On clouds . . . I mean like it's about clouds, not like actually on them, you know . . . nevermind, bad title.

Armenia is small. It's the size of Maryland. There are mountains everywhere. I live in a thin strip of land between two mountain ranges. The country is landlocked. Claustrophobic much?

Actually, no. At least to me. I was expecting that feeling, but in general everything seems bigger and more open (at times). When I look up at the mountain ranges to my left and right I can see dark spots. Where I am there's not a cloud blocking the sun, but there's some clouds in the distance, and there shadows dot the landscape in the distance. Living where I have in the US I have never experienced that. It's crazy.

The mountains look far, sure, but you don't really get that perspective, it's like a canvas, all smoke in mirrors, they aren't that far away, just small. But then when you can clearly see the outline of a cloud's shadow, and you go, hey, that's far.

I've never seen a cloud's entire shadow before. I've been in them, we all have, on a cloudy gloomy day, and maybe we've been at the edge, and we see the edge as the cloud passes over us, but I've never seen one of them, in their entirety, stain a landscape like I have in Armenian.

And while my city is hemmed in by mountains, I don't feel enclosed. I feel adventurous. I want to climb that damn thing! What could be on the other side of that mountain!? (More mountains) I want to explore it. I want to trek, traverse, roam. I want to re-draw the map.

On the other side of every mountain my imagination invents lost cities, sprawling ruins, Machu Picchu or Troy. So where I was expecting to see claustrophobia, instead I see potential. I see the unknown, the unexplored.

So that's what 3 months in Armenia does to a person.