My Experience Overseas

The epic conclusion (not really)

2011-09-27T07:42:00.000-07:00

Day one in Philly, back on May 29th, 2009

Last group shot of the A-17s

Mike and I hanging out in my village (background) a couple days before I left...

I said goodbye to Michael. I did this while Andrea Bocelli’s “Goodbye” was playing in my head. We woke up early, he got ready and I walked him to the metro stop. It wasn’t particularly strange saying goodbye to Michael, maybe because I know I will keep in touch with him. As I write this, I feel sad. What a great guy. Great travel companion, great friend to have in Peace Corps, and great guy all around.

Going back to the apartment, I got packed, had some breakfast, wrote some last emails and then got the apartment cleaned and ready for us to leave. We had to be out of the apartment by 11:00 because the place had to be cleaned for the next group to come. My flight was at 6. We went to the airport. Fortunately, carrying all the bags and taking the subway proved to burn a lot of time. Not this time because somehow we managed to take the express train to the airport only taking 30 minutes instead of an hour. Sweet. More time to sit on the boring side of the airport.

At the airport, we ate lunch and then I fell asleep, pretty much until it was time for me to check in. I did that, went through security and an hour later, was headed back to the U.S. I did stop at Heathrow,again, had a light dinner and then got on my flight which would take me back over the ocean. We landed around 11:30, 90 minutes delayed.

It was weird going through immigration. The lady looked at my passport and my custom’s card and she asked me how long I had been out of the U.S. I told her 27 months. She asked how I felt being back. My response: “how about you stamp my passport and let me get into the U.S. and I’ll tell you.” She chuckled and said “welcome back.” Being away for a week and hearing a customs agent say that is one thing, but I thought I was going to break down when I heard those words come out of her mouth. It was probably the best thing I had ever heard.

I grabbed my bags and headed to the arrivals gate where Lauren (my PC friend from Georgia) was there waiting with a “welcome home Danny” sign. That was great. Since it was so late, we took subways back to her place in Brooklyn. We got back at 2:30am where we just passed out. It was weird to be back. I had to start watching what I was saying because now, there was no doubt everyone around me knew what I was saying.

The next day I got up and wrote some emails and then got ready to walk around. Lauren got tickets for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart so we went to wait in line to get them. After getting tickets we went to a New York Pizza place to eat and then went back for the taping. It was interesting. Mr. Stewart is a very intelligent person. It takes a lot of talent to make the subject matter of what he talks about funny and entertaining for people to watch. The taping lasted for 50 minutes or so. Not long for a half hour show.

We left and took the subway back to Lauren’s house. We stopped and got Chinese. It tasted like Chinese food, not like spaghetti with soy sauce on it. I was pretty tired so I fell asleep shortly thereafter.

Going Home

I woke up at 4:30am. I was excited to get home. Two flights and I would be back in North Carolina. I got my things packed, wrote emails, and got dressed, then headed out the door. We had some time, so Lauren and I got some coffee. It was not on the way, and wearing a suit while carrying a huge duffel bag was not comfortable walking around. The subway would have been too complicated, so I took a cab. It was definitely much easier but at the same time, much more expensive. Armenia, to get to the airport, 7 dollars. America, 31. Actually I guess that’s not too bad since we drove from Brooklyn to LaGuardia.

The flights were simple. I hate that Delta charged me for my one bag. This is what happened in the two years I’ve been gone? Nickel and Dime everything? Geez.

So, it’s a small world and I’ll tell you why. On my flight from Atlanta back home, I was sitting next to a lady. Since I was wearing a suit, she looked over and told me how nice I looked and asked if I was flying home from a meeting. I told her I was flying home to see my parents after two years being away in Peace Corps. She said that her friend’s son just got back from the Peace Corps in Moldova. That person is one of my good friend Katherine’s boyfriend. She came to visit me back in April. That blew both of our minds. Ok, maybe not that impressive to you, it was to me.

I was nervous to be home. When the plane landed I didn’t know how to feel. I did notice that I wanted to be off that plane and the second I was, I basically ran down the concourse. I saw Mom and Dad and waved. They didn’t recognize me because they didn’t think I would be wearing a suit. When I was 15 feet away they knew it was me.

I didn’t really know what to expect. I haven’t gone to a fast food place yet, nor a supermarket, nor grocery store. I will save that for a rainy day. I will say that reintegrating is much more than that. Although things have not really changed, my perspective and how I look at things has and being back I’m just not sure really how I fit into anything or how to comprehend it either. I think only other volunteers will be able to relate. It’s just strange. There is no better way to explain it.

It certainly is great to be home, but I do miss Armenia. I had a routine, a lifestyle, regular friends I saw, Gayane, Jason, Khashayar, etc. It has been 4 days now since I have been home and each day gets a bit easier but Peace Corps was not kidding when they said that going back would be harder than going to your PC country.

Concerning Peace Corps, this is my last blog. Im sure I may write more later on, but probably more infrequently. I know I have never met most of you who read my blog, nor will I ever, but I want to thank you for taking time to read what I had to say. It’s nice to know that there are people out there who think what I write is worth reading. I know its not the most poetic and certainly not well written, but I hope some of the stories have been entertaining. So thank you again for being supportive in your own way. This isn’t the end of the blog, just the end of a chapter in my life…

I should really take this time to thank everyone for everything. It is hard to leave for two years and basically start everything over. Language included. Thank you to all those that sent me packages, answered phone calls, wrote emails, and basically those who were there. I couldn't have done it without my sitemates and all the other volunteers serving in Armenia, come currently. If you are a U.S. Citizen and are even mildly interested in Peace Corps, I highly recommend you do it. It is scary, sure, but its something I will always look back on with a huge smile on my face. Good luck.

Until next time…

back to Paris

2011-09-19T00:50:00.001-07:00

Eieffel's Tower after our dinner

Brings new meaning to Napoleonic Complex...

Mike and I re-enacting a scene from Star Wars in from of Notre Dame. I was winning...

The Seine at night

I will just never understand...

There is a blog posted 5 minutes before this one detailing Toulouse, so read it first even though there is nothing in that one you need to read this one...

Day 7

Again, we woke up early and headed to the airport as we had a 11am flight back to Paris. It didn’t take long and as soon as we got back, we hit the ground running (or walking at a touristy pace).

We got back to the apartment at 1:40 took a small break and headed back out at 3 to see Sacre Coure, the Dali Museum, Moulin Rouge, a park, and Michael eating ice cream.

Sacre Coure was really nice. Well, it offered a really nice view from the hill overlooking Paris. The Dali Museum was really nice. That guy was a genius. His artwork was so intriguing to stare at. Some of his works are for sale. Investment anyone? The cheapest one we found was 1100 US but for a Dali, I feel like that is a steal.

We walked to the Moulin Rouge. Sex shops everywhere. Mike and Laura sang songs and tunes from the movie “Moulin Rouge.” Borderline awkward.

We kept walking and went to the area where Mike went to school when he lived here for a month. He said there was this fantastic stir fry place so we went there. In my mind, I thought it was going to be a fantastic French-Asian fusion restaurant. No, it was a fast food noodle shop that proved to “not be as good as I remember it to be.” We got our dinner to go and ate at a nearby park, the name escaping me right now. We sat on the grass wondering why all the French citizens were not. Ten minutes into our meal when a policeman came by and very nicely told us to get off the grass did we know why. Although no one else was doing it, the grass was inviting, there were no signs, and no railing around the area. Not even a small one. How were the Americans supposed to know?

Mike’s ice cream addiction got the best of him and he walked us around half of Paris to find this ice cream shop he had never eaten at before. It was closed. Katie was angry. That was hilarious. We ended up just watching street performers on a bridge before heading home, exhausted.

Day 8

Didn’t really do anything Saturday. Too tired. Just walked around and then came back around 4 to get some long overdue things taken care of. I skyped with Brandon which was nice since he just moved to Omaha. I bet that’s fun Brandon…

Day 9

We set out around noon. Mike and I went one way, Laura and Katie went another. Mike and I went to Napoleon’s tomb and tried to go to the Rodin museum but it didn’t seem that interesting. “The Thinker” was the only thing we wanted to see. We then walked again, all around Paris to meet with Michael’s friend who he met when they went to the Balkans together 4 years ago. Nice enough guy living in Paris going to school at American University.

We left him and walked to the Picasso museum only to find that it is closed for renovation until 2012, or 2013. So, I didn’t get to see the grey guitar…

It was approaching 6 at this point and we had already made arrangements to meet Laura and Katie by the Eiffel Tower. They were 45 minutes late so we got in line. Don’t know why because we had already been up this thing before. Halfway through, the girls show up. We get out of line because we are not that excited about going up and there were grey clouds everywhere. Instead, we sat on the park, staring at the tower and had a small dinner (which was actually not small at all).

We left there to see the Louvre at night and then went to Hard Rock Café so that I could get my pin. With all that taken care of, we came back home having spent a great last day in Paris and my last day on this continent.

Day 10

Mike packed last night and this morning I watched him get the last of his things together and head out the door. He is flying direct back to Dallas from Paris and left this morning. I guess it just hasn’t hit me yet but he has gone back to be with his family. Something I will do in three days, after being away for 27 months. Don’t know what to expect. Although I leave tonight, I still have two days left in New York with Lauren before heading home. I feel like I will be a tourist going home…

Until next time… (back in the U.S.)

Home of Airbus – Toulouse, France

2011-09-19T00:31:00.000-07:00

Michael's addiction...

Mike and I going secret agent style to get this photo of an A380 being built

Prepare the pie...

Place and rub pie over face...

Enjoy the fruits of your labor...

Day 4

We took our time getting out of bed. We had a 3:30 flight out of the old international terminal of Orly. After packing up our things, eating breakfast, straightening up the place heading out the door, it was almost 12. Yes, we needed almost two hours getting to the airport because trying to use the most cost-effective method when you don’t really know what you’re doing is a horrible idea.

With minor strings of confusion we got to the airport and took the easy flight down to Toulouse, home of Airbus. When I booked tickets to go down there, I don’t know why I made them three nights. Toulouse is nice but there really isn’t anything to do there.

We found our hostel, easy enough with the help of a man from Senegal who was studying in Toulouse. Really nice guy who walked us all the way to the hostel. Whatever hostel we stayed at, it was nice enough. We spent enough time changing into shorts and t-shirts and heading back out. We walked around Toulouse and eventually found a place to eat.

The French are interesting. Or France is interesting. We had a 3 hour meal. Mike and Laura went fancy. I did not. We all got the menu of the day, but I didn’t get the fruit glazed duck. Oh, and everything was served in a crepe. It was interesting. Fortunately, I know both Laura and Mike well enough to know they can’t usually eat everything on their plate, so I got a taste anyway. It was a really nice place.

That was about it for the first day. Getting to the airport, flying, walking around, and eating…

Day 5

The day again started really early. Most of you don’t really know anything about me other than what I write here and whatever you can deduce or extrapolate but I have always been a huge airplane fan. When Laura said she wanted to go to France, “Airbus factory” just flashed in my head. So I managed to book tickets so far in advance the dates weren’t set, and my only other option was to call/email them. I was ready to go. Something I was really looking forward to. Mike went with me and we took the thirty minute tram ride out to the Airbus site. The site itself was really impressive, the tour center was not. It honestly looked like a makeshift tent structure someone just set up in two hours time. Also, some of the tour was cut out because they were filming a movie. To offer compensation, they gave us 10% back (all 1.40 euros) and took us on a bus tour. It was not exciting and, the lady didn’t have all her facts straight. You may think I am being pretentious here, but the FAA is not the Federal Air Authority. That is something a tour guide at a major airline company should know. This is one of many examples of the lady lacking as a tour guide. She spoke in an outrageous French accent though, which basically nullified any care I had to learn anything…

There are a lot of things you cannot see at Airbus…

Afterwards, Mike and I went to the giftshop. Don’t worry Dad, I bought maybe 3 small things. We headed back to Toulouse and walked around. Mike and I saw churches and bridges and got a general sense of the city we were traversing. We met Laura and Katie later on. Mike is a character though. If you can picture a heroin addict, that is Mike with sugar. Being in Frace, there are pastry shops, desert shops, etc. everywhere and each time I have to try and distract Michael before he runs over and puts his mouth and hands all over the nicely cleaned windows. Even right after he finishes eating a 2500 calorie desert, and claims to be full, he still talks about other pastries…

That night we ate at a lasagna place. Well they had more stuff but that is what I got. Mike and I had a conversation about Italian and French food. I prefer Italian… Don’t know why I told you…

Day 6

For whatever reason, I didn’t have socks. I thought I packed two pairs, but I didn’t. North Face does a great thing and offers PCVs a discount on merchandise so I bought some shoes in addition to other things. North Face shoes are super comfortable and roomy, but don’t for an instant think you can go more than a day in them without changing socks. Your eyes will water…

For this reason, I had another pair of socks. I couldn’t find them. I panicked. I made the executive decision to go to a store and buy socks, but leave the hostel… barefooted (I mean with shoes on but not wearing any socks).

Nothing was open yet so I had to delay my purchse. Finally things opened and I bought socks. Interesting huh? I snuck to the dressing room and put them on wondering if I was committing a crime even though I was clenching the receipt to immediately prove to a policeman that I was indeed the rightful owner of the socks.

They were the best socks ever because they were super expensive. I don’t care if they had needles in the bottom, after what I paid, they are the best socks ever…

After that disaster was averted, we went to a tourism office and figured out how to leave Toulouse as Airbus is all there is to see (and we know how much of a failed expedition that was). It really is a pretty city, you don’t need more than one full day there. Anyway, we talked with the lady and decided to go to Auch. So we walked to the train station and off we went. 90 minutes later we were in Auch with not a clue on what to do. So, just like anyone else, we walked toward the church and as expected it led right to the middle of town.

There we went to the tourism place and asked questions and received enough maps to keep us entertained for days even though I first told the lady, we only had three hours… We began walking around and then were approached, many times, by disgusting college kids covered in trash bags, paint, whipped cream. Basically they wanted to have a huge college party and according to tradition, they need to go around the city asking for money. No matter how much money you give, if you give it, you can throw whipped cream into someone’s face. So naturally, I took this opportunity to do this. – refer to pictures…

We spent the rest of the day just walking around, staring at Michael freak out at every pastry shop, and seeing how much we needed to spend to get a can of duck liver…

We then said our goodbyes to Auch and headed back to Toulouse to eat at the restaurant we ate at the first night. After a whole day without eating, I got the menu of the day, again. It wasn’t the same though and that was a shame.

Until next time... (like 5 minutes...)

Vive la France

2011-09-17T01:35:00.000-07:00

Our lady

The Tower of Eiffel

Katie...

...

After passing out for most of the flight to London, we went through a little food area and bought lunch before making it over to the gate to leave for Paris. I slept the whole way to Paris. The full 50 minutes. We got our bags and walked to the metro area.

We found the train we needed and went to the ticket machine to buy our tickets. It was 9.20 euro for each ticket. Interestingly enough, the money had to be in change, no bills. We can a combined total of 2.40 euros, Mike portion being 2.40, mine being 0. The change machine didn’t work and all the surrounding shops certainly didn’t want all their change gone so after thirty minutes of walking around, Mike went into a hotel and got some change. I don’t know what he did to convince the person to give change, but with a broad smile he returned with several euro coins.

It was easy enough to get to the metro stop but hard to find the street we were staying on. I went up to ask a guy if he could help us and he just completely ignored me. His girlfriend looked at him in a very suspicious way and stopped to help us. The man eventually came back and apologized because he thought I was selling something. I was carrying two bags and clearly looked like a tourist. Anyway, they were both really nice and walked us all the way to the apartment.

We took the elevator made for one up to the floor and knocked on the door. I heard Katie and Laura on the other side of the door but much of the excitement went away as it took forever for them to open the door. Actually, it wasn’t so bad. I am exaggerating. After two and a half years, we finally met.

We stayed around in the area that night going to the store and buying dinner and just catching up more or less. They had arrived only three hours before us so they were tired as well. We all went to bed early.

Day 2

We got up pretty early the next day. I went online to see how much it would be to rent a car because Mike wanted to go to Normandy and getting a bus, etc. would be a huge hassle. I found a car and we made a reservation for the following day. Soon thereafter we headed out the door.

Katie made breakfast…

The weather wasn’t the greatest but we had to go out. We went to the Notre Dame and walked around the surrounding area then headed to the Musee d’orsay. The line was super long so we went to a small restaurant to eat lunch. I don’t have a clue what I got but it resembled an inside out grilled cheese with an uncooked egg on top. Afterwards we bit the bullet and got in line for the Musse d’orsay. The line was super fast and thankfully so as the second we got under the overhang, the heavens opened and water doused everywhere.

The museum was great. It was not like the Louvre. The Louvre is too big and can be very overwhelming. The d’Orsay was really nice because it was manageable and had a lot of great paintings in there including Renoir, Monet, Manet, and Van Gogh. Really like Van Gogh and it was really nice seeing those paintings.

The weather got a bit better so we took a stroll down the Avenue des Champs to the Arc de Triomphe. There we saw some kind of ceremony. Looked like some kind of veterans day thing but we weren’t really sure. More or less got bored with it an left.

After being out the whole day, we were ready to come home. We bought some wine, cheese, spread, and cuts of meat and had that for dinner.

Day 3

I think what surprises me more than anything is how nice people are here. Everyone says “Pardon” if they even barely graze you. Always a thank you, and a smile especially if you try and speak French. France has been great.

So, after waking up super early, we headed over by metro to the AVIS car rental place. Forty five minues later, we were on the road.

Mind you that the last time I drove on a highway or in any kind of traffic was before I went to Peace Corps 26 months prior. It was a bit overwhelming for me to get back behind the wheel of a car, during rush hour, in the middle of Paris and drive us out of the city. Later on, it really caught up as when we were driving back, I was just exhausted. We drove for 4 hours to Caen, went to the tourist office to find out we hadn’t gone enough, drove another hour to Omaha beach and finally could relax, for the time being.

Walking from the parking lot and looking over the beach, it was just beautiful and peaceful. Hard to believe that close to 65 years ago this was not the scene here. Nothing really hit me until we got to the cemetery.

You can’t help but get emotional as you walk through row after row of white crosses and stars in perfect unison as far as the eye can see next to where the fighting had occurred. Basically kids, younger than I am, coming all the way across the ocean to fight, dying in battle. The ones that were really hard to see were the ones labeled “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.” Really inspiring.

After walking around for 45 minutes, we got back in the car and drove straight to Paris so return the car by 7:00pm. With 15 minutes to spare, we got back. I didn’t think we had time so I dropped it off half empty but then the man said he would have to charge me service fees and two euro per liter. I asked if I could take the car and drop it off again. He said he would wait so I drove the car to a local gas station and filled it up.

Basically again, we got back to the apartment and passed out after a short while of hanging out.

Was it worth the time we took to drive to Normandy? Yes, absolutely. Sure it would have been nice to take more time there but the eight hours of driving was certainly worth the 45 minutes we spent there. Also, it allowed me to use a rental car to relearn how to drive and the best way to get into things is to just be thrown in there. I don’t know if there is a better way than to be thrown into Paris traffic…

Until next time...

Israel take 2

2011-09-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

The big day... at the Hopa

Me, Eva, Gini, Rob - The people I spent most of my time with.

The Bennett's at "the town of Jesus."

Tiberias, the city. I think my Dad will be the only one to appreciate this.

A Motley Crew

Day 4

Another day I woke up early. (Actually every day turned out to be like this). I spent a lot of time just hanging out with my new friends which made it difficult to function. I walked over to the other side of town to meet another group of friends and did some errands. I ended up just getting postcards and a fridge magnet. Nice and simple.

After buying the postcards, Gini and Rob went to get coffee and Eva was nice enough to go to the Wailing Wall with me since I didn’t get to see it. She took pictures of me there. I didn’t know really what to feel. I was feeling more awkward than anything else because clearly I was a tourist there and there were a lot of devout Jews praying there bobbing back and forth. I just touched the wall, said a quick prayer and turned around and walked back, putting back my borrowed Yakima for someone else to use. Men have to have something on their head.

Eva and I then met with Rob and Gini and went to Shorashim which is a shop which only sells merchandise based on scripture. So if there are drawings they have something to do with the Bible. We spent about an hour speaking to the store owner because he really loves to debate. I am too ignorant in theology to debate so I just asked questions, which led to even more questions. I eventually had to cut myself off because the other three were getting pretty tired of waiting for me. It was really fascinating to me and I now I better understand the conflict between the Palestinians and the Jews. Its definitely not something that they can just “get over”… If you think otherwise, you are not well versed in what’s going on over there.

Afterwards, I came back and took a nap and then got ready for the rehearsal dinner which was put on by Nomi’s sister’s friend (I think). It was a lot of fun because it was about 30 people who just met but had a common tie to Graham and Nomi. Mr. Bennetts youngest brother made it to Israel and those two together was just hilarious. It is apparent where Graham gets his sense of humor. However, the mood was subtly changed when Mr. Bennett got up to talk about Graham. There were some tears shed. He said many moving things.

Afterwards, the four single people went out to a bar and had a bachelor/ bachelorette party since there wasn’t one. We were regulars at this one bar and the owners were super nice to us always talking to us and making sure everything was fine.

Went back, fell asleep for the big day. Not mine, but Grahams.

Day 5

Next morning, I got up and Rob and I headed over to Gini and Eva’s again. I’m assuming you are wondering “why didn’t they just stay closer to each other”. Well since our hosts were so nice, they put us up in church-oriented places. Therefore, there would be no girl/guy mingling, which was fine because it was a free place to stay, and our host, Tim, was awesome. An Irish guy who works at the church who was so welcoming. I wish I had been able to speak to him and get to know more about his story.

Anyway, we met up, and ate lunch. Eva, Gini, and Rob had to leave early because they were setting up for the wedding. I went back to the church and took another nap before Tim work me up, offering to take me to the hotel so that my wedding clothes wouldn’t get sweaty. So I got dressed in twenty minutes and Tim drove me to the hotel.

I got to the hotel and met with Graham and the other groomsmen. The other groomsmen were Mr. Bennett, Mr. Bennett’s brother, and Graham’s brother… then me. I felt honored to be a Groomsmen with his family, but then again, I was the only one from NC to be there. We helped each other get ready and then waited around for pictures. James, the photographer, came by and got everyone together. All dressed, the four groomsmen, eight bridesmaids, and the bride and groom walked around the Old Town taking pictures. It was really funny. James was hilarious. He is really good at his job. This is what he does back in Seattle. He is a wedding photographer and he knows how to get people to be relaxed but also be assertive. He just has a really good way of doing it without being offensive and asking people to wait when we were taking pictures in the middle of the street. Really fun.

I thought it was funny that when we were walking around, tourists would stop and take pictures of us.

We then went back to the hotel and got in vans which took us to the wedding place at Yad Hashmona. It was beautiful. Looking down the aisle, through the Hopa and seeing the beautiful background at sunset. It was perfect. We all got ready and boom, it was show time. It was an awesome wedding.

Graham, the genius that he was, told the wedding planner that I would sing at the wedding because they didn’t have enough guys to sing the deeper parts. Well, I lost my voice and he didn’t tell me I was singing until the day before at the rehearsal dinner. I was very self-conscious because I didn’t know when my voice was going to go out. It didn’t. Praise be to God. I was self conscious the whole time.

There is something about seeing one of your childhood friends get married. I regretfully wasn’t able to head back to Jon’s wedding last year. Jon is the closet thing to a brother I will have but this was the first time when I really got to be there and see this. It is weird. Who would have thought… Couldn’t be happier for him and his new wife though.

The reception was right down the hill and it was awesome as well. Graham made a nice slideshow showcasing his and Nomi’s childhood and then both of them together. Graham found some pictures from middle school with me in them which was certainly a surprise as I had not seen them before. My new friends were kind enough to point me out…

After the wedding, we got a ride back to Jerusalem with the pastor who led the ceremony. Really cool guy, Lindel. It took a while because when someone went off to find someone else, that person would get lost and then someone else would go off to look for that person, not realizing the first person came back. After 40 minutes of this, we had everyone and off we went.

Again, we hung out and talked about Graham and then passed out. Long day.

Day 6

After the night of the wedding, it was hard to get out of bed but I had promised Lizzie and Mike that I would meet them at 9 the next morning. I got ready and walked out the door. I had to take a friend across town first and as I did, I saw that there was a “Jerusalem hotel” across the street from a bus terminal. I kept this in mind because Mike had told me they were staying at this place. So as I came back, it was ten till 9, and I walked into the hotel asking where Lizzie and Mike were.

They weren’t there. Apparently they were at the “Jerusalem GATE hotel” which is near the NEW bus terminal on the other side of the city. Crap. So I got on the tram and took it to the other side. When I got there, I didn’t have a clue what my next move was so I just walked around. Unlike the old town, no one here knew any English. Asking around proved to be futile. But what else do you expect from the holy land than for divine intervention to come down upon me. Somehow, I ran right into the hotel. I found the room and visited Mike and Lizzie.

Mike’s experience of Israel had not been as good as mine. Not nearly. It was complain after complain, albeit funny. They wanted to leave to go back to Tel Aviv so I went back and had lunch with the wedding party. Shortly thereafter I got went back to the church and packed my stuff, to be stopped by Tim asking if we would help more furniture. We were on a schedule, but how do you say no to a guy like Tim who had gone way out of his way to help us out?

So, after helping him move, we then made it to where we were going to meet Eva and Gini, some forty minutes after we had agreed on. But, with good reason.

We took the one hour bus/taxi ride to Tel Aviv. We didn’t know where anyone was, so we went over to Eva’s friend’s house for the time being. Mike and Lizzie weren’t at the hostel, so I went with Rob, Gini, and Eva to the beach to meet the other guys.

Beaches at Tel Aviv are amazing. Though I ran into the same problem I did at the Sea of Galilea, it was still awesome. (By problem I mean going 30 meters into the water only to find myself up to my knees in water). Sweet. We were there for the sunset. It was a great way to cap off my week with my new friends.

Afterwards, we took showers and then everyone helped my take my stuff to the hostel where I was staying due to Mike and my flight out in the early morning.

After dropping off my things, I went out with them again walking by the water to a restaurant to have dinner. I had a burger after Kent convinced me it was the ride thing to do. He was right.

Walking back it was sad knowing that I had to say goodbye to this awesome group who I had become friends with. They all live in Vancouver, so there isn’t much chance that I will see them regularly. However, now remembering Israel, I will always remember this bunch and the amazing time we had there.

Day 7

After two hours of sleep in the hostel, Mike and I got up at 4am and got ready. We had our things packed and ready to go, so we just shoved everything into the taxi. At 4:30am, taxis in Tel Aviv are not cheap, especially to the airport. The taxi cost us 40 dollars for a thirty minute ride. I guess to most of you reading this in the States that is not much, however for someone who had to pay 6-7 dollars to go to the airport in Armenia, which was out of the city, 40 dollars is outrageous…

At the airport: this part is awesome.

So everyone knows that security at Ben Gurion Airport is one known for its security. Before you even get to the check-in counters, you are met by an Israeli lady who asks a million questions. Since Mike and I were traveling together, she was asking questions to find some discrepancies in what we were saying. She found none, but asked if we were partners, as in gay. I don’t know what business of hers it was but I wasn’t about to tell an authority figure in Israel that I was offended (I wasn’t anyway-whatever). After the Spanish Inquisition, our checked bags were X-rayed, then hand searched, the security officer swiping almost every piece of luggage in my bag for explosive residues. The man was super nice and I looked over to Mike and he and his security lady were going back and forth about Texas or something.

Then we waited for about an hour for the counter to open since we had gotten there during the suggested time, three hours before our flight, only to find we were the only shmucks to have done so… We got our tickets and headed toward security. Real security.

Depending on your “threat level” of when you went through the first screening, you are assigned a number 2-6. Two being nothing to worry about, six being – take off your clothes and hold onto your ankles. I very quickly went though. I didn’t even get my bags searched. It was super fast. I went through passport control with no problem and I was in the duty free area thinking of ways to spend my 20 shekel coins. After 40 minutes, Mike came through. He found me sitting in a chair around the center. Mike’s experience was not as great. Apparently, they found some kind of explosive residue somewhere on his bag, or passport or somewhere and made him check everything. He met me with only his passport in hand. Nothing else. They told him it would be a security threat.

Then he went from being a “2” to being a “6.” He was interrogated and asked to “undo” his clothing for them to check him out. He refers to the security guards as the “Tailors of Israel.” Needless to say, he was ready to leave Israel.

I was so tired, I passed on in the terminal, shoveled myself onto the plane to again just pass out for three of the 4.5 hours we were flying. As I mentioned in my last blog, during our 2 hour layover in Heathrow, I ate and tried to write as much as I could. Here am I now finished with Israel and in Paris France. I’m going to try and get those done soon.

Until next time…

Israel take 1

2011-09-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

Graham and Nomi, when they were still "single" with Jerusalem in the background

Graham and I in front of the Wailing Wall staring directly into the sun.

Camera man James, dancing... awkwardly

The best day of my life...

I figured out that my picture files were way to big to be loaded onto this thing. I don't think I will have any problems now...

Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (Israel)

2011-09-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

Interestingly enough, I am writing again in the Heathrow airport, but waiting to go to Paris this time. A week ago, we boarded our flight at 10:50pm and took the four and a half hour flight to Tel Aviv. I was hungry so I waited for the food to come around. The collateral damage – one hour of sleep before landing. I was too excited.

After arriving, we were cattle proded to passport control. I was ready for the Israeli interrogation to begin. This is how the conversation went:

Passport man: what is the purpose of your visit?

Me: Pleasure… Im here to see my friend’s wedding

Passport man: an Israeli?

Me: No, his fiancé grew up in Jerusalem

Passport man: how long will you be here?

Me: A week

Passport man: enjoy your stay in Israel.

That was it. That is literally all he asked. The people in Riga were more stringent about things than Israel. This is not the blanket case though. Mike received the third degree and it was funny. He was still talking with the man when I left and he had a good five minute head start. We went through to baggage claim.

There was my bag. Mike’s? Still in London, as we learned when we went to the lost baggage area. His trip was not starting off well.

We went through the arrival’s gate, and at 5:30am, I heard this voice. None other than the groom-to-be, Grahamy yelling across the terminal. In a “chariots of fire” kind of manner, we ran toward each other and embraced. First time I had seen my childhood friend in over three years. Now here I was in Israel about to see his wedding. Graham had things planned and took me to meet the others. They were getting ready to head to the Dead Sea. Mike had to go to Jerusalem and meet Lizzie as she was flying in later that day. I was running on adrenaline. It was exciting to meet all his/Nomi’s friends from grad school. We picked them all up and went to the Notre Dame hotel in Jerusalem where Mr. and Mrs. Bennett were staying. I walked in the door and there I was met with Mrs. Bennett yelling out my name in the lobby coming over for a hug. Soon thereafter, I saw Mr. Bennett. Still awesome. They haven’t changed a bit.

I changed and no later than fifteen minutes after my arrival did we leave to go to the Dead Sea. I rode in the car with Graham (driver), Nomi, and Eva. It was a 90 minute drive which turned into a two hour drive because people wanted to stop and ride the camel. I wasn’t interested…

It was a busy day. We first stopped at the Masada, a fort build by Harod in the first century, B.C. It was interesting to see how people lived and the backdrop was really interesting as the Dead Sea lay right in front. Another interesting note was the huge ramp made by the Romans which took them two years to build. I cannot imagine what it would have been like to be a Roman solider building a massive ramp in that heat. We took the cablecar up and then back down. That was more or less uneventful.

We then traveled onward to a wadi, or a small natural water source. That was really cool because we walked in this warm, salty water to get to some natural pools. After 600 meters or so, or walking we stopped and just laid in the water.

Then we went to the Dead Sea. That place is nuts. Most of the time, you try to stay afloat in regular water. Here, you struggled to have enough of your body in the water to not keep flipping over. It was insane. I can’t float in regular water, but in the dead sea, basically 70% of my body was above water. Ok, not that much, but it was an amazing feeling. After about twenty minutes though, the salt really starts to burn, and if you have any open wounds, it is rather painful. Dead Sea water is also horrible to the touch.

Afterwards we took the 90 minute drive back to Jerusalem. It was a nice ride, talking to Graham and Nomi about getting married and getting to know Nomi herself.

When we got back, I collected my things from the Bennett’s room and went to where I was staying. A church. It was nice because with Nomi’s connections, I got to stay for free in nice little rooms. I was there with Rob, my new Canadian friend living and working in Sierra Leone. He works for Mercy Ships and actually didn’t know Graham before he got to Israel. He was traveling with a girl, Gini, who went to school with Nomi. He and I stayed at the church. It was great because we were the only two who were guys that didn’t know anyone else really. We spent a lot of time together hanging out.

Getting back I took a 30 minute nap. Rob woke me up to go out. It was 7:30. He apparently had been saying my name for five minutes before I came too due to my exhaustion. We went out and got some food and hung out for a little while walking around the old city before I came back at eleven to pass out. I was out, and it was a real struggle to get up the next morning at 7am. I honestly don’t remember about 90% of that night… due to the lack of sleep.

Day 2

Rob woke me up the next morning, and I hated him for it. We got ready and walked over to the hotel again and met everyone for a walking tour of Jerusalem. One of Nomi’s family friends who is working on his Ph.D. gave a walking tour of the city. It was really great because he was an American who has been living in Israel for over 14 years. He was also a theologian.

We got in cars and drove to Mt. Olive and took some pictures there. Brian was the name of the guide and he was just fantastic. Without any notes or references, he quoted scripture from the Bible and related current sites to verses in the book. He took it a step further and made sure to explain the significance of each place. Since it was a mixed group from many different religious backgrounds, he was very good about using the Bible as a historical text in addition to a religious one.

We dropped the cars off and as a group walked the old city, going to the Garden of Gethsemane, going to museums, walking up stairs to some palace and learning that is where Jesus did some of his teachings, we went to the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It was a fantastic and mentally draining tour. He was so good though. All the sites were just amazing. Going through gates and pathways where Jesus walked is incredible to think about. Seeing Hasidic Jews bobbing back and forth in front of the Western Wall, in deep prayer was an interesting site as well.

In the Holy Sepulcher, there are six different orthodoxies represented, one being the Armenian Orthodox. That was interesting because I was able to read the inscriptions and have a general idea of what they were saying. There is a small but recognizable presence of Armenians in Israel.

We finished our tour and went to find dinner and then hung out as a group. That was good because it was the first time we were able to hang out together and get to know one another.

I came back and used a new razor to shave my beard. Just in case there were some uneven tan lines, I wanted to make sure there was enough time before the wedding to make the color more even. I looked so weird afterwards. I guess I got used to it. And my face just felt naked. It felt nice though.

Went to bed around midnight.

Day 3

Much like the previous two days, we woke up early and met at the hotel. This particular day we were going up north, close to the Syrian border. The drive was about two hours so we left promptly at 7:15am. Israel has several security check points. Usually when they see a bunch of tourists they just wave you through, this time they stopped our bus and asked for passports. I as well as several others didn’t have our passports. Nomi’s father who is fluent in Hebrew spoke with the guard and explained that this was not just a tour group but part of a wedding party. When the guard asked whose wedding it was, and Ray, Nomi’s Dad, said it was his daughters, he just opened the gate to let us by.

So, tip for the day: If you are in Israel and you are faced with a hairy situation, incorporate some kind of wedding story into your explanation and people will smile and roll out the red carpet.

Shortly after the checkpoint, we got to the a nice place to enter the water of the Sea of Galilea. Rob and I decided it was essential to get in the water. We swam around. I tried to enter the water by way of the famed “Baywatch method” but even twenty meters into the water, the water did not come above my knees. It was a bit ridiculous. We were almost 100 meters out before the water got up to my navel. So, even though Ray told us we had 15 minutes there, we convinced James and his wife to get in the water thus prolonging our stay.

The road we were on led us right next to Jordan. There are huge and wide border gates and fences between the two countries. Ray made a big deal about seeing the Jordan River. We saw it. It looks like every other river…

One of the reasons, now, I feel I should read the Bible is because we went to all these sites where Jesus did something significant but not only do I keep forgetting the significance but also the names. After the Sea, we went to a place where Jesus multiplied fish and bread. (Mom, you can explain this to me when I get back, or give me the Bible verse). It was nice being there because Eva just got her masters in something Bible related and was nice enough to explain everything to me. Its just so much information to take in at one time when you are running on fumes. It was really nice there. I took a picture of an olive tree. It only seemed right.

We continued onward to Capernaum, where Peter lived (?) and Jesus(?) – back to needing to read the Bible. Not too much there, just ruins.

We drove to Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. I only remember this story because I think it’s a pop culture thing now. Everyone knows about this. If you don’t, maybe you should get on the Good Book. I certainly need to…

We ate lunch in Nazareth. Actually I just bought a 1.5 liter of water and had that because 1) Im trying to burn off the McDonald’s weight and 2) trying to stay hydrated.

Onward to Mt. Of the Beatitudes where there was the Sermon on the Mount. Really pretty there. We then continued onto Mt. Carmel where I learned that Elijah had a show down with the Pagans. Lots of good views up there too. We drove by Megiddo where the root word gives us “Armageddon”. I think this is where people are planning for Armageddon to begin. I don’t know how you prepare for Armageddon though…

I should really thank the Bennetts for really taking care of me. Any time I got money out to pay for something, Graham would come up and say “we already paid for you” or Mr. Bennett would say, I got my family and make sure to include me when paying for tickets. They were fantastic and so welcoming and nice. Although anyone who knows the Bennetts already know this, they really helped to make Israel an amazing and unforgettable place. This was the last day of our real hardcore touring. So, to the Bennetts, thank you.

More on it's way. Lots to catch up on. Thank you for those reading.

Ok, so I tried to load some pictures but its not working...

Until next time...

Sweden Continued

2011-09-09T03:49:00.000-07:00

Me at the ball building thing that looks over Stockholm. Surprisingly chilly there...

Church in Uppsala near the University.

Mike in front of the house "that started it all"

Mike and his extended, Swedish family. Super nice.

Day three

I took the dog out again. We went to the same spot and watched the ducks swim around. It is so nice out there. Did I mention that Rasmus and Marie live right across the street from where ABBA used to have a recording studio. True story. It is now a gym and some offices. Nice ones.

Since our Stockholm Card ran out at 12:30pm today, we had to act fast. We went to Hard Rock Café because I collect the pins. The collectable pins. (I know, lame hobby- but some of the pins are really intriguing). It was closed, so we went to City Hall and took the tour there. That was really engaging because we had to have guide. Totally worth it. We saw the “Blue room” where Nobel Laurites get their Nobel Prize. We walked to the different chambers and city parliament. The riveting part of this was to learn that 90% of the city parliament have other jobs. Meetings are held in the late afternoon or the evening to accommodate those who work. I think this is the way that politics should be. People are not over consumed with election because if they don’t get relected, they still have a job. They know what it means to be a working class part of society and make decisions as such, not a disconnected member of politics. Also, anyone from the city is allowed to come to any of the meetings. All sessions are open. I really appreciated this aspect of the Swedish Parliamentary procedure. City Hall itself is a beautiful building itself; of course it needed to be if it were to hold the Nobel Prize Awards every December 10^th.

Went back to Hard Rock to buy a pin. They had a lunch special so we just ate there. It was good. I ate half a sandwich there and the other half later on. I bought my pin too but I won’t mention how much I paid for it because things in Sweden are borderline prohibitively expensive. Not really, but coming from Armenia, or Turkey, or Lativa, it certainly is.

Since our Stockholm card ran out and the center of Stockholm was not too far away, we just walked to NK which is like the Harrods of Stockholm. This was Mike’s idea. He wanted to walk around a department store. He found something. A hat you would see in the 1994 movie “The Newsies” (I don’t know if that is the right year, but it does have Christian Bale). Again, I won’t say how much he spent on that hat.

We also saw Patti Smith, the winner of the Polar Music Awards. If you don’t know who she is, neither did we. She must have been big there though because there were some teenage girls crying. Either that, or she got some hot pepper in her eye in the proximity of Ms. Smith.

Knowing that our cards were expired, we went to the metro station to see how much a ticket would be. It was $3.50 each for a one way ticket. We said “Tak” and turned around and decided to walk back. Thirty minutes later, we were back. It was a really nice walk. That is the beauty of the Stockholm Card, if a museum is bad, doesn’t matter, you have already paid. If you make a mistake going somewhere in the wrong direction or whatever, doesn’t matter, because you have already paid for the card. Winston-Salem, get a “Winston-Salem” card, and develop the same kind of public transportation as Stockholm. (This is a joke- albeit, maybe not funny).

Since the following day we would be going to Orebro, we decided to stock up on some supplies. We got two tubes of stuff. One was cheese in a metal tube and the other was crayfish flavored metal tube thing. We haven’t tried either yet. We are excited to try them in Israel. (I mean, they have to still be good right? They were not refrigerated and they are in a metal tube).

We ate dinner with Rasmus and Marie. They made the traditional dinner for Thursday night. Pea soup and pancakes. No, I am not kidding. This is tradition in Sweden. You eat Pea Soup and pancakes. Marie scared us by talking about the Pea Soup and making it sound like it was awful. It was really good. The pancakes were more like crepes and we ate those with blueberry jam that Marie made and cloud berry jam (I don’t know what that is either…) We also drank Swedish Punsch. That is how it was spelled on the bottle. It is a 21% alcohol, extremely sweet liquour. It was good but one glass was enough of that stuff (and by “glass” I mean one shot glass.”)

I took Liza out at night and saw the amount of people who were out. After work it seems like everyone either rides their bike, runs, or cross country skis on roller blades that look like short skis.

We then packed and watched TV. TV. It had channels, in English too. We saw “forgetting Sarah Marshall.” Why not?

Day 4

It looks like the rate that I am typing it is about a page and a half per day. I hope you (as the reader) are hanging in there. Good thing there are pictures too…

Mike and I woke up early, again, and made sure we had everything. We took showers and had breakfast with Rasmus and Marie. Apparently a traditional Swedish meal of oatmeal with yogurt, fruit, and some juice. It was good and I think I will try and eat the same thing when I return home.

Rasmus was super nice, again, and went with us to the train station. Maybe to make sure we got on the train, so he wouldn’t have to deal with us anymore. Kidding. We had a great time with Rasmus and Marie and I really hope that I meet them again sometime in the future. Mike is convinced he is going to try and study in Sweden. He better get a job, buy a house, pay it off, and use his house as collateral when he takes out a second mortgage to pay to go and live in Sweden.

To Rasmus and Marie, thank you a million for letting two strangers stay in your house, showing us around, talking with us, and cooking us dinner and breakfast. Overall, making us feel very welcome in your home.

We went to the platform and hung out there for a while until we learned that the train was delayed. But only by 5 minutes. And we had to change tracks. So it wasn’t too bad. We got on the train and watched as all the beautiful forests and yellow fields pass by us. We arrived in Orebro around 11:30 where we walked around a bit until we met John and Okia. They are Mike’s relatives from way, way back.

They took us by car to a water tower restaurant. It was really great because you could see over Orebro. Okia, Mike’s relative (of some kind, I never figured out the exact lineage) told us his father helped design or make the water tower. On top of the tower, Okia treated us to a Swedish buffet, which was a shame because we had just eaten our turkey sandwiches on the train. There was still room for more. (Mom and Dad, imagine your child, now add about 30 pounds. That is what your son is going to look like when he comes home- be ready).

Again, by car, we left Orebro and took a drive out in the country. That was really great because the Swedish countryside is definitely worth seeing. Very beautiful. Everything reminded me of the North Carolina forests up in the mountains around mid-fall. The air was so fresh. It’s amazing how you can tell when you are breathing in fresh air.

Mike’s story:

Apparently in the late 1800’s, Mike’s great, great grandfather left Sweden and came over to the US and settled. There was some kind of drift in the family. Okia was interested in finding out what happened to the family and in 1983 started looking. After many attempts he was unsuccessful and gave up for many years. He posted articles in US newspapers, and did other kinds of gumshoe work to find out what happened to his distant relatives. Something happened (I forgot what) but he decided to try again, one more time). He did and ended up getting a phone call in 2005. The year after, the Swedish family, who are now the Eriksson’s, went over to the US to visit. Now there is some kind of constant line of communication between the two families. Really cool how that worked out for them.

We went to the house where that great great grandfather lived and the joke was, if you can picture all the men standing around, “and that is where it all started,” which is true.

We spent the next hour or two driving around the area looking at churches and getting some more history. We stopped at a monastery and then made our way to Okia’s brother’s house. There we met many more of Mike’s extended family and sat down to have a nice Swedish meal of amazing Chedder and Brie cheese, crackers, spread, ham, assortment of breads and pasta. Topped off with pear juice.

We had dessert and coffee and then went over to Ander’s house (Ander is Okia’s brother’s son-in-law) and watched a movie. We got back to the house at 11:30pm, exhausted and ready to go to bed.

Day 5

Again, we woke up early, took showers and ate breakfast together with the family. Not all of the family. It was just Okia’s brother, his wife, daughter, Mike, and myself. We then packed our things and said our goodbyes. The wife gave me a huge hug. One of those really nice ones that just made my day.

They dropped us off at the train station and made sure everything was alright and left after the train started moving. Really a great family and super nice. The train ride was an hour long before we switched over to a bus taking us the remaining hour to Uppsala. We arrived at the train/bus station several minutes early so we went to find lockers for our bags. Soon thereafter, John, from the day before, met with us and took us around.

He took us to the Uppsala Cathedral, showed us his University, and described to us the details of “Nations” which is similar to frats in America but not really. Nations are basically small clubs based on what region of Sweden you are from. They have “functions” as well and sell cheap food. Too bad they didn’t take credit cards.

We went to another place and got kababs. We got the food to go and went to the river and ate it there. We walked around the city some more, but there really isn’t that much to see because it’s a university town. Interesting though and we had a great time.

Four o’clock came and it was time to leave. We said our goodbyes and headed to the airport. There we checked in and took a nice flight to London where I am currently finishing up this ultra long entry.

Overall thoughts of Sweden: Amazing. It is a country and seems to make sense. The people have a nice level of privacy and look out for each other. It is safe. People smile at each other and stop and have conversation if you have dogs (even if you don’t). Everyone speaks English and to me, seemed very eager to help in case we had some problems. The bus drivers seemed as though they loved their job and they were happy to be there. It is an amazing country. It is beautiful too. Not only Stockholm with its beautiful architecture and bridges connecting all the little islands, but also Orebro and Uppsala. It is so clean here. Very expensive. Beautiful ladies… everywhere. I would come back in a heartbeat… after I got a solid job.

In less than 24 hours, I will see my buddy Graham who I haven’t seen in about three years. Really excited about it. More to come. Thanks for reading those who managed to get through it.

Until next time…

The land that brought you Volvo and Saab... and cheese in a metal tube

2011-09-08T02:53:00.000-07:00

The Vasa ship

Me and the dog, Liza

Stockholm

Rasmus and Marie. Thank you so much for welcoming us at your wonderful home.

After getting off of the boat, it still felt like we were still on the boat. We met Rasmus and he took us to his car and drove us to his house. It wasn’t too far from the harbor and he gave us a nice tour of Stockholm as we were driving. Rasmus parked the car and took us to his home. It was a really nice house and from the beginning gave us the keys and told us we had full range of his kitchen which was really nice.

I should explain that Rasmus and Marie are relatives of Fred and Susan. Fred and Susan are Peace Corps Volunteers in Armenia who came in the year after us. I had mentioned on day at the office that we were going to Sweden and Finland and before we knew it, we had a nice place to stay there which really helped us out.

We ate lunch at McDonald’s…again.

After that, Mike and I walked around trying to find a print shop so that I could print stuff for my application to a certain school. We couldn’t find the one print shop that was in all of Stockholm, at least it felt like it was the only one in all of Stockholm. Later on, after we found the tourist information center, Mike said just to go to the Sheraton. That is what I did.

I went up to the Concierge and told her that I had been spending hours looking around the city for a printing place to send very important papers, by post, to the US. I tried to make it sound very important and very official. (In actuality, they were very important papers and I had a deadline). The lady said no problem, recommended some places, but said that I was more than welcome to use the hotel’s computers to print my papers out. That is what I did. I printed out all 17 sheets of paper, for free. As I was leaving I thanked her. (In Finland, it would have cost 50 euro cents per page at this particular place I was trying to get them printed).

Then we passed by a shipping store and I asked how much an envelope would be. The man asked if I just needed one. I said yes. He just handed it over for free. It was that easy. Sweden is fantastic.

I went to a post office and bought stamps and sent off my papers.

On the boat, we bought these cards called the “Stockholm card.” This card was 57 euros and turned out to be the best investment I had made in a long time. It got us into all the museums in Stockholm for free and gave us access to ride public transportation for free, including boats. This basically turned out to be a steal. The card can be bought in increments of 24,48,72, and 5 day passes. We got the 48 hour pass and it starts the second you use it for the first time. We went to the following museums:

Vasa Museum – Museum of a boat that sand during her maiden voyage because it was much too heavy and the hull was not wide enough. Really a museum worth going to.

Nobel Prize museum – We then took the subway to the nobel prize museum. Not that interesting. We learned more about Alfred Nobel. They had some notable facts here and there, but overall not worth the money they wanted people to pay.

Modern Museum of Art- I am not artsy. I see something that I like that looks like it took lots of talent to create and marvel at that. I don’t see piles of trash, in piles as art. It’s not. Neither is paint thrown onto a canvas. Not a huge fan of “modern art either” unless its of Picasso or Dali. You look at these and see something that was created. Something that takes talent. We saw advertisements that this museum had Dali and Picasso. It did. The brochure mentioned only of those two artists and one other. In the whole museum, there was only one Dali painting and three of Picasso. Although those paintings were really interesting to see, I feel like I was fooled into going there. If I didn’t have the Stockholm card, I would have been irritated that I paid that much to go to this museum.

To give you an idea of how much these museums are, each one is about 14 dollars to enter, some more, some less. Factor in transportation and it comes out to a huge bargain.

We became hungry so we found the next best thing to Taco Bell which was, I don’t know because I forgot the name, but it was decent. Lots of food, but expensive. Much like everything else in this town. So we took the Subway back to Rasmus and Marie’s but forgot which exit to take. We just got out and walked around. We found a supermarket and bought turkey, bread, cheese, mayo, pistachio nuts (at 2 dollars for a half kilo-which is a steal), and some other things. We were going to make our own lunch from then on.

We got back and met Marie. Wonderfully kind lady. They were both incredibly nice. We tried our best to stay out of their way. We did have tea and coffee with them the first night and talked until maybe midnight. It was a lot of fun. We talked about Swedish history, food, culture, things we had to see. They were both very insightful about Sweden. Their English was amazing. There were several times I forgot they were Swedish. They spoke in a very upper class British accent. When they spoke Swedish, every time it threw me off.

Day 2

They have a dog and the next morning, we got up and took Liza out for a walk. That was great because that was the first time I had interacted with a domesticated dog other than Jason and Elvira’s long ago. Liza (like Liza Minnelli) is a Portuguese Waterdog. Rasmus told us that it was the same dog that Obama has and apparently is called so because way back in the day, the dogs were used to catch the fish that fell out of the fisherman’s nets. They were trimmed in such a way that you could grab their hair to pull them back out of the water. Anyway, it was nice walking her around. She is 4 months old. They live right next to the river so we walked on the bike bath down to a good spot and sat down, looking at the ducks.

I took her back and Mike and I made turkey sandwiches to take with us on our walk around Stockholm. That day we went out to the Palace. Mike thought all the parts were in different locations in the city and planned the whole day around the Palace. It took us 2 hours to do what he had planned a day for…

Again with the Stockholm card, we were granted entrance to the treasury, which was small but interesting. It had all the emerald and ruby encased swords and crowns locked in a really thick safe. The safe door was what really intrigued me because it was about 18 inches thick.

We continued onward to the Palace Apartments. I feel like they should have a better name for guests to stay than “apartment.” It doesn’t sound all that regal. I think by now Mike and I were tired of seeing Palaces…

The King’s collection of Greek statues was pretty cool to walk around. Not exactly his collection but it was interesting to read about the different goddesses and gods and what they did. Some of the heads are not the originals for the body. Don’t know why though.

We also went to see the basement structure of the palace. Not that interesting either.

At 12:15 or so, we saw the changing of the guard which was nothing like the one in England or the one in Greece or the one in DC. Those were pretty subdued and simple. This one had a band, horses, about fifty soldiers and was about 30-40 minutes long. I got tired of watching, but was pretty cool nonetheless. It was a lot of commotion just for the actual changing of the guard, which was less than 90 seconds long.

We ate our sandwiches and walked to the Stockholm Cathedral which was really nice. This is where the Crown Princess and her husband got married.

Then we headed over to the other side of the island and went to the photo gallery which was interesting(?). Better than the art museum, I thought. If I had my pamphlets, I would tell you who the photographers were (I am currently writing this on the flight from Stockholm to London before we switch over and fly to Tel Aviv). One particular exhibit was really nice to see.

It was titled “The Invisible Man.” A 37 year old Chinese artist was speaking out against the Chinese government shutting down an art school where he and several other colleagues of his worked. The Chinese government, for one reason or another, didn’t like modern art. The “invisible man” wanted to do something about it, so her would go to several well known areas in China, like the Forbidden city and paint himself into the landscape. It was amazing because the works look like a water droplet in the shape of a person standing in front of an object. Clear, but a bit distorted. There were quite a few photos of this. My favorite was a picture of a soldier or policeman holding onto the invisible man. I would have paid to see that.

After this, we grabbed some Chinese food for dinner and went back home. We were really tired but Rasmus wanted to take us to some vantage points overlooking the city. It was totally worth it. We went to two spots looking over different parts of the city and came home. Mike and I were really tired and soon thereafter, we went to bed.

The entry for Sweden is really long, so I am going to break it up a little bit...

Until next time...

Finland... and the boat

2011-08-31T22:50:00.000-07:00

Finland in all it's glory...

The morning after we woke up on the boat. The view was a lot better than this...

Me and Cormac in his Helsinki room

Our room. Better known to most people as a closet with a bathroom...

We arrived in Helsinki at the Port of Helsinki at 11:30 at night. I am really glad that we had Cormac there with us. We got off the boat and headed to the only bus that was lined up and hoped it would take us in somewhat of the direction we needed to go. It sort of did.

When I got off the bus and saw the people walking around at 12:30 at night. I didn’t really know what to think. People there had piercings in places I didn’t think you could get pierced. However, those Scandinavian girls pulled through as stereotype would say.

We got on another bus and twenty minutes later we were outside of the main city and in the area where Cormac lives. It was too dark to tell if it was nice or not. We just carried our bags in, made our cots, and made some pasta before going to bed. I was pretty hungry. After eating, lights out.

After traveling for two weeks and staying here and there, the weather being rainey and gloomy, and having piles of laundry to be done, we didn’t do anything. We had grand plans of going out and seeing Helsinki, but we didn’t. We woke up early, went across the street to the grocery store, bought food there, came back and just hung out. We did heaps of laundry and by that time, it was already 4 or so. It was a very welcomed break from our traveling. Just a full day to relax. Interestingly enough, Cormac’s roommates never left their rooms. It was an interesting set-up. You had to get into the main room where there are eight people sharing that, then unlock another small room with two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom and then unlock another room which is one of the two bedrooms in there. From the outside, you need to use your key four times to get to your bedroom. Anyway, I never really saw them.

It seemed like everyone sharing his flat, or anyone from overseas was from Michigan. However, Michigan does have some strong environmental programs. That is what Cormac is studying, eventually getting a dual masters degree from NC State and a University in Sweden.

So, like I said, we just hung out and made food. Tacos… Then, before we knew it, it was already after midnight.

The next morning we woke up early and got ready. We were determined to at least see some of Helsinki. We took the bus in and got some really expensive coffee (3.50 to me is now expensive) and then went to the tourist information booth. That place was really funny because we kept asking one girl questions. Another lady kept coming up and saying “Sorry, she doesn’t know, its her first day.” We asked several questions and I am not lying when I say that she said this statement to every question we had as though we had left for three days to come back and ask different questions. It was borderline comical. Eventually I told the lady that I wanted the rookie girl to answer my question because that was the only way she was going to learn, and sure enough, with some browsing on the internet, she was able to help me.

Cormac was pretty impressive with the amount of knowledge he knew about Helsinki after having lived there for only a week. We saw three churches and that was about it. That was enough. We ate by the pier. There, Mike looked up and said “that ship has the same name as the one we are taking.” My reaction: that is the ship we are taking but its not in the port we thought it was going to be in. We walked over to the port and found out that the ship was indeed the ship we would be taking. So, it was very fortunate that Mike was looking around.

We didn’t have too much time after that, so we went back to Cormac’s and grabbed our bags. We also went to the Grocery store and bought food for the 16 hour ship ride. Mike and I waited at the port for about an hour before boarding.

Finland was nice, but to me 36 hours there was enough. Granted, I probably didn’t see that much but it was a nice stopover, resting place. Glad I went and maybe will go back again. I didn’t spend enough time there to really recommend it or not. Lots of Russians though…

On the boat…

The boat to take us from Finland to Sweden was one a bit smaller than a standard cruise boat. We saw our ticket, we then saw the map of the boat. Traveling around for five weeks after you have been volunteering is no money making endeavor. We had to save some money but decided that it would be nice to take a 16 hour boat ride between the two cities. Our room was under the cars. Probably under the water as well. We had no windows. However, it was nice. It would have been twice the size of first class on an airplane. We had our own toilet, shower, and sink. The bunked bed appeared out of thin air (or from the wall).

We walked around the boat from one end to the other end. We did this several times not knowing exactly what we were expecting would change. Regardless, you are on a boat, where else are you going to go. The water was a bit choppy but I think two years riding in a marshutni really prepared my stomach. Everything was fine. We ate our turkey sandwiches and decided we would treat ourselves to a beer in the bar, listening to a Scandinavian lady belt out some tunes. A very operatic voice for songs that should not be sung in that manner. Entertaining nonetheless.

We went to bed early by the rocking of the sea waves.

Since the room was pitch black, we had no way of telling what time it was, so Mike kept getting up every two hours because he didn’t think that anyone would let us know if we docked. (It turns out that they didn’t give any kind of announcement, but only played some screeching noises around 7:50pm (or what was about 6:50 because Mike didn’t know there was a one hour time difference.

Walking around outside was one of the more beautiful things I have ever done. Islands everywhere with these nice little red painted homes and clear water lapping up on the shores. The sky was clear and trees as far as the eye could see. Really an amazing sight. It was a bit chilly and now, being in Stockholm, I wish I didn’t send all my fleeces back to the US. Oh well. We got some coffee on the boat and kept staring outside. A couple hours later, we were already getting ready to disembark. We got our things and got off the boat. Definitely a memorable experience.

As we got off, we got to the arrivals area and met Rasmus. He was standing there with a sign which had our names written on it.

Now we were in Stockholm Sweden.

Until next time…

Sushi in Estonia...

2011-08-30T15:38:00.000-07:00

The beautiful Tallinn from the spire of a church...

Mike and Cormac in front of me, bike riding.

Me and Mike standing in front of the church we climbed up to get pictures of picture #1.

Beard=gross

We left in the morning. We didn’t really have that much to eat because we had to go to the bus station shortly after we woke up. Cormac said he knew the way so we went with him and ten minutes before the bus was supposed to pull out, we made it there. We had our tickets but had to put our bags under the bus. The man there, who was not very helpful, did not like the fact that he had to put our baggage tickets on our bus tickets as we would soon learn soon that we would have to give our bus tickets (with our baggage tickets on them) to the bus people. We got on the bus and sure enough, we gave up our tickets.

We sat close to the back with a group of Spaniards who only spoke English. It was really bizarre but didn’t have the energy to spark conversation and figure out the reasoning behind their motives to speak English.

When we arrived in Tallinn after four hours, we tried to get our bags. The same man that gave us our baggage tickets asked us where our baggage tickets were. We said, “you put them on our bus tickets.” Apparently that wasn’t good enough for the man because he threw our bags back on the bus. So we waited until everyone else got their tickets. All over my bag, my name is written in permanent marker, so I got my passport out and went back over to the man. In the five minutes we were gone, he forgot who we were and didn’t realize there were only two bags in the bus. He asked, “which are your bags?”. I didn’t know if I should take this guys seriously enough and gave him probably the dumbest face of shock I could muster. Anyway, after lots of pantomiming and frustration, I said, “there is no one else here, my passport matches with the name written all over the bag.” He finally relented.

We walked down the street with our bags and got on the tram. Our fearless leader Mike walked us all around and told us to get off the tram way too early so we walked way past where we needed to go, just to walk back. Finally I stopped and in my broken Russian stopped someone and asked “excuse me, do you speak English.” The guy just looked at me and said “What?”. The guy apparently spoke English so in my excitement of not having to use Russian, asked him if he could help us out. He was from Greece and was very happy to help out lost Americans (us).

Arriving at the hostel, we learned that the amazing smart British hostel owner didn’t book three rooms, but just two. (I should say beds instead of rooms…). After waiting for about 30 minutes and walking through turtle pee (they had a turtle free-roaming in the living room of the hostel and walked right into it), they said that they had an open apartment and would not charge us extra. We took it. We went there, and three hours later, were able to put our things down. We all took naps and then went out and walked around the old town of Tallinn. Not that great. We got sushi. Really great. Then we walked back and watched “Defiance.” The Daniel Craig movie about militia men fighting Nazi Germany. Really good watch.

The next morning we woke up early and took our bags to another hostel. The guy working there was super nice and said that we could leave our bags there. So we left our bags behind one of the couches and walked around the Old Town some more. We went to a church and paid the two euro to go up the really small cave-like pathway up the million spiraling steps to the spire of the church. Russians drive me crazy sometime because we were standing there waiting for the line to move and the Russians came in and just walked between the people waiting to go in and the people coming out, basically pushing everyone out of the way. It was ridiculous. The view however, was totally worth it. It was amazing. You could see all of Tallinn and over the Harbor to the other side. I have picture of that and I will post those.

We then went down the street and found a place that rented bikes, so we rented bikes and went along the coast a ways to the other side. It was probably about 4 miles one way. That was a lot of fun. We stopped and took a lot of pictures and then rode back. By this time it was around 3:00, so we dropped off our bikes and found a place to eat pizza. It was gross, but really good at the same time because I was starving. We went back to the hostel and checked email and the weather and talked to the people staying at the hostel. They were nice enough. We then left around 6:00 and carried all our bags to the harbor. We found a place to sit and just hung out for about an hour and a half before getting on the boat. After we got on, we found a large couch and just staked out our area.

The boat ride was really nice. I mean the actual ride. The waters were calm, the people were not. We saw people wheeling around six 24-case boxes of booze around because the alcohol in Finland was ridiculously expensive. The people on the boat were out of control. I went up to the top deck and was trapped because two skinheads decided it was smart to get drunk and then wrestle in the middle of the cruise deck. So I watched, with a dumbfounded look on my face and then went downstairs. Two hours later, we were in Finland, at the Helsinki port.

We got our things and made our way to the public buses. At the city center, we changed buses and continued to Cormac’s place which is a good distance outside of the city.

I will write about Finland in the next blog but will leave you with some pictures.

Until next time…

Cinnamon Sally, Latvia

2011-08-28T01:57:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Riga at 6ish. It was amazing to step off of the plane. The weather was perfect and the air smelled so sweet and fresh. I don’t know if I will ever forget stepping off of that plane. We got our bags from the baggage claim and saw we were one group of only five actually staying in Riga. Since all airBaltic flights go through Riga, there are a lot of connections at the tiny airport.

Last time I was here, the nice lady just stamped my passport and said “Welcome to Riga.” However, this time the man asked me a million questions and seemed reluctant to stamp my passport. We followed the hostel’s instructions and ran across the airport parking lot to take the #22 bus from the airport to the city center. We took the half-hour bus to the center and carried our bags down the road. We got lost in the underground crossing because nothing was marked and there were roughly 15 million exits. Again, in my broken Russian, I asked someone the directions to a place and found we were on the right street. As we got to the top of the stairs, my good buddy, Cormac, came up behind us and led us the rest of the way to the hostel.

The hostel was fantastic and reminded me of the hostels in Sarajevo and Mostar. Both had great vibes. Ieva, who is the young and hip hostel owner had opened up about a year ago. She had really done a great job. It was a large hostel but the layout made it seem small and personable. Very personable. For those of you coming this way, I highly recommend you stay at “Cinnamon Sally’s Backpacker’s hostel.” Anyway, we basically checked in, unpacked a bit, changed into some warmer clothes, and then headed to get some dinner.

Dad you will be proud. We went to the Latvian version of K&W. Basically it was cafeteria style Latvian food for a decent price. We ate there and went back to the hostel and just hung out with others there. Steve and Darrah were two recent graduates from Ireland just traveling around. Proved to be good boys. Always interesting talking to the Irish. Basically after that, we went to bed. The first time I fell asleep without the paranoia of bugs eating me in the night.

The next day we woke up and walked around to find some breakfast before our free walking tour starting at noon. We started out walking down a road and ran into a fax place. I needed to fax something to my advisor, so I printed my sheets out and tried faxing my papers. Faxing proved to be unfruitful. So we continued onward and found a place to eat a sandwich and then headed over to the meeting place.

We waited there for some time and then were met by our tourguide James. He is an English guy who saw lots of immigrants going to England and decided that if everyone was going west, he should go east. He has been here for six years and a couple years ago started these “free walking tours.” If you think the tour is good, you give him money. If not, then you don’t. It was really good though. It was two hours long and he took us to many of the sites there and then some. (I wish I could post pictures but my memory card messed up so I will have to just wait until I get back to the US to take care of all that). We saw little Moscow, some interesting art nouveau architecture, an interesting super modern village inside of Riga, old town, and some other places along the way. Really nice tour.

We then went to the occupation museum and witnessed what life was like under Soviet rule. Not very good from 1941-1991. Seeing these kinds of places really show the perseverance and the robustness of the human element because I just can’t imagine going through the things that the Latvians and others went through. Worst of all, not knowing an end date to all the suffering and torture. Hard to swallow sometimes.

After the museum, I went to the post office to buy some stamps and to try faxing my paper from there. It proved fruitful. I sent me postcards and then walked back to the old town to sit at an outdoor café. One of the cool things about being is here is that there are a lot of young people on the side of the road playing their instruments. Near the café were four ladies in their early 20’s playing as a string quartet. They played many of my favorite pieces.

We walked back to the hostel and on the way, went to the supermarket. We wanted to get some pasta and make white sauce to go with it. So we bought mushrooms, blue cheese, cream, red peppers, onions, garlic, and gnocchi. It turned out really well but I’m sure we also gained about 20 pounds by eating all that cheese and dairy…

It’s interesting the people you meet at hostels. I have yet to meet someone I didn’t want to talk to. The best hostels are not necessarily the ones that give you towels, or have many bathrooms, or have wireless internet, but they are the ones that are more conducive to small social gatherings. Cinnamon Sally did a great job of having a central room that you had to go through in order to leave. The kitchen was there too and to use the bathroom, you had to go through the central room, thus always creating an opportunity to start conversation.

While we were eating, there was a very interesting guy that came in. He was carrying a bike with no pack or anything. He came over and sat down for a moment. Lots of great energy and excitement. One of those people that would be able to make just about anyone feel better just by being around him. We asked him where he had been riding. We figured he just went out for a stroll. He is from Luxembourg originally from Spain. He left Luxembourg July 19^th or so and just started biking through various countries. He had gone through France and the Netherlands, before heading into Norway, hitting the northern most city before going through Sweden and Finland and ending up in Latvia. He had traveled quite a bit on his bike.

We asked him where his stuff was and he asked “what stuff.” The stuff that you sleep in like a tent or a sleeping bag or something like that. And without even a second thought, he said “come on guys, I sleep under bridges and in random parks, sometimes just on the side of the road. To that I said “Jesus Christ”. His response with much excitement… “That’s my name, Jesus.” I believe it...

Now you may think that I am making this up but I have two others to vouch for this story. He was still in University and was a bouncer back in Luxembourg. Not a tall guy but a very built one. He kept telling us how badly out of shape he was. (Because those that ride 50 million miles on a bicycle and sleep in parks are really out of shape…). Anyway, he asked if we wanted to see pictures of him before he started his cycling. Everyone thought that he would be a huge overweight guy who just decided to start riding. We were not prepared for the pictures we saw. He was a bodybuilder and actually lost muscle mass by going on this cycling trip. Really unforgettable guy.

We also spent some time with Steve and Darrah. Two Irish lads from Dublin, Ireland. Really friendly guys who were just traveling after they finished University. They reminded me of Damien, the Irishman that I met and worked with in Korea. I just loved the way they spoke. Darrah looked and acted just like the guy from “Little Miss Sunshine;” the brother that never spoke until he had his mental breakdown. It was uncanny.

Ieva was the owner as I mentioned before and later on that night, I told her that I was making a documentary of our travels. She asked how I was doing it and I showed her my little iFlip. Somehow we decided that I would film her doing a “cribs” themed short about her hostel. So we walked around and she showed us her hostel and she uploaded it somewhere online so that future hostel-stayers could view it.

Daega was her assistant and a Heidi klum look-alike at the age of 21. She was really cool. There was another girl working there Ilze who was new. They all looked the same. It is weird. There were several questions asked such as “as you three sisters” or “do you have to be 6 feet, blonde, and gorgeous to be Latvian.” I didn’t ask these questions… but I was thinking them.

The following morning, we woke up and reheated our dinner from the previous night. We realized we might be late for the train so we hurried across the street. We started running when we saw the train for no apparent reason only to realize we were over 30 minutes early. That must have been a site. We met an Australian girl who was traveling for whatever reason and went to the castles in Siguda with her.

When we got there, we just walked around. Again, the air was so crisp and nice. Weather, couldn’t have been better. We saw different castles and a sandstone cave with inscriptions from the 1600s in it. It was just a nice day to walk around. We rode on the cable car and saw the gorge, walked to another castle, realized we would miss our train, took the public bus back, and ran again to the train, just in time to sit down before it left. A two hour trip turned into a 7 hour trip. It was great.

That night we went out with Daega. She took us to a karaoke bar with several of the other hostel people. The next morning we got up early and again, almost missed our bus to Tallinn. Cormac thought he knew the way to the bus station. We took a wrong turn. Time was cutting short. But, we made it, also with a couple minutes to spare. We need to stop doing that.

(Did I mention when we left Istanbul, we had been taking our time a bit too much and we heard the airline call for us to get to the plane?) We need to start getting our act together.

There is something about Latvia that is just so nice. The people are nice, friendly. The architecture is great. Lots to do. Quiet. I would recommend this place to anyone willing to go somewhere off the beaten path. The whole country, not just Riga, seems to be really great. I will certainly miss Latvia and will surely go back.

(Did I mention that I would love to post pictures, but my memory card messed up?)

Until next time…

The last couple days in Turkey.

2011-08-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I talked to my parents. One month from yesterday I will be back at home. Interesting thinking about that. I know I have mentioned that several times before but it is a weird feeling being away from home for nearly 28 months and then heading back home because at this point, its not really my home anymore since I had been away for that long. I am excited to go through the transition though. I’m glad we are slowly making our way back. I think going from Armenia straight back to the US would have jolted me pretty good.

The last couple days in Turkey have been pretty relaxed. Nothing we have to see. It is 1:30pm as I write this and it is nice knowing that we saw all the touristy things and more. We went to the Dolmabache which is where Ataturk died. From the front a very modest looking structure. You go in it and it stretches what seems to be three football fields. It is huge. There was one room where just the Taj Mahal, took my breathe away. They don’t allow photographs to be taken inside but it was amazing. There were paintings all over the place. Some to make the room look even bigger but it was absolutely stunning. It is weird standing next to a bed where a ruler took his last breath.

We went to the Bazaar but since it was Sunday, it was closed. We got some food in the area and then came back. Later on in the night we went to get some dinner, at 9pm. We met up with Pepe’s friends from Australia and walked around going to eat stuffed clams and fried mussels from this place. Really cheap since it is just street food. I didn’t realize how much seafood is here.

Honestly, we haven’t been doing much. I finished my Michigan secondary yesterday so that made me feel good and a large weight off my shoulders. However, this secondary I actually have to mail in. Every other school has been electronic. It is a bit annoying that I am send this one in by mail, hoping that it gets to where it needs to go.

Tomorrow we leave in the morning to Riga, Latvia to meet up with Cormac. Cormac is one of my buddies from way back when. I met his older brother who is my age when I was in the second grade. We worked together at scout camp. Cormac worked there too and that is where I met him the first time, but it wasn’t until we met at University that we became friends. We also went to Sweden together four years ago. Hard to believe that much time has gone by. Looking forward to seeing him tomorrow. We will be traveling from Latvia through Estonia up to Finland where he is getting his masters.

Mike and I are going to make egg rolls for our hosts and guests tonight, hang out a bit, pack, and say goodbye to a wonderful country, Turkey. I met and became friends with some really cool people.

(A couple days later)

Before leaving Turkey, we decided that we were going to make eggrolls for the other guests and our hosts. Yagmur and Ryan walked around Istanbul and finally found cabbage. However, we needed some kind of flat bread similar to that of lavash. Ryan and Mike went out and visited about four stores before they found some. I was at home chopping everything up. So after several hours of cooking it was finally finished and we enjoyed dinner together. I however, forgot to put the eggs in the eggrolls…. It was fine. I also put in cumin instead of black pepper into the mix. Still turned out alright.

We just stayed in and hung out. Mike and I didn’t have anything else to do and since we were out the night before, no sense in going out again.

The next morning, we took our time getting up, packing and heating up the left over egg rolls from the previous night. We ran out of lavash. There was left over pasta noodles so after adding a little bit of soy sauce, we had stir-fry for breakfast. I added the eggs this time. No major difference.

We said our goodbyes to our friends and walked down the hill to the tram. Although it took us about 90 minutes to get to the airport, it ended up costing us about 4 lira each or $2.20. We grabbed lunch and then got on the plane. The flight was 2 hours and 40 minutes. Not too bad.

Turkey was great, but I was excited to see Latvia.

Until next time…

Friday, August 19

2011-08-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning, we took our time getting up. Mike and I went to Starbuck’s just to treat ourselves to a taste of America. I can’t say it was the greatest thing as my tastes have changed. Drinks I used to enjoy are much too sweet now. At 11 we were to meet David Parks who I mentioned earlier as a volunteer from our group, from our training village in fact. We go way back.

We started out by getting some lunch/ breakfast. Not exactly brunch because it was more lunch time, but it was the first meal to me. So it would probably be better just to say “we had lunch”. David ordered me some kind of toast. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t that good either. It was good because it cost less than two dollars and that was fine with me. We then walked down the street to a hookah bar that David raved about. It was as good as he described it. On the seventh floor, it had a clear view of the harbor area and the Asian side of Istanbul. Really nice view. Ryan came after he finished his dealings with the New Zealand Consulate.

We then walked down to the harbor and decided that we wanted to try a Turkish bath. If you don’t know what it is, don’t worry, I didn’t either but will gain an insight to what it is in my upcoming words.

Ryan left us and Mike, David, and myself, we had to figure out how to get across to the Asian side and find this Turkish bath or Humemi. I don’t think I spelled that right but its close enough. No one spoke English. We got on a boat and it took us straight across the river. As in from one side of the bridge to the other. A five-minute boat ride. Everyone got off. We didn’t know what to do so we got on another boat. Five minutes later we were on the same side we started on. We didn’t have a clue which boat to take. Since we lingered on the boat, it had already started to pull away from the dock. The boat had to pull back to the dock rendering it necessary in the boat pilots mind to let us know of our error by blaring the horn right as we were getting off. Thank you.

After several minutes of pantomiming, a boat attendant figured out what was going on and told us which boat to get on. It took us back to the other side, where we were not more than twenty minutes prior. Everyone got off. We followed the herd and ended up going the right direction; about 45 minutes behind schedule and now having traveled the same boat route three times.

We arrived at the Asian side. We had received some instruction from Ryan on how to get to the Humemi. They proved to be fruitless. So, every 100 meters or so I asked a man sitting on the side of the street “Chilinli Humemi?” It worked as we finally got there.

The Humemi also didn’t have anyone who spoke English, which had somewhat of a calming effect. They gave us towels and pointed at rooms on the second floor. We went up there and changed into towels and came back downstairs. The man took us into the large marble steam room where we just sat there asking each other what the next step was with not one of us having a real clue.

A 250 pound Turkish man came in with a towel around his waist and told David to follow him. Another came and told Mike to follow him. We walked into another room with marble sinks no more than two feet off the ground. I watched. It didn’t look so bad.

It was my turn. The man told me where to sit. I sat down and with a harsh scrubber, jus went to town on my body. My whole body. I just had to block it out because coming from a western culture, we don’t just let any bathe us. This man did scrubbed my back, and then my front. He scrubbed my legs. I still had a towel around me but he managed to go up far enough to ram one testicle into pelvic bone. I went numb. Every once in a while, he showed me all the dead skin that came off, proud of his work. I was just grossed out. Five more of those and I will be back to what I was like two years ago.

We then went back into the stream room, which has a fifteen foot diameter marble table. I laid down on it as this man put soap all over me. It felt good to me, but Michael was screaming and squirming around. I don’t think he liked it as much. I was funny watching David because his body type and structure resembles Gumby’s. Since this was our first time, we just laid limply and let the barbaric man just move us in whatever position he needed us to be in.

Overall a really good experience and you do feel a lot cleaner, like your skin can breathe again. I am not as tan anymore….

Since we went way out of our way to get to this bath, we saved about 60 Lira. This place had no tourists and is where the Turkish men go.

We took the ferry back to the European side and randomly met Ryan by the road. We were going to have a barbeque on his roof. It was really nice. They got fish to grill and we had that with an assortment of vegetables and sauces. It was a nice way to spend our evening.

We went back out that night to meet up with David and hung out in the area.

Today, I just hung around the house trying to catch up on work. There really isn’t too much left to see since we sprinted around trying to cover all the tourist spots thinking we wouldn’t have the time. Eh. It has been fun just hanging out and talking with Ryan and Yagmur and their other guests who are from Turkey and Australia.

Until next time…

Turkey (Istanbul)

2011-08-19T08:27:00.000-07:00

AyaSofia in Trabzon. Had some nice frescos.

Galata Tower from across the Golden Horn River. We are staying right next to the tower. Great location so thank you Ryan and Yagmur.

Me inside the AyaSofia in Istanbul. Really worth going to see if you are in the area.

Our host Ryan in front of the AyaSofia. Yes, we are staying with him...

Mike and I got up early on Tuesday because we wanted to see the AyaSofia museum. We thought we were getting up at 9:00am but since I forgot to change the time on my computer to the local time, we had actually gotten up at 6:30am and were about to check out at 7:00am. The hotel attendant laughed. We left our bags with him and went out anyway.

Since it is Ramadan, a lot of restaurants are observing this religious event by closing shop. Good for the locals, bad for tourists. We found one place that was open and Mike ordered some kind of bean dish. It was actually pretty good. I took a small piece of bread and tried the sauce. We then caught a local bus to AyaSofia which is a small church on the other side of Trabzon. We got there an hour early but sat on the bank looking over the Black Sea. The Sea is really gross actually. At least from where we were. We took about 45 minutes walking around this church before heading back.

As soon as we got back, we went to the tourist office to get information about getting to Ataturk’s summer home. We walked to the bus stop and stopped at the post office along the way. Right outside the post office was the presumed bus stop but we couldn’t see the #4 bus come by. The interesting thing about Turks, we have learned, is that they will never say “I don’t know, sorry,” they are so willing to be helpful that they may lead you in the wrong direction. With that said, we passed by the same old lady four times trying to figure out where the right stop was. Eventually we found it and headed up to Ataturk’s summerhouse.

The bus dropped us off right outside of the house. We bought out tickets and found out that although advertised to be Ataturk’s summerhouse, which is technically true, he actually only stayed there for one summer, a total of 3 nights. Regardless it was a nice house and it had a nice garden.

We waited outside the house for the next bus to come. We were cutting it close because our flight to Istanbul was set for 2:40pm. It was 11:30 and we still needed to get back to the city, hopefully pick up lunch, get our bags from the hotel, and head to the airport. We got back to the city center when the heavens opened. Walking through the rain in my four-year-old rainbows sandals proved to be a horrible idea as most of the leather on the sandal, where my foot hits the leather itself, rubbed off. I still wear them. On our haste back to the hotel, we stopped at the McDonald’s again and got lunch. I must say, in our defense, that we eat at these fast food places because there are no other places to eat. During Ramadan, the local restaurants only serve one item and its just on the heating rack. However, that was the last time we had eaten there.

We picked up our bags from the hotel and went to the bus stop hoping to figure out a way to get to the airport. I asked some older gentlemen at the stop if they could help us out. Airport, is not “airport” with a Turkish accent in Turkish… I acted out an airport for 30 seconds before anyone understood what I was doing. (Interesting because I thought I was good at charades…). We were cutting it close so we paid about twenty dollars to get a cab to the airport. When we got there, we checked in, got on our plane and I passed out.

We arrived in Istanbul ten minutes early, got our bags, and headed to the bus to take us into Istanbul, to Taksim square where we were to meet our friend Ryan. Ryan is a New Zealander who lives with his Turkish girlfriend in Istanbul. I met Ryan about a year ago at Jason’s house. (Too much backstory to tell here). The bus took us about an hour and as we were getting close, Mike told me to look out the window. It was 6:00 exactly and that was the time we were supposed to meet Ryan. We saw Ryan walking away from the bus drop off. We got to the stop and put our bags on the wall to wait for him. However, he had just made a large loop and came back. He thought we were going to take hours so he took a walk to find some bread and came back shortly thereafter. We carried our bags to his house and just relaxed for the rest of the night. Yagmur, his girlfriend, made a nice Turkish dinner, but I don’t remember what it was.

The only downside about staying here is that on the first night, I got three spider bites and a couple mosquito bites, and every successive night has added more mosquito bites. Whatever.

The following morning, Ryan went out with us and we walked around the Grand Bazaar, Egyptian Market, and some other places before he left. We walked through the Blue Mosque, AyaSofia in Istanbul, and other areas. It was not so hot out so it was almost pleasant to walk around. We came back home and helped prepare dinner. That as really good. We ate falafel and salad. One of their friends, Gurgen, went out to pick up his girlfriend flying to Turkey from Istanbul and afterwards came to join us.

Yesterday morning, August 18^th, Mike and I woke up and were out the door by 9:00am. We went to the cistern, which was pretty cool. An underground water storage facility which was built hundreds of years ago. After that, we went to the Sultan’s palace and got to see some of the old Turkish royal clothing and jewelry. Also, we got a nice shot of Istanbul from across the river.

At around 2:00 we started walking back, stopping at the post office again, and wanted to find something to eat. We found a place and a face caught my eye. Sitting with his friend at a table was Thomas, Patrick’s older brother. Patrick has been one of my closest friends for years, meeting back in the first grade. It was such a shock to see Thomas at a restaurant in Istanbul, Turkey. We spoke for a while and will try to meet another day. Small world.

After lunch, we went back to the house and I took a two hour nap. Following that, we hung out for a while before leaving to go out. There are many street carts selling clams, so we stopped at one and ate a fried clam sandwich and some clams cooked with rice. Basically, they put spiced rice into the clam, cook it, and then you open the clam, and use one side of the shell to scoop all the insides into your mouth. It was really good, and really cheap. We came back and shortly thereafter, passed out.

It seems we have done all the tourist things in this area. Today we are planning on meeting with David, who was a volunteer from my group whom we randomly met on the road while we were walking from the bus stop to Ryan’s. We are also planning on going to a Hamem, which is a Turkish bath. Basically a really big Turkish man washes you and it’s meant to feel really good… Don’t know what else there is in store, but should be interesting. It’s been fun just hanging out and talking with locals. I’ll let you know. Here are some pictures. We are here until the 23^rd.

Until next time…

Turkey... not the food (Trabzon)

2011-08-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

My good friend Avto and myself under a church in Georgia.

The Black Sea on our way to Turkey on our 12 hour ride.

The great Sumela Monastery. It was totally worth it to see that place.

My not-so-candid shot of the Archbishop.

Tbilisi to Trabzon

It was an interesting day. We packed up our things and headed outside to wait for Avto. He was a bit late but got there with more than enough time to take us to the bus station and boy I am glad he did. There was some confusion as to where our reservations were. His girlfriend, Eka, reserved the tickets under the company “Metro bus service” but when we went there, they didn’t have them. Apparently there is a subsidiary company where our reservations were held. This would have been a huge mass of confusion had Avto not been there because Michael nor I know Georgian. He got everything figured out for us.

We put our things on the bus and waited to leave with Avto. He was really nice to come out and make sure that we got on our way. The bus was really great and as I write this in Trabzon, Turkey I can’t believe how fast the 12 hour bus ride took. It was a very modern Mercedes bus with screens in the headrests and air conditioning the whole way. More than enough leg room for me and reclining seats made it that much better. A long cry from what we took from Yerevan to Tbilisi. Marshutnis are just no match.

We slept most of the way from Tbilisi to Batumi and then rode along the coast of the Black Sea after that. It was really beautiful. Everyone was super friendly and helpful along the way. We got to the border and got our exit stamps for Georgia and then walked over to the Turkey side.

This is where things got interesting. We got in line for the turkey entry stamp knowing that we had to purchase a visa. With what results in complete reverse intuition, we actually had to by-pass the passport control, go into Turkey, buy our visa and then go back to the Georgian side to get it actually stamped. It made no sense. The first policeman explained this to us and I think he thought it was counterintuitive as well. He gave a chuckle. The visa office was not easy to find either and some of the other policemen we asked along the way made it seem like it should be easy. But when you don’t speak the language, and there is an apparent lack of signs, it makes it all the more difficult. Whatever, we got across.

We were 100km from Trabzon when Michael became suspicious of the place we were staying. No where on the reservation form did it say “Trabzon” but some other city. Mike didn’t think twice about it until we were this close. We asked the bus driver where the city was and he said that it was on the other side of Istanbul, a mere 15 hours away from where we were at that moment. Mike had messed up. Fortunately for us, we had my computer and there was wireless interest at one of the stops. We found a hotel. We wrote down the address.

We got to Trabzon at 9pm. The bus dutifully pulled over and we both got out. We got Turkish Lira out at the ATM that was next to the bus pullover. (Because we didn’t have Lira before, I had to pretend I was marveling the beauty of the Black Sea while taking a pee since you have to pay for bathroom usage here. Fortunately the sun was almost down and it was dark so no one really knew what I was doing. Mike and I are close enough that he stood next to me because really, who would stand next to their buddy while they were peeing… Mike would. It added to the disguise. Anyway, we found another hotel but lost internet when the bus started moving.

We asked a store owner pantomiming and showing him the address of the hotel. He yelled at a bus driver to take us to the hotel. We got off and the bus driver told one of the other patrons to take us to the hotel. We got to the hotel. The shadiest place I have ever been other than the hotel we stayed in in India. We dropped off our bags and went out to look for something to eat. When we were walking we realized there were prostitutes everywhere. They kept whistling at us. We got to a tea place and sat down. Yes, we were a bit worried.

As we sat there, Mike realized the owner was speaking Armenian. So in Armenian I asked her if she was speaking Armenian. She was. That really made me feel so much better. We explained to her we had lived there for two years working for Peace Corps and that’s why we knew Armenian. Mike just sat there. I asked her about the right prices for everything, how far it was to the city center and asked her if it was dangerous in this area. She told me everything truthfully saying that she was Armenian and that she wouldn’t lie to someone who lived in Armenia. We found out later that she was a madam. Ha. I figured because her face was about 6 inches away from mine and every chance she got, she kept touching my exposed leg. Whatever, I got the answers I needed. I asked her about the hotel, she said it was fine. She just said that we shouldn’t go outside past twelve and other than that, there is nothing to worry about.

Needless to say, we will probably change hotels tomorrow night. You probably won’t be reading this until we have left Trabzon so Mom and Dad, don’t worry, everything is (was) fine. Another story to add to the list.

Things are usually better in the morning anyway, but how fantastic to run into an Armenian so willing to help out. They all do. That made us feel much better.

So that was today…

Day 2 in Trabzon

We woke up surprisingly early. I watched a bit of the Real Madrid/ Barcelona soccer game on TV since that does not require the knowledge of the Turkish language then fell asleep late. I didn’t sleep well because I was freaking out about our things getting stolen from our room when we left. Mike and I decided to carry around everything of value. Actually I left my computer in the room but locked it up in my bag with a lock that could be cut probably by a pair of scissors if you really wanted to. (everything was fine when we got back...)

We left around 9 because we wanted to go to the Sumela Monastery about an hour outside of Trabzon. It was awesome because it is built into a mountain side and is huge. However, today was some huge Christian holiday in Turkey so no buses were going out there because they had all been chartered. Mike and I took the public transportation after being directed in circles for about an hour. It was fun though and we weren’t really in a hurry. We found the bus, which happened to be right in front of our hotel after walking around for roughly an hour.

We waited a little while and then left. We got to the Monastery and due to some processions at the Monastery, we had to wait at the bottom of the hill. Mike and I decided we would just eat lunch. I don’t know what I ate. It was labeled “meatballs” but they looked like small hamburger patties and as you all know hamburger patties do not resemble meatballs. It was fine.

When they opened the gate, Mike and I walked up the 3km road to the Monastery. It was at a very strict grade and we were wearing sandals. People were staring at us. That’s fine. The Monastery was really cool (see attached photos… you probably already have). The inside was being renovated so we couldn’t really see much there but there were some amazing frescos on the inside. I don’t think I will ever figure out why people would want to scratch the frescoed walls. Anyway, we then walked back down.

On our way up on the trail, I stood next to the archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. I tried not to make eye contact since his bodyguards looked like they could do some damage, but I did get a shot of him walking down the trail.

At the bottom we waited for everyone from the bus to get back before heading back. After we got back, we walked around Trabzon and then decided to get something to eat. Burger King. We were really tired from our day so here we are back at the hotel contemplating on going back out for a music festival on the other side of the town at 9pm. Probably not going to happen.

We didn’t make it to Ataturk’s house but maybe tomorrow we will make it before our 2pm flight to Istanbul. That is when the trip should get much more exciting. Certainly more to come.

Baklava here is amazing. Dad, I wish you could be here to try it becaue I know you rave about it, but I think even if I FEDEXed it there it might not be that great….

Until next time...

Georgia, the country

2011-08-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

Leaving Armenia was not easy. Actually it wasn’t too bad. Mike and I woke up the following morning, packed, walked to the supermarket to exchange money and get some food and then walked back to Jason’s. They were still sleeping so I ran in and jumped on Jason while he was sleeping to say goodbye. It was not hard, probably because I know I will see them later in life.

Khashi never made it to the bus station like he said he would. Later I found out that he was “too sleepy.” Most may wonder how I rave about him all the time and yet he didn’t get up to say goodbye to his friend. Well, let me tell you something about Khashi, this kid does not wake up. When I lived with him, I would literally have to shake him to get him to even open his eyes, every time wondering if he was dead. Once he opened his eyes, he would give whatever response was necessary to get you to go away, and then he would fall back asleep. Goodbyes are hard and they would have been awful had I gone through the formal ritual of giving a hug, saying we will keep in touch, etc. It was easier this way and I can remember Khashi in a more light and fun manner. I will surely miss him.

The weather was nice leaving Armenia. The border was pretty warm but not too bad overall. We got to Tbilisi by 2pm, or 1pm local time. (Georgia does not go by daylight savings time). As usual, as soon as we got off the bus, taxi drivers swarmed us, and as usual, Mike and I just got our bags and walked somewhere else before negotiating prices. Speaking in my broken Russian, I started negotiating with one guy. He wanted ten Lari to get to the center of town. I said six. He said nine. I walked away. As soon as I started turning around, another man yells out “five” which was the first time the seller outbid the buyer in a transaction which would result in the seller losing out on money. I wasn’t going to argue. His car looked like it would fall apart any moment, but it got us to where we needed to go. Nice guy too

Inside the Boombully hostel, we put down our bags and went to McDonald’s to eat lunch. I have already written about my sentiments of McDonald’s abroad so I will leave it at that. We came back and I passed out for two hours while Mike walked around.

Around six, my Georgian friend Avto came to the hostel to meet us. As we were walking around, we ran into Sarah and Robbie, other Armenian RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers). So we went to a traditional Georgian restaurant and ate traditional Georgian food and drank Georgian wine. Since there were five of us and one bottle of wine, it was more of a wine sampling. We then walked around Tbilisi and saw all the sights Mike saw earlier but lit up by lighting from the slivers of light cast from the sun.

Tbilisi is an up-and-coming city. It is clean, well maintained, walkable, modern. Overall a nice place to go and visit. To anyone in this area, it is definitely worth your time to come.

After walking around the winding alleys resembling those of Italy, we went to a pub to listen to live music. (Most in the States would equate bar and pub as being the same, however here, bar is more social with soft music playing and mixed drinks whereas pubs are more traditional with a nice wooden bar, loud or live music and just ramblings.

It was great to catch up with Avto because we don’t keep in touch with each through email much but everytime I have come to Georgia, we pick up right where we left off. Interesting for a guy I have seen once every six months. I am convinced that this guys is going to be in politics or maybe become a future Georgian president. He a writer for a Georgian magazine, and works to establish orphanages and he is still an undergraduate student at the age of 21. He has done workshops with the UN and NATO and has traveled all over. Not only is this quite an accomplishment for just anyone, it really says something about his ambition to be Georgian and not be given the same opportunities as an American might have. He will be doing a six month study abroad in Germany starting in the next couple months. He is someone to keep your eye on.

We came back to the hostel and went to bed. I am writing the following morning because I had to get some work taken care of.

I will say that the empty feelings of leaving Armenia are starting to subside. It was nice being with other volunteers from my group who had just completed their service. We spent a lot of time in reflection at the pub telling different stories. Avto is going to come back to the hostel this morning and take us to the bus stop. His girlfriend booked our bus tickets for us and Avto is going to make sure that we leave with no problems. Avto said that when he called yesterday, the operator knew exactly who he was because he was the only one to have made a reservation, not to mention a reservation made several weeks in advance.

Whoever you are, if you are interested in helping or donating some money to the establishment of Georgian orphanages, leave a message on my blog with your email and I will be sure to put you in contact with Avto. Thank you.

Now we move onward to Trabzon, Turkey leaving at 10:30am local time and not getting there until 9:30pm local time. With the one-hour time difference, we are looking forward to our 12 hours in a bus…

I forgot my camera yesterday so once I get the pictures from Mike I will add picture posts of the places we have been to.

Until next time…

The hardest job you’ll ever love

2011-08-12T15:12:00.000-07:00

This will be my last blog I write from Armenia. As I write this at 2:34 am (or that is the time I started writing this) I realize what this experience was. Actually it is a complete blur. I thought I would spend my last night in Armenia completely drunk trying to numb myself from the thought of leaving. I’m not. I am not going to lie though it is tough. Coming back from the village was tough.

I went to Verin on Monday. Halfway there, I didn’t want to go. It meant a lot of goodbyes. However, arriving there, I realized it was what was right. From the road I walked to my village, about forty minutes worth of walking. Welcomed. I got to Vardan’s house and hung out with Marine and Vardan. They got mad at me because I didn’t let them know that I was coming. They wanted to do something big for me. That, I didn’t want. I just wanted to sit around and talk to them. We were actually invited to a khorovats because some of his neighbors who live in Russia came to visit so we had a nice khorovats. Along the way, I said goodbye to Arpine, my language tutor and neighbor. That night wasn’t too bad. The next morning was horrible. I have to say I hate Peace Corps for that, taking me away from my Armenian family. They took me in the instant I got to the village, and like several times mentioned before, they looked after me. I was their American. Vardan was a huge part of that. He was always there, going way out of his way to do whatever he could to make sure that I was well taken care of. It is without hesitation I say that he shaped my experience here. I will miss my conversations with him and his wife. Sometimes heated, but always interesting, learning a new point of view.

I said my goodbyes. I was finished with my village and being a volunteer there. A neighbor gave me a ride to Martuni where I caught my last marshutni ride. The ride was so beautiful riding next to the lake, one last time.

I got off at Charentsavan, my old training center. I met with Ani and we talked for a while. The funny part about this was that she asked for me to take some earrings back to the US to her relatives who live in Charlotte. But then, it turned into a necklace and a plate and some other things…Why not. (By the way Mom and Dad, I shipped another package home. Let me know when it gets there). It was great talking with her.

I then headed out to Solak. It wasn’t the same. I said my goodbyes but it was not like my village. That is all I have to say about that.

I got into Yerevan, staying at Jason and Elvira’s. The following day I finished up all my paperwork. Thursday, I was not longer a PCV. Well maybe I was, but all my paperwork was taken care of. It was sad saying goodbye to the staff who supported us through the last two years. To me, it is different. It’s not just a job to them. Armenians have pride in their country and give due thanks to those who try and help the land they love. The Armenians go above and beyond what they need to do, from what the job requires. It is apparent just as a feeling, so thank you staff for everything you do.

My last full day in Armenia was surreal. I still can’t believe that this day has come. In the past I just don’t think about it. It was just too far off but here it is, the day when I have to leave the country. A place I have called home for two years, a place that has included me as family. Just as hard as it was leaving the US 26 months ago, it is just as hard today leaving to go back. A sentiment I just can’t explain and a feeling most of you reading will never understand. I went around today saying goodbye to different places. The Envoy Hostel, where several of my close friends worked, a place where I wasn’t a customer but a friend. I became close friends with Gevorg the hostel manager, Anahit and Ani. I said goodbye to American Councils, the organization that sent me to Kiev and gave me an amazing opportunity to interact with and hopefully help shape the future of Armenia, amazing kids.

I took out Elvira and Jason to a nice dinner. Some of the greatest people on the planet. Jason and have the hugest hearts. They always let me into their house and welcomed me. They also became close friends and supported me when I really needed the help to get though personal challenges. They and Khashi will probably be the hardest to say goodbye tomorrow morning when I wake up in 4 hours.

We went to our hookah bar. Nothing totally out there. There was a sense in the air that after tomorrow it just wasn’t going to be the same. Khashi, Gevorg, Mike, Emily, Jason and I, just sat around talking. My closest and best friends in this country, excluding some who had to continue working as they still have a year left in service. It was great. As Mike, Jason, and I were walking home, we stopped at the park where Jason works. We sat there and talked about whatever. I don’t know of a better way to have ended my time in Armenia.

This blog could go on for pages and pages. As I am delirious with sleep deprivation it becomes more challenging to write how I feel. Maybe it’s not due to delirium, but an unequivocal feeling that this is it. I have met some of the greatest people in my life thus far here. People who have changed my ways of thinking. However, I hold no regrets. I have “left everyone on the field.” I came and am leaving knowing that I made an impact and have also been impacted. I leave with a heavy heart, but one knowing that I have grown as a person, as a human, maybe making the world just a little bit better. I know that Armenia has made me a much better person and for that, I owe a great deal of gratitude.

I leave tomorrow as an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) and I am proud to be apart of the 200,000 others who have served in the world since 1961 promoting peace and development aboard.

A million thank you’s to Armenia and all that everyone has done for me. I will never forget it.

Mom and Dad, your son is coming home. Just 5 more weeks. I’m looking forward to it and am really excited.

Take care of the volunteers in Armenia, just as you have done for me.

I leave tomorrow morning with my good friend Michael. We were together since the beginning training in the same training village and supporting each other the last two years. It is only right that we leave together tomorrow. Updates to come as we continue on our way home.

Until next time…

An overdue Happy 70th to my Dad

2011-08-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

It was a weird year as neither I nor my mother was going to be at home for a monumental 70th birthday for my Dad. Mom went to Mexico on a mission trip and I am still in Armenia. I was down in Kapan and Lizzie said that she wanted to make a birthday cake, so here it is.

We used Elvira's icing recipe from the PC cookbook and that icing was diabetes-inducing but tasted pretty good. I am pretty sure I gained about five pounds from eating that thing. Anyway, Happy Birthday Dad. I will make it up to you when I get back...

Proof it was made. The cake, with the glory of the sprawling metropolitan of Kapan behind it.

Khashi, Gayane, myself, and other people I don't know at Gayane's birthday party and the last night I would see her before she went up to Sochi.

Three countries represented. There is a reason why the Armenian is between the Iranian and the American. (Just in case there are whackjobs reading this remark, this is just a lame attempt as a joke, do not make a big deal about it).

Me and Ani meeting up with Chris, his Dad, Pat, and Katrina after walking around for the day.

89 left to go...

2011-08-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

Mike at the world's longest cablecar in Goris. Really a nice ride across the gorge where Sean used to live.

Khashi, Maria, Mohsen, and I got Jason a taxi sign for his birthday, July 17th, to put on his sweet new Lada.

The sign itself...

The night before Mohsen and Maria left to go back to Iran. We had a lot of really fun times together.

93 more to go...

2011-08-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

The city of Jermuk which is where the carbonated water comes from. You drive about thirty minutes around mountainous curves before peaking over a crest to see a city in the middle of a watershed with a nice lake in the middle.

Gideon, Elvira, and Jason when we went to Jermuk.

Kamran at Noravank trying to fit in.

Less than a week left…

2011-08-07T00:03:00.000-07:00

As I sit in the Peace Corps office listening to Kelly Clarkson, it is overwhelming what I have to do in the upcoming weeks.

First, my apologizes for not writing in about a month. I uploaded some photos, but then tried to upload more, unsuccessful. But like I said in the last posting, I was just down in Kapan, trying to stay alive from the heat.

Staying down in Kapan with Lizzie was a lot of fun. We played a lot of Banana-grams, walked some, hung out with her sitemates, made burritos about 15 times, baked a cake for my Dad’s 70^th Birthday (pictures to come) and many other things. I was so bored when she left to go to her mid-service conference that I went to the hardware store and tried to repair her bed and door, which I did successfully. The sink looked a bit more complicated, didn’t have the tools, and seemed to be more disgusting than I care to deal with. She is planning on moving out anyway and said that her sink was always like that. Boredom almost led me to eradicate all my reservations and fix it anyway. I didn’t read nearly as much as I did. Still haven’t finished the book I started a while back. It is the Jon Krakauer book “Under the banner of heaven” about Morman fundamentalism and fundamentalists; strange book giving a warped view into the psyche of some who misconstrue the God’s word. I also got time to finish four secondary applications, currently working on one.

I was never that close with Jay or Matt down in Kapan but hanging out with them over the course of three-four weeks, it was sad to say goodbye to them. They were the first of many goodbyes I will have to encounter.

So, thank you Lizzie for letting me spend time down in Kapan. See you in Israel.

Returning to Yerevan drowning in sweat, I headed to Khashi’s house to take a shower and sleep for a little bit before meeting Gayane for dinner. (Refresher: Gayane was my first PDO teaching assistant and has proven to be a great friend). Anyway, her birthday was August 3^rd so I took her to dinner and then went to her birthday party. I brought Khashi along. It was a lot of fun. Everyone there spoke English. Alas, it was time to say goodbye to Gayane. Not the easiest thing, but the influences of the vodka dimmed what could have been an embarrassing portrayal of emotion.

Friday was great. I just got a lot of work taken care of. I got my medical check taken care of, did more preparations for our trip and my return home, and met Ani, the piano playing girl who lives and studies in Germany. We hung out for the evening going to dinner, talking, going to see the fountain show in Republic Square and then meeting with Chris and his father who came to visit from the US.

Saturday, we went to a waterpark. Now I know what you’re thinking, “you are in Peace Corps, what are you doing at a waterpark?” Yes, well, so many people have berated me for nearly 15 months to go to this waterpark so I went and it was awesome. We were out in the sun for 8 hours or so riding the same 4 slides and wading in the urine filled wave pool that did not actually provide any waves. It was the last day to see Nick, one of my friends from the Embassy, so it was a nice way to spend that time together. Jason, Khashi, myself, Nick, his wife RaeJean, and their friend Julia came. Lots of fun. Too bad I went when I had less than a week left.

Next week will be a bit hectic trying to get everything finished. I have to go and cancel my bank account, mail some letters, have interviews with Peace Corps about my service, go out to both my training villages and my permanent village to say goodbye, and then more or less, get ready for our trip.

Now that I have no job or really anything to do except to say my goodbyes, the end doesn’t seem so daunting. I have done enough here to leave with no regrets and am looking forward to the next phase in my life.

Like I said before, I will try my hardest to figure out how to load pictures correctly. I must be doing something wrong.

I will continue my blog after I leave Armenia keeping everyone updated on our trip around Europe.

Until next time…

2011-08-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Khorovats we made about a month ago.

Walking around the village. Khashi the great. That is my village, Verin Getashen.

Lizzie, Mike, Khashi, and myself between two farm plots with the lake in the background.

Vardan, myself, Tatev, and Marine. My neighbors. Vardan is awesome.

Nothing new

2011-07-23T06:07:00.001-07:00

Honestly, I have nothing really new to write. We just came back from Tatev and rode the new cable car. The longest in the world. Who would have thought. It was really great. I went with Mike and Lizzie. We went on the back road which proved to be a bust as it wasn't as scenic as we thought it would be. Maybe we are just desensitized to it now. This country really is beautiful at least in the summer.

I wish I could write more but I have just been hanging out here working on secondaries. They aren't really fun. I still don't understand why a medical school would want to know your SAT scores but I guess they have their reasons. They seem to not review the primary applications as they ask the exact same questions asked on the primary. Redundant.

The weather has been pretty decent. Not too hot. It has been raining. Three weeks from today I leave from what I have called home for the last 26 months. Thinking about it, I just feel lost. A weird empty feeling. People have come and gone, I have learned a great deal about myself and what I want to do with my life, and most importantly (questionably) impacted some lives here.

Again, I apologize for this weak blog entry but I still can't figure out why I can't post any pictures and I have nothing else to write. Just enjoying my time here with the friends I have around me. Mike and I are preparing for our trip and once it starts, rest assured that I will be writing more interesting things.

Wherever you are, reading this blog, I hope things are going well in your life. Things are just fine where I am in southern Armenia.

More to come,

Until next time...

Wait... what's in that bag?

2011-07-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get pictures loaded but its just not happening. Once I figure out the problem, I will post about 100 of them. Not really...

About two weeks has gone by, but surprisingly, it has been a really busy two weeks. Lots to talk about. I have been trying to load about ten pictures but for one reason or another it won’t load, so tomorrow I will try and load some more pictures. Pictures are fun.

Anyway, soon after my last posting, Kamran came to Armenia. We are long time friends from high school. I met him in India last year when I went there with Mike and this past February I went to meet him in Spain. On his way home he decided to stop by Armenia because as he states it “I wouldn’t have another reason to come.” My concept of time has gone out the window. Khashi gets irritated because I keep forgetting what day it is and need to constantly ask him what the day is. Also, since I have nothing but time on my hands, I don’t do anything unless I have to. Its weird because the last two years has been super busy with work at school, projects, traveling, etc. Being a has-been is hard.

The reason I am going into expansive detail about this is because on Tuesday I went out to the airport. I was so thrilled because I took a bus out there. Kamran’s flight was supposed to come in at 8:55 so I took the last bus out there. Since I was the last one to get off, the bus driver took me all the way to the arrivals area. I got inside the, temperature-wise, cool terminal. I was about thirty minutes early. I was still proud of myself for taking the bus to the airport (which was great because I saw a side of Yerevan I had never seen before). Anyway, I went to the arrivals board. His flight wasn’t up there. I was a day early. Idiot.

I took the taxi back…

The following day since I am supposed to let PC know where I am at all times, I emailed my Program Manager to let her know my new plans. My email subject line said “I’m an idiot”. Her response “yes.” She laughed after that because as an Armenian, she understands the pain it is to get out to the airport.

Anyway, good practice. The following day I made my way out there. His flight, three hours delayed. Sweet. So I just waited there, reading my book and listening to some music.

Kamran and I made a scene as he came out of the arrivals area. Everyone was looking at me because I was taping him coming out of the doors. This will be included in my next documentary because he is the first non-PCV American to come and visit me.

We had a good time. The first night we stayed at Khashi’s house. The next morning we woke up early and headed out to Martuni. As soon as we got there, I made grilled cheeses and then went to the village. There we went to Vardan’s house and also to some other people’s homes. He got to see a glimpse of my life there. We were only there for two hours. We went back to Martuni and met Hector there. Kamran and Hector had met in India the previous year when we were there. There we just hung out. The following morning, we went back to Yerevan and stayed at Jason’s house. The following day was July 2nd and I had planned for us to go down to Yeghegnadzor where Emily lives. Jason had just bought a Lada which is a Russian car and wanted to take it out. So, I talked to Elvira and Jason and they were really nice enough to give us a ride down south. We went to Jermuk. Jermuk is also a well known sparkling water company here. Jermuk, the city, is just amazing. It is like a city from a story. You have to drive on desolate roads for what seems to be about 8 miles before going over a crest to see a modern looking city sitting around a beautiful lake. The city is surrounded by mountains. Really nice.

There we met with some other PCVs and hung out for a couple hours. Jason and Elvira wanted to stay in Jermuk so Kamran and I went with the other PCVs back to Yeghegnadzor. The way we got back. Coincidentally, one of the PCV’s schools was having a teacher retreat and gave us a ride to the road. The whole eight miles back. It was a great help because if we had taken a taxi from Jermuk it would have been really expensive. We got back to Emily’s house where we hung out a bit before having the worst night of sleep I had ever had. Mike and I ended up sleeping on a thin blanket on the floor of Emily’s kitchen. Ha. Peace Corps memories.

The next day we took out time getting up and made our way to the river. We hung out by the river the whole day. We would walk up a ways and float down and do it again a couple times. On their way back to Yerevan, Jason and Elvira stopped to hang out a bit. That was cool. I should really give a lot of thanks because they were really cool taking us around. They even took us to Noravank, a church several miles off the main road, and let us join them for lunch at this interesting cave restaurant.
So, Jason and Elvira, again, many many thank yous.

The last day Kamran was here we came back to Yerevan and hung out with Khashi and some of his friends. Later on Jason came to join us. We stayed up a while since July 5th is a holiday here. We talked about several things until about 3am when Jason went back home. Really a good time. Kamran and I went to bed around 5am and then woke back up at 7am so that I could take Kamran back to the airport.

At the airport, Kamran drove me crazy. Basically, he had two bags and packed one bag to be 37kg and the other 13kg. His limit 23kg for one bag. Since he has some kind of status with Delta because he flew to Salt Lake when he had a real job, he said that he could take 2 bags. He flashed his status card. This card meant nothing to the Armenian check-in counter lady. She just said “what is this?” I tried to explain it but then she called her supervisor over. She came and got it sorted out and explained that he just gets a second bag for free. Regardless, his 37kg bag was way over the allotted weight limit.

So there were in the middle of the airport floor repacking his bag. He took a couple shirts out and put them in the other bag and asked me to take the bag up to the front again and have it weighed. Clearly not under or remotely close to the 23kg limit. I did it anyway. We weighed the bag. It was 29kg. The lady was being super patient and I said “please ma’am, please just let me friend go, I want him to leave.” Her response “I want him to leave too.” She said if we could get the bag under 25kg, that it was fine. So, there we were going through all this things, Kamran’s things flying everything. Whatever, I just wanted to go back and sleep. Anyway, finally we got the bag to be suitable enough to appease everyone. With 50 minutes left before the flight left and after all the hassle and the cool lady working with us, Kamran wanted his lounge access. Again Kamran showed another card which they had no idea what it meant. Her supervisor just said “give him whatever he wants.” So we waited there another five minutes for them to fill out some kind of lounge ticket. At this point, probably 20 minutes before boarding time. Sweet. He left, I went home and slept. Whatever.

The following day, I went out to Nor Hachyn, the new training center for the soon-to-be volunteers. It was site announcement day. It was weird being there because I remember when I got my site placement and remember last year when the A-18s got theirs. Actually quite a few memories came back from my time here.

Between site announcement and site visit, I went over to the US Embassy to help out with the re-entry seminar for the FLEX kids whom I taught last year that had already returned from their ten month study abroad. That was really crazy to see how much the kids had changed. They looked so different and were so much more confident. Some of the kids I couldn’t even recognize. I had this great sense of being so proud of these kids. I am excited to see what they get accomplished now that they are back. Elvira made it clear that just because they did their FLEX stint overseas, their obligations are not finished yet.

So I just hung out Martuni for a while and then when the new volunteer came, I waited and went straight to Madina, Hector’s village. There I hung out with him and his family as that was the second to last night he would be there. He leaves Armenia on June 13th. Its weird thinking about that. So we went around and hung out with his neighbors. One neighbor, his name which escapes me, is an artist (painting and wood carving). Really nice guy. Then we went over to his other neighbor’s house. After enough drinking to take down an elephant, we went back and passed out.

That evening I had also called Grandma. It is so nice talking to her because no one tells her that it is me calling. So when she answers the phone she starts screaming and I can hear the excitement in her voice. We chatted for a while and then she told me that her house had burned down in Madina. No one was living there but since the village people were storing hay and because of the intense heat, the hay had caught on fire. She didn’t seem that irritated by it because there was really nothing inside. It was just sad for her because that was where she had raised her children.

The next morning, I took the walk from his village to mine, maybe for the last time. I took pictures along the way. It still amazes me how beautiful this place is. I went to the school where I met the new volunteer, Noah, my director, Arpine, Vartan, and Arpine’s daughter. We talked about the new volunteer. Having only been here for one month, he was pretty clueless as to what was going on.

Go ahead and take a break because there is still a lot more you have to read. Matt, take Kelly out to get a cookout milkshake. Brandon, go ahead and keep reading because Im sure you are just waiting in an airport for your next flight. Mom and Dad, you should go and order Papa John’s Pizza and have that for dinner. I think that covers all the people that read this blog now…

That day I went around the village telling different people I was leaving and saying my last goodbyes. It was a lot easier than I thought. Probably because I broke up the goodbyes into segments.

I went to go see my host aunt and she said that she wanted me to meet someone. I met my host Dad’s brother. As a refresher, my host Dad was murdered when he was working in Moscow. It was like meeting a ghost. He didn’t even shake my hand but just hugged me thanking me for taking care of his brother’s family. Apparently I had missed something. I wish someone was there filming this event. I am a bit curious to know what my facial expression was like…

I picked certain people to see. There are so many people that I would like to say goodbye too but there are just too many. I picked those that did something to change, or better my experience in Armenia. Although I didn’t really get to know Alpert, I went over to his house. He was the man that really encouraged me and helped me when I was about to shoot someone over the bathroom project. He said that he had quit drinking which is a pretty huge deal here. He told me he was off the stuff for about 4 weeks. He used to be perpetually hammered and one day he said he woke up and realized that’s not how he wanted his grandchildren to remember him.

I continued my walk around the village stopping into several houses and saying goodbye. I called up Manok. He is one of the teachers at the school and we never got to hang out but he was always great from the beginning. When I didn’t know the language, he was really patient with me, trying to learn English words. He also told kids to behave themselves around me and to use simple words at first. He really went out of his way to help me out. I called him and said that I needed to see him. I met with him by the river. He was toting a bottle of vodka and three half-liter beers. Not what I needed. I was just thankful that Marine fed me before we met.

It was really nice though because we sat by the river and just talked about random things here and there. After a while a storm came so we had to go, but then the heavens opened and we just ran to Manok’s house. Vardan was worried about me so he sent his son to pick me up in his car since that was the first time I had been to Manok’s. It was really tough saying goodbye to him. He had been a good friend.

I went back to Vardan’s house. The new volunteer was already asleep so Vardan and I talked for a while. Its weird knowing that one more time I will be coming back to the village as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I don’t know when I will be back to Armenia next.

The next morning I woke up early and got on the bus with Hector. It was his last night in the village. He is going home. We went to Yerevan together and that’s when he said “I guess this is the last time I’ll be on this road.” It’s hard saying goodbye to a place, mainly the people. Hector was my closest sitemate and a good friend and its weird seeing him leave.

It has been great though spending more time with Khashi. Last night we just hung out, sitting around, talking about random things. Dad, I told him the story of when you were a student at Carolina and told him about the night you took your friends to a movie theatre and saw on of them as a shadow on the movie screen. Khashi really laughed about that.

Today, I went to get my toe X-rayed. Incredible. Twenty dollars for the whole thing. The US taxpayers (thank you) paid the twenty dollars, but I was thinking “wow, how fantastic”. That same X-ray in the States would have been about 500 dollars with about 500 sheets of paper to fill out. From the time I walked into the hospital I was out in less than 20 minutes with X-ray in hand. Amazing. Don’t worry everything is fine Dad. I just wanted to make sure my toe had healed correctly from when I hurt it a while back.

So from now on out, I will be down in Kapan hanging out in the south seeing some AIDS seminars. I am looking forward to that. After that, I will finish my PC paperwork, go stay with my training village family for a couple days, make a run out to my village one more time, and then get ready to hit the road. Looking forward to it.

Update on schools. I submitted all my applications and have now gotten back three secondaries. Really excited about starting school the following fall.

Sorry this update was a bit longer than the others but it has been more hectic than I thought it would be. Armenia as a whole is uncomfortably hot now… Geez.

Until next time…

Khashi leaves the city

2011-06-28T02:13:00.000-07:00

So during my down day in Martuni, after the PDO, I basically just laid around, that is until my Regional Manager asked me to go back to Yerevan to talk to the host families about living with a volunteer. These were going to be the families who were going to permanently host the new A-19 volunteers. Vardan, my neighbor, was there. It was good to see him there. I picked on him quite a bit during my talk about experiences in the village but he was a good sport about it and laughed.

Now Vardan is not the most cultured of people, a good guy, but in social settings, he could learn a couple things. I was standing in the back of the room watching our RM tell the future host families about whatever. My RM said that the volunteers could range from age 21 to 70. As soon as my RM said 70, Vardan yells from the crowd “70?” (awkward silence, then me slapping my forehead). RM “yes”. Vardan “there are 70 year olds who come to Armenia?” This was very awkward for me. But I spoke to him later and it was fine.

There is something that you (as the reader in America) should understand, is how excited older volunteers get when they see trainees because they are new blood. I don’t know what happened, but as we were leaving the PC Office, I saw one of the PC vans pull up and I ran after it like a dog running after a meat-covered car. I swung open the door and said “HEY” really loudly. I just got blank stares.

I think I over did it…

Anyway, after that, I went to meet Lizzie and Mike. We then walked to meet Khashi. Together we went out to Martuni. It was fun. We hung out for a couple days and then they headed back. Khashi and I hung out in Martuni for a couple more days with Hector. That was great.

The first full day, we went to my village and I showed them around; views of the village, my family (or those still around), and then I called Vardan and asked if we could come over. So we bought 2kg of chicken and went over to Vardan’s house. We helped Vardan make the khorovats (bbq-seriously, if you don’t know what this is by now…). It turned out really well. We basically just ate, drank, and talked for six hours. It was great. Around 11, we left the village to head back to Martuni (by taxi). Really a great time, another one of those great memories.

The next day, Lizzie and Mike left, so Hector, Khashi, and I went out to Tsovinar. My friend who is a A-14 came and visited my first winter in Armenia. David. Anyway, he lived in that village during his service and has had some trouble getting in touch with them, so we went out there. It was a lot of fun to go out there. So beautiful. So amazingly beautiful. We sat with them for about an hour or so and then walked back, taking pictures along the way. I don’t know why, but Khashi found some brown audio tape from the 80’s flapping in the wind and held onto one end of it as we walked back. Whenever we got too close to him, we were reprimanded. I wish I had a picture of that, but I don’t.

Tonight Kamran comes in to Armenia. I am excited. Because Kamran is Muslim, I have been giving him a hard time saying that Armenians will kill him and throw rocks at him. Khashi is Muslim. No problem. I’m going to see how long I can milk this…

It is so hot in Yerevan.

I will get some pictures up soon...

Until next time…

I changed my shirt

2011-06-22T00:16:00.001-07:00

The sunsetting over the mountains behind my village. This was taken in Martuni from the apartment I live in now.

Every year the kids spell out "FLEX". Last year, the kids did this at 7am and started yelling all the Staff people's names. This year, they did it in the midday heat, so I took my time taking this picture.

Chris's Class

My Class

My TA, Diana, and myself.

Free time seems to always elude me. I have been meaning to catch you all up (by “all” I mean probably just Mom and Dad, unless Brandon is still reading this thing) for a while now but time has not decided to let up a bit. It has been pretty busy so I’m hoping that July will relinquish some free time so I can breathe. Maybe it’s good though that there are so many things to do.

Two weekends ago, I came into Yerevan to do my final prep work with Diana on planning this year’s Pre-Departure Orientation for the FLEX high school exchange students. It was fun and by Sunday the 12th, we were finished with everything. Chris and I took some time to hang out ourselves. After planning we went with Diana to a book reading flashmob. This actually makes no sense conceptually. I mean, a flashmob, you get a group of people together and at a predetermined time you stop what you’re doing and you do some kind of collective activity. When I read, it’s when I am by myself, somewhere quiet, quite the contrary to a flashmob. I honestly think that Chris and I may have messed this thing up. I’m almost certain we were the only foreigners there. Since we didn’t really know anyone, we sat down by the large statue in the middle of everything and started to read. We noticed that everyone else started reading too. Then random people started taking pictures of Chris and myself reading. We were about fifteen to thirty minutes early. We were just bored. After a short amount of time everyone started to leave. So it’s either we messed things up, or someone spread the word around the “reading flashmob” was to begin about a half hour early.

After that, we hung out a little bit with some other PCVs in Yerevan and then we got hungry. It was about 11:30pm when we started walking back to Jason’s, so we went back to the American Councils office and got some old pizza out we had ordered for lunch a couple hours back. It was nice. We just sat there in the office talking about stuff and eating cold pizza before walking home.

I went back to Martuni on Monday and hung around Martuni for the week hanging out with Pat until some volunteers came over. They needed a place to stay. I left the following day which was Thursday, early in the morning and headed back to Yerevan. There I finished up my school applications and then met with Diana. Before we met, I went to the post office.

Same lady. This lady who helped me before is pretty funny. Somewhat in an annoying kind of way. She was really nice last time, being really patient as I weighed everything out. This time, she just wanted to argue with me. Everything I wanted to sent was 2.10 kg, so I had to take some things out. Well, she decided what she wanted taken out. I told her which things to take out. She didn’t listen, and kept saying its going to be too heavy. I asked her to humor me. It wasn’t. My item stayed in. The box weighed 1.98kg.

Then she decided that she didn’t want to send it with the box and wrap things up in paper and ship it that way. I said that I would rather her send it in a box. She asked me “what do you know about this? I have been doing this longer than you have”. My response “ longer, but probably incorrectly….” She laughed and said it will get to America… Yes, but will it get there unbroken? So Mom and Dad, expect to receive a brown wrapped thing with about a roll’s worth of clear packing tape all around it.
I’m not sending more things home…

Diana and I then met and went through our lessons. It was fun. We made more flipcharts and other necessities we needed for our lessons starting the following day. That day night we got some sleep, readying ourselves for the following day.

Friday, we woke up early and headed to the American Councils office. We were there at 9:00am getting ready for the influx of kids. It is always a really exciting time. We loaded up and headed to Lusakert. It was great. This year, only 24 kids came compared to the 37 last year due to budget cuts and the increase in credentials needed by host families in the States. I had a great time and I took it to heart too. Nostalgia started creeping in. I started thinking about last year’s PDO and the time since then and that I will soon be in the same country as these kids in a couple months.

The sessions went well, the kids were great, the barbeque was great, we had a great time. The funniest thing about the PDO was this. The last day, there is a male/female gender break-out session where we talk about sexual harassment and how to act in the States. You wouldn’t believe how many times we had to tell the kids not to fight if there was a problem. In Armenia, the kids defend “their honor” by throwing punches. In America, we had to explain that people in America solve problems in a more civilized way… you know, in court, where we will sue someone if it makes the other person feel uncomfortable. Yeah.

Ok, so the best part. So, as conservative as Armenia is, the guys are very close. They do not have an open mind to homosexuality, but sometimes if you saw two guys walking down the road, you would see their arms interlocked, or a guys head in the lap of another guy if they were watching TV. They greet each other by kissing on the cheek (just a cultural difference, Armenians believe hugging to be more intimate). Anyway, when we told the kids not to do any of those things and that Americans value their personal space, one of the boys in the front row said in Armenian “oh, we are all gay….” Smooth. Ok, guess you had to be there.

This year’s PDO was great. Hard to compare with last year because last year I had to do a lot of things myself. This year, Chris was there and he made for a great PDO. Also, since Jason and I had become friends since the last PDO, it was fun hanging out with him whenever he wasn’t sleeping.

So as soon as I got back to Martuni yesterday, I received an email asking for me to come back to Yerevan to talk to the host families about how to welcome their new volunteers, so here I am back in Yerevan. Tomorrow morning, I am going to the airport again to meet the FLEX kids arriving from the US. This will be a much larger group. Very exciting. Then I have some friends coming out to Martuni for the weekend and then Kamran will be coming to stay for a week or so. I don’t have a clue what I am going to do to keep myself entertained for the month of July and August…

I forgot, I got to see the lunar eclipse. Really cool.

Until next time…

A Martuni Resident

2011-06-07T23:02:00.000-07:00

Kyle, Hector, Me, Pat with the Volcano behind us.

Goodbye Kyle. He is number 2 of six to leave the Martuni 6 group

Playing Ball at the top of the Volcano

Church, lake, snow...

Yes, there is a road that goes to the top. Instead, all the times we have made it to the top, we have gone up this incline. Not easy...

As an official resident of the local town to my village, I feel like nothing has really changed. As far as my work is concerned, it is easier to get “home” now. I don’t have to walk through the dingo infested field before getting to my village, I don’t have to haggle with the taxi drivers about taking me home, and I don’t have do all this while carrying usually a cumbersome load on my back. Now, I let everyone get off of the marshutni and then the driver drives up basically to where I live now. Very easy.

This does have its down sides. Grandma is gone now. For sure. She is gone. She called and she is in Belarus. I know that she was supposed to leave last December, but it is a fact now, she is in Belarus. I have been busy so I haven’t really noticed it too much except for the few things here and there. I don’t have someone yelling at me to have coffee so now I don’t drink coffee in the morning. No one to drink it with. When I get back home now, my clothes are not clean on my bed. This year, when I would get back from wherever I was, all my clothes would be clean. Ignoring my requests, Grandma would go into my room, take all my dirty clothes, wash them, dry them, and have them in my room. Also, I have to go to the grocery store or market and buy my own food, and then make it. I know these things may seem trivial but she really did take care of me. I have to incorporate time out of my day now to do those necessary things that I never had to think about in the past. Mainly, I miss the coffee and the conversation associated with that ritual. I live a different life now. I feel like I am a freshman in college after being taken of by my parents in high school. Ok, maybe not so much.

My roommate Pat, has actually been a great roommate. He is not here because of Green Camps, but when he was here last week, it was good.

Last Tuesday, we hiked up the volcano again, for one last time… at least for Kyle. It was nice getting up there. We woke up early, took the bus to Hector’s village, walked up the mountain, thought I was going to die, and then walked down. Really fun. Ill attach some pictures. I wore the shirt I got at Kamran’s gay bar in Barcelona when we inadvertently scheduled the wrong night to go to the normally straight club. (Yes Kamran, this will haunt you for the rest of your life…)

Last Thursday, Hovik, our new Regional Manager came to my village. He picked me up and we went in to meet my school director and the director at the other school. My village is the only village in this area that even applied for a volunteer. Last year there were 8 volunteers just in the Martuni area, next year…one, two at most. Both in my village. Our marz, or state, went from being the largest consolidation point to one of the smallest.

It was fun though, going through the village and locating host families. More than likely Vardan will be hosting the new volunteer. I had to laugh. I am planning on going back to the village when the new volunteer is there to show them around.

Speaking of, since my last writing, the new group of volunteers, A-19s, have arrived in Armenia. I think yesterday they went to their training village host families. It is a bit nostalgic thinking back now because I can picture being dropped off at my training village host family two years ago. Surreal.

Anyway, after that, I went into Yerevan and met with Chris and our new Pre-Departure-Orientation group. Like last year, I will be teaching Armenians about American life and culture. During a very intensive 3 days, the Armenian students will learn about integrating, customs, culture, etc. I loved it last year and I expect to share the same thoughts this year.

I was introduced to my new Teaching Assistant, Diana. She finished her last University exams ever yesterday. Congratulations. So, we planned on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sporadically in the mix, I managed to finish my school applications. I have yet to start on my Description of Service. Whatever. It is weird working with Diana as her style is very different from Gayane’s. I also think Diana doesn’t understand my sense of humor and views me more as an authoritative figure than as a colleague. I’ve always wondered when that magic age is. I found it… 26. Regardless, we are having a good time planning and I’m certain that the PDO will go very well next weekend.

After we planned on Saturday, Diana went with me to the post office as it was right next to her house. I had two boxes I wanted to send home. One was 3.1kg and the other about 4.3kg. To send a 3.1kg box home would be about 27,000 dram or about 80 dollars. As with most Armenian places, Armenians get very excited if they notice a foreigner speaking their language. I spoke to the post lady for a while and she asked me if the things in my boxes could be broken up. I said yes, and she got out several boxes. Apparently, if you can send a box weighing 2kg or less, its 7,000 dram or about 20 dollars. So we sat there, working together to package and weigh the boxes, going back and forth from the scale to the box, taking things out, adding other things in. So, right now, there are 4 boxes on their way to America and it cost me just 90 dollars or so.

I got home from Yerevan and I hung out with Hector and Kyle. Kyle is leaving on Saturday to go home to start studying at Syracuse. It is a shame he is leaving. So we made burritos. Very good.

Tuesday I went to Gavar to help judge the spelling bee. Some of those kids were amazing. Even though they probably just know how to spell the word and don’t know how it is used in a sentence, it was really impressive to hear these students spell these really difficult words. The funny part was, Katrina and I were assigned for the 11th and 12th graders. Some of those words, I had never heard before, so we were looking up the pronunciation of them. Katrina had the hardest words and during the word read out, she would lean over and discuss how to pronounce the word. We had a good time though. Really impressed with the kids.

On my way back, since there is no direct route from Gavar back home, I had to take a bus to the road, and then flag down another bus going toward Martuni. As I was walking around trying to figure out which bus to take, I asked people on a bus if this bus went by the intersection I needed to get to. Some of the kids heckled me and kept saying “oui, oui”. Naturally, in Armenian, I said “oui” was French and that I was an American, then while walking away, adding “moron” for good measure.

I saw another bus coming, the one I needed to be on. It pulled up next to the bus of kids who heckled me. I sat down on my bus and started reading. Those kids came over and apologized for giving me a hard time. They said the bus driver heard them and that they got yelled at. We spoke for a while and off they went. That made me feel a lot better about things.

It is weird being back in Martuni. Last night was the first night I had slept alone. I can count on one hand how many nights I had slept in a house by myself. Weird feeling. This month is busy, but July is soon to come and things will surely slow down.

The weather here is nice, but if you can believe it, in the middle of June, there is still snow on the surrounding mountains. Last year at this time, there was no snow anyway around mid-May.

Until next time…