G'Morning all!
I'm in Ganja--about 4 hours west of Baku.
Just had a lovely breakfast outside with eggs, local bread, cheese,and tea. And my new favorite food, the creamy yummy part of milk (looks like cottage cheese) with honey. Ugh, so good , ate it with a spoon, but you're supposed to put it on bread.
Food here is damn good, so far. Its like a mix of turkish, iranian, italian, etc. Kind of goes along with Azerbaijan's cultural and religious history, which is fascinating. I guess it was a Christian nation for the most part until ole Ataturk came through. Then in 1917-1921 they aligned with Georgia and Armenia to make a Caucasus state, but soon after that, they were all annexed into the Soviet Union. I may be wrong about some of that, but it what I've pieced together from non-stop pestering of whomever I'm in an automobile with. So, its pretty much a secular state now. Iran (next door neighbor) is pretty pissed off about that since they think Azerbaijan should be a good Muslim state, (no more JLo stores....)
I really hate myself for not bringing a camera. I could post each day with a few photos that would show so much more than what I could describe. But I gotta tell you about the city of Baku, and the gorgeous drive out here, and even to see what the lovely people look like. Maybe in a later post when I'm feeling more verbose. Plus I think I can use the IMC office digital camera and just download the pictures each day.
You guys are all sleeping now anyway. Its tough, because when you guys wake up, its the end of the day for me. I've usually been out at the field sites all day, and then when I get a chance to sit down in the evening, the offices in the states open, and I get a ton of work emails. But thats when I want to email friends back, chat on msn or skype or gmail. And of course, I want to stay up and check out all the news, the French Open, the NBA finals, the World Cup, and Bunky's blog. Am I whining? I don't mean to. I love it out here.
I gotta run. Talk to you later.