I see the most beautiful blue sky and fluffy, white, cotton candy clouds. And it's hailing above. And it's been thundering. Just off to the side you can see the storm clouds that extend above my apartment complex towards. The cloud looks like a painting that some kid saw and smeared the edges with gray mud.
While there's been about two full days without rain the last 30, the sun has been showing itself more often (on the half of the day it doesn't decide to rain).
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The other day I got in a taxi, there was a guy sitting in the passenger side. I went over and asked if that was his taxi, he said yes, then I looked and saw the steering wheel in front of him. Here in the middle of Armenia is a car with the steering wheel on the left, British style. Go figure. I didn't even bother to ask why. He had a good reason.
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I was at this nice liquor store I had never seen before. They had some foreign wines I never really noticed, never even thought to look for, and so later on I check out the store near my place which is pretty new looking, and sure enough, they've got some of the same wines from France and Chile. I picked up a Chilean rose wine that I'm pretty excited about. A lot of cheap Armenian wine tastes very sweet, and rather un-wine like. The really cheap stuff is made from pomegranates, and really this stuff doesn't taste like wine, and as long as you don't go in expecting wine, it's really fine to drink. There is one brand here, a relatively new one, that makes some quality wine. The brand is just called "Armenia" and what makes that a bit strange is that in Armenian, they don't say Armenia, but rather Hayastan (hay is the name for Armenians and stan is the Armenian, originally from Persian, word for land).
But now the question that needs to be asked, has that store always had these wines? They weren't too expensive, and I feel like I would have seen them before, but when I asked if they were new, they said no. I asked them if they were there last month and they said yes. So perhaps they've been here this whole time, I'm not sure. But seeing as we have had several European volunteers living in Vanadzor, and they even bought the Armenian wine, I would think that they would have splurged and bought the slightly more expensive wine if given the opportunity.
Then I saw the new Kilikia bottle. Kilikia is the cheap reliable beer of Armenia that really isn't good. It's reliable because if a restaurant or cafe is out of all kinds of beer but one, they will almost always still have Kilikia. There are actually other types of beer they put out but which are harder to find and I only occasionally see in my city. Those are good. So I see this brand new bottle, Kilikia usually comes in green bottles, but this one is in a dark bottle. And instead of the normal Kilikia design, it just had the numbers 1952 down the side of the bottle. So I picked one up and I think it was a bit better than normal Kilikia. It wasn't great but it was decent. I don't know how long this beer will be made, if it's a limited thing, or if the store will only order it one time, but either way I'm happy that Armenian companies are innovating, at least in some way.
At the same store I, as I'm walking out I guy starts speaking to me in Russian, so I fire back in Armenian, and we go back and forth, and I give my speech about how I am living here and a teacher, and a volunteer etc. And so he asks is it better here or there, meaning Armenia, or America. And I was in a particularly good move, so I responded with, "of course, Armenia." and that seemed to go over well, and I think that will be my go-to answer for that question from now on.
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