Lunch with the 1st-1st Lady

So, this is Houry's first post. It is in the form of the body of an email to Aunt Zevart....

Flora (from L.A.) and I went to do the church's orphan stuff and when we were done she said "let's have lunch." She asked if it OK if "digin" Lucia comes? I said of course. When we were walking to the restaurant I asked Flora "who is Digin Lucia?" She said Lucia Ter-Petrosian (the wife of the first President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosian.) I almost died!

She was very nice and humble and very low key. I told the girls, who were with us at this time, that this is our first 1st lady. They were a little shy but got over it fast.

While we were having lunch, Pete called and asked where we were so he can come join us. I couldn't tell him that we were sitting with "Digin" Lucia. He walked in and saw that we were sitting with the first 1st lady and you could see the shock in his face. Anyway it was an interesting lunch! When we were done I was so excited that I asked the waitress "did you know who she was? She didn't realize until I told her. She said "Well, Kocharian's son is outside having lunch now!"

So now I can add my comments: Only in Armenia can you have lunch with all these folks without writing a huge check to some campaign fund. On another note, the Mokka Cafe finally opened by the Cascade last week. This is located next door to Phoeniccia and is where the lunch took place. They have good dessert! However, if you are anything other than a 13 year old girl, the decor leaves much to be desired. It essentially looks like a cross between Disneyland Magic Castle and a Bordello.

Final note, our cargo is here and in cargo prison. Spent 3 days working on this. The girls Uggs and a pair of Chanel shoes and purse was all I was able to rescue so far. We submitted all the papers today and as they say "let the games begin."

We moved across the hall on Sunday and the apartment is much bigger and now much cleaner than when we got it. Third move in two months!

A few photos

So, internet is really terrible again, but I got a quick connection and wanted to post some photos of our friends Joe & Hilda. Also, the picture of Bridget and Kristen and the infamous quail! The picture of the beer place is our neighborhood German restaurant that is quite good. The girls and the bear are from the baptism which took place at the Restaurant complex at the Astarak Dzor.

What no fortune cookie?

Today was a nice lazy Sunday. We went to breakfast for french toast at Artbridge, bought a magazine and a "yerevan times" which did not satisfy our Sunday morning paper fetish and walked around a bit. Tonight we were adventurous and went to a Chinese restaurant. Food was good. The hot and sour soup was neither, but the dumplings, Kung Pao Chicken and Noodles were all o.k. It was sad that they didn't serve us fortune cookies, but it hit the spot any way. One the way home the girls, however, said it did not even come close to our favorite LA Chinese restaurant "Sechwaun?" Excuse the spelling, I know I am not even close.

Last week, Houry was watching TV and saw an Armenian cooking show. The chef (who is Armenian) has a guest chef on who is Chinese and she was making dumplings. The cool thing is that she was speaking Armenian! Yes! With a Chinese accent! Go figure.

So looks like we are set to move to the apartment next door. I am definately looking forward to the additional space. Once we come back from LA, we will move into our apartment the first of the year.

Visited our apartment. They have finally installed all the parquet. They were pulling all the electrical wires and have installed all the doors. They will most likely finish sanding the floors and painting the rooms this week.

We are in the middle of cargo hell. Our cars, furniture and stuff is in Georgia and should be in Armenia within the week. We need to obtain residency stamps in our Armenian passports to get the damn cargo out of the terminal when it arrives without paying the 30% import tax on goods. This will be our challenge this week. They don't want to give us the stamp unless we have property in Armenia in our name.

This is all for now. More updates and photos to come...

Hey Look At My Mercedes!

Yesterday the girls had a performance for “Teacher’s Day” at school. Each grade/class did something to honor teachers. Some performed recited poetry, sang or danced. Kristen, Bridget and three of their friends did a dance routine to “The Pussycat Dolls”. It was cute.

While we were on our way home, we saw the most amazing thing. I am not endorsing this as a good thing. But it was certainly something to log in our blog. So we see just up ahead on the road heading towards us flashing lights and six Black Hummer H2s, followed by a Limo carrying the bride and groom, followed by four black Mercedes trucks (sorry Mercedes fans, I don’t know the appropriate model—they just look like the Tonka trucks I had when I was a kid), then what appeared to be at least 50 black and silver big Mercedes sedans. Now, keep in mind that the French President Jacques Chirak was in town with Charles Aznavour just last week. Their motorcade included about six cop cars, two Mercedes and a few more cops. In addition, keep in mind that I lived in Washington, DC for seven years and have seen many, many motorcades of many, many different very important people.

This was absolutely the most ridiculous thing we have seen in Armenia yet. Apparently it was the wedding party of either the wealthiest or almost the wealthiest guy in Armenia’s (owner of Multi-group) daughter. Our local friend Haroutun told us they were going to spend $4 million on this wedding. Go figure…

On the housing front, we started looking for apartments in anticipation of our upcoming move. Houry figured out that the apartment next door is to us is also a rental. She found the pictures online, spoke to the agent and we are waiting to confirm its availability. If it works out, it will be terrific. Literally the move would be three steps from the entrance to our apartment. The view is the same, the neighborhood, etc. The apartment is great because it is renovated and has two real bedrooms! Stay tuned for the housing adventures of the Abajians.

Final note, I have a bunch of photos to post, but need to have a high speed connection to do so. It may take a week or so. My boss was in town last week and things were crazy, so I am now posting this delayed report and will catch up, once again, soon.

As an additional update and piece of info, apparently the bride's family in the start of this post approached Valentino to design the wedding dress--they said "no" so they went with a $400,000 Christian Dior dress...

…the continuing story of Houry and the hair washing fortune teller

So, first a bit of history: In July of 2005 when we were in Armenia for a month, Houry and the girls visited our friend’s (Rouzana) hair salon. This was a day or two after we decided to purchase our condo at the top of the Cascade in Yerevan. While Houry was at the salon, the lady that washes hair read her Armenian coffee cup. She tells Houry that she sees a bunch of stairs that lead up to a house that we are going to buy. Houry comes home and tells me this and we laugh (while being kind of scared!). I told her that the lady probably saw the brochure from the complex in her purse and that is how she came up with the stairs and buying the house thing.

O.K. so fast forward to a few days ago. Houry comes home from the salon and tells us that the lady read her cup again. This time she said that she sees two boats in her cup and that she sees important dates in her cup including the 15th and the 30th of the month. Now we are freaked out. Let me explain. Our furniture, cars and clothes were suppose to be loaded into one shipping container in Los Angeles and shipped to Yerevan. The jackasses at the dock loaded the first container badly and simply left out about 8 pallets of our stuff. So we had to arrange for another partial container to bring the rest of our stuff to Yerevan (thus the two boats!). Still skeptical as to our hair washing cup reader’s power? Well, this past week we purchased airline tickets for us to return to Los Angeles over the holidays. Houry’s ticket departs Yerevan on the 30th of the month. The girls and I depart on the 15th of the following month. Great news, she also said that everything is going to work out just fine!

On to another topic—our condo (Grrrr!)
So after visiting every day or every other day for the last two weeks, Houry and I blew up at the project manager yesterday afternoon. The place was supposed to be completed in January. Then January became April became August. Then we arrived and were promised a move in date of September 25. Now it is October 5 and while the end may be near, we have essentially accepted the fact that if we go and harass them perhaps we can move in after the first of the year. O.K. if this is the case we are o.k., however, now we need to find another place to move to. So, we are now searching for the next apartment to move to on October 25. Good news is our stuff is still not here so we are only moving the same suitcases we have been living out of for the last month and a half. It is kind of sad because Goofy now has his favorite neighborhood trees, cats to chase, etc. Oh well, the adventure continues…

Baptisms, Quail and Videos

A few days ago we bumped into a friend from Los Angeles who was in Armenia for the baptism of their second son. As in good Armenian tradition we were invited to the Baptism and happily agreed to attend. The event, which rivaled any wedding I have ever been to was held at the Ashdarak Zdor Restaurant. It was quite a blast and we had a really nice time. The highlight of the evening was the third course (Khorvadz Quail). I fed it to the girls and Houry telling them how cute the little chickens were :) Well, after they had all tried it, I told them that it was really quail. One day day later, they are still not really talking to me.

On another note, we have found a good video rental place that has quite a few English language DVDs. Today the girls and Houry watched Bridget Jones Diary and I watched Snakes on a plane. Their movie was fine...mine had people talking over the movie and walking in front of the screen!

French President and Charles Aznavour were in town this past weekend. Crazy traffic and loads of events. We seemed to miss much of the excitement.