My parents arrived this morning. They'll be here for ten days, partly on business (my dad), but for the most part on vacation. We'll do some sightseeing, go to Spitak and in general catch up on things. My boyfriend and I picked them up at the airport, where we ran into another friend of ours who had just arrived from Beirut, where he had spent a week with his relatives. It seems every time I am at the airport, I run into someone I know. Small town, small country. Also, it seems that every time I am at the airport, something seems to have changed. This time it was the payment for parking at arrivals. You used to have to give the guard 500 drams or something like that upon entrance to the parking lot, now you get a ticket from one of those machines where you have to hang out of your car window in an effort to push the button and grab the ticket. You pay when you leave and you pay according to the amount of time you spent at the parking lot, so no standard fee anymore.

My parents brought me my quarterly load of reading material: some magazines and especially some books I asked them to bring. I am especially looking forward to a few of them in particular. Firstly, there is the latest novel by Jonathan Safran Foer "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close". He is a Jewish American writer whose debut "Everything Is Illuminated" was a big bestseller two years ago. It is high on my list of all-time favorites and I highly recommend it, so you can imagine I am looking forward to reading his new novel. The second book I am looking forward to is "Putin's Russia" by Anna Politkovskaya. She is a well-known Russian journalist who is very critical about the authorities. Her topics include the ongoing war in Chechnya and human rights issues. She is one of the few who writes critically in the Russian press (or at least tried to) about the situation in Chechnya. Most reports about Chechnya in the Russian press are pro-government. Politkovskaya has occassionally been harrassed by the authorities because of her articles. "Putin's Russia" should be an interesting read. Thirdly, my parents brought me a book that I hadn't asked for, but they bought it after reading some reviews about it. It is a collection of essays and portraits of Armenians from all over the world and from all walks of life. The book is called "Portraet einer Hoffnung - Die Armenier" ("Portaits of Hope - The Armenians") edited by Huberta von Voss. The book is in German, so it's a good reason to brush up my German. I speak it rather fluently, but for the last ten years or so, I haven't read much in German.

Also, my parents brought me a pile of newspaper clippings about Armenia, the Genocide and the Caucasus in general. They are from two Dutch newspapers, De Volkskrant and NRC Handelsblad, generally considered to be the two best newspapers in the country, and from the Frankfurter Allgemeine, the leading German newspaper (one of my parents' neighbors apparently receives this paper by mail, and my parents borrow it, I guess). Obviously, Armenia and the Genocide have been an issue in German newspapers over the past months, with Germany recognizing the Genocide a few weeks ago, but I was rather surprised at the amount of articles from the two Dutch newspapers. It's good to see that there apparently is growing interest in Armenia in Dutch media.

So, if I am not blogging for the next couple of weeks, you know what I am doing......!

Living in Armenia, there is not much I miss, but there are two things that I do miss very much. One is, you probably guessed it by now, a good bookshop with a good selection of (recent) fiction and non-fiction where you can spend hours browsing around. The other is a good movie theater where they show something else than the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Fortunately, some of the embassies organize cultural programs with recent movies from their countries every now and then, but somehow I always seem to find out about them after the end of the series! And, next week there is the Golden Apricot International Film Festival here in Yerevan. I had a look at teir program, and it looks interesting. I hope I will be able to take in some of the events. I was actually supposed to work as a volunteer hostess/guide/translator at the festival, but I had to cancel that when I found out my parents would be here right at that time.