My Kingdom for a pick up truck!

Houry and I were driving to Marble World to check out granite for our kitchen and we ran across this car. It was a great shot and Houry was able to take it from our Expedition as we were driving.

Another mouth to feed…

No, we are not having another child…..worse, we adopted one of nine puppies as a friend for Goofy from the pack of street dogs that lives at the construction site of our new apartment (which has now been painted!). Yes, to answer the question that is on everyone's mind ... we are stupid. Ponchig, (or “shithead” as Houry and I refer to him) is a very cute healthy and now clean dog. Goofy and he are forging a friendly relationship although Goofy bit him once in the head when he tried to take his food. They now follow and look for each other pretty much all day long. It is cute. We are all getting an abundance of exercise taking Ponchig up and down a zillion times a day the 63 stairs to our apartment. He has now had his shots and visits to the vet twice. All is well at the Abajian Zoo. Here are a few photos…

16 Days and we are Free!

Here are a few photos of our custom's adventures...
These photos include our first load of cargo which was off loaded into the mud because jackass wanted to get his hummer out of the container, Haratun and Kourken backing the Expedition off the ramp where they inspected it for the motor's number, and Houry in front of the Custom's Headquarters building :)


Customs prison officially ended on Wednesday with one final round of fighting and one last name to add to my previous list of jackasses that need to die a painful death. So, last but not least, let us add Mr. Haratunian from the 4th floor of the Custom’s House. Houry and I were, however, ready for the fight. In fact, after 16 days, we have become ready to go for the title.

At the end of Tuesday’s bout, we had all our paperwork clear in theory, but then some final jackass tells us that our extension for our furniture and personnel effects was not completed, so blah, blah, blah. It was closing time, we yelled at them, they approved our paperwork, and we left. Wednesday, however, we knew we were in for a battle.

Upon our arrival, the custom’s guy that was going to go to the warehouse with us tells us he wants out paperwork to review everything. After his review, he tells us the same story, our paperwork is wrong and we go off to another office. I had asked Babian and the register girl if the process was complete and they both said “yes” you are done. So, now we go off to this office on the 4th floor where they are trying how to make my life miserable. Then we get sent over to the boss, Mr. Haratunian. (We know his name, because we took it off of his door!) He basically tells us that we half received our extension and it was our fault and we should sue the girl who gave us the wrong information, etc. Then he tells me that because we are one day late, we owe 100,000 drams penalty (about $260). The frustrating part of all this is that no one is the least compassionate or is willing to help. Everyone essentially tells you that it is not their problem, they have their laws and we need to learn them.

So now for the fun part--I start yelling at this guy telling him I pulled the paperwork and that they told me wrong, etc. When I would stop yelling, Houry would start. After about 5 minutes of unproductive back and forth with this ass, I decide to pull out my wallet and very loudly say “O.k. you want money? Fine, 100,000 amd? Fine!” Well, he freaked out and told me to put my wallet away, and that I must pay at the bank, etc. Then, Houry decides it is time to call the President’s office again. She takes my phone and calls Lilit. She is telling her the story, and I am telling everyone else that they are really in trouble now because my wife is on the phone with the President’s office! After a few more minutes the boss figures out we are not to be messed with and leaves. Then our other custom’s guy that needs to go with us to the warehouse tells us everything is fine and just to wait a few minutes and our paperwork will be done. AND IT WAS!

We picked up a truck, some guys, and by the end of this long day our stuff was locked safely in the apartment next door to ours at Windows to Ararat. As soon as they are done with the paint and sealing the parquet, we will move our stuff into our place!

So, 16 days and we have our stuff. Now if we just had our apartment ready life would be good! Best part is we did not pay any additional funds to anyone to get our stuff here and out of customs!

We have been "krantzed"

So, our containers of stuff arrived into Armenia two weeks ago today. Since, we have been struggling to get he stuff. I have pictures to post, but internet is bad so they will have to wait. In the meantime, here is a short summary of our cargo adventures...

The cargo was suppose to arrive in Armenia about a week ago. But, apparently the jackass who was shipping his Hummer (some appeals court judge from the Ararat region), was pushing to get it into Armenia asap. Thus our cargo arrived unannounced on a Saturday. I was called to immediately come to the Cargo House to get our stuff. What arrived first was a half order of stuff that American Global Shipping shipped outside of our dedicated container. Just for the record, they are an aweful company and they ripped us off. Basically, Saturday they made us unload our stuff by hand, then they removed two vehicles include jackass's Hummer, and then reload our stuff into the container. On Monday we returned to the Custom's House and made arrangements for our stuff to be transferred to the warehouse where it stays until you clear the paperwork. In the meantime, the same day, our second container of stuff arrived. To put a very long and painful process in a few words, we worked with the Mother F$$@@#ers at the customs house to take our stuff to the warehouse, then back to the customs house to off load our two cars. Then we submitted our paperwork to the Customs headquarters. We were rejected because we did not have the Soviet Era Address stamp in our passports. So, we had our yet to be completed house put into our name so we could get the stupid stamp, which is called a "krantz". Well, since our new area is not yet in the stupid Soviet Era maps they use, they refused our application. More days and headaches passed. Harutune, saved the day once again by having his friend's grandmother agree to put us on her house. We also successfully, although painfully extended the days to complete our custom clearances. This took three days and much yelling.

So just to sum things up, someone we don't know allows us residency on her house. The kicker is she is 100% Greek! Through this nightmare, we have met a few nice people including our paperwork girl Lilit, the security guard outside of the custom's headquarters that keeps telling Houry not to cry, Lilit in the President's Office who keeps making phone calls for us and Vartan the consul at the Foreign Ministry who keeps going to Oveer for us. So, again just for the record, here is a list of Great people:

1. Harutune
2. Lilit
3. Lilit
4. Salpi
5. Vartan
6. Gourken
7. Gourken's Family

Now the list of evil people who I wish a very painful death to:
1. Artur at Customs
2. Harut at Customs
3. Vahe at American Global
4. Edgar at American Global
5. Aram at Customs (if monday does not go well)
6. Mr. Hummer guy (just because)
7. Babian at Customs (boss of non-auto stuff)
8. Mekitar at Customs
9. The guy in charge of Autos at Customs

We ended week two of our ordeal on a positive note with our new residency status in Armenia. We resubmited our application and will see what happens on Monday. Good news is that we have our vehicles and have started driving around Yerevan. Harutune pretty much does not want to give us back our Expedition. He is having too much fun driving it!

On other notes, Gail and her friend are in town and we had dinner this week. Also, yesterday evening we had dinner with Surpadzan Derderian, Sion Surpadzan and Hair Torkum. We had a very nice time. The girls also were with us and they had just finished their second dance class. They are taking European and Armenian dancing.

From Bridget and Kristen

So, I finally convinced Bridget and Kristen to begin writing things for posting. The following is what they decided to do--post lists...

Bridget’s Blog

There are many bad and goods things about Armenia. Here is a few listed:

The Good
-I can get pampered multiple times a week
-I can walk almost anywhere
- I like my school
-Kristen and I can go anywhere alone and
I won’t worry about being kidnapped
-We have more family time

The Bad
-Its boring without my friends
-The mall SUCKS!
-It freezing!
-TV is Horrible
-I am probably going to have lung cancer
Because everyone is smoking around me!
-The cafes are not open anymore because it’s too cold


From Kristen:
This is my first blog posting and I am going to write about the bad things and the good things about Armenia. I will start with the bad things.

1. The TV. Is HORRIBLE so I never watch it.
2. The internet sometimes doesn’t work.
3. The internet is EXTREMLY slow. (if it works)
4. Everyone smokes so I never breathe in clean air.
5. I miss my family and friends.
6. The fashion sense is Very bad. Mixing different floral patterns is a big NO.
7. I miss someone to talk to. We meant a girl named Talar who was originally from La but moved to London and was visiting Armenia and me and Bridget would not stop talking.
8. There are no good malls!!!!!!
9. In the summer it is too hot.
10. In the winter it gets negatives!!!!!!
11. There are no American books to read.




Now these are the things good about Armenia.

1. WE get more family time.
2. We can go to the salon when we want.
3. The new friends we met are nice.
4. school starts at 9:00 and ends at 1:20 or 2:40
5. we can go out whenever we want


So, not exactly what I had in mind, but it is a start on their posting.