What a crazy time. Every night is another event, every day is another event. So after taking Monday evening easy and cooking myself a nice dinner, I haven't had a chance yet to eat the leftovers, and doubt I will. Seeing Ara and his mom Tuesday night at Artsbridge was fun, then last night was spent with my dad, and tonight was a very interesting tourism event at the Tufenkian Hotel. James Tufenkian brought over a half a dozen travel writers to Armenia for four days to write articles about Armenia. Isn't it fantastic? So keep an eye out for these articles, they should be popping up all over the place. Write a letter to the editor even to thank them if you do see one. So all kinds of interesting tourism related people were there including Ralph and Savy Tufenkian, who are partners in the Ani Hotel; plus the deputy minister of finance and economy Ara Petrosyan, who is in charge of tourism and his guy Artur Zakaryan; also there was Nina Hovnanian-Alexanyan who is in charge of the Armenian Tourism Development Agency. We'll go to her house tomorrow since some of the journalists wanted to talk to us some more. So who says Diasporans aren't making a dent here? We are doing pretty good I'd say, although we can always do more. It came up at the gathering tonight that both the Armenia Hotel and the Ani Hotel are completely booked solid, not a room to be found. Now these are huge hotels, and it is now mid-October... tourism is really coming along very well. Anyone want to invest in a budget hotel here? I would be willing to put one together if there are interested investors.

Ah yes, in the afternoon I was at the Cascad Cafe that Ara logged about yesterday. We had a nice work meeting there in the beautiful weather. Like Ara I saw Madlene and Artur, but unlike him I did not see underaged kids drinking beer. Hmmm. Well as he said, the weather has been fantastic this week, and hopefully it will keep up all month.

The Columbus day weekend plans are quite full, so I'll let you know how that goes as it comes along.