An Organized Trip to Baku...

So last Saturday, the 15th, my cluster, along with others, went to Baku as a group. This was a day that was organized by the training staff for us to have a chance to see a couple of the sights in Baku. First, it was quite the effort to get to Baku in the first place. There are busses that go straight from Tagiyev to Baku but they were all full and we didn’t want to keep waiting, so we finally just took one that would take us to Sumgayit and then we switched to one that would take us to Baku. Our first site once we were in the city was Martyr’s Lane, which is a memorial to those who died on January 20, 1990. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia site that will tell you what happened better than I can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_January. Then we loaded onto another bus and after a couple tries found the Peace Corps office. Good thing I’d already been to the city once (to buy train tickets for my upcoming site visit) because otherwise I’d feel that I didn’t learn anything about navigating my way around – we were just herded from place to place for the structured part of the day. One of the staff members was on duty at the Peace Corps office and we received a tour as well as the opportunity to take some books from the library/lounge. Yay! I had already finished the books I brought with me and was looking for something new. So I borrowed some books to hopefully tide me over for awhile. It’s amazing how quickly books can accumulate – we’re only the 6th group of volunteers in Azerbaijan yet there’s this full wall of bookshelves that are stacked multiple books deep. Many volunteers travel after their time in done in Azerbaijan instead of heading right home to the U.S., so they end up downsizing because of this. Also, why not share books? Apparently you don’t leave home much in the winter except for work, so a lot of reading will be done.

After visiting the Peace Corps office the structured part of our day was over. When we came to Baku earlier in the week to buy train tickets we ate at McDonald’s, so it was no big deal on Saturday. But that first time, wow, McDonald’s was good! I think I ate a BigMac for the first time in my life! And it tasted wonderful…although I think it was more the familiar food (hamburger and fries) than it was actually McDonald’s – I much would’ve preferred one of my dad’s Angus burgers, but McDonald’s did the job and it wasn’t Azeri food.

During the afternoon we went down to the old city and went up in the Maiden Tower. This is the location of an Azerbaijani fairy tale/folklore. In the end the woman jumps off the tower into the Caspian and her lover follows her to his death. No happily ever after there. But it was interesting to climb up in the medieval tower and see the views of the city. The old city is also where there are a lot of goods for sale – rugs, weavings, scarves, traditional shepherd’s hats, etc. Hopefully at some point during my 2+ years here there will be a chance to return – I’d love to have time to actually look at the items. We were on a pretty tight schedule with needing to be home around dark.

So from there it was pretty much a ride on the Metro back to the bus station where we caught the bus home. It was a mixed day – for part of it we felt like the antithesis of what we should be, American tourists shuttled around on a bus, while the rest of the day was pretty relaxing and fun, just exploring the city. If only it didn’t get dark so early!