Entries about living abroad

Tuesday 2nd of June marks the one year anniversary of arriving in Azerbaijan, so I thought to note down a few reflections of the year abroad.

I vividly remember arriving at the airport in Azerbaijan, nervous, excited and full of wonder. It was a dizzying thought that this foreign country would be the place I would call home for the next year.

Standing in the shuttle bus at the airport I was looking at the people around, a few solemn looking businessmen looking bored and tired, an old woman leaning heavily on her son as the bus started driving, a little girl with pigtails and big brown eyes excitedly pointing at everything happening around. It seemed like the girl was the only one sharing my emotions of wonder and excitement for arriving in Azerbaijan. Her mother was wearily looking out without enthusiasm. Perhaps it was also the girls first time in Azerbaijan, or she was just happy to be back home, at any rate she was just as excited as me to finally be in Baku!

Now one year later I would probably be more like the bored business men arriving at the airport, the romantic honeymoon stage of my journey is lone gone, and has been replaced with routine of ordinary life. But I still remember and treasure the first few weeks when I was experiencing Azerbaijan for the first time.

One of the things I love with being abroad is the wonder of it all, how you can be like a child again exploring and discovering the world. Okay, I admit, that might be a bit of a romantic take on it, at times adapting to a new country is more a feeling of frustration, embarrassing and helpless. But for sure

My experience somehow came to a full circle at the 365th day (That would be Tuesday 2nd June 2014). I was showing an intern around the city and to her new work. The girl had just arrived a few days earlier and all of this was very new for her. I took her around to her new work, took her out to lunch in one of my favorite restaurants and talked about the experience of living in Azerbaijan.

Over the last year I have gotten used to many things I couldn't understand in the beginning. For example when the bus we were supposed to take to the city suddenly changed its route and started going in the opposite direction. A year ago, I would be lost, but now I had gotten used to the roads and paths and managed to find our way from his strange route. Dealing with narcissistic businessmen (who of course were late for our appointed meeting time by 50 minutes). Who arrogantly told us “yes, yes, we can negotiate the working hours”, though we already have a clear contract on it. I found myself firmly repeating the same contract to him and what they had agreed on, I have started to understand the language of business now and learned the hard way that every condition, deliverable and requirement needs to be stared clearly. (And to always have a wide buffer in the timeline, as nothing will happen on time.

The last year has been a (for the lack of better words) rollercoaster. It has been amazing, frustrating, perspective-changing exhausting and unforgettable experience. Its not over yet, I still have 28 more days to go, and I plan on making more memorable experiences!

The months have flown by and I realize I have neglected updating this blog. But I do have some lovely events and places to catch you up about.

Last month Azerbaijan celebrated new year, better known as the Novruz holiday! The celebration marks the start of springtime and a new year. The preparation started a month before the actual holiday with Fire, Water, Earth and Wind weeks celebrated with bonfires and candles each Tuesday. But the proper celebration started on Holiday eve with a family dinner and Novruz games!

I was surprised to see many similarities of the Norwegian Easter traditions in the Novruz celebration. Easter and Novruz is even celebrated around the same time. Much like the modern Norwegian easter Novruz is a family-centric holiday, its a time to celebrate, eat good food, candy and be with family. Its not religious, but stems from the pre-Islamic period of Azerbaijan and its fire-worshipping traditions.

How to celebrate Novruz?
Eggs, children traditionally paint the eggs colorfully, but if you are a bit lazy just put a stamp or a plastic egg wrapper aroud it. You can also have an egg fight! You and your opponent have one egg each and takes turns trying to crack the others egg. If your egg cracks you loose.

Fire Fire plays a special role in Azeri tradition, and especially during Novruz times. During the dinner candles are lit for each person at the table. But more excitingly are the bonfires that marks the streets! All over the city people make bonfires to jump over. You should jump over it three times while wishing for what you want for the next year; this ensures you are cleansed and ready for the new year.
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Sweets & games It wouldn't be a celebration without sweets. The traditional sweets for this time is Shekibura, Baklava as well as dried fruits and nuts. Children also go to the neighbors knocking the door, quickly running away before they are seen but leaving their hats. The person opening the door should leave sweets in the hat for the children to pick up later

Predicting the Future new years is often a time of reflection and making wishes for the year ahead, and that also plays a part of Novruz. Predictions in particular are important. One way is to sneak up to your neighbors door trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. This will predict what the next year will bring to you. There is also many games and activities for single girls to predict who is their future husband, I didn't manage to take a part of that this year though..

Again I should mention this is not a religious holiday, so its mainly fun and games, but it was a very interesting thing to be a part of, take a look at these clips of some of my celebration of Novruz 2014

Hey there,

Its been a long time since I've updated, but I'll get back on track now. I've already celebrated my 8th month in Baku, and started the countdown of the last 4 month.

Last week we got a bit of a surprise when it suddenly started snowing in Baku, and the snow actually stayed for nearly one week! It started snowing Thursday evening and to my surprise and delight there was a beautiful coat of white snow when I woke up Friday morning!

A bit of chaos ensued then with cars going of the road, work and schools closing, as a 10cm layer of snow covered the city. Now it would be easy for a Norwegian to make fun of the chaos over so little snow, but for a country not prepared to handle a nordic winter even a little snow creates big challenges for busses, cars and such.

But for myself it was just a fun little taste of Norwegian winter (though there is no snow in Trondheim right now). So other than a few meetings being cancelled, the week opened for allowed for watching people have snowball fights and making snowmen and fall when they are trying to walk on the ice-covered ground.

Time passes fast and I'm quickly approaching my 6-month anniversary of arriving in Azerbaijan. That day will also make the start of the december advent time, and we can already see the stores are starting to get ready for Christmas. The approaching festivities make me think back on the more special days I have participated in over this time.

In these 6 months I've seen and experienced many things, so I thought to write a few notes on some holidays and celebrations I've experienced. The most noteworthy must be the exciting wedding I got to be a part of!

So, In September I participated in my first azerbaijani wedding, I was thrilled to get to experience this as wedding was on the top of my list of what I wanted to experience. Joining a wedding in any country is always a special event, but especially seeing foreign wedding traditions is a great memory.

The event we joined was "the girls wedding", so it was just the first part of the wedding of sorts. Let me be explain, there are two "weddings" in Azerbaijan: "The girl wedding" is actually an engagement party, it makes the engagement official, but the couple is not living together yet. Then some months later the "boys wedding" is the real wedding and the couple is husband and wife with all that entails.

The wedding started at the girls house, where aunts, grandma, mom and friends (and me!) were hanging out with the (slightly nervous) bride-to-be. The mood was giddy with excitement and relatives in other countries Skyped to participate by long-distance. People were chatting and hanging out while we waited for the boys family. After some time someone burst in saying that tha car had arrived, and nervous laughter and last minute make-up checks were done before the family came carrying baskets of sweets. After a photo-shoot the couple were escorted out to a waiting car, and we quickly followed as we went off to the wedding palace. All single girls (me included) were carrying the baskets of the sweets as we drove over to the celebration place. (I suppose to wish us luck or encourage us to find a man soon)

The wedding palace is elaborately decorated halls with circular tables filled to the brim with food and sweets. In the middle of the room on a "stage" the couple sits in front of a dance space. After a bit of waiting for everyone to arrive the couple entered the room, cameras were fixed on the couple as they entered and the ceremony where the couple put the ring on each others fingers. The ceremonial part of the wedding was over, but now the feast started! New, delicious dishes constantly came to the table and I got to try dolma, plov, kebabs and many Azerbiajani dishes. The waiter noticing I was not from Azerbaijan took special attention to me, bringing me two of everything, so I came home stuffed to the brim after that.

The couple is quite young, so the music was a mix of modern (English, spanish, french, russian) and traditional azerbaijani songs, which of course we were dancing to! Now, I'm terrible at dancing, but to everyones amusement I was dragged onto the dance floor several times (dancing my awkward version of azerbaijani dance, but having even children outdoing me).

Take a look at this small video I compiled

I finally got a long-awaited visit from my parents after 4,5 months of living in Azerbaijan. When you are moving to a different country or environment, you undergo a initial culture shock and discovery. The first few weeks are thrilling exciting and full of new experiences where even taking the bus can be an exciting new adventure. (I remember my huge challenge in China; figuring out how to buy fruit). But as time passes you find your own pace and place in the new environment

So now that I've been here a while it was an especially interesting exercise of reflection to see what they reacted to and thought of my temporary home . country. These are some of the things that my parents took a notice of during their weeks here.

Beep BEEEP
Norway is a quiet country, small cities, its even illegal to honk the horn unnecessary. So coming to Baku and seeing a totally different traffic picture left memories. First of all its the honking, the drivers will not think twice about hitting the horn as if the drivers feel the need to let everyone know that they are coming. The traffic is definitely a lot more audible than Norway. But even when the car is not in motion it brought a shock, because the parking is all over the place. Imagine a "unblock me" game and you have the parking norms, who cares about the guy that is parked is blocked in by 2 cars on all sides. That's his problem! I guess because I've never had a driving license I don't notice everything about the traffic picture, but this is obvious to anyone that its not a good solution.

Oh Baby
I knew before coming here Azerbaijan is a family focused culture, but it was my parents that pointed it out for me just how much the city has for kids. Going to the center or a park in the evening and you will find families with their kids playing around. And there is a lot of things especially equipped for children, the parks has trampolines, toys, electric cars and other activities for the small ones. I guess its not that Norway is not focused on kids (Norway is infamous for spoiling them), but rather we have more of these things at home, and many use their own gardens or playgrounds around their house instead. But its not just this practical aspect, there is also a bunch of stores focused on the kiddies. The country adores their little ones that's for sure.

Taste of Azerbaijan
One of the first things people asked me after I arrived (after "did you like Baku?") was "Did you try national food? Azerbaijan has the best cuisine". I have since tasted Azerbaijani food several times of course, (best be when home-made). Food is an important part of the culture. Let me tell you my parents loved the food here! And not just the local ones; we went to Azerbaijani, Georgian, Lebanese, Japanese, Turkish, Chinese and more. The diversity of food you can get here is amazing (They even sell Norwegian salmon!) In the edible section you can find just as much diversity here as you would in Norway, and when it comes to products in stores perhaps even more diversity. You can get danish cookies, norwegian water, Ukrainian chocolates and french wines. Its perhaps a novel thing, but having the opportunity to get the types of products you get in your home country really makes a difference when you are living abroad. Anyway it also says something about the diversity of people living in Azerbaijan(well Baku) these days; its an international crowd and ever expanding.

This was perhaps a bit of a short list, but I don't want to drag it out. My parents liked Baku a lot, thought it was a beautiful city with good food and many fun experiences.