The day's highs and lows

Earlier today I visited the World Press Photo exhibition that is on show at Kino Moskva on Abovian. This yearly exhibition tours the world and this is the second or third year it is being shown in Armenia as well. For many years I used to visit the exhibition when shown in Holland. As usual, this year's exhibition is a mixture of esthetically attractive (here, here and here), moving (here and here), upbeat (here), raw (here), and most of all thought-provoking pictures (most of the above plus many others). Well worth a visit if you are in Yerevan or whenever the exhibition is being held near you. The exhibition in Yerevan will last until November 12.

Later, I decided to take the metro back home and walk the last part instead of being dropped off by a marshrutka almost at the frontdoor. Between Yeritasardakan and Marshal Baghramyan stations an otherwise very normal looking guy sat across from me who had a big black swastika drawn on his bag. What the hell is he thinking?! I was really about to ask him this very question when he got up and left the train.

I'll end on a more cheerful note. Last night my boyfriend and I went out for a drink and we ended up with a bunch of his friends. At one point one of them started telling jokes in Armenian and I am somewhat proud to say that I understood two out of the three jokes from beginning to end, that is including the punchline. Usually I miss the funny part of jokes in Armenian (please, don't start a discussion now on whether there actually is a funny part to Armenian jokes! ;-) ), because there are one or two key words that I don't know. I guess I am getting somewhere in learning the language!

Coffee and books

A few days ago, a new place on Abovian opened, it is called Central Cafe (or Cafe Central, don't remember) and is located on the Moscovian-side of Abovian. We walked by earlier today, realized that this place wasn't there before and we decided to have some coffee there. From the outside the place doesn't look very inviting, with a closed facade and the entrance tucked away in the corner. However, once inside it turns out to be very big and light. The place has something of a grand cafe or even a pub, with a potentially nice atmosphere. The music didn't really fit in with that grand cafe-slash-pub-like-thing, however. It has the feel of a potentially nice hangout for young people, I could imagine spending an afternoon there talking with friends, drinking coffee or tea. But that is obviously not what they are aiming for when you look at the menu and the prices (The place is definitely not cheap!). The menu is very big with lots of variations on the coffee and tea theme, long lists of "coffee-cocktails" (hot and cold, with and without alsohol), but you can also have lunch or dinner there and there is a fairly big cocktailmenu as well.
I had a traditional cappucino, which was good. According to my boyfriend it "tasted like capuccino". Well, in Yerevan that is not a bad thing, as I know only a handful of places where they make decent cappucino. My boyfriend had something called "Cola-Presso" (if I remember correctly), which was an interesting mix of cold coffee, coca-cola and vanilla juice. I don't like coke, but this wasn't too bad. Good stuff for staying awake!
It's not a bad place, but I felt that something is missing though I can't say what exactly. It has potential but it's not quite there yet. However, they have lots of coffee-varieties that I would like to try and the pies and cakes looked very yummy, so I will probably come back some time.

On an entirely different note, a few days ago I finished a novel I brought with me from Holland. The Dutch title is "Het Huis met de leeuweriken", the English title "The House of Larks" (original Italian title "La masseria delle allodole"). I am actually not entirely sure if the novel has been translated into English yet, because I could hardly find any info on the author or the book in English, nor any mentioning at Amazon.com. The author is an Italian-Armenian, Antonia Arslan. The novel tells the story of the author's relatives' experiences during the Genocide. The first part of the book is very good, relating the build-up to the genocide in a small Turkish town, the killing of the men in the town and how the women, children and elderly were sent on their death-march to Deir-ez-Zor. However the second part about how the surviving women of the family are being rescued by some friends is a big disappointment, a big anti-climax - it reads like some not so well written adventure-novel. The novel is worth a read, though, if only for the first part.
By the way, apparently, the author is in Yerevan these days for the Italian cultural festival that is going on now.

A visit to Holland

Sorry for the break in logging. I spent ten days in Holland and came back on Saturday morning. This week my dad and my brother are in town. My dad is here for business, my brother came along for fun, to see where his sister is living now. It's his first time in Armenia, so he's spending his time sightseeing. He seems to be having a nice time so far.

For the first couple of days in Holland I walked around like in a bubble - this feeling got less after a few days, but it never went away entirely. I kept feeling detached, like I was observing things from a distance. Usually, when I returned from Armenia I would walk around cultureshocked for the first few days, but somewhat to my surprise, that wasn't the case this time. Maybe because I knew I wouldn't stay and because of this detachment I felt. I should probably rephrase that to: I knew I wouldn't stay and so I kept feeling detached from life in Holland.

There were some things I did enjoy while in Holland: being able to take a warm shower in the morning without having to wait at least an hour until the water is warm enough, reading the morning newspaper over coffee and breakfast, taking the train (and not having to sit in an overcrowded marshrutka!), taking a walk near the sea. But I did miss some things as well: the view of Ararat from our apartment window, the mountains in general (Holland is so flat and there are signs of human presence everywhere you look!) and in a funny way I missed the chaotic traffic in Yerevan. One of the first days I was riding in a car and I caught myself thinking: "Wow! All the drivers keep to the right lane!" Yes, it's true: that is really what I thought!! I guess that's how used I got to Yerevan traffic. And I had to get used to wearing a seat belt again. One time I took a taxi from the train station and I forgot to put the seat belt on. The taxi driver noticed that and waited, because he apparently didn't want to leave with me not wearing the seat belt. He didn't say anything at first however, and I had no clue what he was waiting for! Turned out it was my seat belt!

I met most of my friends again, which was fun, having dinner together, catching up. Fortunately, the weather was great, so we were often able to have lunch or dinner outside in the garden or at an outside cafe. I can't remember the weather in Holland ever having been this nice in late September. Also I sorted out lots of stuff in my old apartment. My brother is living there now and he kindly but decidedly ordered me to clean out more closet space for him. It was surprising how easy it was to make the decision to throw things away now that I hadn't seen or been around them for some time and how easy it was to adjust to my apartment no longer being mine and to being a guest in the same apartment I used to live in for over six years.

It feels really good to be back home in Yerevan. It felt slightly weird being back in Holland, but it also made me realize that my home is no longer there: it is here in Armenia. Already while the plane was descending to Amsterdam Airport, I realized that I was happy I would leave again in ten days. While being back in Holland, I realized how glad I am that I moved to Armenia, how much I have there: good friends, my boyfriend, being able to work on projects that I enjoy working on, that I do with my heart. Not to say that everything in Armenia is always going supersmoothly, but despite that, I generally get much more satisfaction from my life in Armenia.