So yesterdays meetings were almost entirely not related to what I am doing. Today however I will be meeting with people I need to interview. The weather forecast says that yesterday was the best weather we will get here so I ended up walking around with my free time and took a bunch of pictures.

The internet at the hotel is probably the biggest ripoff I've ever seen in my life. It's 16 dollars for 1 hour, or 35 for 24 hours. I went out and had a steak for dinner last night that was 13 dollars. It's not that things are that expensive here - although they are, but the hotel is blatently ripping off all the business people who come here and have their companies pay for the bill. I've heard the room I'm staying in is over the state dept per diem rate for accommodations which is $260 per night. It's not that nice, and the breakfast buffet service is not that great either.

For those of you that would describe yourself as 'out of the loop', Baku is in Azerbaijan. The country has about 70% of it's population living in the main city here. It's normally a warm place this time of the year, but right now its hovering around 45 which I was not expecting.

I have to change and get ready for work now.

I've landed

I need sleep - haven't got any. In Baku. Needed to buy a visa again since mine apparently expired 4 days ago. Time to work.

Shopping

I just spent 20 minutes trying to find and then try on some white undershirts. Nothing here has sleeves and I really don't want wife beaters.

Looks safe

Would you buy meat from this man on the street? Now that it's warmer
the openair market appears to move outdoors on the weekend.

Misc

I put some new pictures up, not a lot though: http://s595.photobucket.com/albums/tt33/mmmba08/

(I would post them here but the formatting for this site is crap)

It's nice that it's finally warmer here - mid 50's. 60 this weekend.

Start of this business trip next week is going to suck. I have a 1AM flight that is 3 hours long and arrives in Baku at 6AM. (2 hour time difference) From there, we start our meetings at 11. I won't be able to check into my hotel before we start. I think I'll be able to leave my suitcase with Liudmila and change in her room. I'm going to try to sleep during most of the day I leave so that the 3 hour flight will be more of a nap to my body and not where a deep sleep would go.

October 25th

The political system is a little different here than in the States. In particular the presidential elections. There isn't a set date for the voting, but there is a set day by when the vote must happen. Apparently today the parliament voted to hold elections on October 25th - which is much sooner than the day most people were expecting of around January 10th. This is good news since it means the chaos that will most likely be associated with the elections will come sooner. I'm looking forward to chaos.

14 Hours of fun

So I worked for 14 hours today. Was a long day. The 5 teams that won grants - I was only surprised by a few of them. Of the 6 teams I worked extensively with, 4 were winners, and the last grant took about as long to award as the first 4 - but both of the two potential winners were people I worked a lot with. I think this means that the work I did was instrumental in separating the contenders from the pretenders. If it doesn't, well, you can't prove otherwise.

Also, a Russian diplomat was found dead today in southern Ukraine. Apparently he hanged himself with his wife and child in a separate room of the hotel they were staying at.


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.