I'm FINALLY "Home"

This is the view from my new bedroom window! I'm all moved in and thought you might like to see where I'm staying. I am officially a Peace Corps volunteer now, as I swore in on Thursday last week. I moved to my permanent site on Friday and have been settling in for the last week. Everything is going well here. I like my site, site mates, co-workers and my host organization and family. Everyone here is so nice!! There is plenty for me to see and do here since I’m in a bigger site than most volunteers. So I have been keeping myself busy meeting new people and exploring town. I also now play softball with my site mates since the volunteers here have inter-city tournaments. (I know, me playing sports… scary huh?)
I received mail yesterday for the first time in my new site so I know that the address works properly. It took just under two weeks for me to get mail, as the post office here is an international one. So don’t worry about me getting the letters anymore, I will hopefully be able to send out a few more now that I have a post office that is used to international mailing.
Things are going well at work; I’ve just started so I’m still doing a lot of the initial observations and learning how things here work. I’m fortunate enough to have several co-workers who speak English along with a director that also speaks English.

OK, so since I've now received a billion and one messages asking for items I would like sent I will include a "wants" list since I don't really NEED anything at all. I love letters most of all, so if you want to write me, I think postage is only 90 cents or something like that...

"Wants" (please don't spend a fortune sending me these things, none of them are necessary and I can live perfectly content without all of them, but none the less these are wants... stuff I miss from America or would use here)

-Instant oatmeal (I like plain, peaches & cream, and strawberries & cream, but will eat any flavor) or other dry non-perishable foods (nuts, noodles, instant rice, etc)
-Crystal light packets (the little single serve to go drink mix you add to water or anything like it, generic is fine! I only drink water here)
-Hand sanitizer (if you send please seal in zip lock, as they explode sometimes during flight-- no public bathrooms have soap)
-Books, games, dvd (burned copies don't get stolen in customs), anything entertaining
-Clothes (I'm no longer a 2XL, I'm now just an XL as I've lost 8 kilos since I got here (about 17 lbs) so any T-shirts with American writing or pictures on them (people love that stuff)
-Pocket tissues, toilet paper, or anything of the sort since we have to buy our own, and it makes great packing paper (will roll it up myself so no worries)
-Any instant mixes that you add to water/milk etc (ranch, gravy, Campbell’s soup in a pouch, stroganoff mix, etc)
-White board markers
-Clothes pins (just one or two in a box is fine, as I wash what I wear every day to keep things from piling up)

But most of all, letters are great. I miss you all, I'm doing fine. Work is going all right, and the new site is much cooler in temp than Sumqayit was. I will do my best to keep you all updated as much as possible. I now have 119 pics up on my myspace account for those of you on myspace you are welcome to check them out.