I spent a night in Yerevan before going to Areni for a wine festival.  I was meeting a friend that lived in Vanadzor last year and was leaving to go back to Estonia in a few days.  We played a game called Canasta  which is sortof like rummy if you had it smoke some crack, with two decks and the goal is to get 7 of a kind instead of 3 or 4 of a kind.  And jokers and 2's are wild.  Crazy game.

Being the only one to have taught us this game, she would always win, but this time, with a little help from her boyfriend I managed to win in a very close game.  Maybe the win wasn't a real win, but it is the only time she has lost in Armenia, so hopefully she will remember the game.  It took us a large part of the night to play so we went out pretty late, about 11:30.  Our favorite bar was too crowded to let anyone in (there was a soccer game, Armenia vs Macedonia, and Armenia won) so we went to another bar, but later on went back to Calumet, by far my favorite bar in Armenia.  I always have great times there.  When my family was visiting this summer I saw this guy, my mom actually pointed him out as looking like an American actor, who is an Armenian comedic actor.  So I went over and got a picture with him.

His English was very good.  He didn't believe me that I had seen some of his shows, and specifically a movie  that was on Armenian television during New Year's, a sortof love triangle movie where he kept getting things thrown in his face by beautiful women.  So to sum it up, I always have awesome times and Calumet, and last weekend was no exception.


Then I went to the Areni Wine festival.  Areni is a place in Armenia known for its wine and so they have  festival every year with homemade wine from the area and singing and dancing, etc.  And wine tasting.  We bought 1-liter plastic bottles filled with wine for about $2.5 USD (1000 AMD) and went to town.  We had table, then later we crashed a party down by the river and talked to some Armenians, then we found our own spot by the river, and had just a really fun time.  I went to a church and lit some candles for family and friends, then saw that the candles were wrapped in English exercises.

Oh.  And I saw the video for Barbie Girl on an Armenian morning show in the teacher's lounge this morning.