A 45-Minute Commute: International Football, Weather Forecasts, Proverbs and Karaoke (January-February)

How do I pass the time on my new 45-minute commute every morning?

It is actually a quite enjoyable hour of my day. Here are some of the things we’ve discussed or done in the last four weeks as we’ve made our way to work…

International Football: (I lied. This was on the way home one day).
Running to catch the bus one day corresponded with half-time in an Azerbaijan International Friendly football match. So all the men on the bus were discussing the score. But on my way out the door Azerbaijan had scored again, so the information circulating around the bus wasn’t in real time. I jumped into the conversation to ‘correct’ the score.

Needless to say, my two cents caused quite a stir. Apparently, it is un-lady-like to watch football. What? I visited with my World Cup neighbours that afternoon. It was only natural that there had been football on the TV. But mostly, the men were just grateful for the score update.

Weather Forecasts:
One morning in February there happened to be frost on the ground during our drive. (This winter has been incredibly mild.) My neighbour tried to explain the plot of an old Azerbaijani movie to me. I have since forgotten the name. But the plot centres around the fact that when the national weather forecast station breaks down, the meteorologists rely on an old man to predict the weather with the assistance of his aching joints.

Proverbs
We have spent many mornings trading proverbs and idioms. I wish I’d been able to write some of them down. I can’t remember most of them. But it is a good little bit of cultural exchange considering it is barely 8AM when we are en-route.

Karaoke
My favorite mornings are the ones when my neighbour offers to give me a ride in his personal car. This has the double-barrelled advantage of me being able to sleep for an extra hour and speak solely English until I get to school. The fact that we sing along to the 80’s music on his MP3 player is just an added bonus that puts an extra kick in my Friday mornings.

So yes. The trip is long And sometimes I pine for the days when I stayed in my PJs until 10AM. But I try to make the best of it.