Baku Azerbaijan

The other night my friend C. and I talked about places we want to travel to. Baku, Azerbaijan is one of them. I heard different things about Azerbaijan, apparently it is not the easiest country to visit. In my early twenties I was with an American guy for a few years. He was from Texas but we met whenever he was stationed in Germany, he worked for the US Army, I met him two weeks after he returned from his Iraq deployment. Now you wonder what this has to do with Baku. Here comes the answer. His parents were divorced and his mom married again, she married a Scottish guy who worked in the oil industry, they met in Texas, and they moved to Baku because of his job. I was even supposed to go there and visit but unfortunately it did not work out in in the end, so my ex went to Baku without me. It was a bit of a crazy summer when my trip to Azerbaijan was supposed to happen. Within three weeks I was on three continents (traveling between the US, Europe and Asia) and at least at 11 different airports. It was crazy, it was intense, it was exciting. So, since I could not join him in Baku, I have to go there by myself or with my friend C. When I was in Iran I met a girl who was in Azerbaijan before traveling to Iran and she did not like it at all. Some crazy dude who was at the same hostel like we were in Teheran had a spontanous stopover in Baku and if I remember it right, he kind of accidently went to Teheran. I don’t really remember the details anymore but his whole trip was batshit crazy, that I remember. My ex-boyfriend’s mom was not enjoying life in Baku. My ex said it is a crazy place and that he had to bribe the officers at the airport in order to enter. So, traveling to Azerbaijan should be interesting I suppose.

Have you been to Baku? Any advice? I am not sure yet when I will be going but I hope sometime soon.