- Beer and old fish:
Yum yum yum.
I was walking home the other day around 8 pm. Since it is June, the weather is only mildly Hell instead of sweltering. Suddenly across the street, a random person yells out for me, using the now-familiar "Jamil" instead of Jeremy... which is just too hard to pronounce anyway. I really wanted to get home for some food, but his offer of "beer in the cool place" just seemed too good to pass up. A voice in my brain futily called out for me to check my surroundings, or at least to call a friend, but that was quickly pushed aside in the "name of the story."
When we got to the cool place, which was actually a dusty poorly lit basement (yikes!), we got some beers. I was trying to drink it as fast as I could, in order to get out of gross basement, but my host would have none of that. Thus, he bought some dried (but slimy) fish in a bag! While munching on the treat, we chatted about Michael Jackson, religion, and Muslim concepts of the sun and moon. I really spaced out after Michael Jackson, partly due to the rampant bones in my fish and partly due to the beer I suppose. I am just assuming we were speaking about Muslim concepts of the sun and moon because I heard those three words (Muslim, sun, and moon) a lot of times.
2. "Good morning, Jeremy. Come to a three day wedding, you have an hour to prepare!":
A few weeks ago, my counterpart called me at 8:00 in the morning. Salam Jeremy, she said, wake up! Slightly confused, I asked if we had had a meeting or if I was late for something. No, no she replied. "We are going to a wedding a few hours away and you must come."
AZERBAIJANI LANGUAGE NOTE: As far as my limited knowledge, the Azerbaijanis use the same word (mali or meli) for the English must, should, have to, ought to, it is necessary to. Thus English speaking Azeris often have a hard time choosing which to use and almost always use the word "must" which makes you feel like you are being yelled at all the time.
"A wedding?" I asked, kind of tired and not in the mood for blaring clarinets. "Yes, you must come. You have one hour to prepare. Hurry." *CLICK* At this point I could have called back and said, no I don't want to come thanks... but the adventurist part of me decided to ride out this storm. What I didn't quite know until I got there was that I would be at this wedding for THREE DAYS. It turned out to be a blast despite having to sleep in the same bed with random people, not shower, and watch a few lambs being slaughtered. The best part was the wedding itself. This was an araqsiz wedding (no vodka wedding), much to the chagrin of the men. So, as any high schooler would, we sneaked it in! I felt literally like I was 15 again, but was somehow comforted by the fact that men three times my age were casting furtive glances inbetween hearty swigs of clandestine bottles.
Me with the 'bad kid' table. Some may have drank more than me.
The (happy?) bride and groom. Bet you can guess what the red ribbon is for.
TO BE CONTINUED...
