Days 1&2, October 16-17

Azerbaijan?! Who's idea was that? Well, that idea was mine, stemmed from a book I read about the former Soviet Republics, and the small nation of Azerbaijan was glossed over, so I wanted to learn about this obscure country.  What better way to learn than go to the country?

I had four other friends who had also read this book with me and we decided to save our money to go and visit!  We each had saved $5,500, which seemed like not enough, but when you can book two hotel rooms for three people each for $110 a night, we deemed this sufficient. We are going to stay at the Maestro Hotel in the city of Baku the capital of Azerbaijan.

Weather 

During our stay were are expecting to have very nice weather. The temperature should be in the mid 50's and the low 60's. Azerbaijan uses Celsius unlike in america which uses fahrenheit. The weather is expected to be sunny with a low chance of precipitation. We are going to stay there from October 16 to October 29. If we would of gone earlier in the year we would have to worry about over sun exposure.

I am currently sitting at gate C23 in Raleigh-Durham airport waiting for the 6:10 pm flight to London, England and we are arriving at 6:50 am in the morning, local time. After a 2 hour 50 min layover we will make the connection to Baku, Azerbaijan. We will leave London at  9:40 am, local time, we will land in Baku at 7:20 pm local time on the 17th, just in time for a quick meal and then off to bed because we have the cultural event of our trip on the 18th, THE JAZZ FESTIVAL!!  I'll post more in Azerbaijan.

You can view our day to day plans at: Azerbaijan Travel Itinerary
London
The view in from our plane in London:

Now we are waiting for our layover in London, England. I got some sleep on our redeye flight, but it was not great. This next flight will be a long one, because there are only so many times one can play Smashey Road on your phone. Our flight is about 1/3 of the way down in the middle screen.

Baku
We have landed in Baku, Azerbaijan and have gotten our rental car; driving is very similar and is rather safe. Our hotel is a great hotel but it is in a shady part of the town, which makes approaching it in the dark rather precarious.  There are the great amenities of free wifi, free parking, and a free breakfast!! Now off to bed for me as I try to sleep off this terrible jet lag from a 5 hour time change.