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The Genocide
The days are passing by in seconds and I can’t really wrap my head around the fact that we are ending our Armenian adventure in less than two weeks. The flight is booked for the 1st of december and we are now in the phase of puzzling together all the things we still haven’t done… Read more
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Day 4 – Artsakh trip
Alright, you’ve endured 3 out of 4 days of our Artsakh trip, now’s the time for the last days report. As Emma previously mentioned (and experienced), people were dropping like flies. First it was one person with an upset stomach, followed by someone who threw up, followed by more people feeling ill, followed by more… Read more
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Day 3 – Artsakh trip
I can only agree with Leo in his last post about the intensity and humbling experiences in Artsakh, being one of the most intense weekends I have had in my life both time wise and emotionally. The second day was everything Leo described and so much more to it that cannot be described, and therefore… Read more
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Day 2 – Artsakh trip
It’s not every day a trip or a post about said trip gets you banned from entering a country. That is however the case with going to Artsakh and then trying to enter Azerbaijan. Although I probably wouldn’t make it into Azerbaijan regardless with my very schizophrenic passport (Swedish passport, Armenian name, Iranian birthplace). As… Read more
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Day 1 – Artsakh Trip
Okay – heads up for very long posts. You better go and get yourself a cup of coffee or tea before starting to read this. Last weekend we spent four days in Artsakh together with AVC and Birthright and around 90 other volunteers – an amazing trip that is unfortunately is going to bore you… Read more
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Volunteers & wines in Areni
As our moms were here the last week there hasn’t been much time to sit at home and blog so here comes a late post about a weekend trip before our moms arrived. A trip filled with volunteers, wines and great food (as you may notice is becoming somewhat of a standard here). It started… Read more
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A week with our moms
So as you may have read already in Leo’s post, our moms were here last week. It was said to be a week but two days disappeared by flying back and forth, and the rest of the days passed by too quickly that I think they actually were only here for a weekend or so.… Read more
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Armenian Theory of Relativity
Another week has passed and I’m reminded of Einstein’s relativity theory and something called Time Dilation. A shameless googling gave this explaination “Time dilation describes a difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers that are either moving relative to each other”. Then it goes on to talk about factors like gravitational mass etc but… Read more
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This and That
It’s been a while since I blogged, I’m sorry about that, looking back at my post history I realize it’s been 2 weeks since I gave any update of what I’m up too. In my defence, Emma drew the blog jackpot and got to blog about our Dilijan trip. Life here can be quite hectic,… Read more
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Back to normal
1st of October has passed and with that – our moving day to our own apartment. Regardless how grateful we both are for having stayed with very kind and considerate host families, the feeling of having an apartment by ourselves is nothing short of wonderful. Of course there are the obvious things like, living together… Read more
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Hiking in Dilijan
Still high on life after last Sunday’s hike, we decided to go hiking this Sunday too. Everyone is telling us how the weather is starting get too cold for outdoorsy life, which I as a Swede doubt, but I think that affect our plans and we want to do the most out of Armenian nature… Read more
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Defeating the dragon
We we’re off to an early start on sunday morning, hopefully I think both Emma and I prepared as best we could before the trip. We had enough food with us to feed an entire village, layers upon layers with clothes, hiking shoes and everything. I had a small fear that I was reliving my… Read more
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Bits and pieces from Armenian everyday life
So what’s up lately?, one might wonder when both me and Leo have been absent from this site for a while. Well, we have been busy living our not so ordinary everyday life here in Yerevan, which is filled with big and small adventures every day. Let me recap some of what has happened the… Read more
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Filling in the gaps
Emma’s smart, I mean really smart. She got her blog posts up before me after the Gyumri trip and cornered the whole market. Now I’m standing here with more is less the same experiences as her. Well played, that’s all I have to say. There is however something I can do, fill in the gaps… Read more
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Moving time
Since I moved in with my host sister Armine at Halabyan street there has been an ongoing discussion with AVC about why I was placed on one side of the city, working on the opposite side and having Leo living in a third direction from the centre. Apparently they always try to locate volunteers close… Read more
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Our first excursion Pt. 2
So. Our Sunday started with, again, way too much food. After having breakfast with the host family all the volunteers had to gather again at 10.45 by the buses so that we could leave at 11. Naturally, we left at 11.30. The course was set to Ani; an ancient ruin city just on the other… Read more
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Our first excursion Pt. 1
Birthright Armenia & Armenia Volunteer Corps arranges everything from language classes, lectures on societal topics, havaks (social gatherings) and excursions around the country. As Leo mention it is one of the reasons we barely have time to see each other or do any blogging but since it’s a lot of fun and a great way… Read more
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New friends and getting back to the roots
How do you make new friends while you’re in Armenia? Well you just jump in to conversation, go with the flow and try to remember everyone’s name along the way. I’m not going to start by talking about new impressions again, cause you’ll just think we copy-paste it from the previous 300 posts about new… Read more
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Do you smell gas?
I knew I’d be experiencing new things in Armenia but one thing I for sure didn’t want to experience was the smell of gas. I know my parents will probably freak out when they read this and wish for me to just go home but eh. Worth sharing anyway. Last night when I came home… Read more
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Recap of last few days
I can’t believe how quickly these last few days have passed by. So much have happened and at the same time not necessarily so much that I shouldn’t have time to reflect about it. Anyway. I’ll try to give a short recap of the last few days bigger events and hoping reflections can be squeezed… Read more
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Armenian Hogwarts & Road Trips
It’s been a busy first week. In some ways it feels like we’ve been here way longer than one week, and in other ways it’s still so new. It’s been a week of impressions in so many ways. The week began with two days of work at Ameriabank, I feel lucky that I can help… Read more
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First days in Armenia – Part 2
The first days in Armenia have been eventful. I mean, how often do you move to a new country (albeit temporarily), move in with a new family and get introduced to your new workplace within 3 days? It felt really nice waking up after our trip here, and finding out that Emma had the day… Read more
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Impressional fatigue
First day of my placement for the upcoming three months, and I’m exhausted. Mainly because I woke up at 5 in the morning, didn’t have much for breakfast and couldn’t find the coffee until 15.00 in the afternoon. But also because of the sheer amount of information I’ve tried to process and all the new… Read more
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First days in Armenia – Part 1
It’s been an interesting transition. After a week on the road to arriving, and starting to take in that this is our new home for three months. The first days have been uneventful in some ways, but also completely filled with new impressions, people and pleasent surprises First of all I’m sorry I haven’t posted… Read more
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A walk in the city
My first meeting with Engineering city (my volunteer placement) was initially planned for today but got cancelled yesterday, so all of a sudden I had a day off. Conveniently, so did Leo who doesn’t start until tomorrow. So we decided to use the day to explore the city together. Apparently it had been heavy rains… Read more
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Traveling to Armenia – Summary
It’s kind of hard to write this summary, not cause of any sentimental reasons, more due to physical and mental fatigue, trying to remember these past five days. We left Sweden on a Tuesday and arrived at our new home for the next three months this morning.I think both Emma and I are in a… Read more
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A breather in Yerevan
I’ve found myself a nice little spot in a park close to my new home, overviewing the river that runs through Yerevan and the city centre on the other side (at least that’s what I think). A strong wind is blowing cooling air on my arms for the first time since we left Sweden and… Read more
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Day 5 – Final stretch
Writing from the train taking us from Batumi to Yerevan, the last stretch of our trip down to Armenia. I don’t know what Leo wrote yesterday about that part of the journey, but I will only focus on today. Even though I have much to reflect upon and probably add to yesterday, as I didn’t… Read more
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Day 4 – Buses & Borders
After waking up less than satisfied from last nights sleep, Emma and I started packing before heading down for breakfast. I think this might have been my shortest hotel visit ever. Arriving somewhere around 2 a.m., woke up at 7 a.m., and left the hotel at 8:45 a.m. The breakfast was simple, but it was… Read more
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Day 3 – On track
One could think 30 hours on a train would feel endlessly long and tiresome. But now, with only a couple of hours left on the train, both Leo and I think we could’ve done one more day on the train – it’s been nothing but great! That was a lie, just when I wrote that… Read more
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Day 2 – Dogu Express
Yesterday marked an exciting step in our journey towards Armenia. Preparing and getting on the train that would take us on the longest leg of this trip, the Dogu express. We arrived to Ankara from Istanbul and got the chance to regroup, get some lunch and call our parents before starting to yet again understand… Read more
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The real fun has begun
We have just left Istanbul on the high speed train and are on our way to Ankara. This is where the real fun starts, the train journey! There have been a lot of discussions back and forth between us regarding this train route and I have prepared for the worst. Missed trains, denied luggage, late… Read more
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Day 1 – Istanbul
As you might have seen on Emma’s post, our start on this trip wasn’t the best one. But it could have been worse I guess. We made it to Istanbul, with all our packing intact, nothing broken, besides our fragile ego’s ,on time. I even experienced a first, our luggage all came out within the… Read more
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The art of overpacking
Overpacking, a skill that requires three things. Incredible foresight, a complete disregard for practical aspects and the ability to block past packing catastrophes. We’re finally on our way, I’m sitting here blogging from the flight. This feels like the first moment in quite a while where I can just sit back and not (try to)… Read more
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Ready for take-off
Already at the airport and our first part of our trip things didn’t really go as expected. We had planned and weighted our hand luggage carefully but Turkish airlines was not impressed. They looked at our backpacks and said it had to fit the standard measurements for a hand luggage. When we tried to squeeze… Read more
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Hours away
Somehow a half year passed by month by month, and then months turned into weeks, that turned into days, and all of a sudden it is only hours left. The alarm is set at 04.15 tomorrow morning. The flight departures at 07.50. My upcoming three months is packed into one travel bag and a backpack.… Read more
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How, Why & What
It’s just five days to go before we start our 120 hour trip to Armenia. A trip through three countries, six cities before finally reaching Yerevan. This is as good a time as any to give some context of the how, why and what of this journey, from my perspective. Both Emma and I have… Read more
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Adventure Time
It’s time for me to jot down some of my thoughts as well. Bear with me since this is my first blog post ever. Emma’s the talented one when it comes to these things. With 13 days left before we’re on our way, we’re finalizing everything before one of the biggest adventures in my life… Read more
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The travel route from Stockholm to Yerevan
It is quite easy to get from Stockholm to Yerevan; you book a flight from Sthlm-Yerevan with a touchdown in Kiev for an hour or so. But when we started talking about applying for the program, I said that I would only apply if we could take the train to Yerevan. I refused to fly… Read more
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We’re going to Armenia…
…was the headline of my first post on our travel blog. But then I failed to understand how WordPress (the blog platform) works and everything I had written, thoroughly and detailed, disappeared. So let’s just begin our first post with a heads up to all of you – neither me or Leo are used to… Read more
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