Heh.. the towels in my

Heh.. the towels in my hotel are embroidered with “Good Morning, American!” Gotta love a sense of humor.

It is about 11:00 on Easter Sunday morning here. Easter in the Orthodox calendar, that is. Even though Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, there is still enough tolerance that people are celebrating. I’m sitting in an internet cafe on the edge of a square that has a little park. The charge for use is about $0.40/hour. No matter that. In contrast with yesterday, today is a bright, clear sunny day and people are out everywhere. The little park has a swingset that’s full of kids. All in all, a pretty nice place.

Yesterday it was rainy and the wind was howling for most of the day. I was out for about 2 hours and it think it was the only clear two hours of the day. So I holed up in my room and got quite a bit of work done.

I’m headed to Tbilisi a day earlier then expected because the flight schedules changed, so I had to make up the lost time. Not my prefered way to spend a weekend day, but when it is raining and such…

The food here is great. I’ve been living on “doner” which are almost like gyros. The big difference is that these are not made of some pre-processed meat product that is molded into shape and put on a spit. These have very thinly sliced pieces of either chicken or beef or lamb stacked up on the spit and roasted on a really hot flame. The meat is almost charred, but not quite. The meat goes on a piece of lavash (flat bread) along with some herbs and a spicy sauce — sometimes a few pieces of tomato or cucumber go on too — and then it is rolled up and served. Fresh, hot and tasty!