Well, here we are. Back in Azerbaijan again. All moved in and once that box of John's "work" things make its way down the street to the office, and the spare room bed gets some sheets on it....we'll be all in and done. In fact, we are down to rug shopping now which I take as a good sign. I think we'll like this place. It doesn't have the spectacular view that some of the other apartments had, but it has an okay one.
The common areas are nice (something rare in this town) and it's close to lots of places we tend to frequent....like Schlotzky's deli and Cinnabon for coffee.
Our favorite Chinese restaurant is on the corner and John can walk to his office in less than 5 minutes. No more having to look for street parking at Caspian Plaza because he has a place right here underneath our building. There is even a "super" or as he's called in Baku a "commandant" to look after the stuff that breaks....or doesn't work in the first place. I've had a few visits with the commandant already.
After all the looking, and thinking, and considering that went on in June over what apartment we should take, we ended up having to begin the search all over again when we got here at the end of August.
For some reason.....after the landlord handed over the keys to the one we had chosen (nice view, not so nice neighborhood) he decided that his son (who apparently had been dealing with it) made an error in the rental amount. Instead of 2,000 manat a month, he really wanted 3,000. A fact that only came to light after several meetings to resolve...whatever....the end result of which was a complete breakdown in negotiations. I didn't find out about any of this until it was all an undone deal and John called to ask me for the phone number of one of the other agents we had used. At the time he was pretty mystified about what had happened to blow the deal, and he had some of the local guys from the office working on it. He really was hopeful that whatever the problem it could be resolved....but in the end...it didn't happen. I was okay with it. The neighborhood wasn't what I had hoped for anyway.
John went to choice number two which was the duplex downtown near the school. I had really liked that apartment in June, but when I tried to deal with the landlord he was a major pain in the butt. He wanted 5 months rent up front and a 2 year lease just for starters. He wasn't bending on anything....so I gave up what I thought would be an awesome place because of that. By the time John got to see it he was still not bending and in the end, he decided not to rent it but to sell it, instead. We weren't interested in buying.
John and I arrived in Baku on August 29th and a few days later we started to look all over again. I was determined to find an apartment as soon as we could. Our shipment had arrived from Dubai and cleared customs, all we needed was a place to put it, and I was really anxious to get into my own place. We looked at 5 apartments on our first day out and this one was the 5th.
It's got 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 balconies, and the maid comes 2 days a week. She brings her almost 2 year old daughter with her.....so I'm getting in Grandma practice every Tuesday and Thursday.
Being back in Baku is okay. There have been a lot of changes to the city in the past 3 years! Somehow even the people on the street look more modern...if that makes any sense. There are new markets and malls....malls that look similar to western malls except that they tend to go up instead of sprawl. They don't have acres of parking lots either. The traffic here has gotten insane! So many more cars on the road; Hyundai and KIA are making a killing here. John is driving himself now and so far so good. Luckily the vehicle he's driving has over 200,000 kms on it so we really only have to consider personal safety while we're out there on the roads.
The end for now.....anticipating some good stories to share over the next while as I try to adapt to life in Azerbaijan all over again. It sure would be nice if I had of retained some Russian or Azeri, but sadly I have not....first thing will have to be finding a new teacher.
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