HomeComing and Re-Identification

I've been accused of not keeping this blog updated very well as of late - well, there's a good reason - mostly because I still don't have internet at my apartment. Something about being too cheap to get it or some such...

Anyway, last week I had a whirlwind visit back to MN in which I....

...hung out with my sister at the Walker Art museum and saw the Picasso exhibit
...checked on the sculpture garden (yep, still there!)
,,,ate Punch pizza with my cousin Mary, her husband and her beautiful (and growing) baby girl
....took Kate to Victor's 1959 Cuban cafe for brunch and walked around Lake Calhoun
....saw my parents new lake cabin site
...visited with my aunt Muriel (and ate her cookies)
...took my cousin Ann and her babies out to pizza (hm, do I notice a trend here with cousins and pizza?)
...inspected her awesome garden
...hung out with my mom at the lake
...went fishing with my dad (and caught a bass)
...visited my uncle Neil and Aunt Nell and inspected their new garage
...had coffee with Megan's mom, as I normally do, and got caught up on their recent trip to London
...partied with Kaydi on a Tuesday night ("Don't mind my friend, she's from France." "Really? You have no accent!" "Yeah, my
mom is American...")
...and who can forget the dude who ate our nacho's and then said they were gross??
...went shopping with mom
...beat dad at Sequence
...hung out of the heat... 104 degrees!
...watched the Marshall County opening parade of the county fair...complete with manure spreader and the Marshall county
mounted posse...
...yelled at some teenage kids (get off my lawn!)
...avoided everyone I knew at the county fair (so what are you up to these days? where are you at? married? kids? why aren't
you fat like the rest of us??)
...finally got to meet Kaia and Will's baby, Evie Lu, in person. Cutest. baby. EVER!!!
...got a pedicure with my mom
...watched a storm front move across the plains, with my brother and sis-in-law
...napped in my car
...said hello and goodbye to my other cousin who is moving to germany for a year
...personally attended my college roommate at her wedding
...bought bananas
...visited with Julie and her husband Thomas, whom I haven't seen since being in their wedding last May
...fell into bed, every night, exhausted.

It was an excellent time- I will soon post pictures. It's a good thing too, because as of this weekend, I'll be officially stripped of my MN identity - I'm getting a new license and new plates for my car. Yes, that's right, I'm becoming - a Marylander (Maryland-ite? Maryland-onian?)

Sigh. It was a good run while it lasted!
M is for Maryland,
M.

I Heart My Bike But My Bike Does Not Heart Me Back

In fact, I think it's safe to say, my bike might be out to kill me.

Friday evening, after a loooooong three weeks of work and before taking off for my well-deserved vacation back to the faterland (MN, that is), I took my bike out for a one last spin.

It was a nice ride, actually. I took it (her?) down to Rock Creek Park, spun around the horse barns, stopped by my friend Mary's house and was back in a bit under an hour.

However, on the last downhill, as I sailed into the parking lot of my apartment complex, something biffed - something biffed big time. I heard metal on metal, hit the breaks and pitched sideways, sliding halfway down the hill. I was doing a fairly hard left hand turn on a steep hill, so my guess is that the metal gear ground against the pavement.

I'm used to my fair share of bruised knees, but the shiner on my left leg proved that I'd deposited most of my skin on the asphalt. The right leg now has four deep gashes, as if I was attacked by a mountain lion, or my bike in fact, bit me with razor like teeth. (In fact, my brother in law suggests that I make THIS the story, rather than the infinitely lamer "I fell off my bike" story...)

Anyway, it looks really nasty. I surprised myself by having non-stick gauze (and gauze tape!) in my apartment, but later got a hold of much snazzier 3M clear industrial bandaids the size of my hand to cover it up. It hurts to bend my skinless knee, and I'm wondering what kind of wicked scars I'm going to have on my leg. I hope it's going to be pretty awesome.

I'm now on vacation and decided that this is probably a good thing for me and my bike. It will give us a little cooling off period, time to think and may remind my bike that without me, it just sits in a closet - and perhaps it ought to treat me a bit better. That is, no biting.

Coffee Makes Me Slow Down (?)

I've written about this before - the slight pre-loneliness feel I get sometimes, especially on the weekends I'm left to my own devices. It's been six months since the last time I remember feeling this way, but it's come around again.

That's actually pretty good - once every six months or so, but still.

I went to bed last night, knowing I had absolutely nothing of consequence to do the next day (Do the dishes? Start that album from the long lost Japan photos I found under my bed while moving? Re-lace my shoes from the time the HMF I had to tie a shelf into my trunk and didn't have any rope?) Stuff that needs to get done, surely, but really, it pretty low on the totem pole.

Honestly, I think this is what community coffee shops are made for - those of us who have nothing better to do, crave a little human interaction (that is, being AROUND people, but not necessarily having to interact with them) and still haven't gotten it together enough to get internet hooked up to their apartments. Also, who didn't get up early enough to find a church.

So today, I find myself at yet another coffee shop (Mayorga Coffee Factory), avoiding the fact that I have nothing better to do, people watching and slowly getting caught up on all my favorite trashy websites (those bitches are funny, but not so Safe for Work!)

I even treated myself to a cup of iced coffee - a MEDIUM, not even a small! Ho ho, things are looking up. And, as I sip it and listen to the hippy lady and her electric guitar sing about how great it is to be single, I realize that these days are kind of nice. Strangely enough, coffee and coffee shops make me slow down. So what if I have nothing better to do? This is just fine. I think I'll just relax into this leather easy chair and take the afternoon as it comes.

Heck, later, I may even tackle a shoelace or two.

M is for Nothing Better to Do,
M.

I Heart My Bike

So, I totally heart my new bike. Earlier this week, I discovered almost a DIRECT route from my apartment building to my job on a beautiful, picturesque, nearly perfectly level, vehicle-free bike route. And it's only 4 miles from door to door.

In fact, even on the days when the front doorman tells me I can no longer take my bike out the front door (wha? because it LOOKS bad??) - even on the days when I get mercilessly caught in the middle of a power struggle and reemed out at work, it still makes me smile.

Still, at the end of the day, even though I'm tired, beaten, broken and downtrodden - thinking about getting to bike home makes me so happy. It's like I can zoom away from all my problems and let the endorphins kick in. I mean really, it's the cheapest Zoloft ever.

And I didn't even mind going in the service entrance!

Baku Photos

The outdoor roadside 'teahouse' Typical streetview in the Old Town - In the olden days, these boxes ensured the modesty of women who want to watch the street below. Now it's just a nice way to expand an otherwise cramped apartment!
Rugseller's market in the Old Town, near Maiden's Tower
This is not a parking lot - it's a crush of traffic. Note the pedestrians!
Skyline of downtown Baku from the Caspian sea boardwalk - note the construction cranes!

More photos

Laundry in Xinaliq A normal street...
Jafar serving "livers and such" at a roadside tea house.
Aybaniz and I in the treetop teahouse
One of the many mountain passes

Belated Photos

It's taken me a long time to post these, but I hope they've been worth the wait. Pit stop on the way to Xinaliq - a bus, a garbage truck and mosque and a mountain.
View of the surrounding valleys around Xinaliq
Sweet little boy!
View from the highest hill...
A very tiny town.

Tiny Ninjas With a 5K and a New Bike!

Some highlights from the past few days....

First, Tiny Ninja theater showed up on the Millennium stage of the Kennedy Center this week to celebrate Shakespeare in Washington. If you have to wonder what ninjas are doing with Shakespeare, then obviously, you are not a connoisseur of ninjas like I am. I dragged my pals Ann, Angeli and Beth (and one disbeliever from work, Andy) along to watch - you guessed it - tiny plastic ninjas act out Romeo and Juliet. Two words: Hi-larious.

Also, on a side note, I found out that there is a Pirate bar in my new neighborhood (through a friend, not by stumblng around searching for a place to park my peg-leg.) In accordance with my ongoing obsession with the age old question of Pirates vs. Ninjas, I find myself drawn to show up there in a ninja costume, just to see what will happen.

More updates to follow on this front, I'm sure.

Anyway, the bigger news today is that I RAN MY FIRST 5K today! Woot-woot! Those of you who knew me growing up, you know that the closest I have ever come to being a runner is - well, not close at all, actually. I've by and large left it to the professionals. But, I put it down as a New Year's Resolution this year and have been "training" (ha!) since March. I even bought new shoes.

Well, the HMF and I finally decided to pony up the money and chose the Tim Harmon Hep C Memorial Fun run (I mean really, how much more random can you get?) to run this morning in Fairfax, Va. I finished in just under 37 minutes. Not bad for a non-runner! It was a good feeling to cross that line - even though my splits were well over 10 minute miles, I had 1) run the whole thing and 2) lived!

After that, we were in such a fitness groove that we drove around to a few REI's in search of a new bike. For my grad school graduation, the HMF promised to subsidize a large chunk towards the cost of a machine for me. Seeing as I bought my last one in college and have since moved on to longer rides, it has been time to upgrade for sometime now. After much research, discovering my inseem, and much learning on my part about what a "real" bike enthusiast must know about her machine, we ended up buying the Novara Big Buzz.

I am so psyched to go riding now! I got two new jersey's over Christmas and I've been dying to try them out on the roadways here. Finally perhaps my bike will inspire envy instead of pity. And maybe - just maybe after all this - I'll be able to fit into a new swimsuit, too :)

Nuclear Groceries

I love snow peas. I use them in stir fry, on salads, and more often than not, just plain as a snack to go with my lunch. Today, after a long hiatus, I popped a few munchies into my mouth. Instead of the juicy sweetness, my tongue was met with rancid putrescence. Any sane person would've spit them out - which I did. But, just to make sure I hadn't grabbed a bad patch, I went ahead and threw some more in my mouth.

Yep, they were bad all right.

Now, here is where I reveal how truly cheap I am. During one particular rough patch in college, I discovered that groceries - within reason (no broken eggs, please) - are totally RETURNABLE. I used to buy things that were too big for my wallet, and then return them, two hours later, remorseful but happy for liberal store policies.

But that's just the set up, not the real story. As a result of all this, tonight after work, I made the HMF drive me back to the Giant to return the rest of the snow peas - they were expensive, dammit! That's 2.99 for what amounts to two cup fulls.

So anyway, we get to the store and find the customer service area fairly easily. I parked myself about two feet right behind the man at the counter and waited to make my case. As I was doing this, an old black man walked right up to me, scanned me up and down, stared me in the face and then stepped right in front of me. Didn't say a word, either. But he had clearly seen me and clearly still felt the need to step right in between me and the next person in line.

The following was our exact conversation:
Me: "Excuse me, sir? Are you in line?"
Him: "Guh?" Staring me full in the face again, about a foot away.
Me: "Are you in line?"
Him: "Well, yeah, I am."
Me: "Well, I was here first."
Him: "You must be invisible!"
Me: "Dude, I was totally here first. You saw me. You cut."
Him, moves slowly behind me: "Well, now you know how black people felt all those years!"

Neither the HMF nor I really said anything after that. I mean, what do you say in response that doesn't make you look like a racist ass? Later, the HMF and I joke that this man went from zero to nuclear in about 5 seconds - all over a check out line! Of course, when waiting in line for groceries one should always use the race card.

The only appropriate response I could come up with (about 10 minutes later, in the car) was :

"You're totally right. Being cut in front of in line is JUST LIKE slavery. My bad - here you go ahead!!"

What would YOU have said?

Back from Baku

The only thing memorable about my two flights home (aside from the fact that it began with a 3:55 am leg from Baku to Frankfurt - ouch!) was the fact that I got upgraded to Business class for the first time ever. Woo -hoo!

Not only were the extra leg room and fully reclining seats a welcome change from economy, my 5 hour lay-over in Frankfurt between 5-10am was much improved by the private business class lounge (filled with free food and comfy seats!). Life is good.

Anyway, I am now safely and happily back from Baku!

Soundtrack To The Last 18 Days

What I have heard of "traditional" Azeri music (ie what those guys are playing on accordians on the boardwalk...) on this trip has been greatly overshadowed by the ever-present, penetrating, gut-thumping dance music coming from MTV, low riding Mercedes', iPhone's and basically every taxi I've been in while here.

That, plus all the really tight dark clothing, makes me feel like I'm in a continous nightclub.

From what I can tell, most of the music are just really bad dance remixes of old songs (Truly, Madly, Deeply, anyone?), with the added bonus of having music videos that border on soft porn (there is one involving an entire marching band made out of one woman with a really short skirt that is particularly hilarious).

That said, here is my fondly created playlist from hours upon hours of listening to MTV while working in my hotel room:

September "Looking for Love" (Everybody's looking for luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuv")

Justin Timberlake, "What Goes Around (Comes Around)" (I love this video!)

Black Eyed Peas, "Fergalicious"

Black Eyed Peas, "Glamorous"

Nellie Fertado, "Say It Right"

Gwen Stefani, "Sweet Escape" (Great summer music, I have to say"

Some woman with too much makeup hollering "This is my DEStinATiON!!!!" over and over again to a house beat.

Akon, "Don't Matter" (I hear this one at least once every thirty minutes, I swear..)

Daddy FT Sandy Rivera and Trix, "Lollipop" (I'll lick your ice cream and you can lick my lol-lol-lollipop.....")

Shakira and Beyonce, "Beautiful Liar"

Natasha Bedingfeld, some song where she sings about how much she wants to have (your) babies.

Paris Hilton, "Nothing in This World"

Cascada, the aforementioned "Truly, Madly, Deeply" remix. Done with chubby women in leotards. I'm so not kidding.

Mika, "Relax (Take It EEEEeeeasy!)"

Some Turkish song that takes place in junior high.

Random Things Learned

Tualet (too-ahh-let) = toilet and Buket = bouquet!

Be careful walking down the street on a hot day in a country where central a/c has yet to hit the mainstream. Lots of leaky window units make a veritable lake of the street below! (and a mess of your hairstyle!)

While it's important to eat what the locals eat, beware of descriptions like "Oh, it's just liver and such." If you think it will give you the runs, it probably will.

That being said, don't be afraid of salad or other green things. Your colon will thank you, I promise.

Also, the US Embassy is mostly full of crap when it comes to 'security advisory's'. If had followed the briefing that I received before leaving about "not traveling outside of Baku on any roads, anywhere" I would've missed a great opportunity to see Xinaliq and getting to know some awesome Azeri's.

There are Have's amd Have not's, sure. But there are also Have Nothing's and I Have Better Than You!

I need to drop 20lbs right. Now.

Oh, Miss USA, despite having tripped on stage and being BOOED by an unruly, ungrateful, Mexican crowd, has taught us all what grace and poise are under pressure. Miss Smith, you are my new hero.

And on the way home, I'm totally asking the guy next to me what the results of his TB test was!

Two Holidays for One

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

.....And if you're in Azerbaijan, Happy Republic Day!

And to Ismayil, whose response was "Of course not" when I asked him if there would be any celebrations today : the military parade that just passed by my hotel has proven you wrong! :P

Xinaliq

Wow, for the first time, I don't really even know where to begin...

Last week, I met up with one of the employees of the new office, Aybaniz, here in Baku. We hit it off and she invited me along on a trip with her alumni group to a "local village". She was decidedly short on details, but I was so excited to get out of Baku (temps topping the mid-nineties this week) that I accepted immediately. Also, sometimes with the best adventures - it's best to act first and ask questions later.

Of course, when I was crammed into a non-airconditioned van early Sunday morning staring out the window at the desolate semi-arid, oil-donkey dotted landscape while whizzing in between cement trucks and lost cattle, I had other thoughts. But...whatever.........

Turns out that Aybaniz's group were a bunch of mid-thirties alumnae of a program to study English abroad, so I ended up having some great conversations - from the war in Iraq all the way up to Borat. After about two hours, the landscape changed from semi-arid to lush green forests. At 11:30, we stopped for tea at a campsite nestled deep in a lovely gully, where one had to run nimbly up and down rickety metal steps to get to covered platforms where the tables were situated. It felt a bit like the Swiss Family Robinson!

We lunched on: raw tomatoes and cucumbers, feta cheese, roast tomatoes, roast potatoes, juicy lamb kebab and fruit juice. Plus, of course, plenty of that yummy bread! Then we had to wait around for the tea - which, I'm learning, is quite a production. We had thick bitter tea with plain jam (or, some people sucked on sugar cubes and drank the tea at the same time). Having grown up on bitter tea - I really liked the sensation of intense sweet and bitter together.

After a quick pit stop to the squat toilet, we were off again for a two hour drive through the beautiful Greater Caucasus Mountains. The views were so amazing - the lower sections belied a picturesque scene of enormous waterfalls in the distance bisected by large swaths of green pasture dotted with yellow flowers. Further on, the pastures gave way to jagged rolls of the earth's crust, pushing up perpendicular to the earth , exposing the layers like a big rock cake.

As we wound up and down through the mountains, I couldn't help but notice the lack of guardrails as we teetered through the switchbacks. At one point, you could look straight down into the rapid rushing of a mud black river 2,000 meters below. Noticing my white knuckles, my seatmate sardonically remarked, "Hey, if we die, atleast we'll have something pretty to look at as it's happening!" (Um, yeah.)

As we got closer to the village, snow capped peaks pushed their way into the horizon. It was so unreal - something out of a Hans Christan Anderson via Istanbul - storybook. The sun shone down, the sheep were fat, and I literally felt like I could touch the mountains. No sign of the Ricola guy, though.

Anyway, after we rounded through the rocky ravine and crossed over the river, we had another thirty minutes of climbing through the windy, barren, rock-strewn, heather before getting to the base of Xinaliq.

Xinaliq has the distinction of being the highest elevated village in all of Azerbaijan - and, as one student told me, all of Europe. (Wait, what? Europe? Since when did Azerbaijan become part of Europe?!) Anyway, living near the rooftop of the world, the people of Xinaliq have through the ages, developed their own language and own distinct culture. In fact, if my little internet search is correct,

"Khinalyg (Xinaliq) is amongst the most ancient and still active places in the world, the history of Khinalyg is 4,000 years old. Before the conversion to Christianity of Caucasian Albania in the 3rd century, and Islam in the 7th century, the people of Khinalyg were followers of the prophet Zoroaster, who established Zoroastrianism. Because of the high altitude and remoteness of Khinalyg it managed to survive and withstand many invasions and therefore many historical sites in Khinalyg are still intact and are considered as holy places for Zoroastrianism."

After 4 1/2 hours in the car, I felt like I was at the end of the world.

The tiny village (which I later found out hosted about 1,800 people), looked so old, that instead of being perched on top of the hill, it actually grew from it, in stone shelter shaped warts. We pulled into the main square and tons of little children, in dirty sweaters and ruddy faces, fell out into the street. I was struck immediately by two things: 1) the merciless, unrelenting wind and thoughts of how bitter cold the winter must be here and 2) how none of the children asked us for anything (unlike at the Mua Mission in Malawi). In fact, it was so untouristy it was just.....wow. Peaceful.

As I wandered through the city - isolated both from my travelmates and the villagers - I watched two women taking advantage of the beautiful sunny and washing their rugs in a horse trough. A small kid peeked her head out from a doorway, underneath wildly flapping laundry, chirped and quickly - shyly - slipped back inside when I waved at her. Three little boys shouted "Salaam! Salaam!" from a rooftop at me, as I trampled below them. Overall, it seemed, people were happy to see us, but also shy and content to let us wander through their village.

Most stone buildings were in tact, with sheets of corregated iron covering a few sides, others were partially built (it seems like that way for most buildings in Azerbaijan) or partially abandoned. Dirt was everywhere. Horse patties lay either drying in the sun, or stacked as fuel along each house. The local mosque was closed - and really, the only reason I could see that it was mosque was because of the half-moon on the top. Otherwise, it was just a decrepit as the others.

Besides children, I didn't really see alot of adults milling around. I was surprised, as this touted "tourist destination" seemed to house neither tourists nor anything much to see (except, of course, the amazing views).

But...standing on top of the highest hill looking down into the valley below while the wind whipped through my ever snarling hair - that was quite a feeling.

And one fraught with lots of funny, insightful musings, not the least of which was, "Now how did I come to be HERE?"

M is for More to Come,
M.

Traffic, Redefined

So I said I would write about the traffic here .......but I have yet to come up with good words to describe it, besides this: totally friggin' crazy.

My new pastime is just to camp out at a busy street corner (luckily, there are tons of 'em) and just watch. It's not so much the volume (yes there are alot of cars - but) it's more what crazy things people do with them. Like, blowing through a cross street while traffic is oncoming. Or when the opposite light is green and yours is red, and well, you go anyway.

Or, I even watched one where the whole intersection was just helter-skelter-man-for-himself with cars perpendicular to each other; big busses blocked by oncoming traffic as they try to cross, mid stream; tiny cars pushing their way forward, while pedestrians weave their way in and out of the slowly pushing traffic.

And of course, a whole lot of honking.

Mostly I'm not so much terrified for myself while I'm in a car - or even as a pedestrian (I'm not going to step into THAT mess thankyouverymuch. I'll wait for the light. I'll wait all night if necessary.) Not that that helps much, but whatever. Even IN the crosswalk at a red light, I've almost gotten run over (crazystupidtaxidriversIhavenoluvforyouscumsoftheearth). Heck, I almost got hit by a military truck the other night!

Anyway, what really gets me sucking air through my teeth and cringing my eyes though, is watching other people jump in front of cars, baby carriages being launched into the stream, mother's on cell phones and drivers on crack - literally, drivers who SPEED UP when they see pedestrians. I've seen people jump out in front of cars ten feet away, and stand in the middle of a five lane highway with cars going 40mph on either side of them.

It's so incredibly nuts - I'm one part agonized over watching them and another part, sickly fascinated. It's great entertainment, after all.

And hey, no translation necessary. :)

Man Cannot Live by Phyllo Dough Alone

.......but I can!!

Now, I've eaten a lot of good pastries in my time (and come back from a semester in France a good 20lbs heavier for it), but nothing, I mean, NOTHING beats the baked goods here.

I first noticed this in a cafe my second or third night when I ordered my meal (kebab anyone?) and out popped this basket of AWESOMELY baked bread. Fresh baked, too. It was just gooey enough so that you knew it was fresh, but just firm enough to not be gross. It was like super fluffy focaccia, and it was perfectly - PERFECTLY - golden.

So of course I gobbled that up and registered that, hey, I should come back here for the bread alone! (The kebab was....O.K.) But, I try to make a point not to frequent the same place too many times when I'm on my own because hey....why waste my time going back to the same old thing when there are so many NEW things to try?

But then it happened the next night, at a different restaurant. And the next.

And then I found the mouthwateringly wonderful bakery/cafe around the corner from my hotel. I had a doner there and the bread almost made my pants fall off. It was that good.

After sitting through an entire meal (again, O.K.) watching the crowds come and go from the bakery below, I decided to dawdle over the pastries and see what I could find.

Sweet mother of pearl, I still can't get over it. I had to tear myself away with no less than THREE types of baklava (cheese, pistachio and walnut - the walnut was the best because it had juuuust the riiight amount of honey. Yum!) and a huge slice of what I thought was pumpkin cake (but turned out to be graham cracker cream cake - double yum!) Then tonight, I went back again and had a filo-dough shepard's pie.

I don't CARE if I come home 40 lbs overweight with a moustache, this stuff is amazing! In fact, I think I might just buy a whole case of it and roll around in it on my bed before I go home next week.

I'm sure the cleaning lady would love that!

I have to go now, my mouth is watering so much I'm at risk of damaging my computer.....also, I think I still have some of that graham cracker cake lurking around.....

When I Saw This, I LOL'd

Look, I know this is a family show, but I couldn't resist. Would you eat at a place with a logo like that (look closely at the yellow sign), and a name like "The Camel's Toe"??

Um, no thanks.

Post Script: Goose Egg

Shout out, if I don't wake up tomorrow, it's because of this enormous goose egg on my forehead. In my effort to slip into a quiet corner of a restaurant unnoticed, I slammed my face against a stone archway. So much for trying not to draw attention to myself!

I'll Take a Little Optimism, Please

So I had lunch today with a friend of friend. Nice enough guy - especially to take time our from his day to eat with basically a total stranger. Typical expat, too (and I say this with all the love in my heart) - a bit strange, a few personal quirks and long, curly shaggy man hair. Kind of alterna-hippy/IT dude all grown up (no 'Member's Only' jacket though.) Fine, to each his own. Like I said, nice guy.

He also came fully loaded with a six pack of cynicism.

Again, I say, 'Fine, to each his own.' Except, that I'm getting a bit tired of everyone being so damned world weary that they're not impressed with anything anymore. And maybe it's not world weary, per se, but it's a kind of jaded cynicism that seems to infect expats, on average, around year two or three.

It infests from there.

Granted, in some people - they come born with it. In others, well, they are just happy-go-lucky until the day the croak. I think it exists as kind of game that other foreigners play - in one part just to let off steam and in one part to show off how much they know about the local culture. But boy does it suck the fun right out of a newbie, trying to understand her surroundings and not get hit by oncoming traffic.

With this guy, it was mostly: "You know, five years ago in Baku, I could get a taxi anywhere in the city for 25 cents. Now, forget about it." Or...

"This place is entirely corrupt, run by a clan system. They infiltrate some development firms and then block others from being hired. Essentially, your project is run into the ground." Or...

"I've been here too long, man. It's time to go. This place, it's changed so much" (and always for the worse).

And, as the newbie, you always have to kind of balance your "Aw shucks it can't be that bad" with the all-knowing nod that doesn't bely your excitement at being in a new place with new rules and new people and a new culture and new food and new souvenirs and new -

My especial favorite is this guy whom I am working closely with while here. I was warned beforehand that he's kind of a "Debbie Downer", so was thusly prepared. However, after three full days of listening to him complain about the city, I finally asked him today what he DOES like about Baku.

After thinking carefully for a moment he said, "You know, I don't like anything about this city."

ARGHGHGHAARGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I can't win.

Now, I am not a Pollyanna by any stretch of the imagination. If something sucks, I'm not afraid to admit it. And, it's important to keep a level head. Yet, looking on the bright side of things is kind of a defensive mechanism - it helps you cope with endless lines of bureaucracy, tedium and generally suck-a-tude. Plus, I'm sure there's a study somewhere that says it's good for the health.

So, I don't know if it's a post-Soviet thing, or an expat thing (I could write about expat world wearism for hours, but I'll spare you. Just know, if I ever get like that, please shoot me.) But whatever it is, someone needs to do a parachute drop of Valium here, stat.

Come to think of it, my first clue should've been the 'sleeping aid' that turned out to be an anti-depressant..........!

Ichari Shahar, the Old City of Baku

Maiden's Tower

Old City Fortress Walls

Today I went into the Old City of Baku, which is surrounded by ancient fortress walls. I did take photos, but given my predicament, I've borrowed some from other websites until I can post my own. The fortress was built in the 12th Century, initally right on the waterfront, to protect Baku from invaders.

I had a map from the hotel - and had even printed off some items of note from the internet to find here in the Old City - but of course, I pretty much got lost right off the bat. The funny thing about the Old City, I read, is that some streets just lead to, literally, nowhere. They wander off in all sorts of directions, getting narrower and narrower until you get to a dead end. I had read that thes streets were planned like this so that invading chariots would be forced to go single file - as they are much easier to pick off that way.

I did think about this as I wandered down a few narrow backstreets and was forced to double back.

I eventually found the Maiden Tower, the most famous landmark in Baku. It also supposedly dates back to the 12th century. As one website claimed, "The name of the Tower-Maiden's-is explained by numerous legends concerning a determined young lady pursued by a despotic local king (sometimes identified as her father), who reportedly imprisoned her in this Tower. According to the legend, rather than becoming his lover, she committed suicide by throwing herself from the Tower into the Caspian Sea".

Um, gross.

Anyway, it was cool to see. You can even see where mortar fire has pockmarked the tower. I was thankful to get inside, out of the hot sun and climb the five or so levels to the top for a spectacular view of the city and out into the Caspian. Unfortunately, I was followed in by a pack of 13 year olds, screaming and pushing and generally being obnoxious. Plus, the stairs were so narrow, you had to wait to descend until everyone had climbed up. But over all, I got my two (1$1.60) worth.

After that I poked around some carpet markets, but as I wasn't in for haggling today, I kept my distance from the shopkeepers who kept braying at me to "looknoneedtobuyprettyladyjustlookonemomentcomeinside."

By that time, I was getting really HOT. In an effort to look less conspicuous, I've taken a drab color vow - that is, to only wear black/grey shirts, dark jeans and my huge (thank god they cover most of my face) Mary Kate Olsen sunglasses while out on the town. (On a side note, I also found some lipstick, so I feel less of a ghost than I did a few days ago.) That being said, I really didn't expect it to be so HOT and very sunny today, so I was pretty sweaty after dragging myself through the dusty old city.

Luckily, it was nothing that a big old Magnum ice cream bar couldn't fix!

After that, I set off to find another museum. Yesterday, I managed to find and get into the Folk Arts and Rug museum. Today, I was determined to find another one. I say determined because the map I have from the hotel isn't the best on the cultural front - however, it does have tiny little red flags for each place you can find a United Colors of Bennetton at. Sigh.

I didn't find the first museum I was aiming for, but I eventually stumbled across the National Museum of Fine Arts. It was in a crumbling old building, I found out later that "...was the former palatial residence of Claude de Burr and designed by Nicholas A. von der Nonne in 1888 and constructed around 1891." Too bad now most of the paint was coming off in large chips and half the windows were cracked.

I wandered around in the Western art wing, wondering why one earth I had paid money to look at third rated Dutch artists from the late 19th century paint windmills and chipped pottery, until I met Ismira.

Ismira works at the museum and directed me towards the Azeri portion of the gallery. She was young enough (20) to have learned English in school - I've found the cutoff age for English speakers to be around 30 here. Anyway, she was directing me towards more crappy Dutch art when I frustratingly said in English, to really, no one in particular: "Isn't there any Azeri art in the Azeri Art Museum?"

She understood atleast the Azeri Art part and took me into four rooms with rugs and traditional mettalurgy. Alas, that's where either her knowledge of Azeri art or English failed her, because she couldn't tell me much about the pieces. However, I had my captive. I wasn't letting her go that easily.

I had her tell me her name, and told her mine. I pulled out my map and asked her if there were any more art museums close by. She called over a few friends and they excitedly started searching the map for the Sanil (?? I think) metro stop. Then Rima, an older woman, joined us and I was HER captive. Through Ismira she peppered me with questions, "How old are you? Where are you from? Are you married? Do you have babies (she said this one, making the International Gesture for Baby - two arms swinging in a cradle in front of her bust). ? Where is your husband?

I laughed and told her I left my husband back home. Ismira translated and we all laughed. Clearly, I was anomoly. Also, terribly ridiculous because they couldn't stop laughing -and not in that nervous "I am so embarassed by my English" sort of way, but in the "This woman is insane and we can say anything about her in front of her and she is going to smile like an idiot" way.

Oh well, it was really my first encounter with meeting (non skeezy) Azeris actually IN Azerbaijan. And it was nice, you know, to connect with someone, even if in an awkward way.

This thought has been bouncing around my brain this weekend: Not only is traveling to a different place culturally isolating, but there are times when it's necessary to be inconspicuous -and times when I really crave a human connection. Because of this, I try not to speak (accent gives me away, as does the obvious English) and as such there are often whole hours that go by as I'm walking the city where I don't say a single thing. I eat supper alone. I eat lunch alone. I work out, alone. I try not to make eye contact with men, who invariably stare at my non-dark hair. I pretend that I am invisible, to make myself less vulnerable.

And while I'm not really sad about this (it's only temporary, really), it is a weird feeling. It's hard to choose when you want to be seen and when you don't. For me, it's a bit like being suspended in time. Or moving about an empty city. I don't want to be seen by someone who will bother me, I do want to meet people and learn about their lives. So it was doubly nice - even if they were laughing at me - to have made an impression, to have been seen by someone (who didn't make kissy noises at me) and to have been a part of someone's day, not just a random woman who walked through your photograph.

Let's hear it for the small things -

M.