Merry Armenian Christmas! Of course, it is not Armenian Christmas here, it is regular Christmas. Well we are solidly into 2004 now. It snowed yesterday, and is snowing lightly this morning. In all it is maybe half an inch (1.3cm?), but still enough to maintain a white blanket that was beginning to disappear from the first snow. Nothing too exciting to report. The second half of my time off flew by, and yesterday was a work day - although today again is a holidy. Yesterday I saw someone from the first Diaspora tour I met in San Francisco, who I had actually been trying to contact - unsuccessfully. Luckily I didn't take yesterday off, and he had my work number. He is part of a group that has computerized virtually every school in Karabakh already, and when that is finished will begin Armenia soon. I remember meeting him and had a request from Ashot, the dynamic painter in Sisian for some computers for the school he has there, and now can put them in touch properly. As Madlene has mentioned, not all such computer labs end up going to good use, but I know this one would. It is a great organization actually, that brings donated computers that still have a long life left, and sets them up in schools here on a super tight budget, with donated time. So in the longer run, that might turn out to be a good Christmas gift for the kids in Sisian.

So today I will be packing and preparing for my trip to the US. Yes, the Ambassador is doing another Diaspora tour - so I may get to meet some of you who live on the mid-Atlantic coast. I am going to be weighed down with a ton of videos and brochures, and I suspect it will still not be nearly enough, but I can only take so many. Because it will be winter there as well, I am not looking forward to that too much, but it will be interesting to compare the winters back to back like this. A friend from Boston was telling me that it is actually milder here, because although the temprature is about the same, the snowfall is much less, there is no wind, and no humidity. Ah yes, and I am looking forward to eating my first real Philly cheesesteak sandwich. I have had good ones, that I have been told are pretty authentic, but somehow it doesn't seem like the real thing unless you have it there. That is the one town that I have never been to that I am looking forward to seeing at all. Of course, with 2 days maximum stay per place, I won't be seeing a great deal.

Also, if you want to give me a Christmas gift, give me the gift of a link! :-) Seriously, because my site is named Cilicia, and not something with Armenia in it, I get penalized in search rankings, and a lot of sites that link to me just say "Cilicia.com", which tells people nothing. So write to people at other Armenian sites (and non-Armenian!) with "links" pages and ask them to add Cilicia.com to their links and give it a fair description... Pleaaaase!