Aaaand...I'm back!

Sorry, everyone. I shudder to look at how long it's been between posts. I will try to be better about posting from now on!

Since my last posting, I have turned 23, gone back to the US, been to London, acquired a new student, and made what is looking to turn into some material progress on my research. So...a lot to report!

I went home for Christmas, luckily squeaking in right between blizzards. 20 hours of travel time and I arrived on the afternoon of the same day I left! I had an awesome time home with friends and family, which was over all too soon, and then it was back on a plane from Chicago to Dublin to London, where I had a 28 hour layover due to airline...issues. After spending far more time than I would have liked speaking with BMI employees at various counters, I finally got my hotel vouchers, and off I went into London. Conveniently, it's painted on the sidewalk which way you should look for crossing the street--in the center of the city too, not just at the airport!

So I went to the hotel and at first I just kind of crashed. But then that evening, I met up with my friend Joe who lives in London and whom I hadn't seen since college graduation we finally figured out (it doesn't seem like it's been that long!) He showed me around London, which is pretty awesome, and I definitely will have to go back during daylight hours! I must say, though...transportation is obscenely expensive! Cost me 7 pounds for my ticket for the underground...granted I used a couple times, but still! That's like $13 or something! (Not sure what the exchange rate is at, exactly, these days). But London was still awesome :) And it was lots of fun getting to see Joe!

The next day, it was back to Heathrow and back on a plane to Yerevan. New Year's on a plane is nothing exciting, just so you all know. I've experienced it so now you don't have to...because it's even more anticlimactic than sitting at home watching the ball drop. The pilot comes on at midnight and says it's midnight. The flight attendants come around with juice/soda. I don't think they even had champagne if you paid for it. Although the guys behind me drank a lot of whiskey. And then we landed in Yerevan.

Our landing was a tribute to the pilot's skill. (Although not as much skill as that pilot in New York showed!) The runway was...while perhaps not entirely unplowed, still coated with a good layer of snow! It had, in fact, been snowing all day on New Year's Eve. Despite it being New Year's, though, the airport was running smoothly (except for the snow) and I got my visa and got through everything quickly. And my suitcase which was held together by duct tape survived!!

I paid a rather obscene amount for a taxi--five times what I had paid going to the airport when I left...but on the other hand it was New Year's at 2am, and it was snowing. A lot. I am absolutely AMAZED that in this old Volga, which had windshield wipers which could barely keep the windshield tolerably clear, we managed to get all the way from the airport to my apartment without crashing, going off the road, or even fishtailing except for one brief second which was soon corrected. So it was worth the amount I paid. Because the roads were bad. And remained that way til things thawed. Sidewalks are still pretty bad because everything refreezes at night. Ice. Lots of ice.

The first couple days after getting back were primarily occupied by trying to get water and internet back, because alas! My pipes froze! And my ip was wrong so I couldn't get on the network! Eventually, though the water problem was solved, and now I just always leave my kitchen faucet on at a trickle and the pipes haven't frozen since.

In the evenings, a bunch of us from Bars went around visiting...lots of food, fun, and good company!

On the 7th, work started up again, and everything was quite busy at the studio. Gradually I've been getting everything back going--I've got two students now that I'm teaching English to (one I actually have to make lesson plans for....the other I talk to while he plays computer games.) My Armenian lessons start up again on Thursday, which is good, because it seems like some research is going to be happening soon!

I've been emailing and calling Peace Corps Volunteers, and I've got some things in the works...so it looks like I'll have some places to travel to on the coming weekends. I hope the weather stays decent!

It's been above freezing during the day lately, not that that helps much with the compressed ice on the sidewalks. At night it still gets pretty cold though. To that end, today I put up plastic on my kitchen window and on my hall window. The plastic on my hall window isn't really doing me much good, but I had the plastic, so I figured i might as well. The kitchen plastic is working better than I thought--with the kitchen door open, the kitchen has now been heated to the same temperature as the main room of my apartment--they have equalized to a temperature that is cooler than the main room would be if the kitchen were closed off, but the kitchen is exponentially warmer. No hope for my bathroom though. There is, however, one problem. Due to the temperature differential, when I open and close my hall door, the plastic on my kitchen window gets sucked in and out. I'm afraid that this is going to rip down the duct tape. I don't have enough left to redo the entire thing. And it wouldn't solve the problem. Engineers, if you have any solutions, I'm all ears!

And so now here I sit, recovered from a rather spectacular bout of rapid-onset food poisoning, which luckily departed almost as soon as it arrived. So yes...just so you all know, I didn't die!

And I will try to post more frequently!