Welcome Lena! For those that have not read about us loggers, Lena is here for at least a year and a half as an Armenian Volunteer Corps volunteer, the project that Jason is running. We both have bought homes here which we are about to start remodelling, without an IKEA or Home Depot in sight!

May Day was nice indeed, getting out of town always feels good. We drove to a remote little forested monastery at the end of a long road, and had a tashtahantes (picnick) of Yum Yum sandwiches. That is the only western food franchise in all of Armenia. Speaking of western things in Armenia, last month, at the Iranian store, for the first time we got a free promotional gift! To make it even better, the gift was from Coca-Cola, for buying four of its bottled waters you get a nice tupperware picnick set.

The Lebanese President Emile Lahoud is in town today... Mashdots has thousands of Lebanese and Armenian flags displayed. Since the Lebanese President is 3/4 Armenian and speaks it, I wonder if he is using a translator. In any case, I think that trade and relations with Lebanon should be boosted a great deal, and the price of airline tickets should be lowered a great deal! It costs almost twice the price of a ticket to Syria at times. We need more Beirutahays visiting Armenia anyways.

Oh, here is a biggie, I quit my job yesterday. So in a couple of weeks I hope to do some real travelling again. See Georgia, try to get a visa to visit Iran, maybe spend a week in Titsmayri, and another in Karabakh... we'll see.