I wish it were as easy as clicking together my ruby slippers. Instead, I get picked up at 4:30 Saturday morning for a 7am flight to London, connect there, and arrive in Washington at 3:30pm, 12:30am Sunday, Baku time. But I am every bit as excited as was Dorothy! Chelsea’s flight from Colorado arrives about an hour after mine, and it will be the first time the family is all together since early August. Auntie Em! Auntie Em!
Make no mistake, my neighborhood isn’t Oz, but there are some things I won’t forget about this place. 
One is the crumbled mass of concrete I faced every time I left my apartment. It was a new building under construction then collapsed in August 2007, killing 25 workers. The owner and project manager went to jail. One of my Azeri neighbors said, “This kind of thing would not have happened during Soviet times.”
Saida, my upstairs neighbor and a certified English teacher, tried to teach me to speak Azeri. 
After four lessons I gave up, but she continued to delivery quince and pomegranates from her family’s country home.
The best food I ate in Baku, and several times a week, was homemade at a small Turkish restaurant around the corner. 
It’s open everyday, and the same two ladies are there cooking from 9 in the morning until 10 at night. I couldn’t understand their language and they couldn’t understand mine, but we always enjoyed our conversations.
The one place I never bought food, but wanted to, was at the small “walkup window” on the corner, 
much like Shirlington’s Weenie Beenie. So often I was tempted to buy a chicken roasting on the sidewalk rotisserie, but my colleagues warned against it.
I said goodbye to my colleagues this afternoon, and they really made me feel like I would be missed. I leave behind some very good friends, a new television program which I hope will take off without me and, best of all, twelve pounds.
