Echmiadzin

Last Saturday afternoon, a bunch of us went to Echmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian Church (often called the Armenian Apostolic Church or, inaccurately, the Armenian Orthodox Church). I'd been there before, but only into the main church and to the office of the church's spokesman for a work meeting. This time, we got a behind-the-scenes tour thanks to Hakob, whose main job is as a guard at the National Democratic Institute office in Yerevan, but who moonlights as an Echmiadzin tour guide.

Our first stop was the main museum, which is closed to the public because its many valuable and sacred artifacts are poorly secured. Lots of neat stuff there, such as this tapestry that was made by diasporan Armenians in China.





I could not for the life of me get a non-blurry photo of it. The most interesting thing about it is that, though its makers were Armenian, Christ, the thieves and his disciples all have Asian faces.



There were lots of very intricately embroidered cloths and tapestries and vestments, like this one:




And of course, no Armenian museum is complete without a paean to the Armenian alphabet:



But the most important artifact in the museum (if it is indeed real), is this fragment of the Cross of Christ. I've never seen one that large, so I admit I have my doubts. But what really bothered me was that, if the folks at Echmiadzin truly believe this is a piece of the Cross, what is it doing in the museum? Shouldn't it be in the church?



So after the museum, we went into the main church ...



... which was built above a pagan fire temple, the ruins of which you can still see on the special tour:



The story goes that Christ came in a vision to St. Grigor Lusavorich (Gregory the Illuminator, credited for introducing Christianity to pagan Armenia in 301 AD), and instructed him to destroy the temple and build a church in its place.

Snow!!! Snow!!! It's not supposed to snow!!!!! What the ****!!!

So, it snowed yesterday. And how do I know that? Well, due to airline issues, I'm still here. My new flight is set for Sunday, so I'm in good old Armenia for another 5 days. And if that isn't enough, it snowed!!!!! Damn snow. It's 65 degrees and sunny on Monday. Masha and I were out playing cards, enjoying some hot chocolate and teas at some of the nice outdoor cafes that have sprung up around the Opera square in the last couple of years. No more trees in the area, but the shady umbrellas that have taken their place are a nice touch. Still waiting until they brick all the grass, but I geuss that progress is still a couple of years away. They did spray paint some of the brick green on some of the boardwalks. Wonder if that is their version of "greening up Yerevan"? After all, it was Earth Day on Sunday.

Anyway, I digress. So on Monday, Masha and I are outside playing cards. On Tuesday, after I find out I'm not leaving until Sunday (flights aren't a regular thing in Armenia unless you want to fly to Moscow, and I'm not quite up for that adventure yet), it's raining. And then it's snowing. Huge clumps of the stuff. So, Masha and I drag some friends out and we spend 4 hours INSIDE a tea shop, lamenting the weather. Try it sometime and let me know how depressed you get.

Anyway, so after a depressing day (but highlighted by the fact that I get to stay another 5 days with Masha), we came home, made lasagna and watched a movie. I was going to put in "300" (yes it's out on DVD here), but since we had watched Apocalypto on Monday, I didn't think that Masha could handle all of the blood and guts for a second night. So, it was a "Swingers" night. She'd never seen it. Don't think it's going to be in her top ten listh, though. She did marvel at how Vince Vaughn's body has kind of gone downhill since that movie. Tonight I think we'll try "Spys Like Us". You can never go wrong with a classic.

Well, now I'm back to my paper. 22 pagos done, but I haven't touched it since last Thursday or Friday. Need to get back to it.
Anywho, enjoy yourself and your Starbucks. I'll be here, typing away and yelling at someone to make the snow stop!!!!! I'm supposed to be on vacation!!!

German Chocolate Fiasco

Yes, I'm being a little dramatic. The cake was not a complete fiasco, because it did taste fine. It just looked like dog food.

Let me back up. Jeremy's birthday was Sunday, and he requested a German chocolate cake. I was a little intimidated, because Jeremy's mom, Carol, is renowned for her German chocolate cake, and I had never made one before. So, I melted the chocolate, beat the eggs, greased the pan, folded the egg whites into the batter, and put the thing in the oven. Then I set about making the frosting, since we can't get the canned stuff here. The cake looked very pretty when it came out ... except apparently I had not greased the pan enough, and the whole thing fell apart when we tried to remove it. I frosted it anyway.





Then we went to City Diner, the new place to eat in Yerevan, for a birthday dinner. I brought the cake. Didn't have any birthday candles, so we had to make do:



Jeremy liked the cake.



So did Andrew.



I guess that's good enough for me.

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.

3 Days and 32 Kids

So, my life isn't as interesting as my wife's right now (hence the limited blog entries on my behalf), but it does have its moment. The most recent one involved a 3 day trip to Illinois's capital, Springfield, for a conference. It was actually just an excuse to reward about 32 students who had volunteered the most hours during the campaigns for state and local offices. There was a stop off at an historical village that was recreated to resemble a village that Abe Lincoln would have lived in before he became famous. As the village was a living village, with actors and animals roaming around and living as they would have in the century, it was somewhat of a wake up call for them. Kind of fun to watch them go around and not understand why their cellphones didn't work (part of the point don't you think).

Anyway, we then went off and did a college tour and had breakout sessions with four state lobbyists. Then it was roommate selection and check in. Now, if you have ever tried to select roommates and make sure that one student isn't rooming with someone they go to school with, you get the constant complaint of "why can't I room with my bff?" (Best Friend Forever if you are little behind on the lingo). Not pretty, but they got over it. Now the staying up until 3 AM to make sure that there were no cross bedroom rendezvous wasn't that fun, but the sleep deprivation did have a great effect on my personality by the third day. Anyone say LOOPY!!!!!

But the students were great and four of them even led 3 breakout sessions with about 100 students/teachers per breakout session. It was great watching them lead discussions, ask questions and engage other youth. It was great for them and people were pulling them aside afterwards to ask them how many times they had done this
(uh, first time). That's right, Mikva is all about great students (or finding those diamonds).

While the three days and nights were long on face time, short on sleep, watching these students from 10 different high schools interact, dance, bowl, play games and exchange phone numbers was amazing. There isn't much opportunity for students to meet others from other parts of Chicago, so giving them this opportunity and then watching them take advantage of it was awesome.

But I'm definitely too old for this!!! Not as young as I once was. Thank goodness for a nice relaxing vacation to Armenia.