Observations Part Dva, and more

Observations, Part 2
Cars:
The types of cars here are something I noticed immediately after leaving the airport. About 40% of the cars here are Mercedes, 15% are BMWs, and then the rest are all Japanese cars (although I have seen a couple Ladas and the occasional Chrystler.) German cars aren’t the same status symbol that they are in the states and it takes a little getting used to. There’s a surprising amount of Toyotas among the Japanese cars as well as Hyundai, Misubishi and Nissan. I’m not sure what to really make of this except that it’s just different than the U.S.

Status symbols:
Since all Azeris live in pretty conquerable housing and people don’t generally visit each other’s houses like we do in the U.S., the people here have to find different ways to show off their wealth. As I mentioned previously, cars are a way to show off wealth, although I’m not sure which cars are considered the cool ones yet. The cool way to show off your wealth and superiority is through your cell phone. Having the “cool” or “popular” cell phone is the ultimate accessory and clutching it in public on the bus is the way to show it off. Another aspect of this is being able to blast the “latest” American pop tune from your phone so everyone in a 3 block radius can hear how loud your cell phone can go. Note that when I say latest I’m being facetious- usually this is some sort of Fergie tune that came out more than a year ago.
According to whatever kind of cell phone you rock you can also be the victim of a robbery. So the flashier the cell phone, the higher chance you have of being robbed. Although I don’t think many people get robbed, if there’s ever a target it’s a Westerner. So in order to counteract my chances of being robbed I’ve decided that if I clutch my ghetto Nokia a la 2003 in public people might think I’m not as wealthy as I look. Who knows if this is a smart tactic but people definitely notice what kind of phone you have and judge you for it. I’ve actually had an Azeri make fun of my cell phone, which I thought was pretty funny. All the Americans here have cell phones similar to mine- old and very simple Nokia’s. While everyone talks about how obsessed the Azeris are with their phones if you really think about it, Americans are just as bad. Why in the world would a 15 year old girl from a suburb ever need a Blackberry? Does she even get e-mails from anyone? But the race is on in both countries to have the coolest, newest and most hi-tech gadgets before everyone else.

Gold teeth:
At first I noticed a couple older men with some random gold teeth. And then I noticed full sets of gold teeth in their mouths. And then I noticed women had them. And then I noticed that 30-something year old women had them. I have no idea anything else besides this except that it exists. Gives a new meaning to the word “grill”. More on this later.

Beauty salons/ advertisements:
This totally cracks me up. All of the beauty salons and also clothing stores have these huge posters on the outside of American celebrities posing outside looking very put-together and gorgeous. For example there’s a hair salon down the street from me that has this beautiful picture of Charlize Theron outside with her hair blowing in the wind. It’s almost like these places are advertising that they personally did Charlize Theron’s hair like that and if you come in, you too will come out looking like her! Every place does this. This country has a crazy obsession with Jennifer Lopez (including even a J. Lo store), so she’s everywhere. I’ve seen some posters of Gisele outside stores from some U.S. photoshoot clearly not dressed in any clothing that this Azeri store would sell, but apparently they’re trying to get people to believe it. I know that a lot of a celebrities do foreign advertising but this is a far cry from that. These posters are blatant 4-5 year old Revlon rip-offs that are tacked up outside various stores. It provides a lot of entertainment while walking around.

No! Girlfriend, No! Problem:
Azeri style defies any description. The best I can say is that it’s pretty European- tight jeans, tight t-shirts and random English sayings thrown across the shirt that don’t really make any sense.
My all-time favorite example of this so far is the t-shirt that says: NO! Girlfriend, NO! Problem. I have probably seen about 25 guys wearing this in the past 5 days. There’s also another variation on it that says: YES! Girlfriend, NO! Problem. Something tells me there isn’t a “NO! Girlfriend, YES! Problem” shirt.
Did I mention that is shirt is either black/ gray/ white with shiny silver writing across it? Very macho.

Lemons:
Little old ladies stand about one little old lady per block and hold 6-8 lemons per hand begging for you to buy them. I have no idea where they get their lemons from, why they’re so plentiful or how they fit so many lemons in one hand. I would buy one but then I would have to guiltily buy one from each little old lady and I would end up with probably 17 lemons by the end of the day.

That’s it for today. On a side note, I saw another woman driving a car today. That brings my tally up to 2. She was driving a Nissan and looked especially angry about wherever she was headed.

On Thursday I have my meeting with the Academy about teaching so I’ll have a better idea of what my teaching schedule will be and how I can coordinate with the museum.

Also today I bought internet equipment and stupidly tried to set it up myself which was an epic fail. Tomorrow I’m off to the internet place so they can just do it for me. Hopefully at this time tomorrow I will have my very own internet and I won’t have to steal it anymore from my poor, unassuming neighbor.