I arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan very groggy. The passport control was very easy, I didn’t even need to fill out a declaration form. They just looked at my passport, gave the stamp and on I went. It smelled like smoke in the airport. I wanted to say hi to people but I’m really not sure how to. I think I said “spaiceva” or something like that to a couple people, which I think means thank you in Russian. Oops!
Some man grabbed my bags to help me and I tried to say no thank you, but he didn’t understand me. So, I just went with it. We whizzed right out and he got me a taxi immediately. I had no idea what the exchange rate was, but I had taken out 100 AZN. That couldn’t have been much money though, I assumed. But, I was wrong. Found out at the hotel that 1 USD = .80 AZN. Meanwhile, the taxi wanted to charge me 50 AZN. I had no idea how much the taxi would cost, and neither did I know the exchange rate, so I said sure. What else was I going to do.
Well, the guy stopped at the bank so I could exchange USD, but I didn’t need to, so he got change for my 100 dollar bill instead. Meanwhile, the ride had already been about 45 minutes. It was taking a while to get to the hotel from the airport. I was so tired, I couldn’t wait to get into bed. Though, it was a very nice ride. Lots of marble-looking buildings with elegant lighting shining right on them. Beautiful, exquisite architecture. Sure did look very Eastern European, though I am in Central Asia. Then, we approached some traffic ahead. Actually, traffic was stopped. I had no idea what was going on, but taxi said something about the president, that’s all I could make out. I assume the president was going by. So we wait for 10 minutes. Still stopped. Beeping starts ensuing, and lots of it. 20 minutes go by. Taxi gets on his phone, apparently the Ukraine president is in town and that is what this is all about. 30 minutes. Lots of honking. I am tired. 40 minutes. Lights turn back on and the heavy traffic starts to move. Lots more beeping ensues. Took another 15 minutes to get to the hotel because of all the traffic. I felt slightly bad for myself, yes; but also for the taxi driver. So, I tipped him another 10 in addition to the 50 I had already paid. He had given me lots of candy, carried my heavy bags for me, and successfully navigated through traffic to get me to where I was going. It was all good, though I wish I had known I was really giving him like 75 USD!!
We arrive at the hotel, and upon arrival at the front desk on the first floor there is no one. Taxi driver goes upstairs and comes back down, he looks confused. There is no one. So I fumble with my reservation papers and am about to take out my phone to call when a guy comes hop, skip and jumping down the stairs, literally. Him and taxi man have some words, then taxi man leaves. He grabs both my bags, I tell him they are heavy, but he gets his gripping and hop skip and jumps back up 2 flights of stairs. Seriously? He had to turn around and wait for me to huff and puff up the stairs. How did he just do that? Really. He is a tall skinny thing. Anyways, I was greeted very warmly at checkin by two men who were interested to see that I was from the US and it was my first time in Azerbaijan. They tell me I will like it here. I think they might be right.
My hotel room is ok. It’s up another couple flights of stairs, a bit small, modern looking. But the walls are paper thin and my mattress is as well and not that comfortable, either.
I settled into bed and answered some emails. In one of them I had to write to a realtor to say I’m a woman, they addressed me multiple times thinking I was a man. Then I turned off the lights by 1 am. I was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep all that well. I mean, it was like mid-day for me at home. I kept waking up and couldn’t fall back to sleep when I woke up at 7 am. Not entirely a bad thing though, I would say. Time to explore this place.
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