Baku and a haircut

My group finally got a chance to go to Baku and check out the capital on the 17th, so here are some pictures. It was nice to have a day off and be a tourist for a bit. Baku is pretty typical big city, but the old part of the city was really cool. I also never expected to be so happy to get a happy meal.

Last week I also cut my hair. It was getting to be too much of a hassle to wash it in the sink between my once a week showers. After a call from my LCF who was upset because she though I cut it really really short ( She actually asked me why I would do that, I'm a girl) my host family thought it was hilarious that I cut my own hair. They said I should go to Quba and be a hairdresser, which is actually easier to explain than youth development work, so I think I'm just going to go with that. Pictures from Quba are coming.

Flying carpet store

I'm pretty good and getting in the way of pictures

Maiden's Tower

Baku

Of course I'm not paying attention.

Best cluster ever!

In AZ

Some of the things I still haven't gotten tird of:
Walking past sheep on the road to school in the morning
Seeing guys do road construction in suits
Takis, restaurants, busses and random people on the street changing the radio to English music when I am around
Drinking tea and eating candy.

Speaking of candy, my first box from America finally arrived and it contained a giant bag of Skittles from my family, which was awesome. As I was sitting on the roof of the chicken coop eating said skittles a group of neighborhood kids came over to say hi and ask me again why I am sitting on the roof. I decided to come down from my hideout and offer them some skittles. They loved the skittles and we ended up playing volleyball in the street (with a soccer ball). This is what I had pictured life in the Peace Corps to be like when I was still in America, and it was sort of awesome. I really like the kids on my street and they don't seem to care that I can barely talk to them (which was clearly evident when I called the red skittles dirty flavored before I remembered the word for strawberry, Chirkli vs. Ciyelek, anyone could have made that mistake).

Pictures

I probaly should have posted these sooner but here is a picture of my street in Sumgayit, the Caspian Sea in Sumqayit, and the Kur River in Salyan.

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!