Cafe culture and other lovely quirks

This week felt like the first days of summer. I've been told spring is short in Armenia and summers are very hot. The beautiful thing about summer here is the cafe culture. It's a bit like the whole city goes on holiday. Cafes open up in every green space and open nook and cranny. Like in many places in the world, Armenians tend to take long afternoon lunches during the work day and they give new meaning to the phrase happy hour.



Some other observations. I mentioned before that it feels like a pretty homogeneous city - not only by ethnicity and religion, but in many other ways. Such as clothing. The rule for women is pretty much black clothing and extremely high heels. Such as this mother, oh, just walking her child home from school.

A closer look:

She is basically walking on five inch daggers. On brick no less. So it is very easy to spot foreigners (or as they are known in Armenian, "outsiders") - any sort of comfortable footwear, particularly open toe, and a general use of color are giveaways.

Armenians also drive extremely fast and in my view, like they are insane. Driving and just walking near the streets in the city can be suicidal. The road rage puts Boston taxi drivers to shame.

One thing that I do enjoy though is the schedule. Not much happens in the city before 10 o'clock - and I have learned not to come to work until closer to 11, to be sure the office is open. To make a broad generalization, people seem to stay up quite late and enjoy sleeping in. And I'm not talking 9 or 10. Sleeping in is an art form here. While the slow pace isn't something I'm used to, I do enjoy my sleep. A friend of mine who is also staying with a host family here once tried to get up before noon on a Sunday. Her host mother was appalled and insisted she eat breakfast in bed. I think I could make that cultural adjustment.

And because I can't finish any post without mentioning food, here was the highlight of my week:

My host mother made dolma, or as my real mother calls it, stuffed cabbage leaves. It was a big occasion because my host family doesn't buy meat often, so it was a real feast with wine and bread and all the fixings. Delicious.