Well the year is rapidly coming to a close. It is such a fantastic feeling, after having so many days off, to have a week more to go! I feel great, even though it is so cold out. The snow has not melted away yet, it is about an inch or two on the ground. I wonder when the temprature will rise above freezing and melt it all away. So with all this energy, yesterday I went to the Parev Inn to visit Nigol and Zabelle, two loggers who I have not spent much quality time with this year. I just was stopping by "to talk", and was there for six hours! Thats what I call a proper catching up. So at around 6:30 Shooshig shows up (yes, the logger from L.A. who is staying at the Parev), and at seven we headed out to get a bite at the famous Chez Garo's. Well Garo was there with the lady who owns the Phonecia Restaurant (both of them are Diasporans), and it turns out that they went to school here together, and both came back and opened restaurants this year! Pretty funny. Then it comes out that they went to school with both my parents here too. Yup, another crazy small world story here in Yerevan. I may have said this before, but I will say it again, it is great to see Yerevan as the true hub of the Armenian nation, including the Diaspora. The Diaspora could have been centered in LA or Beirut or Moscow, but it is clearly in Yerevan that Armenians from all over the world are coming together, and it is a beautiful thing. Now if only we could get back Cilicia so that at least part of Armenia would have a mild winter.

So today started out quite unusually for me - I went to a big khash eating breakfast. Yes, the famous khash that Madlene wrote about this week. And no, I was not crazy enough to have some. I was once convinced to try it - boiled bones and tendons and other leftover animal parts, and believe it or not it did nothing for me. I think you need to grow up with it to appreciate it. Anyway, my guests were excited about the whole thing, so I just went along to spend some time with them and watch this ritual. Then it was back to my nice, warm apartment (the restaurant was not warm at all), where I was inspired to implement a major change in the interface of my tourism page. That worked out quite well I think, with the new page much better, and soon I should make a couple of more improvements to it as well. One of those improvements, with the hard work of Der Hova, will be the addition of Restaurant Reviews, which people can add their comments to. This will allow everyone to have their say about this waiter, that dish, etc, etc and I think it will be a lot of fun to read through. So keep checking back for that, and be sure to read up before your next culinary outing in Yerevan, then tell us what you think.

As far as Madlene's comment that none of her friends are around, all I can say is thanks from the chopped liver over here. Pfffft! :-P

What will I be up to the next few days? I dunno, and I don't care!