Nick’s Barmy Wales Trip in the Baking Baku Heat
18 Jun
I got up next day at about 3pm. I had been lying awake I think for around three hours, unable to get up. Probably had had some weird dream. It was a Sunday and my plan had been to maybe go to the coast and to the extremely impressive-looking museum I’d passed a couple of times in a taxi. But first of all, I wanted to get a SIM card, so it was back to the phone shop.
I really just could not comprehend how it could take so long to buy a SIM, plus whatever package. I mean, of course it was difficult with the language barrier, but perhaps as I was in an area where there were virtually no tourists, the guy had not often had to sort out a SIM for a foreigner, and it was apparently an issue? Honestly, it must have taken him about three quarters of an hour!
This time, there was also a girl in the shop, and I did pity her, as I did anyone working long hours here, having to wear a mask – a mask in this heat is no fun. There is generally a far more laissez-faire attitude in Azerbaijan, with few signs, not many people enforcing etc but some still do wear the things.
At one point, the guy serving me left the shop – I think in fact to actually go and buy some data from a different shop after he’d had a problem, I don’t know – but he was gone for about ten minutes, leaving me just standing there, the girl behind the desk mostly tapping on her phone.
In the end, I thought what the hell, maybe I could ask if she’d like to go for a drink. I made the international hand symbol for you, me, go for drink? She tapped something into her phone, and yet again, Google was apparently baffled as she told me “I will push you but I cannot speak.” I have to admit, I was tending to think this was a favourable response, the idea that she might want to push me, but I got the impression it had to be done behind her boss’s back, and since he did then almost immediately return, I was left trying to think – for yet another fifteen minutes or so – how we could arrange some sort of meeting. I eventually plumped with holding up nine fingers and pointing – here – while the bloke was doing whatever he was doing. She nodded. Finally my phone was returned to me, and I left the shop, intending to return at 9pm to meet the young lady, with no idea how it was going to go as I could barely say please or thank you, and I guessed nor could she. And even then, after all that, the phone did still not flipping work! What the hell, I thought, I’d just use up my Vodafone data for now.
Despite taxis being so cheap, I thought I’d try the Metro. There are not that many metro stations though, not like London where there’s one about a ten minute walk from anywhere and all clearly signed. I just could not find the entrance to one. Walked around a nice park, had an ice cream. Eventually I spoke to someone who said the Metro was closed anyway! So I decided I’d leave the coast/museum till the next day and just basically take the day off (I did finally find a metro that seemed to be open after all, so resolved I’d also try that another time).
With about an hour to kill before I hoped to meet the young lady, I tried learning a bit of Azerbaijani. I quite liked the sound of some of the words, but I really am so hopeless at learning. By the time it gets to about the fourth word I’m trying to learn, I’ll have forgotten the first.
So anyway, I went back to the shop at nine, and of course, it was still open! With the girl still working inside. All the shops are open late here. All I could do was go in, have the guy spend another ten minutes getting my phone to work, and just sort of wave and say goodbye. I had had an idea that the girl had actually asked her boss if she could finish early, so I decided in the 0.001% chance that this was the case and that she might think along the same lines as me, I went to the bar opposite. Here, I did at least see a very good local female singer. I had one beer, stayed for about an hour, had a nose in one or two other bars, which were dead, and then just headed home, I think.
I wasn’t feeding myself especially well. I’d bought a couple of cheap pizzas from a baker’s (who really hated serving me, I could tell), and these were my staple. They were quite nice though. Not just stuffed crust, but stuffed all the way through. I couldn’t find milk. I’d buy what looked like milk, would get it back and it was more like yoghurt – don’t know if it had just curdled in the shop. But basically, it was black coffee in the morning.
Great