To the Designers of Baku

Hello Designers of Baku. While I know you have your hands full trying to fancy up the capital of Azerbaijan to make it a truly European fancy town. I do have just one question for you:

Why would you make your city out of marble?

Please do not misunderstand me, it is very beautiful. However, I happened to be in your city during a heavy snow fall (snow storm even) and it was ridiculous. Everything that is made of marble instantly becomes humans worst enemy. I felt like a fool moving about all weekend. It was hilarious to watch other people walk or even fall. It was even enjoyable falling myself, but was this the best choice?

Thank you. - Lori

In other news, taking a broken door/shelf from the side of the road and sliding down an alley is the best way to spend some down time in the Old City of Baku. Brilliant actually. Bailey, Ruslan and I all had a great time. I attempted to jump on Bailey as she was sledding but I fell and my butt dragged all of the way down the hill. In case you were wondering, jeans will stain snow blue. All the way down the alley, blue.

The train ride to Baku was interesting. It should normally take about 12 hours but as this was a ridiculous snow storm it took about 19. I was supposed to be sleeping in a different car from all of the other volunteers but I didnt want to. It's just safer to be with the others. But how to do this? Easy, pretend to not understand a single word of Azeri. If you act confused enough and have everyone else follow suit, you can stay with your friends. Yay! Well we were definitely stuck on the train for a while but luckily we had Mike, who always brings snacks and we even got to watch some movies via laptop. Luckily we got there which, I must admit didn't seem likely even from the night before.
You see, the lady who sold me my ticket is a liar. Yes I said it. She wrote 21:05 on my ticket but I thought something was wrong with that because it left at 20:30 the first time I took it. So I was going to get there a half an hour early just in case. Of course leaving the hFam on time didn't happen but nonetheless I was on my way 25 minutes early for my train. I saw the lights of the train pull away from the station. What time was it? 20:35. Well shoot. I asked my cab driver to speed to the next village where I know it will stop next. He sped all right. And a few kilometers out my window I can see the train. Pretty much parallell for about 15 minutes and then teh taxi starts pulling ahead! Just in time to turn left and see that there is about 3 kilometers to go perpendicular to get to the actual station. Dang! The train passes us but the driver is shouting in excitement and he says that we'll beat it. I couldn't help but believe that cute little man, I think he felt like he was in a movie and we were saving lives. Well we got to the train station and the driver jumped out and ran as fast as he could to the dock yelling back to me that he would hold the train. It hadn't reached the station yet as slowing down took a long time. Just as the train halted I stepped on, success. That ticket sales lady is still a liar.