Quite cold and rather rainy again. I have 11 days to go in NY City, which wiill make over two and a half months, and the city has been determined not to let me enjoy the outdoors! Well fuey, I am out of here anyways. So I will get to be here on Easter, and April 24 in Yerevan, though I may be too jetlagged to do much about it.

I have been busy getting ready to go, and working on my sites at the same time. Lots of work on updating certain pages, especially GPS positions of tourist attractions these last few days. Today I hope to redesign the calendar main page, make it look a bit slicker. We'll see how much progress I make.

I know what Lena means about visitor season starting, since most of the flights to Yerevan I wanted were booked solid! I'm telling you, tourism in Armenia is really taking off. In 2002, the number of visitors skyrocketed above the levels for the big 2001 celebrations of 1700 years of Christianity. Diasporans and odars alike are increasing exponentially, loving the interesting towns and cities, warm people, great and (mostly) unspoiled nature, amazing monastic architecture, safety, fruits and veggies you can taste, and still a bit exotic and virgin territory for travellers. This also explains the big boom in hotel construction. Unfortunately, there is still almost a complete lack of budget accomodations. There are finally decent places to stay in the mid-range, but still no decent cheap places. Considering how relatively inexpensive real estate is in Yerevan, and labor as well, I hope this segment develops quickly.

On a sad note, an Armenian from Canada, an aid worker was shot while in a vehicle in Iraq, I think it was a random thing. All he was doing there was trying to help people.