Things happen in threes because I conveniently have three things I feel like posting about

I saw, for the first time ever, a woman driving in my city of Vanadzor. Actually this may be the second time, but I didn't write about it on my blog, or I did and I forgot, but then, this might actually just be the first time. I have seen women driving in Yerevan before, but outside of there, in Yerevan, it's almost exclusively males that drive. It's interesting, my grandmother never had a driver's license, and didn't drive either.

There's an amazing first line from a book I've never read that goes something like, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Today I was asked about my least favorite Armenian food. I mentioned that I had never eaten khash, cow hoof soup, but I think that will probably be the worst thing I could eat, but said that I do plan on trying it before I leave Armenia. I was then told I must choose a food I have eaten, so I picked a soup, Spas a soup with yogurt and barley in it. My co-workers didn't sound to surprised but one said her son likes this soup very much.

I was then told an old Armenian saying, that tells you the rules, or prohibitions, for eating khash.

Khash Rules

1. No toasts (at least no long toasts, you need to eat the soup while it is hot)

2. No cognac (but plenty of vodka)

3. No women should be present (they eat their own khash elsewhere, this is a man-only/sex segregated ritual)

Then walking back from work I saw the lid of a casket outside one of the apartment stairwells, letting everyone know that someone had died there. This is the first such funeral I have seen in my apartment complex. I have seen them elsewhere, other towns, or other places in Vanadzor, but never my own complex. No one (thankfully) close to me in Armenia has passed away so I am not familiar with the rest of the customs, but I believe that for a day or two the casket lid is outside and people come to visit the family in their home, and the burial happens after a day or two of this.