Random Pictures of Imishli

Our wonderful Heydar Aliyev monument in our Heydar Park. (He is considered the father of Azerbaijan and every city has a park, museum, statue, street named after him, his quotes plastered everywhere, as well as giant pictures of him all over. His son is now the president.)

An absolutely amazing poster I saw in a school classroom. Yes, I did say school. What else would you want your kids to learn about?

Me trying to get gum off my shoe.


Some random apartments with their toilets in the yard. It is common for apartment buildings not to have indoor bathrooms. Glad I don't live in an apartment, oh wait my toilet and shower are in the yard too - about 50 ft from my front door!

One of the amazing sites I see at the plethora of butcher shops. Sometimes the legs are tee-peed together on the road, or there are buckets of blood, piles of skin, intestines laying around, not to mention the hanging meat or the tied up animals waiting to be slaughtered. Makes me happy I am a vegetarian.

Its the small things

Amazingly enough I finally found a drink in Imishli I like! I am pretty pumped. My three favorite drinks are water, skim milk, and diet coke. Diet coke is a no go in my dear city (it was even hard to find in Baku last time I went much to my utter disappointment), but I can find milk. It is not skim milk, the lowest percentage I can find is 3.5% and it tastes a bit different. However, I water it down and enjoy the special treat of milk. Normally I only drink tea and water. But, a few days ago one of my site mates introduced me to Aquinafina carbonated flavor water, a drink I would definitely turn my nose to in the states, but I tried it and am instantly addicted. It kind of tastes like a water downed 7-up, but I will take what I can. So the point of this - none, I am just really happy I found something I like in Imishli!

Unrelated, I did not go to work this morning so that I could help my host mother clean and prepare my new house. We did a little cleaning, but I did learn how to make my favorite meal - meatless grape leave dolma. I am super excited about this! The coolest part of it was that all I had to do was walk outside and pick the grape leaves off our grape vines and gather the greens I wanted from our garden. I am not sure why, but that was really fun for me - going into our yard for the ingredients needed!

As soon as I am all moved into my new house, hopefully in the next few days, and it is fixed up the way I like, I will take pictures and post them for everyone to see.