the beach and a disco baby!

So this was an eventful weekend. The PC took all of us to Gobustan which is an hour outside of Baku. There are tons of huge rocks that have what they claim are the oldest carvings on the planet-some dating back to 10,000 BC and they were mostly women, men, cows, deer, dogs, and other animals. It was insanely hot-probably 100+ and in the desert basically, so we were in a great mood. Then 20 of us hopped 2 vans and drove 4 hours up the coast to Nabran to meet 5-6 current volunteers for some serious beach time and to go clubbing. The Caspian Sea (which is actually the world’s largest lake) has decent water up there, so we were loving actually being able to swim in non-gross water. We all came back with horrible sunburns, include my glowing red self. We all went out to a disco on the beach and danced till 3am and had a blast! That was the first time we’ve actually been able to go out on the town since we’ve been here so it was fun. I had a dance off with 10 local guys doing the Azeri dancing moves they love. Needless to say I made an ass of myself, but I made some new friends. All of the hotels in the town were booked, so we all stayed in local houses. We each paid $5 for the night. 12 of us were in one house that had 2 rooms with space for 5 people each, then a big living room area. We thought we had all of that to ourselves, but when we came home at 3am the Russian family (6 of them) had put up blankets 2 feet high cutting the main room in half and had all crashed on one side of the room with the lights on. Well this was both shocking and the funniest thing ever. One of my good buddies Tom and I started laughing so hard and just couldn’t stop for 20-30 minutes. Well the other 10 people followed our lead and started laughing and it was a complete mess. It was so loud, but the family never flinched or said a word. I had to sleep on the floor in the room with the family since we were out of space which was fun for them I’m sure. I was just glad they didn’t kick me in the head when they got up in the morning because I probably would have deserved it. Having said that, we paid them $60 total and that is more than the average monthly wage in AZ, so they couldn’t be too made at the stupid Americans. This week should be low key, but this Friday we find out our site and job placements, then we get to go to Baku Saturday for the first time to shop, eat at McDonald’s/big city restaurants, and go out on the town. Most of the current AZ volunteers are coming in for the weekend as well to finally meet all of the new kids and go out with us. That means about 80 Americans with an average age of 26 are going to be tearing up the city….I pity the locals but it should make for some good stories on next week’s blog.…the pictures are of the beach we went to and a few of my friends and I at the disco…