Lankaran

Salam dostlarm! I'm hanging out in a fun beach town in the south of Azerbaijan right now. We went on site visits this week to see what it is really like to be a volunteer. Five of us came here to stay with the two girls that are posted at this site from the AZ 6 group (group here before me). Its been a really nice and relaxing girls weekend; we've watched movies, painted nails, had Mexican and Chinese food, chocolate cake! and spend time walking around the beach and cute city area here.

This is the street that I've been staying on this week. Its been sunny and hot here and there are so many tropical looking flowers blooming everywhere!

Lankaran has a high quantity of Mosquitoes, so sleeping in a mosquito net is necessary and princess like at the same time.

The beach is just a short walk from Rachel's house (the PCV I'm staying with). Mary, Jess and I did some beach exploring. There were so many fishing nets like this around, some of them used old plastic water bottles as buoys which made me feel good since they weren't just throw on the ground.

Like I said we ate Mexican food two of the nights- Here Rikki and I are preparing for burritos and maybe being a little ridiculous with the tomatoes.

Living conditions are different in Azerbaijan then at home, but beauty is everywhere. I thought that this iron gate on someone's balcony was really cool.

This is Lankaran's city center with the Azerbaijan flag flying in the background.

I had to add this picture for you mom (and grandma). Walking around in the Bazaar I found this hardware store/stand. The stand keeper is sitting in the middle with all of these faucets and wires and whatever else hanging around him- Azeri Hardware store.

I got these awesome Talish (an ethnic group that lives close to the board of Iran) socks. They are hand woven from wool and so cool. I've had such a blast here and am really looking forward to actually beginning service. Tomorrow is back to language class and learning how to be a teacher. I'm not going to be able to put pictures up for a while now so I wanted to try and show you what things have been like so far (so scroll down cause I added some where they weren't before). Love you all- talk to you soon!