Mees Veesits Oz-erbaijan

When people from home visit, you want the trip to be perfect. When it’s your girlfriend and you’re celebrating your second anniversary, that desire is at least double, if not more. I was even more stressed because the day before Caroline was set to visit, I was at ABLE, finishing up the camp and bringing the boys home. I rushed home, discovered that our washing machine was broken, decided that washing laundry would take too long by hand, and double-checked that the hotel room was reserved. The day she was to arrive, I bused in to Baku, checked in to the hotel, turned on the air conditioning, and waited until the evening.

Getting to the airport is always an adventure. As usual, I took the metro from the Old City to the stop closest to the airport. I found my way out of the maze on the right side of the highway this time, and started looking for a bus. I asked for clarification, and was directed to a bus that was pulling away, forcing me to chase it down. By this time I was checking my clock regularly, watching the time tick down to the plane’s landing. Naturally, the bus did not actually go to the airport (this being Baku), and once more I was deposited on the wrong side of the highway from the airport, and had to walk in to the airport, as cars zoomed by and security guards gave me confused looks.

Finally, after what always seems like eons of watching the wrong people come out of the baggage claim area, Caroline emerged. By the time we made it back to the hotel, this time by taxi, Caroline was exhausted from her trip. The next day we set out to wander around Baku, particularly the Old City, but were stymied by the heat and humidity of Baku, so after several hours, and a delicious brunch, we retreated back to our hotel and the A/C.

That evening we went out to celebrate the two years, choosing an Indian restaurant as sushi, our first date, was not feasible. Stepping into the restaurant was like stepping out of Azerbaijan and into a whole new world for the whole meal. Plus, we updated our anniversary tradition—ethnic food. We returned to the hotel to discover that the A/C we so desperately were craving had stopped cooling. After much fiddling and playing with the remote, we resigned ourselves to a sweaty night, only to discover part way through the night that all the cooler had needed was a bit of a break.

The heat would plague us throughout the trip, and sadly limited what was comfortable to do during the day. We spent the majority of the trip in and around Ismayilli, my site, which Caroline can now pronounce perfectly (not a criticism of before, but a fault of my typing with a keyboard that does not include an “I” without the dot). Caroline had her share of culture shock, which was to be expected. It’s hard to get used to the staring and some of the gender differences, especially when it’s so hot on top of everything.

The time in Ismayilli went smoothly, and was relaxing and quiet. We had several meals with my host family, including a plov meal, being a special event (Caroline’s arrival), and kebabs, as well as a spaghetti and tomato sauce meal that Caroline cooked (with some help from me, mostly accolades and cheering). Caroline also took the initiative and cooked stuffed chicken and scalloped potatoes. It may be like camping sometimes, but you can eat delicious food even when you go camping (I recall my father winning a pie-making contest while camping on an island in the Florida Keys, for instance).

We ventured out of Ismayilli city to visit two villages. The first, Lahic, is the go-to tourist village, which I’ve discussed in previous posts. A new discovery, though, is that the village was the filming location for a recent movie, Absurdistan. So if you’ve got Netflix, give it an order and see what Azerbaijan villages are like (maybe, I haven’t seen the movie yet).

We also visited the Shato Monolit, or Chateau Monolith, Ismayilli’s winery. Ismayilli rayon, in particular the Ivanovka village, was once home to a large winery during the Soviet era named after the village, but the production moved west towards Ganja while keeping the now misleading name. Visiting the winery was like finding an oasis of style in the middle of nowhere. I don’t mean this as an insult; it’s just that the roads near the winery are typical dirt village roads. And then bam! There’s a garden and a pool and beautiful green grape vines and large steel fermentation tanks. We’d stumbled out of Ivanovka and into Napa Valley. The wine wasn't fantastic, but the rose was good, at least according to someone who doesn’t drink many roses. Paul Giammatti might disagree.

A plan to travel to Nabran fell through (most regrettably, since that’s where the swanky beach resorts are, and I know that the pirate ship pool I saw would be amazing) due to heat and sickness, but resulted in a relaxing few days holed up in an air-conditioned hotel room and eating delicious Baku restaurant food.

Perhaps not the most exciting trip, but it was definitely a big trip. I was touched that Caroline would visit, that she would travel to the other side of the world, braving airplanes (not her favorite mode of transportation), an entirely new culture, and spending quite a chunk of money to get here. It meant a lot to me that she would come and see the place that I live and is so important to me now. To share that with someone, as I’ve been fortunate enough to do twice now this summer, is a great feeling, even if we didn’t do everything we thought we would.