"come on, baby!"

bari yegak!


the flight from prague to yerevan was so short. i slept most of it, and i arrived at 4am. hasmik, our coordinator, was waiting for me with andrew, an australian armenian who got there about the same time. he'd been travelling for three days! azniv stays with us at all times at the dorm, which is gorgeous. we've got three floors, and a view. the main floor, the sexy ladies' floor and the sexy dudes' floor. i'm saying sexy because we are probably the best-looking bunch of armenians ever. actually scratch that, we're probably the best-looking bunch ever, anywhere. kohar takes care of the food and stuff, she's got a super short mullet and it's fire-engine red. I KNOW.


yesterday was vartavants, an armenian holiday i'd never heard of. i'm going to say it's religious to be safe but to be honest we never even made it to the church. basically it involves pouring water over yourself (i'm assuming to wash away your sins? useless for me, obviously). so you can imagine how happy the kids get. they were in groups with reserves of water and would run after us with buckets of water. we were all drenched head to toe. the best part is having to walk it all back, and the same crazy kids run after you. they wait in alleyways and when they see a dry person walk by they yell "YEGEK!!!!" ("come!!") and go nuts. it felt like a mutiny. the best part was when someone dropped water from a balcony onto us, and instead of it being a seven-year-old boy, it was an old lady.


when we got back, kohar had prepared some stuffing for dolma and to quote jirair "misse khotetsink" (we shoved the meat). mam i'm sorry but your dolma is whatever. the president of AGBU came over and we had supper, and we went out to a really crappy club called opear, but had an amazing time. we got to bed at four-ish. we danced at home, played poker, joked around and met adrina, an indian-armenian who is my roomie.


the only glitch is the veeps. there is a group of four that just doesn't hang out with us, and no one knows why. we started calling them the v.i.p.'s, but i seenk zey are verree impoohrtant peeeple and so zey are veeps. there's always this dilemma of "do we tell the veeps," "are the veeps joining us," and going through the veep lounge which is actually a common space on the girls' floor with a telly, but the veeps are always in there. they have a designated speaker whose name i forget and when he speaks, he speaks for them all.


i think i might be the only one to have had the honour of experiencing the apricots so far. i swear, dziran is the fruit of the gods. you have never tasted anything so ... it's a different fruit, it's not even apricots. they don't necessarily look as appetizing but once you start you don't want to stop. mam, remember how i was freaking out over the figs in egypt compared to the ones we get in montreal? that is nothing. not even the same ballpark. armenian dziran is where it's at, and i will die trying to smuggle some back.

we have orientation today, the welcome dinner, and tomorrow we start work. our next day off is july 24th. til then we have work every day, dance, history and language classes, and trips out of yerevan. it's only been a day and i'm having the best time, we're like one big, happy family and everyone gets along 'a merveille.

it's been a bit of a whirlwind, but all is good. i arrived safely in toronto. isabelle was nice enough to pick me up, and we had dinner together. gigi was no a boat cruise for work so i only saw her briefly before bed. grace took me to the airport the following day. unfortunately, i barely slept on the nearly eight-hour flight to prague (and we left late, too). which means that when we arrived at 6am, i had only slept one hour (it was midnight montreal time). when we landed everyone clapped, and it reminded me of egypt-air flights (or any flight with egyptians on it, for that matter). i almost teared up from the dorkiness. mabrouk!!

i love prague so much, it is so beautiful. you all know i love to just get lost in random streets a l'etranger and prague is perfect for that. but i did miss out on a lot simply because i was so exhausted. my carry-on was damn heavy, and i fell asleep about ten times. i fell asleep in a park twice, twice in a metro station (i woke up to a controller speaking to me in czech. the metro arrived right then and i ran off, i suspect he was telling me i looked like sleeping beauty, or that i was drooling), and twice in a public circle. i didn't even have the energy to go to any museums (except for the decorative arts - very nice but too short), and i came to the airport a little earlier than required. i didn't have that free hotel at all, i guess i had misunderstood. otherwise i would have napped in the morning and taken full advantage.

anyway, now i'm at the airport waiting for boarding to start. i'm bored out of my skull and i do not like czech food at all. i had a frankfurter with three different kinds of mustard (all gross) for breakfast, it cost me twenty-five bucks and it tasted like a lester's hot dog. tse les hot-dog chou-moutarde-raaaalish, la, d'la belle province, la... bah ouais, ca goutait ca, pis pour ce prix-la, en plux. next time i'll ask before i order some random item off the menu just because i'm famished.

armenia is just a few hours away and i'm so anxious... grace and hampo gave me the lo-down on what it's really going to be like, and i have a friend who has already suggested places to go to.


papi, vania, mami, believe it or not, tsezi ge garotnamgor (well van, you can go ahead and believe it) yev bidi ouzeyi vor amenknis miyasin elank. ayo, nouynisk papi'n yev mami'n miyasin. i must be delirious? ideally that's the way it would have been done... pour moi, en tout cas. batchigner.


i think i'll get drunk on my flight.