I don't speak Russian

But more importantly I don't read Russian. When I found out I would be coming to Azerbaijan I was really excited that I could not only learn Azerbaijani but also Russian. My thoughts have since changed. I don't know if you have ever seen the Russian alphabet, but it is pretty intimidating. IT IS A WHOLE NEW ALPHABET. Not just slightly new like the Azeri alpabet with an upside down e or an i with not dot, but totally new with things that look more like pictures than letters. So I don't think I will be learning much Russian. The problem is that many products in Azerbaijan are Russian brands, with Russian writing which I don't read. And that is how I ended up with menthol toilet paper.

Here is a picture ( I stole it from Loki) of the super awesome Youth Development crew crammed into a marshukta.

And the winner is...

Okay, I realize it is pretty egotistical to call the city I will live in the winner,when really I think I'm the one who won, but I'm moving to QUBA!!!!!!

The Peace Corps announced our permanent sites and I will be spending the next 2 years in Quba,a city in the North East of Azerbaijan. I'm pretty excited about it,it is in the mountains and they are supposed to have some pretty awesome apples, so send me your recipies for cider and pie!

Here is another picture of me getting my blood drawn in language class.

My Day

A typical day for me during Pre-service training:

7:45am - Wake up because it is too bright in my room to sleep anymore

8:00am-Go downstairs for breakfast. I usually eat bread with butter and jam but the host Mom recently got a box of oatmeal for me, which is really good with the jam. Or course I also drink tea.

8:30am-Get my stuff together and go to school. As of yesterday though my language class does not start until 10:30am, but I still leave at the same time and go to Hannah's house and refer to that as "school" as well.

9:00am - 1:00pm - Azerbaijani Language class!!!!!

1:00pm- Go home for lunch

2:30pm or 3:00pm - Youth Development Program sessions. We go over how to do our jobs once we go to our permanant site. We don't have these sessions every day though, so on days off (like today) I'll go into the main part of Sumgait and use the internet, go shopping, or just wander around, Yesterday Hannah, Alison and I walked down the beach and ended up at the Hotel we stayed at when we first got here.

6:00pm - go home and sit around the house, studying, eating, drinking tea, etc.

10:00pm - Go to my room and read or watch a movie, then to sleep!

That is pretty typical but sometimes my cluster gets together to hang out, cook, watch T.V., or other variuous shenanigans.

The picture is of me getting my blood drawn in the corner of our language class.

Gobustan

Some pictures from our trip to Gobustan and the mud volcanoes. I got to climb on rocks all day, which was amazing!

Things I miss from the U.S. already,

-Family & Friends
-Pumpkin Spice Lattes
-Skittles
-Bacon
-Recycling
-Target

Finally Pictures!

Welcome to Azerbaijan! Have some shots!
The view of the Caspian from my orientation hotel balcony.
A dog on th ebeach of the Caspian.
Scary clown shower by the pool.

That is a lot of luggage

In a round about way I have one picture. It is of my language cluster and one other that lives near by right before we got dropped off at our respective host families. We packed ourselves in there pretty good.