I am here! This is only day 3 (Wednesday), but already the journey here seems like a million years ago so I will severly summarize so as not to bore you. Like any long plane journey, it was both completely boring and yet tons of stuff happened, at the same time. Left on Saturday, arrived on Monday- here we go!
Amazingly, Rebecca, who is also a student at IU, was on my plane from NYC to Moscow! We switched seats and got to be next to each other, which totally ruled. Here is us on the plane (near the end of the 10 hour flight):
Then we sat in the Moscow airport for 11 hours. Well, Rebecca was only there for like 8. We met Aaron, another IU student at the airport- also an amazing coincidence, but I knew he would be there. God it was boring- sitting, moving to a different place, sitting some more. Here is our IU SPEA-joint area studies Sheremetevo airport summer 2006 reunion picture:

At about hour 8 of the layover, I met an amazing man- John: here is his picture:
He is 87 years old! He is Armenian, but from Syria and has lived most of his life in California, and he speaks Armenian, English, Arabic, and I think someting else too. He started talking to me and is a really interesting and kind guy. He talked to me a lot about religion- he is "born again" and has been for like 50 years. He fancies himslef quite teh matchamker and spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince me and Aaron to get married. He was serious! He's got a bunch of couples together before and promised us a boquet of roses from his garden when we got married. It was hilarious and quite awkward, but he had great intentions and was so super sweet.

Anyway, things seemed quite bleak for a while in Moscow. The woman at the transit check-in desk told me that my luggage would not be transferred to Baku because I left my boarding pass thing on the plane from NYC. The guy at the transit office, however, said it would be no problem. So I was worried. And tehn I realized that I had no empty pages left in my passport- the pages I thought were empty were in fact not supposed to be used at all! So I was also worried that I wouldn't be able to get my visa and they would send me back to moscow on the next plane (without my luggage of course). So I was worried.

We flew in to Baku in a huge storm- we were flying low over the Caspian and could see big boats. Lightning was going off all around the plane- I was freaked out and super exhausted- the local time was 3AM, and I had alrady been in transit for 24 hours. We were OK though. Anyway, hooray, I got my visa (they had a confernece on whether or not they could use the pages they weren't supposed to use. I said, Davai! (do it!) and they said OK) and I got my luggage! (It took a while to get the visa, and when I went out to look for my bag, luggage from another flight was on the convyor thing. I couldn't find my bag and started freaking out. Then, a nice guy told me that maybe it was somewhere else, and I went where he said and there it was! Sitting there all by itself! Yes!)

God this is long already. Moving on, Ali, who met me, said that the apartment they had rented for me had fallen through and that I would spend the night at the apartmetn of Ramil, the director. When we got there, all the lights were out because of the storm and we climbed up 6 flights in the pitch black with all my stuff. We had tea (I was delirous with exhaustion) and then I slept for a few hours.

Monday was a holiday so no one had to work. Ramil showed me lots of pictures and a 3 DVD recording of his wedding. I was half asllep on the couch! Then we took off in search of a new apartment.

There were two cars and four of us- 3 guys from AYLU (Azerbaijan Young Lawyers Union, where I work) and me. And 0 seat belts. And lots of honking. I will probably write an entire post on driving soon. Let's just say, it's wild. The first apartmetn was nice, but the neighboorhood made me uncomfprtable. THe second was dirty, and there was no set on the toilet and so I was not interested. The third was 1.5 blocks form the main square (wow!!!) but a complete poverty hole. The fourth was closish to the center, had really nice furniture, and is near the logistical manager's apartment, which means he can drive me a lot of the time. Sold! It was also $50 less a month than the others, so great. At 10PM, I had a new home.

Really this is too long. So, my landlady wanted to stay and show me how everything works. As in stay overnight. Which she did. I wanted to be alone, but didn't know what to do. She is going out to the countryside, but needed the money from the apartment to get her tickets. So yesterday, I got home from my first day in the office, and she was there (I knew she would be)> I was so tired, all I could thnk was, WHEN IS SHE GOING TO LEAVE! I said I was going to the grocery store, and she came with me after a tense discussion. She barely speaks Russian, and I was having trouble communicating with her because I was so frustrated. Anyway, after the store, and her overhearing a phone conversation with a guy from work- him: os she gone yet? Me: no! Him: Why not? Me: I have no idea! SHe finally left. BUT, she asked of she could hang out there during the day. I was so frustrated, I said yes, even though I wanted to say no. Whatever!!!

OK, OK, OK. Enough for now. I will talk about work and stuff in another post.