I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm safely in Yerevan, albeit after some adventures. First, the airport has a new terminal. So, that was nice, but of course it's not totally finished. They get you off the plane, put you on a bus and then drive you past the old terminal and up to the new one. Gotta show off the new stuff before it's even finished. But it is nice inside and the visa stuff is a lot easier nowadays. They actually have a line system and give you the forms on the flight to fill out, so that's helpful. And for those that can't figure it out, they have a nice little stand that flashes electronic numbers that tell you which visa station is open. All very helpful, when people actually figure out that they are supposed to pay attention to them. But alas, no such luck today. It's still the "elbow in the eye, shove with the hip" fight to be first. Ah, good times in Hayastan.

After all that, Masha and I proceeded to get ourselves stuck in the elevator at her apartment for an hour. Got in
the elevator with my bags, hit the 3rd floor button, got to the 3rd floor, but the doors wouldn't open. The lights on the buttons went out, the buzzer didn't sound after repeated pushes, and there was no phone inside to call for help. So Masha had to use her cell phone to call friends in the building, who went down to alert the guards. And then the adventure really began. Just so you know and are informed as to proper Armenian "elevator opening" procedures: First, you tell the passengers to hit the elevator buttons to see if that opens the door. Damn, we hadn't thought of that, but alas that didn't work. Step Two: Try a pry bar. Apparently the pry bar didn't work (but they tried for a good 30 minutes). Step Three: Just use your hands to open the doors. Uh, yea, because the pry bar didn't work, the hands will. Finally came Step Four: After about an hour of trying brute strength, they got into the elevator shaft above us and manually opened the doors with the safety lever on top. Asked as to why they just didn't start with Step Four, its because it's not proper procedure. Maybe we should have bribed them to just skip to Step Four. Ah, good times.

Well, now I'm here. I've driven Masha to work, driven to the market, went back to the Embassy and had lunch with Masha
and now I'm just lounging. Trying not to fall asleep so I can get over this jet lag. Just relaxing and trying to avoid writing my paper for graduate school. I'll let you know how that goes.