Nomadic Amateur-Azerbaijan Part I

Going through my pictures from last year and earlier this year is a daunting and surreal experience. I'm not even bothering with the pictures from the days of yore, a.k.a. pre-2010, because of the gargantuan size of the collection.
It's disorienting.
I have experienced too much in too short a period of time; I have forgotten so much.
Fragments of memories are scattered all over, never in a coherent manner; random bits come back at an unexpected timing.
Or perhaps, I'm just going senile.

I normally neglect to write down details of my trip mainly because I tend to either travel myself to death, or have too much fun to take the time to sit down and write a few things down. If anything, I rely on occasional Facebook status updates to keep some people updated on recent nonsensical episodes.

I do love the process of jotting things down though, so sometimes I make random memos here and there, only to come across them a few months later and stare at them for hours, hoping the intense scrutinization will help break the code.
I'm convinced that I have the next bestseller of prophecies written down somewhere.
We'll never know.

Looking up some photos from Azerbaijan left me cackling maniacally and feeling nostalgic at the wee hours. I've been to a number of places, some more popular than the other, but perhaps Azerbaijan is the most unknown territory amongst my social circles. So people still ask me from time to time-what is there in Azerbaijan? What did you do? To tell you the truth, I didn't do much. There were some glorious sights, of course, but I didn't do much sightseeing compared to my other trips. I didn't have a set schedule to be anywhere aside from the return ticket to the States, so I just lingered in a few places, hanging out with the locals and just…living.

I crossed the Georgian-Azeri border in a rather hasty manner, even for my standard-got my visa a few days before, picked a town to arrive, then off I went via a long van ride.
Not knowing where you are can be hard.
Not knowing where you are going can be hard.
Not knowing anything about where you are can be hard.
Yet it has somehow worked out pretty well; it can be an inconvenient, yet alluring experience.

My usual cynical attitude (read: bitchiness) doesn't translate well, as I tend to smile a lot more out of nervousness, so I accidentally portray myself as a pseudo-friendly person in unfamiliar territories. It had been a while since I last had visited a country whose language I didn't speak(2007). My Azeri was non-existent, so I figured I'd rely on my Russian instead.

I don't speak Russian.

Most of the Russian words I knew were rather inutile; Much of my teenage years were spent around Russophones so consequently, I have amassed a mixture of limited vocabulary.
Random class instructions? Check.
Your usual silly teenage vulgarism? Check.
Practical basic phrases? Niet!
Another regrettable wasted childhood period? Check.

"Lost in Translation" doesn't really begin to describe my experience. I found myself on second class Soviet trains with every eyes in the room following even the most minute action I was making. At that point, there isn't much to do besides laughing at the whole situation. People were eager to converse with me and were consequently perplexed to find out that I, who appeared to be an Uzbek, didn't speak Russian. My ethnic background has been a subject to much speculation more often times than an healthy allotted amount, and it's been guessed anywhere from an Australian to half-Mexican-some people get real specific-so while I normally expect people to wrongly assume my ethnicity, I was puzzled at why people kept on thinking why I was an Uzbek since I really didn't see a resemblance to my Uzbek-American friends. (A few months ago, I got to meet a group of kids from Uzbekistan, and I guess I look more Uzbek than others)
People were confused. Why did this Uzbek-looking girl claim that she's an amerikanskii and cannot speak Russian? I certainly wasn't going to "impress" the fellow passengers with the display of my classy knowledge of Russian vulgarism.

The suspicions soon wore off-they probably decided I was an imbecile-but the novelty didn't. Between blatant staring and bashful exchanges of smiles, people offered their food and help in any way they could provide. Perhaps the saying "it takes a village to raise a child" most accurately describes what went on. Even the simplest, most mundane activities never failed to provide people with a source of amusement. As I struggled to make my bunk bed with the provided sheets, people offered their help to tuck me in. You read it right, yes, I was 24 at the time and people were tucking me into my bed. They motioned me to lay down so I can be tucked in nice and proper for the night(restrain yourself from making sexual innuendos) while I chuckled the entire time, and the rest of the passengers continued to gaze on with a proud look on their faces for showing the Azeri hospitality.