My dad flew in from Tehran today and I was too excited to meet him at the airport. He is here for two days and we stayed up tonight talking and laughing and catching up. He had not seen the new apartment and absolutely loves it. It makes me happy to see him gloat about the new pad to his friends.

I finally commissioned the Winnie the Pooh series in the kitchen... they look great. The artist was a joy to work with and now I have a bunch of Winnie the Pooh scenes all over my kitchen.

Tonight we got pulled over again coming home from dinner. This time we just talked our way out of it. We said we were tourists and got out with our cameras and said we had never seen an Armenian cop before and could we please take a picture (50 dram for print) which saved us the customary 2 dollar hand off. I don't know if he was excited to be photographed or scared that his photograph would be taken over to his boss but he welcomed us to the country and sent us on our way.

Tonight I went to dinner with my uncle Varooj who is another Los Angeles Armenian who has moved here. We were talking about winter and living here and how different and exciting it is... and he called us Pioneers... he called himself the Pioneer for the older generation and me... well for the younger generation I guess. It was nice to see Varooj hopar as our conversation brought back that amazing fervor and love I have for this country.

Tomorrow my dad and I will run around and do some things for the house and spend some more quality time together. It is nice to have him here.

Friday night was falafel at The Middle Eastern cuisine with a couple of the volunteers. Saturday night we had a girl�s night at Zabel�s who cooked up delicious cheese ravioli especially for me and also to celebrate Australia Day (Jan 26th) again for me. Sunday night I had a few friends over to watch the American Football. Since most of them are from the Boston area, their team was playing and we enjoyed Chinese food as well as pizzas.

I will leave for Sydney tomorrow morning but the funny thing is now that I�m getting used to the cold here (minus 4), I�m going back to the summer. Who�s complaining? I�ve had a couple of readers wishing me Bon Voyage and asking if I would log from Australia. I�ll certainly try but to the rest of the loggers keep up the great work and I�ll keep on reading your daily news. Cheers big ears.

Today they are airing the Armenian Music Awards here and so my singer friends and I are getting together at my apartment to watch it. It will be great to see what everyone is wearing and who wins what. Just Kidding.

I guess this is the equivalent of the Academy Awards in LA.

Today I went to my friend Mash' 18 Birthday. It was cute to see all these young kids dancing and slow dancing and Armenian dancing and laughing... the kids here know how to have fun. They are always in groups of guys and girls and they joke and laugh a lot. The guys mostly all dance except those who are shy and just sit in the corner and smoke.

Tomorrow I am commissioning an artist to paint Winnie the Pooh in my Kitchen... I met an artist who is struggling to keep his family going. I didn't like his abstract work too much but asked him if he could draw cartoons. Once he proved he could I put two and two together ... helping him out and getting a mural of the "Winnie the Pooh" picnic scene.

I love living in this country, every little thing you do you pour economy into your land... into your people..

I have just finished reading a book called Archeology of Madness- Komitas by Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian which I found interesting considering I knew nothing about his life (excuse my ignorance).
Time to give an update on my flat saga as I�m trying to change the Title Deed from business to residential. A colleague helped me draft a letter of application for above and was delivered at the Municipal Council a few days ago. I was told to come back in a few days to see what department my application had ended up in. This morning I went and was told that they had to come and look at my place to ensure it is indeed a place of residence. I thought fair enough let�s go seeing it was only across the road. After seeing my place, the guy says well now he has to apply to another department who will again come and see my place and see if it is suitable for residence. My response was that the whole building is residential and has been so for a long time, what on earth is he talking about? Anyway my guess is that this operation is going to take quite sometime, I�ll keep you informed.

This morning I also met up with a guy from a village, I apologise to all but another sad story. The background to this story is that when my sister visited in August last year, she hired a taxi driver off the street to take her places outside of Yerevan. This taxi driver has a sick child with a heart problem (this is not the same guy I logged about last week). Of course my sister wanted to help this guy out with operation costs etc since the guy owns basically nothing. Since August I have been trying to get to the bottom of this, since I�m following this through for my sister and she�s trying to raise some funds from Sydney for the operation.

Today finally things came to fruition. Up until now I had requested this guy obtain a letter from his Doctor to state the illness of the child as well as the cost of the operation. Without this document I was not willing to assist him. I had even offered to personally go with him to the Doctor and speak to him face to face but was told by him that Doctors here don�t issue such letters. After umpteenth phone calls to this guy who lives in a village with no phone access, I have been dealing through his mother in law, I finally met him today. Of course again he let me down with no letter from his Doctor. With encouragement from a work colleague I decided to call the Doctor myself. I thought what would be the chances that this Doctor would speak to me considering the patient- doctor confidentiality.

To my surprise the Doctor explained the whole situation to me. I was told that the seven-year-old kid does not need an operation at this stage. He is checked twice a year at this hospital and his condition is not debilitating but he does have a problem with his aorta. Unless there is inflammation in the affected area, the operation will not be performed until the child grows a little older. The reason for this is because if a mechanical valve is placed now, it will need to be replaced in a few years and in his opinion it is not necessary to do so at this stage. I then asked the cost of the operation if and when it is required and was quoted the following. For the operation the cost would be $2500 US; with blood transfusion $2800; an extra $500 for the mechanical valve. Now that I have passed on this information to my sister it is entirely her decision as to what steps she wants to take next.

Last night was a very sad night for me. I was playing backgammon with a friend in my living room when I looked outside because I heard a noise. I saw the tree outside my window violently rattling and moving... at first we thought it was a strong and sudden wind. The rest of the windows however showed calm scenery so we went to look out the window to investigate. My first floor neighbor was cutting down the tree at 1:00 am. At first I wondered to myself why he would be cutting this tree down in the middle of the night. Then my friend explained that they were using the wood for fire as they could not afford heat and it was snowing last night so it was very cold.

It was too close to home. The people who live downstairs from me (my apartment is in the center of Yerevan) do not have enough money to heat their home and are cutting down our trees in our backyard to heat themselves. Today I was speaking to a few of my close friends and thinking how I can help. I think I will approach them and ask them what they do (trades?) perhaps I can find them something or even hire them for something myself. The backyard looked sad after the tree cutting incident. It reminded me of Dilijian or the other foresty parts of Armenia right after the energy blockade, barren.

On another note I am currently looking for work here so I am running around going on interviews to find something I will truly enjoy. I have a few prospects and will keep you guys posted if anything happens to unfold in the near future.

My high today was the dogs that I keep feeding. They have gotten quite comfortable with me and we are actually becoming quite close. There are a few street dogs around my apartment, they are a gang if you will. Whenever I have leftovers and I see them hanging around I put two and two together and go out to feed the cute little mutts. Well today I was walking home from the store (which is quite far from the apartment) and I saw one of the dog crew. It was one of my favorites (lets call him tripod because of his permanent backleg injury). He recognized me and came up to me and stuck out his tongue and wagged his tail. Smart dog.

Today I bought "The Best of Frank Sinatra" with that and my third round of "Siddhartha" I have a great night ahead of me.

I also went to see the movie that Madlene mentioned last night (it was being shown for the last time, funny premiere one day, last day the next). The documentary is without narrative with stunning visuals and excellent photography. I loved it, it�s basically similar to a movie called �Baraka�, which I love, but focused on Christianity. It has made me want to travel all around Armenia and experience the beauty of this country.

The next thing I want to write about are the bottled juices sold in Armenia. They are Armenian products and really are something else. My latest craze is the pomegranate juice, pink guava and pink grapefruit. On the bottle the label states that it contains 100% fruit juice and it certainly tastes like it, absolutely delicious.

So things keep rolling here in Yerevan and it is nice to have my water back. Actually the story of the day is Ara Manoogian fixed my water pump so I don't have to manually turn it on and off with every usage. This is a great new invention here at Madlene's Abode since I have already burned a pump by being careless.

So Ara has been in Yerevan for a few days now and we have been running around doing things like Vernisage and attending social events. Tonight I had a few people over for Garmir Pilaf (Persian Red Rice) and we had a nice evening listening to Datevik and talking about living here in Armenia and how wonderful it is.

So the newest thing is that I am in hott pursuit after my clay worker (who is custom making my flatware) since he is quasi-missing and being irresponsible and tardy with my order. We will see what happens, maybe I will pay him a surprise visit soon to see how he (and my flatware) are doing.

So last night my friend Arthur, Ara M, and I went to a premiere of a movie by Edgar Bagdasaryan called "Land of the Holy Rites"... anyways FUNNY/SAD STORY UNFOLDS HERE.

The director got up to introduce the film before the documentary began. It was a nice short intro...and the audience clapped as he left the stage and the lights started to dimm a little. All of a sudden from the other side of the stage, another man dressed in a suit approached the microphone. He began by saying that according to the agreement he entered he was here to bless us with the sounds of Komidas with the original manner in which Komidas would have wanted his songs to be sung. Then he started to bellow and make really funny noises as he attempted to sing a Komidasian song. Of course I started laughing uncontrollably while everyone around me had the decency to control themselves and attempt to grasp this new artistic interpretation of Komidas' music. This went on for five minutes after which the organizers (obviously our Komidasaked was not part of the Program) decided to turn off the microphone and lead the audience in a round of applause in an attempt to caox the unwelcomed perfomer off stage. When this did not work, a man wearing all black (the appropriate backstagewear) came and physically removed the microphone as someone else approached from the other side to remove the uninvited off-stage as he continued to bellow out to the audience. He ended his lutanical piece by yelling out a few choice words to the audience who he felt had insulted the memory of Komidas.

The movie was beautifully photographed and we are still trying to digest what the message was. It was a deep look into Christianity and the fusion of Pagan and Christian rituals in the Holy Rites of the Armenian Church. The film had no words and very few subtitles (which were in English) but was an interesting look into our history as Christians. Ara noticed that in the credits they thanked his uncle but butchered the spelling of his name.

Will write soon and hopefully will have more funny stories from the motherland. Until then I remain faithfully your logger.

I was woken this morning by a phone call and to my surprise it was Annette from California. Annette is my friend who keeps sending all those goodies for the kids at the Centre. It�s amazing how friendships commence, considering the circumstances under which we have become friends and it�s all been due to Annette reading my logs. She said I was the first Armenian she had spoken to with an Aussie accent. A great way to start the week!

Let me go back to Friday night, I attended a concert at the Opera House with a couple of friends to see the Philharmonic Orchestra. I felt so sorry for the Orchestra Members (is this the correct title?), it was so cold in the Opera House, and I don�t know how their fingers functioned. Even though the temperature outside was only minus 5 (I can�t believe I�m actually saying this), it must have been at least twice as cold inside. I honestly don�t know how they performed so beautifully, so much talent! It was a fabulous evening indeed. It was also great catching up with Ara Manoogian afterwards for dinner (he�s in Yerevan for a couple of days).

Shooshig, what can I say? I�ve received your hugs and thank you for boosting my confidence. The Diaspora as a whole has been incredibly supportive. At times I feel that I�m sharing too much emotions but feel that readers are entitled to know the truths that do exist in Armenia.

Saturday, I braved the minus temperatures yet again and went shopping at Vernisage (outdoor craft market) to buy a few souvenirs. That place is great you really can find anything and everything. I am one week away from going on holidays for a month. My destination is SUNNY Sydney, the land of plenty, down under, paradise (call it what you like), mainly to catch up with family and friends and thaw out for a little while. I�m sure I will return fully energized to tackle my goal once again.

The temperature today at noon was minus 3; the ice on the streets is just not melting! What a depressing day it started off ok but it got worse as the day progressed. I went this morning to pick up the Shalvars (pants for folk dance) that I had someone custom make for me as a gift for my brother. While I was waiting for the woman who had made them I had an interesting conversation with the people in the room. There was a woman called Sveta an elderly lady, a refugee from Baku and a man from Tblisi who had relocated to Armenia and has been living here for the past 7 years. They were both of the opinion that Soviet times had destroyed everything. Sveta had left all her belongings in Azerbaijan. The rest of her family are spread around Russia and she was saying how do you leave everything after having lived in one place for 50 years and was respected by everyone and now she has nothing and of course no income.

Then while I was having lunch, a man (whom I�ve met previously) came in and wanted me to translate 3 letters from English to Armenian for his daughter who�s sick in bed. He will take the translated letters to his daughter, have her reply, which I will translate back to English and send them to the States. This man told me that his daughter has been sick for the past 2 years; he has no money to have her treated in a hospital. As if that�s not bad enough he advised his children have not had any food for the past 3 days and of course no heating. What do you do? I�m so sick of hearing these stories and crying like a baby. What an awful day, not so much awful but emotional! I just hope that present day Armenians survive as we have in the past.

Every month around this time 15th or 16th, I get pretty aggro (that�s short for aggravated). I�m whinging yet again about paying my bills. Paying the electricity is no worries; I just pay that at the post office. As for the phone, well that�s a different story (I�ve previously logged and vented about this). So I went to Armentel to pay the monthly bill like a good little citizen and the process took a mere hour and a half.

As if the wait time is not enough, with everyone shoving and pushing, they tell me I owed for 2 months. This is apparently going back to the day I installed the phone line back in June 2001. I was so frustrated, I did not argue with the lady and just paid it. I then asked if I could also pay for the following month since I won�t be in the country. They assured me if I pay the monthly rent only, and not mobile calls that I�ve made this month, they won�t disconnect my phone. We�ll see when I get back whether I�ll still have the lovely Armentel service. As you can tell I don�t think much of their service but who am I to argue? It only took me two hours to get over it!

I'm back. Sorry I was out of commission soo soo long. First off, Happy New Year to all. Thank you for all the emails asking if I am OK... I am great just real busy with little internet access :o) other than that things are great.

So to give a short short version of many stories I hope to expand on within the next few days I will start off by saying New Years Eve here is one great party and I would suggest coming here for the winter... yes, even in this cold cold cold.

New Years Eve itself was great. I spent it with friends at their house and then we went to Valencia (a banquet hall)... where Nune Yesayan, Hayko, Shushan Petrosyan, Suzy Markarian, Ashot Ghazaryan and a few others were singing all night. Hrand Tokhatyan was MC and he did a fabulous job. We partied until about 6 am when I came back to my friends house and the party continued till breakfast the next morning. We did this for three nights.

It does not stop there. January 13/14th is old Armenian New Year which of course is celebrated too. So I have been celebrating for half a month now... but today I celebrate something different. I CELEBRATE WATER.

For the past five days I have had no WATER at all. My waterpump burned and then my pipes froze. For the past five days we have been replacing the pump and thawing out the pipes with permanent spiral heaters which will hopefully stop me from ever being left waterless again.

Now that I have my water back I have spent the day cleaning home, entertaining friends (now that I can wash dishes, I can have friends over again) and doing laundry.

This feels great, I miss logging. I promise to start up again and not leave Lena and Ara with all the stress of being the only winter 2001/2002 loggers.

I will spend an entire log on my Karabagh trip because it is a great story with a lot of funny moments.

Happy Armenian New Year to all.

Dinner with my students was fabulous last night. There were 12 of us and for the benefit of the Diasporan who had invited us to this dinner, we all introduced ourselves and gave a bit of background in English.

My students presented me with a toy horse and advised the gift was for luck seeing it�s the year of the horse. We then decided to name my horse and Hakob Hovhanessian; the Director of �Duty to Live� came up with the name Kourgig Jalali that is the name of the horse of Sassoontsi Davit. I�ve decided to call it Kourgig for short and it sits at work with me all day. They also presented me with a book in Armenian on Gandzasar. This one will take sometime to read as my reading skill is not up to scratch but maybe my students are giving me a message? Whatever the reason, I was quite moved receiving these gifts.

Thank you again to my Diasporan friend who wants to remain anonymous for his kindness. I should mention that we did cheat at times and spoke Armenian, for example when someone was toasting. Somehow, the toast doesn�t come out as melodious in English.

Last night I went to dinner with 6 Aussies, of which 2 are volunteering in Armenia, one works for Ernst & Young in Armenia, one has relocated for 2 years working on different projects and 2 are visiting. Yes we did whinge about the cold and we had every right to seeing it was MINUS 15!!!!! I have never experienced this kind of cold. It was refreshing to hear everyone�s view on Armenia, how it has improved and what can be done to achieve better results.

Today I braved the cold and spent almost 2 hours at vernisage. I honestly don�t know how the locals do it, really I was absolutely frozen, and it�s about minus 3 at the moment even though the sun is shining. I bought 2 excellent carpets (with Zabel�s expertise) to take back home for presents at very good prices. I�ll have to make another trip next weekend to buy further souvenirs; I just couldn�t stay out any longer today. Oh and I also bought a glass cutter for 1000 Drams ($1.70 US), I�ve always seen this man at vernisage showing how it�s done and today I finally bought one.

Tonight I will get together with a few friends and have dinner at their house to celebrate old New Year.

What a kef I had yesterday! AVC and the Volunteers were invited to yet another party celebrations before the old New Year ends at Duty to Live. They had hired a hall type place in Zeitoun where most families were present along with my students from the English class and the children.

Once the Fathers (Der Dajad, Der Shahe and another priest) blessed the salt, water and bread, Harisa was served to all. Harisa is made from barley and chicken pieces blended together forming soup type dish. Hari means to whip or mix, sa means this, meaning this mixture? I�m just repeating what I was told, don�t quote me on this.

After dinner, of course Armenian music was being played and everyone danced. Again the kids performed songs and recited poems. Again I took heaps of photos.

On Monday night, I�m organizing a get together with my students, as I haven�t seen them for a couple of weeks (we�re on a break till end of February). I remember in one of my lessons, I was teaching the students how to order in a restaurant in English when it occurred to me that none had ever been to a restaurant. In fact one of the students confirmed it. So the other day, I was talking to the Diaspora friend visiting from NY re above and told him that I would really like to take them out to dinner one night. That�s all it took, he immediately advised to organize a gathering and that he would pay for all!

It�s all under control, I have phoned each of my students and asked them to meet me at California Pizza for a �special class�. The conditions are that the menu will be in English, they will need to order in English, speak to the waiter and amongst the group only in English, otherwise no food. There will be 15 of us including my friend from NY and myself. It should be a great night; I really have missed them all! Have a great weekend.

It�s snowing again, everything is so calm and so beautiful and again I took heaps of pictures this morning on my way to work. As I stare out the window right now the snowflakes are so pretty! Strangely on the CNN weather forecast on Tele they only mention the snow up to Turkey and eastern Turkey, then get into Asia. They have not once mentioned Armenia the whole time that I�ve watched the news.

I went to Sourp Katoghige yesterday for Bible reading with the kids where we read passages from Matthew (Jesus Christ is Born) in English and translated to Armenian. The kids are so cute, the age�s range from 7 to 17 and we use the warmth of Der Avedis� office. One of the students told me after class that on the days that she sees me, even from a distance, (she lives in the same block where my office is located) she has a successful and productive day. What can one say to such a comment? This is precisely what I mean about the special feeling one can experience in Armenia!

By the way I made a boo boo, the closing date for AVC applications is March the 1st. And Ara, I�m glad you too experienced that warm and fuzzy feeling.

SNOW! YES SNOW! I can�t believe I�m so excited to see snow falling. Ok so it�s a couple of days late since I wanted a white Christmas but who cares, we are still celebrating here. I was late to work this morning by 15 minutes as I was taking pictures of the Opera covered in snow, what a sight!

A couple of days ago, the Diaspora friend who�s currently visiting from New York asked me how I remain calm and not get frustrated encountering certain obstacles in Armenia. My reply was that as anywhere in the world you have your good days and you have your bad days. On the bad days things can and do go wrong but at the end of the day when I see the faces of my students and my work colleagues, you forget all, especially when I see Ararat! The following day is a brand new day. I hope this makes sense.

Again I wanted to thank all those who write and send me encouraging messages, telling me how much they appreciate and envy what I�m doing here. This also is another reason that I do what I do, apart from the personal satisfaction. The AVC program is only one year out of one�s life and is extremely rewarding, so what are you all waiting for? Visit the site at www.armenianvolunteer.org the applications close March 31st.

I am finally able to check e-mail from a friends house... I had over 500 messages to go through. I think I will start through them next time I visit him.

Thanks for the birthday wishes Raffi N and I totally agree with your and Raffi M�s log. By the way congratulations on your pregnancy (well Lara�s) and you�ll love squash, I used to play it many moons ago!

Didn�t make it to Karabagh unfortunately as the group left yesterday (Sunday) for a great cause. I�m sure either Ara or Madlene will log about it, it is indeed an exciting project. I met with the donor and he�s doing a great job, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy for the children of Shushi.

Went to dinner a couple of nights ago with a group of 12. Out of 12 there were people from 9 different countries: Armenia, Spain, France, Argentina, Uruguay, The States, Canada, Syria and of course Australia.

Saturday the 5th, I attended Church service at Sourp Katoghige at 5pm. The service lasted 2 hours and it was freezing conditions. The Church is so tiny that most were standing outdoors so needless to say I was frozen along with everyone else.

First day back at the office today and the atmosphere is great wishing each other Shnorhavor Sourp Dzenount again. The Christmas decorations will remain on the streets and at people�s homes until the 13th (the old New Year) and the visits to people�s homes will continue until then. I am so glad I spent Christmas and New Year in Yerevan albeit the cold, it�s been a great experience!

Welcome back to Yerevan Zabel!

Something amazing happened a couple of days ago, which I wanted to log. A couple of Diasporans are in Yerevan from New York to celebrate the New Year, one of whom I had met last summer. We got together a few of us and were invited to dinner by these diasporans at Armenia Hotel restaurant. On our walk to the hotel we ran into Suzie a 6-year-old child, at the Republic Square. One member of our party has known Suzie for a couple of years and so she stopped and kissed her. Next thing I know she asked her mother if Suzie could join us for dinner to which she agreed. Apparently my friend has a deal with Suzie and her mother. Every time she runs into them, instead of giving money to the child (as she used to beg on the streets), she treats her with food or ice cream or whatever. Suzie joined us at the restaurant and at least for a little while she was nice and warm and ate and drank well. What a character this little girl was, very bright and amazingly mature for her age. During dinner Suzie told us that she was now attending kindergarten everyday and going to Orran daily for food, which was very encouraging. Once she had finished eating, my friend had ordered extra food for her mother to take out and delivered Suzie back to her mother.

I called my friend this morning for her permission to log re above and she said that she had again met up with Suzie yesterday and bought her a doll. She will be meeting her again on Monday to buy her new shoes. It is so good to see that someone like my friend and Orran who are doing an amazing job, cares for this child.

Ok so Karabagh trip has been cancelled so far as the roads are closed due to snow. In fact there was a little snow this morning when I woke up and it�s pretty cold right now. Again thanks to all who have sent birthday wishes!

It�s been a few days since my last log; I don�t know where to start! New Year�s Eve I was home trying to nap in the afternoon since I have a head cold for the first time this winter. At 4.30pm, my doorbell rings and the man advised he had a delivery from Brabion (a florist). So I open the door dressed in tracksuit pants, hair all over the place and half asleep (the phone kept me awake all day, I�ll explain later) and there�s this girl also with a Santa hat delivering these incredible tulips. Mind you no name was given as to whom they were from but I knew immediately they were from my friend Annette Collins from LA. Crazy girl had them ordered from LA to be delivered in Yerevan for my birthday for the 1st Jan. It was an incredibly sweet gesture. Back to my story the guy delivering insists on taking a picture of me with the bunch of flowers and being half asleep I stand in the kitchen with the tulips against no backdrop. How boring! Thanks Annette.

Somehow New Year�s Eve ended up at my place, don�t know how! (the reason why my phone was ringing all day!) So had a get together with a few friends and had a great time eating, dancing etc. Just before midnight the President read his speech on TV and the national anthem was played. It was pretty emotional as it�s my first NY spent in Armenia. At 1.30 am we decided to walk down to Republic Square to see what was happening. There were thousands of people everywhere but unfortunately the celebrations had ended and they were already packing up the stage where the performances had taken place. So we all just walked around absorbing the atmosphere and looking at the many Christmas decorations on the streets. In fact I am so surprised at the decorations on shop fronts and trees etc I had not imagined it would be like this, don�t know why but anyway I digress. On our walk it was minus 2 but for some reason it didn�t even feel cold at all, I can�t believe I�m saying this! After a while we all came back to my place for another few hours of celebrations. It was a great night. Oh earlier that evening I had visited my next-door neighbour to wish her shnoravor nor dari (happy New Year), an Armenian custom. I gave her a bottle of champagne and in return received homemade gatta and awesome pakhlava made from pure honey. What a treat!

On to New Year�s Day (my birthday), unfortunately I spent most of it in bed due to my head cold. Although I received tons of calls from Australia and Yerevan wishing me birthday wishes. Then to my surprise some friends came over with a huge bunch of flowers, which was great. Enough for this log now, I need to go home and get back to bed. I hope I still make it to Karabagh this weekend and spend Armenian Christmas there. To all the readers have a great one; I have a good feeling for 2002 and thanks to all of you who sent Christmas wishes and the best for the New Year.

I am back in California doing... a remond!!! Just kidding... sort of. I remodeled my place in Orange when I bought it, and now after a few years of renting it out I have put it on the market. The tenants did not take good care of it at all, so it was back to painting and hardwood floors and plumbing and so on. But all in all it was only a few days a work, so as they say in Armenia ejhan b'rdzank (we got off cheap). Being in the land of technology and convenience, I am reduced to the stone ages. No phone line, no internet, but ahhh, great weather ;-) I am wearing *one* or sometimes two layers of clothes, not three or four as I would in Yerevan or Boston. As Meneshian mentioned, I did a stopover in Boston on my way home and he gave a great tour of the Armenian sites. I really think it is sad that such a beautiful and livable city was built in such a bad climate (worse than Yerevan's ;-)

Almost nothing seems to have changed since a year ago except for the insane number of flags attached to everything. Ufff. One thing I noticed in Armenia is that the flag is virtually never flown except on government buildings. It surprised me at first because we use it as part of our identity in America, but then in Armenia, who do you need to show your Armenianess to?