthday’ again to Lyama and ate tea and cake. I also saw the coolest candle I’ve ever seen in my life. It comes on the cake as this big pink plastic thing with a MEGA flame and since I had never seen one before I was trying to figure out why the flame was so big. All of a sudden, it started sputtering and then it turned into a flower with all these little petals with mini-candles. The candle also started spinning and had its own ‘happy birthday’ tune. Needless to say, it’s quite obvious why they don’t have these in the states since it’s a walking advertisement for a fire hazard, but it was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. If I can take one on a plane (which is doubtful) I’m going to.

After cake was served the women started to leaving and we realized this was when we were supposed to leave as well. The women were all very nice and it seemed like they were quite the upper-crust of Azerbaijani society when they told us what various jobs they hold. One told us to do yoga with her (they have yoga here?!) and another gave us tickets for a British jazz musician for next Monday. It was probably one of the most random things I’ve ever done, but also one of the greatest. Who knew when we walked into that Ukrainian restaurant we would have danced to Azerbaijani music, made friends, found out about yoga, seen the ‘Thriller’ dance, or gotten tickets to a Jazz concert? Crazy.

On Saturday morning my adventure continued. I woke up earlyyyy and met up with one of my American friends from the night before, a British guy and two Germans to go to the mud volcanoes and the petroglyphs. We met at 9 AM down in Baku and started our adventure of getting outside of Baku to the town where all this stuff is located. We took a bus up to a location where we had to catch another bus, the 105 (but it’s also called the 195- typical). We get on the 105, which by the way should really not be classified as a bus because it’s a certified minivan with about 25 seats in it and where people stand up for an hour and a half, and start the bumpy hour ride off to Qubuston. It took a while to get out there, but it was pretty interesting scenery leaving Baku. We were traveling north along the Caspian and all of a sudden once we were outside the city, the landscape totally changed. It turned into a quasi-desert with small smatterings of villages and some random factories (hello, Halliburton). I saw a lot of oil rigs and there were a lot of oil platforms along the Caspian as well. The villages we drove past were all a series of one-story houses with simple windows and doors and high walls enclosing each house. I think I spotted some mosques as the center of most of these places, but I could be completely wrong. There were also a lot of random cows and sheep wandering around, or eating trash on the side of the road. Quite honestly, it’s probably what most of my friends pictured when I first said I was going off to Azerbaijan for the next year.

So about an hour later we end up in Qubuston. We get off the bus and I realize I’m the only one out of the five of who speaks Russian and obviously no one in this village speaks English. It’s my lucky day, I get to practice! So I’m stuck with the task of negotiating a cab to the mud volcanoes, which is probably the worst thing for me to do since I’m horrible at negotiating because I always get so frustrated that I just pay more. However, these Germans that we were with were not having anything over 20 manat for our cab ride out to the mud volcanoes and even that was too much for them. So I eventually talked the cab driver down from 30 manat to 20 manat for a round-trip and seeing both the mud volcanoes and petroglyphs. At one point he wouldn’t go below 25 manat so I said “Ok, we’ll just walk then” and all the cab drivers who were standing around starting laughing at us. I responded “well, it’s only 11 kilometers, that’s not very far” and they were still laughing. This should have given us some indication of the road we were about to get on to the mud volcanoes.

So all five of us squeeze into this little Lada that takes a couple minutes to turn on. Clearly, we’re off to a great start. Our cab driver speaks NO English so he’s chatting away with me and roaring down the road. We quickly turn off the main road and then we’re literally flying over a dirt road in the middle of the desert in these tiny Lada where we couldn’t even roll down the windows unless the cab driver gave us the window crank. I know I did a whole section on driving, but this driver was even crazier than the normal Baku drivers. We were going from 5 to 100 kilometers in the span of 30 seconds and he was served to avoid mud pits and bushes and who knows what else. For a while we were cruising past a pipeline. It was absolutely crazy and totally hysterical. This little car finally climbs this big mud hill and we end up at the mud volcanoes and all stagger out of the car.

Our driver aka tour guide for the day had us follow him around these mud volcanoes. We were the only people there for miles- it was really strange. The mud volcanoes are these little towers of mud but at the top the mud is gurgling, bubbling, popping and spurting all over the place. It’s really cool and really strange. In terms of temperature, the mud is quite cool. You have to be careful not to get too close to the top since obviously the whole thing is mud and if you take one misstep your shoe could end up in the mud volcano. The Brit we were with stuck both of his arms in the volcanoes, but was then left with the problem of being completely covered in mud.

After we sat staring at these bubbling mud pies our driver gestured for us to follow which no one was really listening to. He solved his problem by getting into his car and driving off to get our attention. Turns out he didn’t leave us he was trying to get us to follow him to this other huge mud volcano and this bubbling pond of water that was close by so that the Brit could wash his arms off. Guess he knew what he was doing, after all.

The really cool thing about the mud volcanoes, beyond that they’re in the middle of nowhere and completely unregulated, is their sitting. Visible to the east is the Caspian Sea, and then on the west side were these high desert plateaus. It’s really gorgeous scenery.

So we get back in the Lada and our driver takes us off to the petroglyphs. We had to pay one manat each to see this creepy little museum with Neanderthal figures killing various animals and then they let us wander off in the rocks. There were some ancient drawings of horses and cows carved into the rocks but that’s all we could find. Apparently there are more but clearly the trail is neither well marked or all that well preserved so we ended up just wandering around this huge park that overlooked the Caspian Sea. To be perfectly honest, the scenery there was worth a lot more than seeing an ancient drawing of a disproportionate horse. There were all these huge rocks and if you continued to climb up them, there were some gorgeous views of the Caspian and the strange desert-esque area that we were in. On our way back we ate some figs from a nearby tree. I had never eaten a plain fig before and it turns out I do like them beyond just in a Fig Newton.

After that we got back into our little cab and our driver dropped us off where the marshutka left us. We had to cross the treacherous road and then we hung out on a stretch of desert on the opposite side of the road, hoping bus 105 would come along soon. I was really hoping that bus 105 would have adequate seating so we wouldn’t have to stand in a tiny little van for an hour and a half. However, after about 3 minutes of standing there some guy pulled over and started yelling at us in Russian and again it was my turn to talk to him. He said he would drive us into Baku for 2 manat each, which obviously we weren’t going to do since the bus is 1 manat each if we were just to wait for it. He thought this over for a second and then agreed to drive us for a manat each. So we pile into his van, which is entirely covered in plastic wrap around the seats. It was really weird. I had to stop thinking about why he would have his car covered in plastic wrap after a couple minutes since I was getting creeped out and focused on the fact that I had an air-conditioned ride to Baku. Our driver also kept making creepy "googly-eyes" at my friend and she hastily had to climb in the backseat, although he moved his rearview mirror so he could continue watching her. Not one of the better points of the trip. He picked up about 4 more hitch-hikers on the side of the road, but it also took a good 30-40 minutes less than our marshutka ride out has been. In the end there were just 3 of us when we got off and he pretended he didn’t have change for 5 manat and could only give us 1 manat back, effectively letting him pocket a manat more than we had agreed on. I yelled at him in Russian but this didn’t work and we just left glaring at him. Next time this happens I have my Russian response rehearsed.

This whole adventure took about 7 hours total, from meeting time to getting lunch after. It was definitely worth it and a lot of fun. I liked traveling beyond the city and being able to see more of Azerbaijan. The scenery beyond the city is really beautiful and worth the travel. Plus… look at all the stories I got out of it. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime chance to do these kinds of things. It was also nice to know that I can get around with my Russian and although it’s probably not grammatically correct, I can understand, communicate and effectively convey a message. Hooray!

Drum roll please..

Living room and the kitchen (with my roommate messing with the stove.)

The bathroom.

My room.

It's a bit difficult to put up pictures on this blog, so I'll put the other scenery pictures up on facebook.

Water

Given that a large part of our life revolves around water (bathing in it, drinking it, using it, etc) I figured I should devote some more time on this matter.

Firstly, we only get water for a certain number of hours a day. Water comes freely between the hours of 7-11, and then again 6-10. So we have eight solid hours a day where we can shower, flush, wash, or do laundry. That’s not as much as you would think. Another problem with this is that the water isn’t hot and you have to turn on the heater to get a solid 4-7 minute hot shower about 45 minutes to an hour before you want your shower.

This is what my roommate and I have managed to figure out thus far. However, apparently the man who lives beneath us is saying that there’s water leaking into his apartment from us but we have no idea how this is possible since we’ve been following all the rules our landlord has been telling us. Her son came over yesterday and kept repeating that certain switches had to be off at certain times, which we’ve been doing. We’ve also recently figured out that if we turn on one of these switches during the hours when there’s no water, water magically appears. No one has told us why this happens or if we’re allowed to do it, and neither one of us wants to get in trouble again. (Although this seems inevitable.)

About 10 minutes ago some lady knocked on our door and started speaking Azerbaijani rapidly and gesturing to the upstairs and downstairs of our apartment. She and her daughter didn’t speak Russian, and Karli and I don’t speak Azerbaijani. We both stood there clueless as to what she was saying. We tried giving her our landlady’s number, which she seemed to understand, and then didn’t want it. Then she wrote down some work in Cyrillic which I’ve never heard of before and looked up and doesn’t exist. I’m completely baffled. Something tells me it has something to do with water, but again… I have no idea. I guess if it’s important enough they’ll be back with someone who speaks Russian. Or we’re going to have call someone who speaks Azerbaijani if they appear again. By the way, this has been our first encounter with someone who can’t speak any Russian.

Anyways, back to the water. The lack of water during the day makes showering really difficult. If you miss waking up in time (which clearly I do since I like to sleep late) then you’re pretty much screwed until about 6:30 when the water might be lukewarm enough to take a shower. The lack of water also prevents the flushing of the toilet which without going into much detail can get pretty awkward. It also means you can’t wash your hands either after such alleged business. Really disgusting. I’ve been using a lot of hand sanitizer and I think at some point someone (cough cough) is going to have to send me large bottles of hand sanitizer.

The lack of water can get really annoying at night too. 10 o’clock can come and go pretty fast so a lot of times we’ll both forget to wash our dishes from dinner until it’s past 10 and then we have to wait until the next morning to do it. And then if we don’t wake up in time to wash the dishes by 11, then we have to wait again until 6. So of course we frequently have crusty dishes in our sink, and there’s not much either one of can do about this.

On the same note as water is the business with bottled water. As is pretty common throughout Europe, water comes either still or carbonated. People here like the carbonated water a lot more than regular still water. I really don’t like carbonated water which is a bit of a problem since sometimes when I’m deathly thirsty and wandering around the stores won’t have any still water. Then when I finally manage to find still water (usually pretty cheap, it’s about 50 geppik, so like 60 cents) I chug the whole thing like a total lunatic.

Anyways, those are my thoughts for today. I know, I didn’t put up the pictures yet. I got distracted last night. I will later though, I promise. I have some other thoughts I might try to post later as well.

Also, many of you have been asking for an address to send me stuff. The mail system here is utterly unreliable so I’m not going to even bother giving you my apartment address since I don’t think I’ll ever receive anything here. (Mailbox, what?) Once I’ve been there a bit longer I’m going to ask the Academy/ Museum if I can get mail sent there (which I’m sure I can). So hold tight, I’ll let you know my address once I do!

P.S. The time difference is 9 hours ahead. So right now it's 2 pm here, and it's a lovely 5 am in the states. (Thanks for always commenting, Hannah :))

Television

We have cable TV in our apartment which is a nice convenience. I’m not sure how many channels we have but there are definitely about 45 that I’ve clicked through so far. Most of them are in Russian, but there are actually quite a few in English. My favorite channel so far is the BBC World News channel, but it shows the same stories over and over again on a 2 hour cycle. So you can really only watch for a limited time until it gets irritating. There are also several other European news channels and I’ll switch to them if I get bored.

The more interesting channels are the English non-news channels. There’s about three or four Christian Gospel channels straight from Bible Belt America, which I find really intriguing. I’ve heard that there are a fair amount of missionaries here, and I guess that’s represented in the television selection as well. It’s very weird to be in the middle of Azerbaijan and flicking through TV stations and then seeing a southern man preaching to one of those mega-churches. Another odd aspect to this is that there’s actually a Russian version of this kind of programming, and it’s not even dubbed. I saw a program with a Russian woman standing on a podium preaching in Russian about the Bible and then at the bottom of the screen there was an address for more information… in Wisconsin.

The Russian channels all actually provide a fair amount of entertainment. The programming is actually not worth watching in it of itself unless you just want to make observations about it, which is clearly all I’m doing. I suffered through enough Russian TV when I was in St. Petersburg that I would now gladly watch the same news stories over and over again on the BBC instead of watching the Russian TV again. However, some of the programs they have on Russian TV are downright hysterical, especially the Western imports. There’s a “Judge Judy”-esque show which is pretty funny to see all the Russians yell at each other in a court room and then watch the Judge melodramatically pound the gavel so it’s his turn to yell. I also caught a little bit of a Russian fortune telling/ mysticism show. There was this guy sitting on a podium in a ridiculous velvet costume with all these tea kettles around him giving gifts to various audience members who were sitting on these big poufy chairs. Really strange. If I get bored enough I’ll probably try to watch a couple more of these programs since they’re really pretty funny. I have yet to find any Russian soap operas though, and I’ve heard that those are the best.

There’s also a Pentagon news channel which I’ve been watching to get my America nostalgia fix. I figure it’s the closest I’ll get to C-SPAN. Today, since it’s 9/11, they’ve been showing a lot of stuff about what happened today 8 years ago. It’s actually a pretty interesting channel. Again, very strange to be watching pro-American military rhetoric in the middle of Azerbaijan.

I have yet to find a sports channel but I’m sure that there is one. I don’t think I’ll be having that busy of a social schedule for the next year so if I manage to find a sports channel I could maybe try to understand the world craze about soccer (ahem, futbol). For those of you living under a rock (which included me until very recently) the World Cup is coming up in 2010 in South Africa and the whole world has been going nuts over the qualifying games. The World Cup is every 4 years, so it’s a very big deal. Currently, Brazil is in first place. Obviously, Azerbaijan does not have a great team and they’ve been out of the running for a while. Maybe I’ll randomly pick someone to root for. The underdog since I’m a Red Sox fan? We will see.

I bought four more movies today- I think I'm going to be watching a lot of movies this year. 4 for 10 manat, which is about $11 or $12. So cheap! I bought The Hurt Locker, Chronicles of Narnia (don't hate), The Boy in Stiped Pyjamas, and Enemy at the Gates. I've always wanted to just sit down and watch the whole series The West Wing, and they have a boxed set (all 8 seasons) for 100 manat. This seems way too expensive, although there are 56 DVDs in there. Maybe if he would sell it to me for 80 manat I'll buy it. Thoughts?

I've been getting harassed to put up pictures and I will put some up in several hours once I finish making dinner, I promise!

Observations Part Tre

(that would look a lot more normal if I could figure out Cyrillic on my computer)

I’ve been getting quite the (unexpected) response about my observations so I’ve been writing them down as I notice them to put up here. Here goes round 3 (pronounced in Russian as ‘tree’ but rolling the ‘r’):

Sirok:
Again, this would look a lot better if I could figure out Cyrillic. But since I’m computer challenged, everyone who speaks Russian is going to know what I’m referring to and those of you don’t probably think this refers to either a plant, article of clothing or some sort of ancient witchcraft. It is, in fact, none of the above. Sirok is the one thing that I discovered way too late in Russia. I’m actually convinced it is a gift from God. When I was in Hebrew School I always wondered what manna tasted like, and I have discovered it in sirok. I swear. (For those of you unfamiliar with manna, it’s the stuff in the Old Testament that God gave to the Jews while they were wandering the desert with no food. I always imagined it as white fluffy stuff, but apparently it tasted like whatever you wanted it to taste like. So if you’re craving a hamburger- poof! Manna tastes like a hamburger. That’s the general idea.) Sirok are these little candy kind of things, but they’re stored in the fridge. There’s a thin layer of chocolate on the outside but that’s not the delicious part, it’s what’s inside. Inside is this stuff called tvorog, which I generally think is pretty gross, but this is sweetened tvorog. It’s a strange kind of marshmallow-y consistency, and can have different flavors- chocolate, coconut, etc. However, the manna is the vanilla. It’s this same white consistency that I always thought manna was and it actually tastes like a little piece of heaven on earth. No jokes. I was wondering if I would be able to find it here since there’s a lot of Russian food. Yesterday when I was wandering the grocery store that’s a little further from my house I found it and it took all the self-control in the world to not clear out the whole stock. I bought about 7 and I’ve eaten all of them in the past 24 hours. If I don’t manage to lose weight here there will be one reason: sirok.

Daily life:
There are a lot of little things about Russian/ post-Soviet life that you notice upon arriving here and then get used to immediately. I’m also used to them since I noticed them in Russia and now it’s not as much of a shock. Here’s a couple things that make life a little different and are daily reminds of living in a different country-
Switches- The light switches here are completely different. They are a small square that’s 1 x 1 inches. You simply press it up or down if you want the light to turn on or off. It’s peculiar, but again, something you just get used to.
Bureaus- I noticed this in Petersburg too. A Bureau (note that there are no closets- why waste that precious space) has a small space for hanging stuff, and then the rest of the bureau are just shelves. This doesn’t seem like it would be strange, but it’s definitely not the norm in the states. When was the last time you put your clothing on a shelf? We have drawers and hangers in the U.S., but we rarely ever use shelves. I actually kind of like shelves, it makes it easier to see what clothing is where and you don’t have to go digging for it. However, I am severely opposed to the idea of not hanging stuff up. There were 2 hangers in my closet when I arrived. I’ve been gradually buying more but I’m not nearly satisfied yet. I guess it’s just an American thing.
Doors- Soviet doors all look the same. Once you’ve seen one, you can spot another one. They’re a hard thing to explain. In Russia they were obviously padded and very heavy since it gets so cold there. Here it’s similar but a lot lighter on the padding. For one thing, the lock is on the other side (the left side). In fact, almost all the main front doors here open up from the opposite way from the U.S. It’s not like they drive on the other side of the street or anything, so I’m not sure what the rational behind this is. They are completely flat on the outside except for the peephole and the door. Then once you get on the inside there’s some intricate design on the door and about 4 locks, including one you have to stick your key into and lock it from the inside for extra protection. I guess all those years of getting forcibly moved from one house to another really add their toll.
Chainik- I could do a whole post on kitchens and if I run out of material I probably will. But for now I will just discuss the chainik. It’s this super-fast water boiler. Like a tea kettle, but probably the one thing that Russians have that’s more modern than Americans. You plug it in and press a button and depending on how much water you have in the chainik, it’s boiled within about a minute. It’s actually amazing that this hasn’t caught on more in the States. I don’t drink all that much tea, but this little device has become dead useful. For one reason because we don’t have water, and the water here isn’t safe to drink so we boil water and stick it in large plastic bottles in the fridge for later use, such as brushing teeth, washing hands, face, etc. It’s also useful since it takes about an hour to boil water on the stove so I just boil the water in the chainik, then dump it into a pot on the stove and then keep it heating it from there. Saves me about 40 minutes if I want to make pasta.
Bed covers- This is a random one, but it’s one that I found particularly odd in Russia and found that they do here. Maybe it’s a European thing. In America we have the fitted sheet that fits over the mattress, the flat sheet that goes above it, and then a blanket on top of that. Then you sleep in between the fitted sheet and flat sheet. Here, you have to tuck the flat sheet around the mattress, and then there’s a duvet (except not as nice) that you put over a blanket, and you wash these two sheets every so often. It actually makes a lot of sense. The ‘duvet’ cover here is just like our cotton sheets, maybe a little bit tougher. But this way, there’s not as much to care for and if anything happens to this sheet, you can just toss it and buy a new one to cover your bed with. My only problem with this is that when it’s hot, like it is now, I have no flat sheet and I get hot easily under the blanket. Such is life, and I just have to sleep half under it.

Gas station attendants:
You would think there would be more gas stations populating this city since there’s so much oil here but they’re found a lot more outside of the city center. Luckily I live not too far from one and I was able to observe the clientele and the attendants.
Rewind about 13 years back to Nintendo. Remember Luigi and Mario? And how they wore those little jumpers in bright blue and green? Can you see where I’m going with this? Well, all the gas station attendants wear these brightly colored cotton overalls. Whoever came up with this idea for men to swear these thick, ridiculous looking uniforms in this heat is out of their mind in the first place, but the execution is what’s worse. All the gas stations are different companies but they all wear these overalls in different colors, and the two I’ve seen so far are blue and green. Now, imagine what I’ve already written about the men in this area. They’re generally pretty short and squat (the older, the squatter) and Persian looking. So imagine short, dark-skinned men with mustaches wearing plain white t-shirts with brightly covered blue/ green overalls on over them. This city looks like it’s Halloween with about 400 Luigi’s and Mario’s running around.

Guten Tag!
This isn’t a long one but the other night a group of 5 of us were wandering around the city at night, just walking around after dinner. We were all talking pretty loudly in English (and none of us look remotely Azeri, except of course for the one Azeri girl we were with) and as we were walking by a family sitting on the steps someone yelled out, “Guten tag!”, which is German for “Good day". I commend them for trying to speak our language and be friendly, but really? German? Apparently there are actually a lot of German tourists here which seems like a very random destination for German tourists.

Shoes:
Another point on Azeri style. This will definitely be a recurring theme. Azeri men (they just make it way too easy…) all wear the exact same kind of shoe. It’s a black leather shoe, highly polished and very pointy. Their shoes are particularly accented by their pants which are super-tight and either jeans or tight dressy pants. (I know. The phrase 'tight dressy pants' makes me shudder.) These shoes are usually of the slip-on variety although if the man is a little more stylin’ they might have laces. I doubt they actually use these laces though, since the laces extend for about an inch and a half.

That's all for now. I have discovered the beauty of bootleg DVDs and although I feel like a bad citizen for buying them, my rationale is that they probably don't even sell legitimate DVDs here. Anyways I might make another trip to the bootleg store. (Aptly named "Hong Kong". Apparently Azerbaijan likes stereotypes just as much as the U.S. does.) Go see District 9- it's SO GOOD! I would have paid money in a movie theatre for it.