Weeks are just longer in Azerbaijan

I'm sure for most people their first week in a new job flies by, but I swear they must have at least 12 days in their week here because this. Week. Has. Taken. Forever.

And so far, we've come up with two big conclusions about Baku; they really like fountains {they are literally everywhere}; and when it comes to driving there are no rules - on Tuesday our minibus driver took a wrong turn so he reversed and drove the wrong way up a one way, 5-lane main road of oncoming traffic in rush hour.

We moved into our temporary accommodation on Wednesday - it's nothing fancy, just a hotel room with a microwave and toaster. But at least it means we're only 10 minutes from work so we don't have to get the bus each morning. Plus the view is pretty awesome.

Now that we're based in the centre of the city everything is so much easier to walk to, which makes it a lot more convenient as we can practically fall out of bed and into a supermarket. But what we can buy food-wise is still pretty limited as we have nowhere to cook {and microwave meals don't seem to have made it here quite yet}. So we're sticking to the basics - milk, bread, cereal - and then eating out for lunch and dinner.

Some things are really cheap, a loaf of bread is about 20p, but then some things are really expensive, like my jar of peanut butter for £3. But it probably all evens out in the end.

Besides hanging out at the pool this weekend we went to explore the Old City. It's the original walled town of Baku with lots of old buildings, carpet shops and other sights. It was really good, but all I could think about the whole time was how much of an amazing job the designers at Disney's Animal Kingdom do, because it looked exactly like that. We're going to go back when it gets a bit cooler and do the guided tour.

We also experienced our first Baku blackout on Friday night. We were sitting on the terrace at the Marriott with a few friends and suddenly everything went out. Even the fire pits. And for a city where every building is lit up for as far as your eye can see, it was a big deal. I'm just glad we were still sitting down and not walking back by then.

And that was pretty much our week. Aside from our medicals, but I'll tell you  about that another time.