What do I do? Check out Azerbaijan’s capital’s museums, beaches, or historical buildings? NO! I spend a week hanging out exclusively with my good buddies Mike and Christie! (below, on the right) M&C are good friends from a different dimension, when we worked in Korea together. I’ve managed to meet up with them abroad in three different countries now! Not including the good ole’ US of A.
Pretty much what we did was eat a lot of food, drink a lot of beer, and go hashing. If you’re not familiar with the Hash House Harriers, it’s a club started by British colonialists in Malaysia way back in the day as a weekly running club, but from the very beginning it was more of a “drinking club with a running problem” as hashers will joyfully describe their organization to this day.
Above: Hashers performing rites of passage in front of the rest of the group. Those pitchers are full of beer.
Above: The beautiful Baku skyline as we run up the hill behind the city (below).
Above: Me and Christie! Below: Ayten with the distinctive Flame Towers in the background.
Above: This security guard was a little wierded out by all the random white people in exercise gear running around his section of the park. I think he was calling us in for unlawful assembly, but we just kept on runnin’!
Anyway, even though I’m not much of a runner, hashing is a really fun thing to do every once in a while, and it is Christie’s favorite hobby of all time. I’ll explain a bit more. Each week, the group chooses a ‘hare’ or two. The hare’s responsibility is to plan a trail for the next hash. Generally, they’ll plan the route, and then when the next hashing day comes along, the hare will depart 15 minutes ahead of the rest of the hashers, leaving various chalk markings, which can denote where to turn, where to look for other markings, dead ends, or where to drink or do other activities. Then the other hashers (we had about 25 people in this group) head out and try to catch up. At the end of the run, everyone gathers around for more drinking, songs, and hazing. It’s kind of like an inclusive, non-misogynistic coed fraternity party for old people. Sounds amazing right?
Aside from hashing, we galavanted around Baku and generally had a great time.
These fake mouths are to hide how sad and depressed everyone was.
Good eats with the big M.
Above: Fellow hasher Kathleen’s amazing bottle cap collection.
I bought a couple of persian carpets!
Above: Mike’s driver (yes, he has a driver courtesy Prez Obama) loads my bike into his car.
This little kid gave a killer high-five.
And I shave my head. End of story.
