Far Away, By My Side

City on the Hill: Ohrid, Macedonia

2011-09-13T01:54:00.000+05:00

According to the Lonely Planet "if you haven't seen Ohrid, you haven't seen Macedonia" and I understand why because Lake Ohrid is spectacular. Situated on the Albanian-Macedonian border, Lake Ohrid is one of Europe's oldest and deepest lakes and covers an area of 138 square miles.

Luckily our bus ride to Macedonia went much smoother than the one to Albania and we were in Ohrid by early afternoon. We got dropped off on the main road in town and as we stood there looking completely lost, backpacks strapped on and map out, trying to figure out how to get to our guesthouse a man approached us and asked if we needed accommodation. Of course this happens often traveling and people are trying to get you to stay with them so we politely said we had a place to stay and went back to our map. He asked where and when we told him we were staying at Antonio Guesthouse he pulled out his phone and called Antonio to come meet us. Once we made it to our guesthouse (the house was shared by Antonio and his parents and they used some of the rooms upstairs for renting to travelers) we decided to relax for a bit and then headed out for dinner and a walk down to the harbor and through 'old town' with its lovely narrow cobblestone streets.

Upper Gate of Old Town Ohrid

On our second day in Ohrid we did Lonely Planet’s walking tour of Ohrid’s ‘old town’. We began our tour at Sveta Bogorodica Perivlepta church, which is home to some amazing frescos depicting the life of Mary (not picture allowed though) and on to the old town’s Upper Gate and Classical Amphitheater. The amphitheater was originally built for theater, but later the Romans pulled out the first ten rows to accommodate the gladiator fights. At the church we were given a tour about the history of the church and an explanation of what the frescos depict. According to Robby our tour guide reminded him of the gypsy woman Esmeralda from the Disney movie 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. She had long wild curly hair pulled back in a large jeweled butterfly clip and wore a long hot pink sundress and wedge sandals. Her tour style was animated and she spoke loudly with a very passionate tone about the subject matter of the frescos. When our tour first began there were four of us, but as more visitors came inside the church she had to tell them about the ticket price (she was only person working there) and she would yell to them that they could join our tour and pay later. Invariably when she went back to the tour instead of starting off where she had been she would quickly begin the story again.

Classical Amphitheater of Ohrid

Next we went to Car Samoil’s Castle. Car Samoil from Bulgaria ruled Macedonia from 980 AD to 1014 AD, until Byzantine emperor Basil II defeated Samoil at the Battle of Belasica in 1014. The castle offered panoramic views of the lake and city.

From the castle we wandered down a forest path to the ruins of a 4th century church, which is currently being excavated. Next to the ruins is the 5th century church of Sveti Kliment i Pantelejmon that displays the architectural style of the various empires that ruled Ohrid.

Sveto Kliment i Pantelejmon church

Walking back up the hill we made it to Sveti Jovan at Kaneo, a 13th century church, sitting on a cliff above Lake Ohrid.

Sveti Jovan at Kaneo church

Chapel of Mala Bogorodica

Below Sveti Jovan tucked into the cliff base is the small chapel of Mala Bogorodica sitting next to Kaneo beach. We stopped for a fish lunch at a beach café before finishing up our tour. After lunch we walked back up the hill towards the center of the old town to Sveta Sofija, an 11th century church that was modeled after Constantinople’s St. Sophia. Some of the frescos have been exposed from beneath the wall plastering that preserved them during the Ottoman era.

Sveta Sofija church

On our last day in Ohrid before our overnight bus to Belgrade we took a quick trip to Sveti Naum 29km from Ohrid on the other end of the lake. The Church of Sveti Naum is a multi-domed, Byzantine-style church and was built in the 16th century. Peacocks roam the grounds around the church (apparently peacocks were an early Christian symbol of resurrection and immortality. The peacock is also featured on the 10 Macedonian denar bank note and coin.

Church of Sveti Naum

Next Stop: Belgrade, Serbia

What's in Albania: Tirana & Kruja

2011-09-05T16:45:00.001+05:00

When many of my friends found out I was traveling to Albania their first response was often "What's in Albania?" or "Why Albania?". Well I wanted to visit Albania because it is such an unknown to many people due to its decades of isolation under Enver Hoxha. My interest in post-communist states and Eastern European history also drew me to Tirana. Tirana is a city that reminds me of Yerevan in many ways, but also has the evidence of a stronger European influence than in Armenia. Albania is a country that was ruled over by many empires and ideologies all of which are evident in its architecture, cuisine, and people, which makes it a fascinating place worth visiting to me.

The cheapest way for us to travel from Athens to Tirana was to take the 11 hour overnight bus, which became a 16 hour journey because it took 5 hours to cross the border. Many tour companies run overnight buses to Tirana and that means that they all arrive at the Greek-Albanian border at the same time and each bus has to wait its turn to cross the border. We spent our first night in Tirana relaxing at our hostel and recovering from our bus ride. The next day we explored the streets of Tirana and this is what we saw.

The Pyramid was built in 1988 (can't you tell!) by Enver Hoxha's daughter and son-in-law to serve as the Enver Hoxha Museum. It is now home to cultural events and teenage graffiti artists. Hoxha founded the Albanian communist party in 1941 to fight back against the fascist occupation of Albania by the Italians. He was in power until his death in 1985. He kept the country extremely isolated breaking off relations with Yugoslavia in 1948. He maintained relations with the Soviet Union during Stalin's years, but after Khrushchev came to power and criticized the cult of personality surrounding Stalin, Hoxha broke with Soviet-style communism in 1960. After this Albania aligned with China and from 1966 to 1967 Albania underwent its own cultural revolution. Atheism was promoted and churches and mosques were destroyed and the collectivization of agriculture was completed. Hoxha built tens of thousands of igloo-shaped concrete bunkers that still dot the hills of the country. With Mao's death in 1976 Albania's unique relationship with China came to an end and the country became isolated with no allies.

The Bell of Peace was forged from bullet casings from the 1997 conflict in Albania.

Parliament Building: After Hoxha's death restrictions loosened a bit, but the whole system of government was falling apart. Throughout the 1990s thousands of Albanian fled to Western embassies in Tirana and to Italy in search of political asylum. The government finally agreed to allow opposition parties and the 1992 elections ended 47 years of communist rule in Albania. The transition from communism to free market led to increased corruption and smuggling. A severe economic crisis led to 70% of Albanian's losing their savings and rioting and looting in the streets. The situation has stabilized during the first decade of the 21st century, but it is estimated that around 25% of the population lives in poverty.

Communist-style Apartment Buildings fill the neighborhoods of Tirana. These buildings are a feature of all cities and towns throughout Eastern Europe, but unlike those of Armenia the one's in Tirana have been painted with bright colors and patterns. This really adds a sense of hope to the city and takes away from the grim nature of concrete block towers.

Italian Architecture: Albanian King Zog I cooperated extensively with the Italians in developing Albania during the 1930s. The Italians built grand boulevards and beautiful buildings from the Fascist school of architecture (that's right there is a Fascist style) and helped turn Tirana into a true capital city. However, this left Albania indebted to Italy and basically a de facto colony. In 1939 Mussolini ordered the invasion of Albania and King Zog fled to England. The Italians occupied Albania throughout World War II.

Skanderbeg: This statue of Albanian national hero Skanderbeg looks out over Skanderbeg Square, which is currently a giant construction site because the square is being renovated to be a pedestrian only area. Skanderbeg is a national hero because from 1443 to 1468 he led the Albanian resistance against takeover by the Ottoman Empire. He won all 25 battles he fought against the Turks and although the Ottoman's finally overwhelmed the Albanian resistance - it was only after 26 years of fighting.

Et'hem Bey Mosque was built in the 18th century and managed to survive destruction during Hoxha's 1960s atheism campaigns due to its beauty and its status as a cultural monument.

Mother Teresa Square: While Mother Teresa may be one of the most famous Albanians sadly the square meant to honor her is not much more than this statue and an empty concrete fountain.

Mother Albania sits atop a hill overlooking Tirana surrounded by Martyrs' Cemetery where 900 Albanian partisans who died in World War II are buried.

We took a day trip to Kruja, the site of Skanbderbeg's castle, during our time in Albania. Located about 45 minutes north of Tirana the ancient site is now surrounded by the modern city of Kruja. Skanderbeg was born in Kruja and Albanians still take pride in that fact that he and his forces defended Kruja until his death.

Next Stop: Ohrid, Macedonia

Athens, Part Two

2011-08-31T22:50:00.000+05:00

I spent about an hour our first afternoon in Athens trying to find out about how to take the bus directly from Athens to Tirana, Albania. According to many sources online there was a daily night bus, but I was not having any luck finding out where it left from or how to buy tickets. Like in Turkey, all the international buses in Greece are run by individual private tour companies. The front desk at the hostel sent us to a nearby travel agency, but I knew from their website that they didn’t offer bus services. We went on our second and last morning in Athens hopeful that they could point us in the right direction. Luckily they were able to because all of the tour companies that go to Albania are located near one particular metro stop. So off we went to the metro and the when we arose from underground directly across the street from the metro station was a line of tour agencies all with buses to Albania. Within five minutes we had our tickets for that evening at 8:30 and were back on the metro.

Triumphant we returned to our hostel to book a place to stay in Triana and then went out for some last-minute sightseeing and shopping. Located near the northern slope of the Acropolis is the ancient Roman Agora. Built in the 1st century BC by the Roman leaders of Greece you enter the sight through the well-preserved Gate of Athena Archegetis.

The Roman Agora is also the site of the Tower of the Winds, built by Syrian astronomer Andronicus. It functioned as a sundial, weather vane, water clock and compass. Each side of the octagonal monument represents a point of the compass. The reliefs around the top depict the eight winds. The tower was later used by the dervishes during the Turkic period.

Very close to the Roman Agora is the Library of Hadrian. Built in the 2nd century AD, the library is the largest structure built by the Roman emperor Hadrian. It was home to books, music halls, lecture rooms, and a theatre.

Next we made our way through the nearby shopping district and down the narrow lines of shops for a little window shopping (or in my case actual shopping). From there we headed for the Panathenaic Stadium, home to the first modern Olympic Games in 1986. The stadium was build from recovered Pentelic marble from the original Panathenaic Stadium built in the 4th century BC as a venue for the Panathenaic athletic contests.

To complete our loop of central Athens we walked along the edge of the National Gardens and past the Presidential Palace. The palace was being guarded by one of the Evzones, which are the Greek army's elite ceremonial unit, but as I like to call them they are the guys in the skirts with the pom-poms on their shoes. We made our way back to Syntagma Square and down the Plaka to our hostel. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing at the hostel until it was time to meet our overnight bus to Tirana, Albania.

Next Stop: Tirana, Albania

City of Athena: Athens, Part 1

2011-08-30T12:11:00.035+05:00

Hope you are armed with a cup of coffee and ready for a long on because this may be the longest blog post I've written thus far. What can I say it is ATHENS!! There is so much to see and so much to say about this amazing historical city as well as its modern self. We were only there for two nights, but we saw a lot. Also, instead of telling you that I went to this really old temple and that really old building I'm going to give you a bit of historical background of the sites we visited in Athens. So ready or not here we go...

In order to make it to Athens directly from Samos Island we had to take a twelve hour ferry during the day (disappointingly the overnight ferry is the one that comes from Athens to Samos). When we purchased our tickets our only choices were outside seating or inside seating for only about €10 more so we selected inside, but it turned out that we were in first class. Getting onto the boat was quite an exercise though as it arrived in the port at Karlovasi from Samos’ main port at Vathi and simply backed up to the port let down its walkway and driveway (for those transporting vehicles) and everyone began to try and get on at the same time. The boat was very comfortable with lots of leg room and comfortable seats which made the ride much more pleasant. However, one thing I learned from the large amount of children onboard is that they have the ability to run around and play all during the ride unlike on an airplane where they must sit still. There were kids playing catch and tag and babies crying and screaming for a large portion of the ride. Luckily as the owner of an iPod I was able to ignore most of it and try and get a bit of work done on my final grad school research paper.

The Nissos Mykonos (Our Ferry to Athens)

We made it into Athens and off the boat around 9pm and set out to find the metro station. Robby (who thankfully has a great sense of direction as I do not) had already figured out how to make it to our hostel in central Athens from the port via the metro. It took quite a bit of walking to get to station, but all in all it was simple journey. Although due to metro construction we were unaware off the train did not stop at our stop and continued on to the next. Not wanting to get too far out of the way we got off at the next stop and found a map to try and figure out how to get to our hostel. An older man on the stopped train called Robby over and told him that because of construction the train skipped our stop, but was now going back to it. After he told us this of course the train doors shut and it left the station to go where we wanted to be. We dragged ourselves down labyrinth of stairs to get to the other platform so that we could go back one stop. Fortunately our hostel was very close to the metro stop and after a minute walk we made it the hostel around 10pm. Exhausted we had one last hurdle before rest could come because our hostel room was on the fifth floor and there was no elevator! It was all worth it in the end because we had a breathtaking view of the Acropolis perched over the city and all lit up from our balcony.

Night view of the Acropolis

Monastiraki Square

The next day we tried to get an early start so that we could beat the heat and the crowds for our day if sightseeing in Athens. First we walked from our hostel in Monastiraki Square to the entrance on the northern slope of the Acropolis. We made it to the top of the Acropolis and to the main entrance at Propylaia. This section of the Acropolis is home to the Propylaia, the Beulé Gate, and the Temple of Athena Nike.

The Propylaia

The Propylaia formed the towering entrance to the Acropolis in ancient times. It was built between 437 BC and 432 BC by Mnesicles. It is made up of a central hall with two wings on either side. The stairs lead up the main section lined by columns to the beginning of the Panthenaic Way.

The Panthenaic Way

The Panathenaic Way cuts across the middle of the Acropolis and was the route taken by the Panathenaic procession. The Panathenaic procession was the climax of the Panathenaia festival which celebrated the birthday of Athena.

Temple of Athena Nike

The Temple of Athena Nike is a small square temple perched atop the southwest edge of the Acropolis, to the right of the Propylaia.

The Parthenon

After making our way up the stairs of the Propylaia we saw the grand jewel of the Acropolis – The Parthenon. History refresher courtesy of my trust Lonely Planet guidebook – the Parthenon was built on the highest part of the Acropolis to house the great statue of Athena by Pericles and to serve as the new treasury. It was designed by Ictinus and Callicrates, under the surveillance of Pheidias. It was built between 447 BC and 438 BC. While it appears simple in form the Parthenon’s perfect form was achieved through the use of optical illusions. In order for the foundation to appear perfectly level to the observer it is actually slightly concave. The columns are slightly convex to make them appear straight. Most of the damage to the Parthenon was caused by an explosion in 1687. You see during this time the Turks were storing gunpowder inside the Parthenon and when the Venetians attacked it caused an open fire on the Acropolis, causing an explosion in the Parthenon. More recently acid rain has been dissolving the marble.

Me & The Parthenon

Across the Panathenaic Way is the Erechtheion, built on the part of the Acropolis held most sacred. The spot is where myth tells us that Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and were Athena produced the olive tree. Wait you don’t know that story, well…

The Erechtheion

According to mythology, shortly after Kekrops founded a city on a huge rock near the sea the gods of Olympus proclaimed that the city should be named after the deity who could produce the most valuable legacy for mortals. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, produced an olive tree, symbol of peace and prosperity. Poseidon, the god of the sea, struck a rock with his trident and a horst sprang forth, symbolizing the qualities of strength and fortitude. The gods judged that Athena’s gift would better serve the citizens of Athens than the arts of war personified by Poseidon’s gift (again thank you Lonely Planet Greece).

Anyways back to the Erechtheion….it was named after Erichthonius, a mythical king of Athens. It is best known for its six large maiden columns that support its southern portico. These columns are known as the Caryatids because the models for them were women of Karyai who were known for the poise. The ones now at the Erechtheion are plaster casts of the originals. The five of the originals are housed in the new Acropolis Museum, while one was removed by Lord Elgin (a British architect who took many things from the Acropolis back to the museum in London). It was constructed between 421 BC and 406 BC.

The Caryatids

After descending part way down the southern slope of the Acropolis we came to the Theatre of Dionysos. The ruins are from the reconstructed theatre built between 342 BC and 326 BC, with a seating capacity of 17,000 spread over 64 tiers, of which about 20 remain.

Theatre of Dionysos

Next up was the Temple of Zeus, the largest temple in Greece. It was begun in the 6th century BC, but abandoned due to lack of money. It was left incomplete until Roman emperor Hadrian (who had a great fondness for Greek culture) completed it in AD 131. It was made up of 104 Corinthian columns (the ones that look like pineapples on top). There are 15 columns remaining today.

At the Temple of Zeus

Parliament Building in Syntagma Square

Following our visit to the Temple of Zeus we walked to Syntagma Square, home of the Parliament and the heart of modern Athens. From there we walked down the Plaka, the old Turkish quarter now full of shops. After stopping for a lunch of mousakka and a stop for frozen coffee at Starbucks we headed off to tour the Ancient Agora.

Walking Down the Plaka

The Ancient Agora was Athens’ central meeting place during ancient times. The Agora was the center of administrative, commercial, political and social activity in ancient Athens. Socrates spent a lot of time there expounding his philosophy and in AD 49 Saint Paul preached daily in the Agora attempting to win over converts to Christianity. The Temple of Hephaestus (449 BC) sits upon a hill overlooking the Ancient Agora. There is also a reconstruction of the now destroyed Stoa of Attalos, which housed expensive shops during ancient times and is now home to the Ancient Agora museum.

Temple of Hephaestus

Stoa of Attalos

After all that sightseeing we were starving so we stopped for a nice al fresco seafood dinner at a local restaurant. We enjoyed a salad with grilled Greek cheese and balsamic vinaigrette with pan-fried shrimp, mussels, calamari, and octopus. We took a post-dinner stroll up to the top of Filopappou Hill or the Hill of the Muses. The hill, which is located southwest of the Acropolis, is topped by the Monument of Filopappos, built to honor Julius Antiochus Filopappos a prominent Roman consul and administrator. The hill offers amazing sunset views and photo-ops of Athens, the Parthenon, and the Saronic Gulf.

Filopappou Hill from the Acropolis

Sunset over Athens from Filopappou Hill

Next Stop: Athens, part 2

Samos Island, Greece

2011-08-30T00:53:00.011+05:00

We arrived on Samos Island via a ferry from Kuşadası around eleven in the morning. The boat brought us to Vathi port, the main port located in the northeastern part of the island, in the largest town on the island known as Samos Town. Samos Island is home to about 33,000 people and is 447 square kilometers in size. Tourists from Turkey often come to this island for a quick visit due to its proximity to Kuşadası. Hoping to explore more than just the island’s main port with its many visitors and crowded streets we decided to stay in the town of Karlovasi, located in the northwestern part of Samos Island. After getting directions at the port we made our way down the main road to the bus station to see about taking a bus to Karlovasi. It took us about one-and-a-half hours to reach Karlovasi by bus, which was a spectacular ride along a coastal road winding up and down hills overlooking the bright blue water of the Aegean Sea.

One of the many adorable churches in Karlovasi

Samos is known for it's lovely mansions

Once we arrived in Karlovasi we dropped of our bags at our hotel (that’s right we got to stay in an actual hotel instead of hostel because there are no hostels on the island) and went out for a lunch (I enjoyed a pork gyro pita and a coffee frappe). Following lunch we walked around the town a bit enjoying its narrow cobblestone streets and quaint red-tiled buildings. Apparently mid-afternoon on a Greek island is siesta time because most of the stores were closed and the streets were deserted. Worn out from the hills and the heat we walked back to our hotel and I spent the afternoon by the pool. Later that day we decided to go for another stroll around town and we ended up making it to the waterfront road just in time to watch the end of the sunset over the water. After a stop for some ice cream we headed back to the hotel for the evening.

Downtown Karlovasi

The next day we went our separate ways because Robby is not a fan of water or the beach so Robby head off on the bus to visit Pythagorio, home town of Pythagoras (as in the Pythagorean Theorem), in the southeastern part of the island. Meanwhile I decided to hit the nearest beach. Potami Beach is located about one mile from the center of Karlovasi and the walk there is all along the waterfront. I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in a lounge chair and swimming in the Aegean Sea. The water was the perfect temperature with a nice tide. Robby and I met up at the hotel after our adventures and went out for a dinner of traditional Greek food – delicious Karlovasi, Samos, Greece

At the beach

On our last day on Samos Island we walked to the port and purchased our ferry tickets to Athens and then I went back to the beach and Robby explored the hills surrounding the town. We met back up for dinner and when we returned to our hotel there was large party going on outside on the patio near the pool. We never figured out exactly what the party was for, but we spent the evening being serenaded by a small band playing traditional Greek music.

Next Stop: Athens, Greece

On the Turkish Coast: Selçuk, Ephesus, and Kuşadası

2011-08-26T18:49:00.015+05:00

Traveling on the overnight bus from Istanbul to Selçuk we arrived at our hostel around 8:30 in the morning. We stayed at Atilla’s Getaway, a hostel recommended to us by Armenia PCVs, a bit outside of the town. It was perfect – quite, great views, a swimming pool, hammocks, and great food – for two days of relaxing. Exhausted from the trip since even when I manage to sleep on an overnight bus I never feel rested I spend the day reading, napping, and lounging by the pool. The hostel had a package deal where for like five dollars more a night you got breakfast (choice of 6 meals including french toast) and dinner. It was nice eating dinner together at picnic tables outside with all the fellow guests. We met a lot of travelers from Australia, where it seems to be a requirement to take 6 months to a year to travel, and an English teacher from Paris. I wish I had photos of the hostel to share with you, but I was having such a great time that I did not take any pictures.

On our second day in Selçuk we visited the historic site of Ephesus in the morning. First we took the hostel’s free transport to the bus station in town and then took a short minibus ride to the site. Ephesus was an ancient Greek city and later a Roman city. It was the second largest city of the Roman Empire for many years ranking behind Rome. It was home to the famed Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC) and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple was destroyed in 410 AD by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom, an important figure in the early Christian church. The Emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city. Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia cited in the Book of Revelations.

The Theatre

The Roman Library of Celsus

It is believed that the Gospel of John may have been written in Ephesus and the city was home to several 5th century ecclesiastical councils. The Church of Mary, an early 5th century AD church, is located at Ephesus although all that is left is the remnants of walls.

Ruins of the Church of Mary

On our walk back see the Church of Mary we were treated to a little Roman bit of the Roman times in Ephesus.

After two days in Selçuk we traveled by minibus to Kuşadası for one night to closer to the port. After checking into our hostel we walked around the market and stopped for a lunch of kebab. Later we toured to waterfront and enjoyed some stuffed clams and fried calamari at a waterfront restaurant by the port. This day happened to be my grandmother and great aunt's 75th birthday and my whole family and their friends (104 people to be exact) were at a birthday party. Luckily I was able to call them on Skype from the hostel and wish them both all the best and let them know how much I loved them on such a monumental birthday.

Kuşadası's Waterfront

Walking around town we stumbled upon an old castle that is now like a little public park.

Next Stop: Karlovasi - Samos Island, Greece

Leaving Armenia Part Two: Istanbul

2011-08-25T00:03:00.017+05:00

We arrived in Istanbul around 6 am local time and decided to take an airport shuttle to our hostel because we had flown into the airport on the Asian side of the city and our hostel was on the European side. The guide book said that the journey could take up to two hour, but I thought that had to be an overestimation. In the end it took a little over two hours before we got dropped off in the Sultanahmet section of the city. The views driving across the Bosporus Bridge, the main way across between the Asian and European sides of the city were amazing. We arrived at our hostel around 9:30am, but we couldn’t check into our room until 1:30pm so we walked around a bit and got some baklava and ice cream and then relaxed on the hostel’s rooftop patio. By the time we checked into our room I was so exhausted that I took a three hour nap. Later we went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant with an excellent view of the water.

The Bosporus Bridge

After dinner I enjoyed some drinks at the hostel bar with some of our roommates – a brother and sister from Toronto and a guy who is Foreign Service Officer. Around midnight while everyone was getting ready for bed a stray cat made it into our room and hid under the beds. We managed to get it out and next thing we know he is back inside. I had to take my scarf and use it to lure the cat out from under the bed and we shut the door and shut the front door to the hostel. All this time Robby is half asleep in bed wondering what is going on. Somehow the cat managed to sneak in a third time while people are milling in and out. As one of the guys is taking the cat out a third time the guy working at the hostel front desk says we are being too loud and we are like well if you would shut the door we would not be trying to get a stray cat out of our room at midnight!

The next morning after a Turkish breakfast on the hostel patio we went to the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya. The location of our hostel was perfect – really close to all the major sites in Sultanahmet. The Blue Mosque was built between 1609 and 1619. Aya Sofya (Church of Holy Wisdom) was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and was completed in 537 AD. It was the grandest church in Christendom until the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It was converted into a mosque and the Byzantine mosaics were covers (because Islam prohibits images) and the mosaics were not revealed until the 1930s, when Atatürk declared the site a museum.

The Blue Mosque

Inside The Blue Mosque

Aya Sofya

Inside Aya Sofya

Next we explored the Grand Bazaar, which was not like what I was expecting. In my mind it would be this large outdoor market full of stalls and in reality it was inside and more like a mall made up of tiny little shops.

Hot and exhausted we decided to get some lunch. I enjoyed some pide (Turkish pizza – an oblong crust filled with tomato sauce, peppers, and diced bits of lamb) and a restaurant near our hostel with big couches full of pillows on which to enjoy the shade and easy breeze. We sat at the restaurant for about two hours relaxing with some apple tea and Turkish coffee.

Later in the day we went to the Basilica Cistern, which is an underground water storage area built by Constantine and enlarged by Justinian. There are fish that still live inside the cistern. Then we went on a walk along the waterfront and back to the hostel where we spent the evening enjoying the cool evening breeze off the water. During the day it was hot and sunny with a nice breeze and in the evening it was really cool.

Fish swimming inside the cistern

Medusa head to protect the cistern

The next day we toured Topkapi Palace, which was begun by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453 and where Ottoman sultans lived until the 19th century.

Part of Topkapi Palace

Tile inside one of the palace rooms

Next we walked to the Galata Bridge that connects Sultanahmet with the Golden Horn. There are restaurants on the bridge and we stopped there for lunch (yummy stuffed mussels!!) before our Bosporus cruise. The cruise up the Bosporus was amazing – sitting on the deck enjoying the breeze, watching the teal blue water. From the boat we saw Dolmabahçe Palace (built between 1843 and 1856 as home for some of the last Ottoman sultans and where Atatürk died in 1938) and Ortaköy Mosque (built between 1854 and 1856 by Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid). It took about an hour-and-a-half to get to the opening of the Bosporus to the Black Sea. Once there we had about an hour to walk around before the return boat left. We stopped for coffee and pastries at a little café. Once we returned from our cruise we had a relaxing dinner near our hostel and a quite night.

On the boat!

Dolmabahçe Palace

Ortaköy Mosque

We spent out last day in Istanbul doing a little window shopping, enjoying the views from the hostel’s terrace, and preparing for our night bus to Selçuk

Next Stop: Selçuk, Ephesus, and Kuşadasi

Leaving Armenia Part One: Tbilisi

2011-08-24T17:12:00.009+05:00

Two years…I can’t believe that it has been two years since I left for Peace Corps. I think most of that is because it is ending. It is like when you graduate from college and when you look back on the years you can’t believe how quickly it went by even though during you know there we times when it felt so slow. Leaving Aygepat for the last time did not fell as final as I thought it would be because my exit was so hurried and rushed, just trying to get all my things together and to Yerevan. Once I got to Yerevan I still had paperwork to do, packing to finish up, and goodbyes to say. There was not really time for long, sentimental goodbyes and it is only now really hitting me that I’m done and don’t know the next time I’ll be in Armenia. I spent my last night in Armenia in Vardablur at my friend Robby’s host family’s house. It was nice to spend it with an amazing Armenian family and enjoy a going away feast. The next morning we headed to Stepanavan for the marshootni to go to Tbilisi, Georgia. Tbilisi is so different from Yerevan – it has a more European feel to it and is full of beautiful 19th century architecture. During Soviet times Tbilisi was the cultural capital of the Caucasus, while Yerevan was a dusty cowtown.

This was Robby’s fourth time in Tbilisi so I followed his lead and we spent to day walking around the city. On our way back towards our hostel after stopping for coffee at a bookstore and café we ran into Danny and Mike, two other Peace Corps volunteers leaving Armenia. We all went to dinner, for a walk around the city, and out to a pub with a Georgia friend of Danny.

The next day we took a day trip to the David Gareja monastery complex, about 70km southeast of Tbilisi. We took a marshootni to the town nearest the monastery and then the driver agreed to drive us to the monastery. We were traveling with a German traveler and luckily he spoke a little Russian and he was able to negotiate everything. It took us about an hour of off-roading to get to the complex. The monastery is a Georgian Orthodox monastery founded in the 6th century AD by St. David Gareja, an Assyrian monk. The complex is made up of hundreds of cells, chapels, churches, refectories, and living quarters all carved out of the mountain. The monastery was closed after the Bolshevik takeover of Georgia in 1921 and was restored after Georgia declared independence in 1991.

After we made it back to Tbilisi we went out for an Italian dinner and some Georgian Saperavi wine at one of the sidewalk cafes in Tbilisi’s area known as ‘Old Town.’ Then we walked to a huge new Georgian Orthodox church that was built in an attempt to revitalize the Georgian Orthodox church. Once we got back to the hostel I was all prepared for an evening of reading and relaxing and a quite day of packing the next day before our afternoon flight. Then Robby tells me he got an email from the airline saying confirming our flight at 4:45am, not pm! I do not what my brain was thinking when I booked the flight because I’ve been dealing with military times for two years and flight times are always in military time, but in the stress of preparing to leave I got the times mixed up in my head. Luckily Robby caught it and we were able to arrange for a taxi to the airport the next morning, get packed up, and get a few hours of sleep before we had to leave.

Next stop: Istanbul

My Kinda New House...(since November)

2011-04-17T10:58:00.017+05:00

I am a bad blogger. I'm pretty sure one of the first rules of blogging is to update your blog often to keep your followers following and I haven't posted anything since Thanksgiving. So I'm going to use this post to catch everyone up on my life in Armenia (and a little bit in the U.S.) for the last four months. Everyone November we have a conference call the All-Volunteer conference in Yerevan. This conference is the only one where all the volunteers from both the old group and the new group get together at the same time. We have a Thanksgiving dinner with the Peace Corps staff, which is a great way to celebrate the holiday when we are all so far away from our friends and family in the U.S. A few days before the conference this year I received a phone call from Stepan, my program manager, letting me know that I was going to have to move out of my house because my landlady's little sister needed to move back to the village. I had about two weeks to find a new house and move, but this would all have to wait until after I returned from a week in Yerevan.

Because I live in a village there are a limited amount of empty houses available for rent. The first one I looked at was house that was previously unavailable the first time I moved last April. It was pretty nice - it even have an indoor shower with a hot water heater, but it turned out that the landlady, who lived in the village with her son used this house to escape to when she fought with her son and wanted to be able to have keys to the house once I moved. This is against Peace Corps policy and something I have to battle at my last house, where my landlady was overbearing and always just showing up at my house and calling me when I wasn't home saying she need to come over for some reason (to clean, to fix something, etc.) I loved my last house, but after dealing with that I wasn't excited about the prospect of another nosy landlady. Stepan called and tried to talk to the landlady, but it was a no go. At this point the only other house available was one that I looked at last April and had passed on. It's a nice house, but because no one has lived in it for many years it doesn't have a function hot water heater or wood stove or gas heater to heat the house. It was my only option so I moved in at the beginning of December, just time to get settled in before my trip to the U.S..

It has it's problems, one hour into being plugged in the refrigerator stopped working and while my landlord has tried multiple times to fix it - it is still broken. They have also been unable to fix the hot water heater. Peace Corps gives every volunteer money to fix up their house once they move out of their host family's house, but of course since I had moved out 8 months earlier that money was long gone. I making due though - I have become an expert bucket bather and since my kitchen is in a separate building from house during the winter the lack of a fridge wasn't a problem because it was the same temperature it was outside. Luckily I have an awesome site mate who lives in Artashat (the town nearest to my village) who has an amazing apartment with a hot shower and once a week we get together for what we call Dinner/Shower/Knitting/West Wing night. We get together and make tasty food, I get a hot shower, and then we relax and knit while watching the DVDs of The West Wing. Because Pat has a small agitator for washing clothes I know also bring my laundry over to wash every couple of weeks.

I was skyping with my parents last weekend and my dad mentioned that he had only seen the walls of my bedroom and wanted me to post pictures of my house. So without further ado here is my kinda new house...

Kitchen

Kitchen

Kitchen

Water Storage Bucket

Shower room with old, broken hot water heater

Outhouse

Kitchen is through the door on the left/Garage/The Door on the right is my house

Left Door is Shower Room/Right Door is Kitchen

Bookcase in my bedroom

Bed & Photos of home

Bedroom

Desk/Dining Room Table

Bedroom

Shnorhavor Thanksgiving

2010-12-05T14:00:00.005+04:00

I'm behind on my posting so today is going to be my catch up day on all the events of the last couple of weeks, which have been very busy. One of the questions I get most when I talk to my family and friends in the U.S. is what I do to celebrate American holidays here in Armenia. Luckily Armenia is a small country and it is fairly easy to travel around and visit other volunteers and because of this I've been fortunate enough to be able to celebrate among fellow volunteers. This Thanksgiving I celebrated at the apartment of my site mate Pat, who was kind enough to host a small dinner in Artashat. She even went so far as to go to the turkey farm and select our dinner! Together with Pat and fellow volunteers Beckey, Katrina, Katie, and David, I enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pecan pie. We even got to decorate a mini-Christmas tree after dinner!

Hello my name is Sarah and I am a knitting addict

2010-12-05T13:45:00.003+04:00

Now I’m sure all my friends and family in America have this image in their minds of what exactly it is I’m doing here as a Peace Corps volunteer (saving the world one person at a time and all), but one thing I bet you don’t picture is the vast amount of free time the average PCV has in any given day. When Peace Corps is looking for our job placements the school/office must be able to provide 15-20 hours/week of meaningful work. I’m lucky and there is plenty for me to do at the mayor’s office, but coming from the U.S. where I was in class 12-15 hours/week, working 20 hours/week, and attempting to read about a 1,000 pages/week for grad school it is a huge difference. Many volunteers also find themselves with free time because of the differences in the work culture here compared with the hyper-efficient, always on the go nature of working in the U.S. Volunteers develop many interesting hobbies as a way of filling this new free time including reading, playing music, blogging, watching television and movies on our computers, hanging out with friends, and knitting.

A powerful cult of knitters has developed here in Peace Corps Armenia and volunteers are learning every day. Now I’m not sure if this happens in other Peace Corps countries in the Eastern Europe/Central Asia region, although I’m sure it does. I recently learned how to knit and I now must admit that “Hello my name is Sarah and I am a knitting addict.” I attempted to learn last year, but I only ever ended up with scarf fit for a mouse. My new site mate Pat is an avid knitter and when she moved to site she began teaching me again and I was hooked. This fall we would meet up at the outdoor cafe in Artashat (the town near my village, where Pat lives) and knit and drink a few beers. We were quite a scene! So far I have made six scarves, three pairs of arm warmers, and now I’m working on my first hat! Now in the evenings I sit in my house and either listen to music or watch a movie and knit. The contingent of knitters in Peace Corps is so strong that when we have our conferences and meetings you look down the conference table and there are probably ten people knitting while they listen.

So here are some pictures of my creations…

Բերքի Տոն 2010 & The Grand Opening of the Aygpeat Cultural House

2010-11-23T14:30:00.009+04:00

On Thursday, November 11th I celebrated the grand opening of the Aygepat Cultural House, the community development project I have been working on since the spring. We planned the completion of the project so that the grand opening coincided with the annual Բերքի Տոն Harvest Festival. This year the festival included a khoravats (Armenian barbecue) feast following the traditional singing, dancing, and a sampling of the local fruits and vegetables of the harvest, along with homemade wine and cognac.

The Marzpet of Ararat Marz (the regional governor) attended along with his entourage of regional officials, which judging from the reaction of all the villagers and everyone who works in the mayor’s office this was a big deal, because it is the village’s way to stand out to the regional government. Apparently all our work is paying off because during the ceremony the Marzpet told the village mayor that the cultural house would receive chairs from the Parliament.

The staff of the municipality with Mayor Petrosyan

The Finished Product

2010-11-10T12:42:00.004+04:00

The renovation of the Aygepat Cultural House is complete! Not only is it complete, but the project was finished on-time and on-budget. I'm so proud of everyone who worked on the project and now it's time to begin working on creating new community programs for the village. The first will the annual Berqi Ton Festival, celebrating the harvest. This year's festival will take place this coming Thursday - so more pictures to come!

Community Cultural Center Project Update

2010-10-07T16:14:00.009+05:00

The renovation of the cultural center in my village is a month under way and is going really great. I had a status meeting with Stepan - my Peace Corps program manager - and Seroyzha - the mayor of the village - and according to the mayor the project should be done on schedule at the end of this month! I cannot believe that the renovation will actually be finished on schedule. I had already prepared myself for it to be at least two weeks behind schedule, if not a month. The mayor and the whole village has done an amazing job and the room already looks incredible. So without any further ado...here are some photos of the renovation process over the last month.

Առնում ներկ Հայաստանում

2010-09-06T16:47:00.003+05:00

So the title of today’s adventure is առնում ներկ Հայաստանում or for those of you who don't know Armenian ‘buying paint in Armenia.’ As you may know I am working with my counterpart organization to open a community cultural house in my village. We received funding for the project at the end of July, but I was very busy working some summer camps so we had to wait a bit to being the project. When I returned from working an environmental camp in Idjevan the first week in August I was ready to begin working on the project. One of the hardest things about working in Armenia is dealing with delays and working in an extremely different work culture. In the United States, we are very focused on being efficient and keeping to a project's schedule, but here it seems as if the timeline for every project or task must be padded because there will always be delays. It feels like everything here takes twice as long as it would in the States. For example, while I was under the impression that we would start cleaning out the project space the second week of August, it didn’t actually happen until the third week. So for an entire week I was waiting around and asking my counterpart when we would start and the only response I ever received was we will let you know.

The cleaning of the room was scheduled to be completed by the 13th, but it was actually completed on Friday, August 20th and when I came into the office that day meet with the mayor and my counterpart they told me that everything was ready and that now they were just waiting on me because the grant money is in my bank account. I made arrangements with the mayor to go to Artashat so we could go to the bank and purchase the renovation materials and supplies on the following Tuesday. However, when I arrived at the office on Tuesday to meet the mayor my counterpart told me that the mayor was in Yerevan! This is not the first time this has happened and I don’t know how to change it. The mayor is a middle-aged man and it is not like I’m all of a sudden going to get him to write down things and remember appointments. It is so ingrained in the culture here that it isn't disrespectful to be late or miss an appointment especially if you are an 'important person' in the community. My counterpart told me she would talk to the mayor and schedule a time for our little shopping excursion and let me know when it would be.

Again after waiting around for a few more days we met on Friday, August 27th to come up with a plan about how we would go about buying everything. Of course the mayor was an hour late for the meeting! So the shopping excursion finally happened on the following Monday. Of course the outing wasn’t exactly the picture of efficiency. My counterpart called me at 11:30am and told me the mayor was ready to go. I made it to the office by noon and the mayor was nowhere in sight. After waiting around for an hour-and-a-half the mayor finally showed up to the office and we were off.

Our merry little troupe included the mayor (Seroyzha), my counterpart (Ruzanna), and the renovation guy (Onik). First we went to the bank and because of the large sum of money I needed I had to go into the bank, rather than just using the ATM. If you think banks in the U.S. are a pain, just come to Armenia! After waiting around for 30 minutes for my turn I wasn’t even able to withdraw all the funds I needed because of the bank’s daily withdrawal limit. So with about half the necessary cash in hand we headed out to the hardware store. It was a chaotic experience – I was trying to follow what everyone was talking about and making sure that everything they were selecting was the same price as what we had put in our budget. It took us about 3 hours to get everything together including all the paperwork for the taxes (the tax system here is crazy!). We finally paid and got everything loaded into the delivery vans and were on our way back to the village. I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment watching the villagers unload the delivery vans, while the mayor proudly took pictures.

Because we were unable to buy everything the first day, my counterpart and I went back to Artashat the next day for another delightful trip to the bank and the hardware store. Now all we have left to buy is the windows and I’m curious to see exactly when that happens. After our shopping excursion last Tuesday they told me we would go in a few days, but again that must mean a ‘few days in Armenian time’ because here we are almost a week later and we still need to go to the store and I've heard no concrete plan. But that is generally the way working here goes and I've started to learn to be a little more flexible and adaptable.

My SPA Project

2010-08-30T18:36:00.009+05:00

You may have seen some random postings on Facebook and mentions of something called a ‘SPA project’ and in case you thought I was writing a project to get a jacuzzi put in my village or something, I wanted to clear the air of the lovely Peace Corps acronym alphabet soup (SPA, PCVs, CD, PMs, etc.) and let everyone know what I’ve been working on lately.

As you probably already know, I work for the mayor’s office which is located in a building called the գյուղապետարան (gyuhapetaran) or the village hall. In this building is a rundown auditorium that hasn’t been used since the Soviet times. It was full of old furniture and radiators, the window frames don’t have any glass in them meaning that birds are flying around inside the room, and the walls and floor need a good paint job. In April and May, I worked with my counterparts and the mayor to write a Peace Corps SPA grant (which means a Small Project Assistance grant – a program that gets money from USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) to make small grants to Peace Corps volunteers and their community partners). We found out we were approved for funding at the end of June and the grant money was transferred into my bank account at the end of July.

The project work actually got underway the third week of this month with the cleaning out of the room. After the room was clean, we began making plans to purchase all the materials and supplies needed for the renovation: spackle, primer, paint, window glass, paint brushes and rollers, cement, plaster, and cinder blocks. Now the materials have mostly been purchased and the renovation work will begin soon. The plan is to have the renovation complete by November and then we will have a great ‘grand opening’ celebration. We are also purchasing a projector, microphone, large speaker, and a dry erase board/flip chart easel that we can use for club meetings, trainings, and community celebrations.

More pictures to come as we make progress on the renovation!

Finding My "Cause"

2010-08-17T19:59:00.001+05:00

As August approached I began to think about the fact that a year from now I will be finished with the adventure that has been my Peace Corps service and heading back to the U.S. and for the first time in my life I have no idea what is next for me. I’ve always had a plan so that when one phase on my life has finished I was prepared to move on to the next big thing. I know you would think that someone who joins the Peace Corps is a carefree hippie who just floats from one adventure to the next not worried about what tomorrow holds, but that is not exactly my style – I am a little too Type-A for that! So being my Type-A self I started researching possible next steps and how exactly one begins a career in the mystical field of international relations. Through this research I found two career guides on jobs in international affairs and development in hopes of finding some guidance. I was hoping to find maybe some advice on how to figure out what I want to do and so far both of them have said that the key is to find your “cause” or your “purpose.” They say that you should think about what tasks you want to do every day and their advice on how to figure out these very important keys is to do a little soul searching. So far these guides haven’t been overly helpful in this area. While they have nice lists of all the possible careers that expand the possible options as far as helping me figure out what in the world I want to do I’m not finding them all that helpful. Trust me I already know that if you want to have a meaningful career you should do something you love and are passionate about (I’ve heard all the cliches before), but when their only advice for figuring out these things out is soul searching I’m stuck. I’ve been soul searching and I still don’t know what my “cause” is or what kind of things I want to be doing. I feel like I’ve spent the last year soul searching and I am not getting very far. Now I feel like there are a million options and different cities and I don’t know where to start. So if anyone has any advice on how exactly one goes about finding their purpose I would love to hear it.

Sorry it's been so long...

2010-07-22T19:39:00.002+05:00

The last few months have been a whirlwind and I can hardly believe that half of the summer is already over. I haven’t posted since May even though I’ve been very busy with many exciting and interesting things because blogging isn’t exactly something that comes natural to me. You may or may not have been wondering what I’ve been up to these past two months…well I haven’t disappeared, I’ve just been avoiding sitting down and writing. I’ve never really enjoyed writing about myself. Writing essays about myself for college admissions and scholarships is akin to torture for me. I’ve always wanted to be one of those witty, self-aware people who keep detailed journals chronicling my life and thoughts and I have set many resolutions to write in my journal everyday or every week, but it invariably fails because I’m too self-critical and self-conscious about my writing. I spend half the writing process in my head wondering if what I’m writing is interesting and smart. Sadly for someone who spends half my day in my thoughts – day dreaming and analyzing – I’m not very introspective, at least not in a constructive way. I was discussing blogging with a friend of mine, whose blog happens to be hilarious, and he told me to stop waiting to only write about the big events and to write about my everyday life instead. He said consistently posting helps people connect to what you are writing about. The truth is that my average day as a Peace Corps volunteer in Armenia isn’t that exciting. On a productive day I wake up around 9 AM, exercise, eat breakfast, and get ready for work. I enjoy working at home so I often work at home unless I am teaching a class that day. Besides work I read, watch TV or movies on my computer, or do chores around my house. I also spend a lot of time thinking about what I’m going to do after Peace Corps.

Now that I’m beginning my second year I have projects to start and after how quickly the first year went I imagine that the second year is going to fly by in no time. I’m starting my SPA project now, which is to open a cultural house in my village and develop after-school activities for the youth. This will keep me very busy throughout the fall and then this winter I must start the research for my thesis to finish my masters degree. I’m also beginning to study for the Foreign Service Officers Test, which means brushing up on my U.S. Constitution and U.S. history. The last year has definitely been a roller coaster – at times I feel a little worse for the wear, but I know in the end I’m learning a lot about myself and what I want. I still have a lot to figure out and as cheesy as it might sound I really am focused on self-improvement over the next year and making the most of my second year in Armenia.

So after giving my blog a re-vamp I'm going to hopefully dive right in and actually keep a resolution for once.

Tsnoond Shnorhavor

2010-05-12T13:17:00.003+05:00

I’m another year older…sometimes it is hard to believe that the last three years have gone by so quickly. There are times when it feels just like yesterday, but then I think about all the things that have happened in the last three years and then it seems like a lifetime ago. Three years ago on my birthday I was in San Marcos, TX finishing up college. I was preparing to live it up in my last summer there, studying abroad in Mexico, and trying to decide what I was going to do after I graduated. During this time I was applying to graduate school and thinking about joining the Peace Corps. Since that birthday three years ago I have graduated from college, moved to Denver, gone to graduate school, joined the Peace Corps, and moved to Armenia!

So here I am celebrating my 24th birthday in Armenia, miles from home and my friends and family, but with my many new friends. The last couple of months have been pretty frustrating and I’ve been struggling with work getting very busy and one year fatigue plaguing me, so it was a great relief to have such a great birthday. Some of the other volunteers came to my site to visit and we had a little party at my new house. I made strawberry mojitos, chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice, refried beans, chips and salsa, and a delicious cake. We feasted, listened to music, and played games. Even though I miss all my friends and family in the U.S. I couldn’t have asked for a better party or a better birthday!

A Home of My Own

2010-04-11T15:24:00.013+05:00

I moved out of my host family’s house on April 1st and into my own place. The rules regarding how long a Peace Corps volunteer varies by country – all volunteers in Armenia are required to live with a host family for the first four months they are at site, but my friend in El Salvador only lived with the mayor of here community for a few days before moving into her own place. I decided to stay with my host family through the winter because they were already prepared and because I had been warned that the first winter is usually a hard time for volunteers here. I was really lucky because my host family is amazing, but in the end I was ready to move out and have a little more control over my daily routine and my own space. As much as I love my host family and I was at a point in my life before I left for Peace Corps when I was ready to live alone so living with a family of five could be overwhelming at times.

My Living Room

My Kitchen

Because I live in a village there aren’t any apartment buildings so my only option for finding my own place was to look for an empty house. The mayor helped me find a couple of places to look at and when I picked the one I liked best he helped with all the details before I moved in. He even helped me move my things in his car. The family who owns the house live in Belgium now and their relatives have been looking after the house and they are my landlords. My house has one really large main room that is the dining room and living room, two bed rooms, and a kitchen. It’s really big, but that because a normal Armenian family usually consists of 6-8 people not just one! I’m only using one of the bedrooms and the extra bedroom will be like my bunk house for when I have visitors. Off the kitchen I have a little balcony that over looks the backyard, which will be great to sit on in the summer and read. The backyard is a big garden full of trees and plants, which my landlords care for, but I get to eat from which is awesome. There’s a walnut tree, pear trees, cherry trees, and peach trees. Right now the only thing that’s ready is the green onions and greens.

My Bedroom

My Dining Room

I love that my house is big because that means I have plenty of room for visitors. In fact, I had my first visitors last Friday. Four other volunteers came to my site to help me finish moving in and to celebrate my new place. I made a great dinner and had a great time hanging out. One of the hardest things about living with a host family was that I couldn’t have friends come visit my site and if I wanted to see people I either had to go to Yerevan (which means spending a lot of money) and traveling to other people’s sites, so I’m excited to finally be able to have people come visit me.

My Extra Bedroom

The View of My Backyard from the Balcony

New Project

2010-04-11T15:08:00.000+05:00

I’m starting a new project at work, well actually I started back in February after I went to a project development and management conference with my counterpart, but we haven’t made much progress in the last two months. The project is to renovate an unused auditorium in the village hall to create a cultural house for the community. To finance the renovation my counterpart and I are writing a Peace Corps Small Project Assistance (SPA) grant. The way the grant works is that 25% of the budget must come from a community contribution, which can be a financial contribution or a labor contribution. My village is going to provide the labor for the renovation as their community contribution. I have about a month and a half until I have to turn in the completed grant proposal so I’m really trying to kick start the process, which is quite difficult. The work culture here is very different and much more laid-back here than in the U.S. and I feel like I have to remind people of things multiple times before they actually happen. I mean if I was writing this project in the U.S. it would be done by now, but in the last two months all we have been able to accomplish is one community interest meeting and many discussions about what we need to do, but with little of it actually accomplished. If all goes according to plan and I get the grant money, work will start in July and hopefully the renovation will be complete by October so that it can coincide with the harvest and we can hold another harvest festival, but this time in the brand-new cultural house.

International Women's Day

2010-03-26T17:01:00.006+04:00

March 8th is International Women’s Day and it is also an Armenian holiday called Womanhood and Beauty Day. In my village I celebrated at the village hall at a celebration thrown by the mayor’s office.

Children from the school sang and read passages about how wonderful women are and everyone danced. There were champagne toasts (cheap Armenian champagne is really bad!) and we ate fruit and chocolates. I was trying to get out of dancing by taking pictures, but the mayor and the women who work at the mayor’s office got me and made me dance.

Coming out of hibernation...

2010-03-26T16:40:00.000+04:00

I know it has been a few months since my last posting, but there hasn’t been all that much to catch you up on. Things for me here really slowed down in the winter and it was definitely the period in which I felt the most isolated and lonely. After all the holiday parties were finished life in the village slowed to a crawl from its normal meandering pace. To be honest I live in a village of 700 people so it’s never going to be life in the fast lane here, but there were a few times when I had to really think to figure out the last time I had left my host family’s house. I mean other than going in the backyard to get to the shower room or the outhouse there were times when I didn’t actually leave my house for three days! Work really slowed down because I wasn’t holding club meetings while school was closed for the holidays and I worked from home a lot which was nice because I had the luxury of working in my pajamas, but eventually it got to the point where I needed to put on some real clothes and do something. It’s like I fell into this hibernation state and my world really didn’t extend beyond my room – I had my computer, magazines, books, snacks from America, movies. Now I should have known that this was going to be my biggest challenge with winter because succumbing to this sort hibernation isn’t exactly new to me. I mean during finals in grad school I only left my apartment to go to the grocery store and when I did I prayed I wouldn’t run into to anyone I knew because I looked a hot mess! I’m a nester – but after too long my nest gets messy, cluttered, and a little gross.

It’s a very good thing that spring time is beginning to emerge because it has given me the motivation to emerge from my winter cocoon and engage with the world around me again. The people in my village have also begun to emerge from their self-imposed winter hiatus – the children can be heard laughing loudly as they play outside at the school and everyone is beginning to go out into the fields and orchards to prepare for the spring planting season. I’ve started walking back from town to my village after my class instead of taking the bus to spend some time in the fresh air and sunshine.

With the changing of the seasons my work has also begun to pick up. At the beginning of February I attended a Peace Corps conference on project development and management with my new counterpart, Ruzanna. This was the first thing for us to work on together and it was a great experience. It allowed us to discuss what we wanted out my service and what the community’s needs and desires were. She works in the mayor’s office and has lots of useful connections and experience working in the village. She is a middle-aged widow with two teenage children. She works very hard to support her family and even though she already has so much work to do she has graciously volunteered to work with me. She had already become an invaluable resource to me, helping me further integrate into my community.

Noor Tari

2010-01-08T11:15:00.013+04:00

In Armenia, Christmas (or surb tsnund, Սբ. Ծնունդ) is celebrated on January 6th and it is mainly a religious holiday that marks the kind of unofficial end of Noor Tari and coincides with the Epiphany. Traditionally on Christmas Armenians refrain from eating meat and the traditional Christmas meal consists of fish and Christmas pilaf (rice with raisins).

Now you may asking yourslef then what is this mysterious holiday called Noor Tari you speak of if it isn't Christmas? Well it is actually a holiday that is many days long and begins on December 31st. In Armenian Noor Tari literally means ‘New Year’ and it is best described to a foreigner as the secular parts of Christmas in the States plus New Year’s Eve with a twist. The weekend before my host family decorated the house with lights and a little Christmas tree. In the days before the 31st my family prepared a food for our Noor Tari table. The tradition is that every family prepares a table at their house with all kinds of food, including a turkey, pork, dolma, blinchik, kufta, fruit, mixed nuts, dried fruit, assorted cakes and candies, wine, vodka, cognac, juices and sodas. On December 31st everyone sits at home at waits for midnight. My family got the table ready and watched a special on TV. Then Dzmer Papik (literally Winter Grandpa but his like our Santa Claus) came to our house to see my little brother. We shared a toast with Dzmer Papik and when it was midnight my brothers went outside and shot off fireworks. The tradition is to go around to your neighbors’ houses after midnight to eat, drink, and say many many toasts.

I was really supposed to wait and give my host family their presents the next morning when they opened their gifts from Dzmer Papik, but I could not wait so I played Santa Sarah. My parents sent gifts for my host family from the States and even though they weren’t expected to arrive until January the post office gods smiled on me and they arrived on Christmas Eve.

I was not feeling that great on New Year’s Eve and my host mother has been sick so we stayed home. A few neighbors came over while I was still awake, but I went to be around 1am and apparently the mayor and his family came over and were sad I only made it to 1am. On New Year’s Day my host sister and I went to the mayor’s house and her aunt’s house to sit, toast, and eat. That is pretty much what Noor Tari is – going to people’s houses sitting eating, toasting, and talking. However, when you are an outsider it is mostly being told to eat a bunch of food even though you are full from eating exact same things at the previous houses and questions about how you celebrate in the U.S. and if you like Armenia. People continue to go visit their friends and relatives as well as have people visit their homes over the next week or so. I didn’t go visit a bunch of houses, but every time someone new came over to my house I got paraded around and introduced to everyone as “Our Sarah”. I'm glad I got to experience such a big holiday with my host family and they were glad that I was there. However, next New Year's I hope to be visiting the States!

Christmas in Kapan

2010-01-08T11:05:00.004+04:00

Because this was the first Christmas many of us had been away from our families we decided to have our very own Christmas in Kapan. Kapan is only about 200 miles from Yerevan, but to get there you must drive through a ton of mountains passes so in takes about 6-7 hours in good weather to get there. Therefore, the volunteers who live there don’t make it to Yerevan often and they don’t get a lot of visitors outside their marz so it's become a little tradition to have Christmas in Kapan.

There were quite a few of us traveling from Yerevan so some of us took shared taxis and others (i.e. my group) had to take the marshootni. Now the marshootni takes about an extra hour and the three volunteers I was traveling with and I got the last four sets in the back which meant our knees were pressed into the seatbacks in front of us and we got to sit on hard marshootni seats for seven hours. But it was worth it because once we arrived in Kapan everyone met up at one the PCVs, Barbara’s apartment for some Christmas Eve chili. There were 22 of us there and it was so much fun! We had chili and cornbread, played charades, listened to Christmas music, and just had an awesome time.

I stayed at Shannon’s apartment with Danya, Rani, Amanda, and Bryan and Christmas day we sat around her cozy apartment drinking coffee and eating gingerbread cookies while we all knitted and listened to Christmas music. I got to talk to my family on my Christmas morning (their Christmas Eve) while they were snowed in at my grandma’s house. Of course my first Christmas away from Wichita Falls and there is a blizzard and no snow here for a white Christmas! Later on Christmas Day we all head out to Sue’s village Vachakan. We had a Christmas feast, exchanged Secret Santa gifts, and watched ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’. Even though I was far from home it was an amazing Christmas spent with tons of new friends.

Amanda and I were Christmas!

Watching 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'

Opening Secret Santa Gifts