Vontsek?
I am in the land of Khorovadz … Ayo Ayo, I am in Armenia.
I arrived yesterday. I travelled through Austria again. It was more plain the second time around. However, I was lucky this time to have met 4 doctors who were going to a conference in Karabagh who entertained me. Two of them were from Boston, and the other 2 from Toronto. They were very funny. They would talk loud in the plane and laugh even louder. Once in Austria, we all decided to take a one hour bus tour to discover the city. It was hilarious since we all slept most of the way with our headphones on. The bus driver had to wake us up. It is called Jet lag. We then found a cool lounge and like true Armenians, we had a few drinks then went back to our hotel. The Austrian Airlines had given us complementary rooms since we had over 13 hours of lay-over. Not bad!
Armenia is changing FAST! For someone living here or those who have never visited, they will not see or understand the pace of development. Here are some of my observations. As we were flying over Yerevan at 5:30 AM, I noticed the amount of lights in the city. In 1999, there were only a few flickers of light detectable by air. This must mean that 1) there is electricity all day, 2) people can actually afford to leave the light on at night and 3) the city is still alive even at night. Another such improvement was at the airport. It took the guards less then 20 minutes to get all the passengers across. This process would take over an hour in the past. There was also a scanning machine at the exit point. The guards would ask some of the passengers to put their suitcases I through the machine. I was one of the lucky ones since I had 3 large pieces and 2 small ones. They asked me what is this and that, when I told them they were used stuff or just uninteresting items they let me go. I noticed that they were keen on new items or things that I might be able to sell (do business with). I think they would have asked me for some kind of tax, had I replied in the affirmative, which was not the case anyway. I soon understood that this could easily be another place that one could be asked for a bribe when I saw the way they handled another passenger (be careful Shooshig).
Raffi K, I will try to post more often, I promise.
I am in the land of Khorovadz … Ayo Ayo, I am in Armenia.
I arrived yesterday. I travelled through Austria again. It was more plain the second time around. However, I was lucky this time to have met 4 doctors who were going to a conference in Karabagh who entertained me. Two of them were from Boston, and the other 2 from Toronto. They were very funny. They would talk loud in the plane and laugh even louder. Once in Austria, we all decided to take a one hour bus tour to discover the city. It was hilarious since we all slept most of the way with our headphones on. The bus driver had to wake us up. It is called Jet lag. We then found a cool lounge and like true Armenians, we had a few drinks then went back to our hotel. The Austrian Airlines had given us complementary rooms since we had over 13 hours of lay-over. Not bad!
Armenia is changing FAST! For someone living here or those who have never visited, they will not see or understand the pace of development. Here are some of my observations. As we were flying over Yerevan at 5:30 AM, I noticed the amount of lights in the city. In 1999, there were only a few flickers of light detectable by air. This must mean that 1) there is electricity all day, 2) people can actually afford to leave the light on at night and 3) the city is still alive even at night. Another such improvement was at the airport. It took the guards less then 20 minutes to get all the passengers across. This process would take over an hour in the past. There was also a scanning machine at the exit point. The guards would ask some of the passengers to put their suitcases I through the machine. I was one of the lucky ones since I had 3 large pieces and 2 small ones. They asked me what is this and that, when I told them they were used stuff or just uninteresting items they let me go. I noticed that they were keen on new items or things that I might be able to sell (do business with). I think they would have asked me for some kind of tax, had I replied in the affirmative, which was not the case anyway. I soon understood that this could easily be another place that one could be asked for a bribe when I saw the way they handled another passenger (be careful Shooshig).
Raffi K, I will try to post more often, I promise.
posted by Raffi N at 9:40 AM
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