Baku boo

Here it is at last, all the latest news from the up and coming host city of the 2024 Summer Olympics... well maybe. Yes, today as my friend Dorje and I were lost trying to find the ABU university to play ultimate frisbe when we stumbled upon the Azerbaijan Olympic Committee complex. A nice bunch of beautiful new buildings where I would imagine Azerbaijanies are hard at work trying to convince the International Olympic committee to recognize Baku for what it is: the capital of a growing wealthy oil state, which according to my Lonely Planet, "is a city just waking up to its birthright as one of the last great oil cities on earth." And woke up, it sure is. Everywhere you look there is new construction and renovation of the beautiful old buildings that that oil barons at the turn of the century built. Cement and oil is in the air... literally. In the early morning hours you can smell the oil from the working rigs just minutes from downtown... I sometimes run with a group and we went through some areas that can only be described as post apocalyptic. Oil is spilled everywhere, shacks are built close by, kids are running around, there are empty or partially empty rusty barrels, trash of every description and old machinery in heaps. Not much shocks me but this place near, (I swear to God I am not making this name up), Villa Petrolia, is truly an environmental horror show. But having said that, the downtown area is beautiful! Lots of parks and squares, fountains and dramatic statues of famous people of the past. They of course all have there own gringo names... so when giving directions you might have some one say to you.... go up the hill by the John Travolta statue and then take a right onto dead sheep corner.... They do seem to do a fair bit of livestock butchering on one particular road, hence the name dead sheep corner,,, actually I think they call it sheep head street.. For me it has been great fun living in my first city.. You'll see pics of my apartment above. Below you will find the walking route I take to get there when I take the metro to school, a bunch of shots of the school TISA www.tisa.az and its great new building TISA 4 where the science and technology labs are housed. Following these are a couple of pics of the walking boulevard I live off of, plus some of the beautiful and not so beautiful buildings in the center. What I haven't shown are pics of some great mountain bike rides I've gone on, the swanky Hyatt 5 star Oasis club I belong to or of the metro itself. The metro is off limits for photo taking and I just haven't gotten around to bringing the camera when riding yet. No worries I have got time. Ok then cheers to all and enjoy your fall or spring depending which hemisphere you find yourself in.
Sue