Monday, September 01, 2014
Baku Day 2.
And don't think I'm going to write something every day, either, you guys. (Except, 'm afraid if I don't do it, I may forget...)
Anyway, I walked around the old city by myself. It is very embarrassing and frustrating to be unable to speak the language, and to have to rely on OTHER PEOPLE to have learned MY language.
But, I did go to the old city. It's pretty old. I thought it would be a park, monument, like Fort Vancouver, where it's not still being lived in. But people do live there, and drive there, have houses and stores and businesses there. It's beautiful, in spots, looks like an architectural dig, in spots. It's dirty and broken, in spots. It has parks and museums, in spots. It's under construction. In fact, some of the architectural digs have signs saying - when we were digging to make some new house or building, we uncovered these remains of buildings from the 12th century, and we could tell because of the pottery and firings, so we walled them off and you can look into this pit and see what we saw. And then they go on to build the park or building right next to where they started, but they don't dig down so far, so that they don't have to disable another building spot.
Now, this was one of the coolest things. I was walking along the outer wall (I was on the inside), and they have these little round places, like at towers, inside of which you'd undoubtedly have had soldiers with bows and arrows or other repelling equipment. And they actually have some of the repelling equipment! I had never seen a catapult before. They had cannons in other places, too, but this was the greatest! The bowl at the back, where you'd put the weight or whatever, was hewn. Not like we'd done it with modern chainsaws that can even make carvings, but as if it were done with an axe.
I really liked this garden. I have no idea where it was, but I was hot, and tired, and it was shaded and cool. I sat in a few as I walked around, in one garden I saw a grandfather with 3-year-old. Quiet, green spaces. Restful.
This house was just inside the castle walls. Ivy grew up, and things were outside. It looked like someone wanted it to be beautiful and different, and I thought it was. By the way, I also saw into one building (I did not go in any on this first day - and there were stone arches and supports on the INSIDE of the building - as if you could not count on it to old itself up. It almost looked like you were entering a cave. I hope to get inside some of the buildings today.
And don't think I'm going to write something every day, either, you guys. (Except, 'm afraid if I don't do it, I may forget...)
Anyway, I walked around the old city by myself. It is very embarrassing and frustrating to be unable to speak the language, and to have to rely on OTHER PEOPLE to have learned MY language.
But, I did go to the old city. It's pretty old. I thought it would be a park, monument, like Fort Vancouver, where it's not still being lived in. But people do live there, and drive there, have houses and stores and businesses there. It's beautiful, in spots, looks like an architectural dig, in spots. It's dirty and broken, in spots. It has parks and museums, in spots. It's under construction. In fact, some of the architectural digs have signs saying - when we were digging to make some new house or building, we uncovered these remains of buildings from the 12th century, and we could tell because of the pottery and firings, so we walled them off and you can look into this pit and see what we saw. And then they go on to build the park or building right next to where they started, but they don't dig down so far, so that they don't have to disable another building spot. This house was just inside the castle walls. Ivy grew up, and things were outside. It looked like someone wanted it to be beautiful and different, and I thought it was. By the way, I also saw into one building (I did not go in any on this first day - and there were stone arches and supports on the INSIDE of the building - as if you could not count on it to old itself up. It almost looked like you were entering a cave. I hope to get inside some of the buildings today.
This last building was not in the old city, but on a different walk. However, it was gorgeous, and in case I didn't get by it again, I took a picture. I think it's the opera house, but Anne and Marc will tell me if that's wrong.
