In case you don't already know us, we're spending an academic year in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan - that's a former Soviet republic located on the Caspian Sea, north of Iran and east of Turkey (kind of the Florida of the Soviet Union, if you want to think of it that way). Since this is one of those "experience of a lifetime" things, we're going to capture as much of it as we can in words - both so that you the reader be entertained and possibly gain some kind of cultural benefit from our experiences, but also so that we will have a record of this period of our lives, to keep us from forgetting the daily reality of life in Baku in the years to come, when the thought of boiling water on the stove just to take a hot bath has faded into dim memory.

Unfortunately, we left our digital camera on the first leg of our 24-hour trip out here (it was free, though, so we're not too upset) - so we won't be able to put any pictures up. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, we'll just have to make sure we write many thousands of words to make up for it, which should be easy with both of us writing whenever the mood or inspiration strikes. Since we might cover some of the same territory, our entries will be divided by a single black line and signed so that you can keep track of who sees, feels, and thinks what.

We don't currently have internet access at home, so our postings will be intermittent - whenever we get to an internet cafe (there are quite a few in the city, but at present none within easy walking distance of our apartment). We'll try to make a new posting at least once a week. Hopefully our entries will be closer to daily, so you'll get some pretty big chunks each time - don't rush to read it all because, like the water in our apartment, there might not be any more coming for a while.

Enjoy.

- Shanon and Jack

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