This is the bathroom at the building I've been at for the last two
days. The toilet paper provided for this hole was cut up squares of
newspaper.

Breakfast of Champions

So I think I'm eating spaghetti for breakfast tomorrow morning. By the time I got home from work today the main grocery store was closed, and the smaller place that just sells fruit and vegetables only had bananas that were brown and black. If I was making some sort of banana shake that would probably be okay, but I really don't like my bananas looking like they were jumped in a dark alley. They also didn't have any apples left. There were onions, but I just can't imagine biting into one of them has the same sense of satisfaction.

Also, today was an eye opening day in the sense that I'd have never thought it would be so difficult to get a scientist to answer a question like "What does your technology do?", or "Who are the potential customers?" I do however have a better understanding of multilayer synthetic crystals and how they relate to carbon testing spectrometers. I'm also fairly sure that one of the scientists I was talking to today must have been thinking, "You idiot, how could you not know that every steel production facility uses spectrometers to measure carbon levels in their products."

Also, I listened to a 30 minute presentation about mushroom growing substrates. Talk about exciting.

Lastly, since these scientists are all paid by the government and work at govt. labs - and as you've heard me mention things are a little crazy here with the financial situation and things...I've learned that these scientists don't know month to month what they are getting paid. One of the guys who I've spent a lot of time with talking about many things has explained how last month he only received half of his salary because that is what was available. He is working this month on his research and doesn't know if he will receive 50% or 100% of his salary for this month. I had two takeaways from this: 1) That sucks. 2) At least these people are saving enough of their money to get through such a situation. While I'm sure some haven't saved enough and are in serious trouble, I'm guessing that there are more people here who are ready to find out they are only receiving half of their salary than people in the US who are prepared to find that out.

I have pictures to put up soon, but I'm quite tired and will be passing out shortly.

Me tired

So today I left my apartment to go to the conference I was attending at 8:45 AM. I just got home at 11 PM. In the process I learned that going out to dinner means that no matter what you ordered the bill is split evenly, so even though I didn't order a salad or soup, had no tea or coffee, and ordered the cheapest meal, I payed an even split of the bill. I would have been fine paying up to 150 or so since my dinner was 107 and I have no idea what my coke cost, but 240 just doesn't seem fair. Sure, it's about 18 dollars, but I'm trying to be as cheap as humanly possible here. For 240 Hrivna I probably could have eaten for 3 days on my own.

Also, one of the guys who is a consultant and speaking at this thing just flew in today. He's a professor at Stanford and does some other stuff. He seemed like a pretty impressive guy and I was thinking that collectively the things that he and the other speakers/consultants I was out with have done are pretty cool. I could totally see myself doing what they do, and thought he was a pretty interesting guy. Then he asked me if I had any knowledge of the dating services around town because he wanted to go out on a date while he was here. I told him what I knew - which is that I don't know anything except that if you talk English on the streets someone will be sure to hand you a card or brochure telling you where you can find a wife or 'massage'. To this he replied that he wasn't looking for a prostitute, but if he went on a date with someone and ended up taking her back to his hotel room it would be okay. Suddenly I wasn't as impressed with the guy.

18 vs 18

Apparently there is a difference between the trolleys numbered 18 and the buses numbered 18. The 18 bus goes along the road of my apartment, the 18 trolley does not. I found this out after riding the 18 trolley from one end of its route to the other. I eventually got off at the road I needed to be on, but further away from home if I had just walked from where I got on the thing in the first place. I'll check later, but I'm fairly sure I covered 9 miles today.

Bobby, regarding your comment about shorting things here - the Ukrainian stock market is down about 80%, and the currency about 40% to the dollar. So I think you missed the boat on that trade. The projections are that the GDP could be down by as much as 12% this year though, so there is certainly more room for it to fall.

I'm going to pass out now. My body hurts. Also, it probably was a bad idea to wear yesterdays socks today with all the walking I did.

Lucky number 18

So after finding the bank I had to go to that was easily two miles from the Azerbaijan consolate services building I stopped to get some food. After a quick sandwitch I'm back on the road on trolly number 18. I saw that the 18 passed the consolate a few times while I was waiting so hopefully this thing takes me towards a direction I want to go. Otherwise I'm pretty screwed.

7.5 Miles

That's what I'm walking today for 'work'. I have to go pick up a paper at the offices here, then walk all the way back past my apartment to go to the embassy for Azerbaijan. I'm hoping someone there speaks English.... Hopefully the banana I had for breakfast holds me up. After I get back I'll probably go out to lunch somewhere.

Also, yesterday my mind was blown by the fact that 1 liter of water weighs 1 kilo. Those crazy scientists who came up with the metric system really knew what they were doing.

Head in the sand

There are a lot of things I miss since I don't speak the language here. One on particular is just how bad things are in the country. After doing some fairly basic research I've found that it would have been better to keep my head in the sand. Either today or tomorrow I think I will head down to the ATM and take out about 1500 in local currency just to keep it under my mattress - not literally, I'll hide it somewhere else. Apparently the economy here is worse than I thought, people are getting laid off faster than they are in America, and the country really is on the edge both politically and economically.

And for somewhat more upbeat news... I found out this morning that my bowls are apparently not dishwasher safe. By 'found out' I mean that they seem to have both warped and cracked in a few different places. I had 4 bowls, and now I have two.