First Week in Ijevan

I have moved to my permanent site of Ijevan and I have been here for a little over a week.

This is the fountain in the town square of Ijevan at night.

This is Armine. She is my counterpart at one of my NGOs. At this NGO, I am going to try to help them manage their volunteers. In this picture, we were sitting at our booth at an employment fair.

The woman to my right is my counterpart from my other NGO. Her name is Olga. I will be teaching basic computer classes and business classes with her. At the same employment fair, she offered me and the other Peace Corps Volunteers some Armenian Cognac.

My new room in Ijevan. It's a little smaller than my last one, but I have 3 beds again.

I was invited to go to an archaeological dig in Ijevan. This is the outer wall of a fortress that dates back to 700 BCE. The area around Ijevan has traces of human inhabitance 4000 years old, so there are a lot of ruins. I met an Armenian archaeologist from Ijevan and he said he would show me a lot of other sites.

My first archaeological find in Armenia. It's a pot sherd.

My host brother Grigor with a kitten that he found.

Here's a hedgehog that my host brother caught. Hedgehogs are not as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog would have you believe.

Vienna

So, I had to make an appearance in America, but I am on my way back to Armenia. I am sitting in the airport in Vienna, Austria. I am waiting for my flight to Yerevan. I visited Vienna when I first came out here in May, but never posted pictures. Here are a few. Sorry, it is short. And I am especially sorry that I am not in any of them.

I think this is the front of the Austrian Parliament.

Another shot of Parliament?

A view of Vienna from the top of St. Stephen's Cathedral.

St. Stephen's Cathedral. Construction of it began around 1160 and was finished around 1511. You can see that it is being cleaned from the top down.

A dirty carving versus a clean one.

Another view of the Cathedral.