Well,

This has happened about 1 and a half month ago. There was this big build up to the event Holga, an employee of the PAD, who worked as like an organizer, „cultur-worker“ and teacher in Armenia for German education and culture. He planned out this big event which would bring together two students from all PASCH schools around Armenia for one big singing contest in Yerevan. So of course, my school was also invited to it. The contestants of my school where Ashot and Milena.

Ashot had gotten the song „Augenbling“ by SEEED and Liana had the song „Wie schön du bist“ by Sarah O Conner. While Lianna had already experience in singing. Having a quite good voice, attending Singing school for a couple of years and singing in front of bigger crowds multiple times, I focused my attention on Ashot, who well was really doing his best. I still thought that he had quite the potential in the whole act so I really started thinking about many aspects. Thoughts about his actual performance, not only the singing, so the dancing, costumes and appearance came to my mind and I started to really feel the task I was given.

So, over a few months, he and I started practising together.

First, I started by just being there with him as he sang the text, by looking of the text, occasionally correcting his pronunciation and other minor mistakes. Next, I told him to learn he text off by heart, which was not an easy task, not even native germans, know it perfectly. The tricky part was that the last segment of the Song was in Patwa/Patua english, which already is ridiculous because he never had English lessons in his life.

While he was being a good boy and practising the text out loud at home daily, I focused the practising lessons on getting his act up. The first time I put him up onto the small stage and said“ Lets go!„He just awkwardly shuffled around my mumbling the text and not raising his head at all. So,I did the cliche movie move and got up there with him. I started dancing and singing on stage, without showing any sign of embarrassment and well just told him to follow me, or look at me or just do what he feels like. That action really got me pumped. Like I really felt like a teacher or like someone who could so something. I don’t know, its quite a weird thing to explain haha

Well anyways, we continued to practise away. I knew that it was going to be a tight fit. Sadly we did miss a good amount of time because

 a) I was gone                               

 c)bad communication

 b)he was not there                      

d)Me not  pressing through to hunt him down and ask when he had time.

e) Only meeting once a week

But none of that now, let’s continue! We decided to dress Ashot up as like the Main Singer Peter Fox as he was on a different Album cover. It would be a slick suit with a tie. Over time, the act slowly came together. He learnt the text of pretty well, he even learned the english part unbelievably well. His behaviour on stage started to get better, so I took us to the next step. We scanned through the text together and found parts in the lyrics where he would do small dance moves or gestures to reflect the contents of the song. We had quite a few cool things. He had a part where he would act like someone should call him or h would point at a random person when he would say „You“. I sadly cant go into every single little detail of the whole performance which we planned out. If I find the copy of the Lyric text ill be sure to post it here, There you can see all the comments, marking and parts we changed, planned and how we interpreted them.
The time ran through our fingers and for the last two weeks before the Event, I wanted to ask the Class teachers to tell the kids to go into the big auditorium where Ashot would be practising so Ashot could prepare himself to perform in front of a big crowd. Because the event would at least be attended by 200 people, I wanted to do anything, so that Ashot got used to perform in front of a crown and being comfortable in that position, because that plays quite a big impact on the actual performance. Sadly, that did not work out and well, I was a bit disappointed at myself, but I was sure that the performance would work out in the end.

Well the day of the Event came around, it was a Saturday, and we (the two performers and me) had to be there at around 9 for a final check. So we all three hopped into Ashots parents car who where friendly enough to drive us there at 7:30 and made our way to Yerevan. The rest of the people invited, so a few teachers and students would be driven to the“Arno Babajanjan“ concert hall at around 11 where the performances actually started. We arrived a bit early and well soon after the other volunteers and Holga, the organizer I mentioned above , arrived and we were let in.

Of course we volunteer where dressed up all nicely, all in dress shirts, black pants and a tie or a bowtie. (just as a side comment haha)

Anyways, we set up the hall a bit and waited for the other participants to settle in so we could start the final checks. Here is a picture of the establishment while it was still empty:

So the people slowly arrive from the other schools aswell, and we start the whole final check up process. When it was my turn for the kids to come and practise, I made sure that they would move enough (plus points for the act) and there was another problem. The microphone was very sensitive with the distance of the sound, which meant that you really had to hold the mike close to your mouth, so it would work, Sadly even during the final check up, Ashot was struggling with it a bit and well, that kinda was a small foreshadow of what would happen later.

The whole process at the start was too chaotic already. Martin and Elisa where put in charge for the slides and music and I was just helping out here and there where I could. We had too little time and well, there where teachers pressing us to be the next one to practise, while others wanted more time and etc.. It was chaotic haha. Anyways, we managed to get through the Bulk and the guests also started to settle in. We had quite prominent guests like the Minister of Education, the Mayor of Yerevan and the German embassador. Nikol Pashinyan was also invited, but he sadly didn’t come haha.I would rather skip the actual description of the Actual performance and explain it a bit, before elaborating on some pros and cons of the whole thing and other notable events that happened.

So the event would be built up with each performer/group performing their song on stage with their music in the background, and after their act, would get a score from the four Judges that where there. (all of them, musical professionals and in the Armenian Music and industry business, well-known people).

Now that was the Original plan, and well frankly, mostly things don’t go as planned and it didn’t haha.

So well everything that went wrong/was bad:

1.The judges complained that it was too difficult to judge each contestant and would rather have a summarized feedback after every 3 acts or so.

2. One Judge just left after 15 minutes or so and didn’t come back.

3. Lianna never got her evaluation because of. (1)

4. We forgot to give the presents out in the end.

5. The event was pretty unfair since there was a big age gap present. The youngest performer was nine and the oldest 18. Otherwise, there was a big difference in the skill level. Some of the performers did what they did professionally, while other just did it for the first time.

To all the good things:

1.Despite the Chaos, it was a pretty successful Event. It was published in Armenian Tv with Interviews and even back home in several prominent newspapers.

2.The judges handed out personalized awards to their favorite act, Like a Photoshoot or music video shoot.

3. I cant reiterate tis, but Holga. I know I have not talked alot about him but he really put so much work into this. Not only did he plan the whole event, he even contacted all the original artists of the chosen song and asked them to record, a message for the performer. One artist even ended up coming to Armenia. He really deserves alot of the credit here. A great man!

But now to the performances of Lianna and Ashot:

Lianna: Lianna performed quite well, even though she wasn’t anything „special“ she definitely had her best act on stage. She sang well, hitting all the high notes in her text while being active enough on stage with her body. Sadly because of the judges complaint about the evaluation, she didn’t receive one, even when we asked multiple times after her act. A shame really. We even considered her pretty high up for the award „Winner of the Crowd.„

Ashot: Ashot, as mentioned above, had a small problem with the microphone. That sadly was hearable in the performance, or shall I rather say… unhearable;) haha. But really it was a shame, and I must say that he had much better playthrough during our practice sessions, but I don’t really blame him. I could see, and he also told me that he was extremely nervous and well it just got to him. Im very proud of him, though!

And that concludes the summary of that extraordinary event. What matters is that everyone had fun! And everyone did!

P.S. A professional media crew was hired to take pictures and videos during the event and once I have a link or access to the material, ill post it on here!

Well hi!
Im back, officially, and I apologise for my inactivity! I had quite alot of things to deal with the past 2 months and I coudnt find the motivation or the will to keep writing buuuuut.. now ill do my best to keep on, becuase I realized the importance of it! So look forward to posts in the Future!
With best regards,
Me

Well after sleeping out the night out on Saturday night, we all just lay round at home for the first half of Sunday morning. I didnt have a hangover but i did feel a bit sicky, so i was also mainly passsive. After forcing down some food and boring our asses of at home , we decided to go and do something. The Plan was to walk through a Park our walking guide Tigran told us a daz earlier and after that, finish some errands and visit the „Blue Mosque“ (the last and only mosque in Yerevan),

So we took the subwaz down to the citz center and walked to the park. The Entrance wasthrough a at least 500 meter long tunnel through a massive hill. Once through it, it was verz intereresting. For some reason it was totallz qieut and warmer, it was pretty amazing to be honest. We walked aalong the side of the hill along the valley, there where abondoned parks and plazgrounds and even a „Childrens Railroad“ which was full with its own little trainstation, tracks and even miniature version but stilll fully funcitonal wagons and locomotives.  WE walkde down along the tracks, as we saw other people doing aswell and even saw a little pool where people where swimming after working out at th outdoor gym which was on the valleys other hill side. We walked for around 30 to 45 minutes untill the valley slowly opened up and we turned a little towards the city again. We emirged into the city again at the Bridge where the Noy and Ararat Cognac factories where located and made our way to the Blue Mosque. Here are some pictures:

So we walked out of  the Valley, back into the city and after walking down a few streets and turning some corners we already where at the Blue Mosque. We just walked in since it wwas open to the public and really enjozed the intriate and beatiful, middle eastern and muslim architecture, deisgns and tile sets. We sat down onto  a bench and rested, since we all where still extremely tired and unmotivated and just enjoyed the calm atmosphere before leaving.Heres a picture from inside, definetlz a must see!

So after we left the Mosque, we walked to the next train station, which was as I remember, oh no, actuallz we walked straight down past the Goethe centrum to the Russia Mall where we would do some grocery shopping and check some stores for a little plastic file shelf I was and still am looking for . So we did the shopping for the dinner, and i sadlz came out empty handed with the Item  i was lookingffor so we just hopped onto the subwaz  and rode it all the waz down to the  end station and  the place wwhere we live: Barekamutyun or in Russian : Drujba ( which means peace). We dipped home, made ourselves some food and even though we talked about going out again, that though quickly seemed unviable since we just dozed off and finished the day.

The next Monday was lovely, It was free since It was the National holiday of the day of the Army and I started off nicely and ordering myself a large fry, 2 hamburgers, and 9 nuggets from Burgerking at 11 am. It was fucking amazing and ill be tturning it into a weekly rituala haha. Heres a before and after picture of the „breakfast“ i had:

#noproductplacmen#noadvertisment

Now after the Food, i dont really remember what happend. Im pretty sure we all just alzed around a bit before getting up. Me packing my stuff and driving to a differnt Ice skating place at the Winterpark, which is on the Tiblissyan on the way to my buststaion. And it was dope as fuck.It  was almost 3 times cheaper and the iceskates where actually decent and the Rink was much bigger and in a much better quality. I could actually drive properly with jumps, flips, backwards and tricks and all. It was dope but I had to dip at around 3:20 because i had to catch a bus to the Busstation to get the Last bus to chambarack which i did manage.

Well i arrived and not alot of extraordinary things happend throughout the week. Notable things would be me finally strating my armenian with Elina. She gave me  book on the alphabets, like a kids book and its bee going alright. Its difficult becuase i was learning the prinmted writing off by heart at home and i show up to the first lesson at school and bum, she confuses me by telling me that ill also be learning the written kind ( the printed and written are very differnt ) so that currently a struggle, im 11 letters in, almost one third of the ways, yaay!

Anoush jan also commented something funny as she walked in after my lesson and said that I wsa having an armenian reading club in here (Funny because im doing a german one). Additionaly I  got to know emmas old and now retruned student. Baghrat the chief doctor for the Military basis here. He speaks pretty well german and wishes to move tehre to specialize himself in vascular surgery and maybe start workingf and living there. Thats about it haha

(Im definetly not writing this a week late)

Now haha, where did we stop?Oh right, a lovely weekend of my friends in Chambarack and a good end of the week with the Kids in my yard, playing around outside! Well after the weekend , there was of course the normal week again.

So Monday started with a nice Omen, to my bookclub with the 5th Grade, only one kid showed up to the lesson, even though i went to their class and told them before. There was some counter propaganda being done in the class, i  found out after some research, but im pretty sure ill be scary enough to force them into the Bookclub next week 😉 But heres a quite cute and amusing picture :

Following the next day, i went and go tell the 6th Grade about the book club thats going to happen after their usual lessons. Funnily i encountered some of the children from the 5th grade in the class room so i got pretty confused if i told the 6th or 5th Grade twice and thus, like forgot about a grade. Not going to lie, I still dont know which and who is who haha, Ill do my best to  to separete the two and manage to organize mz programm accordingly haha. Well around Tuesday ot Wednesday I got reminded about something oretty important and work heavy which i just forgot. The Goethe Centre allowed two GErman students to travel to germany each year aswell as Fuunding a Tri-national Summertraining camp in Georgia with Armenians, Georgians and Aseris (Aserbajanian). And well, i was supposed to take care of the Applications for both Groups and well theres 24 Applicants together. Each applicab has to fill put a two page form where they also have to wwrite their Motivation as well as optional Interview. And well , my hard work was to make them write it, give me the inforation as well hand over their languaag proficiency certificates for cscanning. It sounds pretty easy, but its really alot of stress and work. Alot of running around and trying to get information out of people. But looking at how things are now, Il´m pretty sure that ill be done in the next two days. Which is still before the deadline so im good.  I Just hope that i dont piss off or annoy my boss beacsue she is the one evaluating the applications haha.

Otherwise  I also baked myself a Pizza with some help of Emma ( for the dough) because its a pretty good eat-when-you-want meal ( I made two of the ones in the pictures´and they  lasted around 2 days), heres a picture ^^.:

Then throughout the week we had much more food and drinks in the living room then usual. Unlike ( i think) teachers rooms in Germany, the teachers room in Armenia literally sometimes feel like a family, like everybody is nice and sweet, they dish out food and drinks and we all like gather and eat together, quite sweet actually. The first time they even cut up Potatoes and baked/fried them on the metal oven featured here before. They where quite tasty. The teachers even brought home made Wine which was pretty good actaully. The smell and taste kind of remindedn me of the Grape (flavour) present in Japan. The second little feast was on Friday, Friday was the day schools celebrated the „Day of the Army“ In armenia. The directo himsle brought out some vodka and ordered some Kebab to celebfate the fact that his son came back from the military , since in Armenia, when your sons go of to the military, you dont kknow if theyll come back. There was a small performance after the lessons from the 9th grade dressed up all in Unifrom and marching singing and telling stories about the patriotic armenian army. For me, it was a pretty absurd but interesting thing to expeirece, but yet again that just shows the difernces of out countries, societys and worlds. Now, after that work day ended, i finished the Friday by hitching a ride with Tigran back to Yerevan where i joined my friends for a pretty cool Weekend. We had agreed to meet up since it would be Elisa birthday on Sunday. We all had a nice dinner and finished the evening with just talking and relaxing for the weekend.

Saturday we did quite a bit,  but its kind of not coming back haha. I remeber that we went Ice-skating, on the most disgusting rink ive have ever been too. I payed 10 bucks for the mosty worn out iceskates aswell as a tiny ass skating aread. But im glad, because i know i wont ever go there again. Oh and before that we went on a Free walking tour with our guide Tigran. He was a bit sketchy but sweet in the end and we had a nice time with him ^^. Well now after that and a lovely lunch and iceskating :

(Definetly not worth it, it was 10bucks for the worst Iceskates, Worst Iceskatingrink and a short period of time, go to the one at the Winter park instead!)

we returned back to our place, but not before going to the super market for some groseries. Since we planned going out that night we bought Some gin and some of that… Pomegranate Vodka ( people who know what it is will know haha) and some things to mix with and headed back home where we put the kinds into the freezer and just chilled again haha .After making some dinner and pregaming quite a bit we where all set to go! At that time it was around 10 and Martin would be meeting us at the first Bar since he had dancing lessons before.

First stop:     Bar

So first we went to the „Anune“ Bar and well, we waited for around 15 minutes outside while waiting for martin, since we are the very best friends. We just played around a bit on the little playground/park infront of the place untill amrtin arrived and then headed in. It was pretty empty and we just sat in a corner, rodered a whiskey and played Cards against Humanity.

Second Stop ( as far as i remember) : bu´Burgerking

So after having plenty to drink, we all sat into a cab and drove for like.. 3 minutes( quite unneccesarry) and got of at the Northern avenue and stumbeled into the Burgerplace. We somehow ordered some burgers and fries and well just devoured them in out  tipsy/drunk stupor. At 12:00 we loudly sang happy birthday to Elisa, since it was her birthday. When we where about to leave, Kira stumbeled and basically fell onto the floor. Just to summarize, we where the drunk, foreigners haha.

Third Stop:  Stoyka Bar/Club

After the little fooding, we made our way to the highlight of the evening which was the „Stoyka“ Bar/Club, i really dont know what it is haha.So we go the steps into this little basement made out of 3 well made and equiped rooms and since we already had a good amount of alcohol inside us, we headed straight to the dance floor ( sounds hella cheesy). And well, we basically spent most of our time there. At one point martin wanted to do shots with me but we forgot haha. We left the place id say at around 1 isch after over an hour of dancing. I was sweaty and exhausted. but the night wasnt over there!

Fourth Stop:  The Embassy Club

So ive heard before that the Embassy club was a underground alternative techno club scene and well even though i wasnt the biggest fan of Techno music, i was still pretty excited to see how it was. we left the stoyka and walked down the street basically to the Childrens Park in the city center and first we thought the place was closed since the park it was in had its gates closed. But after walking around it, we found an entrance and entered a pretty bare two storeyhouse and after paying a 1000 Dram entrance , went down into the basement. There was a pretty stuffed room with neoen red lights, rythmicall and unison alternative Beats and well a croud of trace like people dancing. After dancing for around 20 minutes, we and martin went for the side lines and sat down on a couch and both decided that this thing we where at wasnt for us, and so we we left, and waited outside waiating for Kira, Elisa and Kira. 20 Minutes past, we all gatehred and got into a Cab home

Fifth Stop: The Mf bed

After dropping Kira of at her Place, we drove back to ours and well, just all passed out haha, we whre all tied and exhasuted and personally, it was the first evening out for a while where i really had fun.

I know that you probably really arnt very interested in reading this post but well too bad for you haha. Thank for reading and this is it for thispost! Below are some Analog pictures we took with Lisas Camera, of course we are only really showing the showable pictures haha <3

Hello there,

If you notice while reading that its riddled by disgustingly misspelled words, bad grammar and the plethora of other things ,then dont be alarmed.  What I do is first type up the post , keeping the memories fresh and not paying attention to how I write before on some other point, going through the text and correcting everything. The mistakes will be all gone and corrected at some point in time. Just so you know, now anyways..

Enjoy reading and thank you for taking the time to read. 🙂

Soo,

Well this week was pretty standard, while i dont really remember monday… even though i did say tthat ill do my best and not be shy… so im very confused about this all.. Oh! I legit just remembered haha, It was my birthday on that day and thats why i think the day didnt go really as planned!  Well other wise it just snowed alot towards the edn of the week, like alot. Ive never seen snow fall that rapidely and Emma even said that if there would be a strng wind , that there would be a blizzard and that shes always nervous in these situations. But luckily none of that hapened.

I sepnd my birthday not very flamboyantly. I woke up like usual and went to work like usual, there some of the teachers got me small presents though,which was nice and ordered one big bix of Khachapuri, which was very yummy haha. Now when my work day ended, i was planning to go home but was stopped by a few kids I know and was surprised with a cute “ party“ out of a raffaello cake and some juice.I did feel pretty guilty because that cake probably did cost alot. WE did have a very nice time though and i did appreciate it alot. But otherside i just spent my day pretty boringly but my evening was the favorita part of my day. Emma made a really good dinner and with some local Vodka and good food we had a lovely dinner and conversation. That really made my day (the alcohol maybe played a role in there 😉 )Heres a pciture of the food:

Told you, bomb ass food..

Never the less, the week rolled on. Im not sure if i mentioned the „coldening“ weatther. Below is a picture of our high tech heating being switched on ( well its actaully alw´ready on, we just supplied it with some new fuel.):

The next funny thing that happened was what happened during the “ Emil und die Detektive“ class. It was aa rather boring thing and thus, the low partisipating number of kids where getting a bit more loudy and sloppy than usual. And so Mamikon, im sure ive mentioned him before, was making stupid noises and class and thus, he was sent to the corner, where he spent the rest classtime . He even participated pretty well I was very surprised, but im sure the he leaerned his lesson  haha here he is :

Well a high point of the week was  the end, especially the weekend. The people from Yerevan came to Chmabrack to visit me. Reasening would be my birthday partially aswell as giving them a small change of life, this weekend on the „country“ haha. Well so Martin, Elisa and Kira jumped onto the morning Marschroutka and arrived here at around 12 a.m . When i went to pick them up at the city centre it turned out the walked way past me on the other size of the street, turns out they got out a station too late and they kind of where trying to follow my instruction where to meet them. So i brough them up to my place and introduced them to Emma. (laptop just crashed, rip to the lost paragraph) Right after that we decided to make a small lunch of maccaroni and fsome vegetabke sauce whuch they got to enjoy with Emmas redicoulosly good Kompott, which they llike everyone else, loved haha. After lunch we went out and enjoyed the white landscape a bit by starting a snow ballf fight with each other. Of course we had many armenian onlookers from their apartment windwos. I tried to get some of the kids i know to come adn join us but tthey had somereason i didnt know of and thus, they didnt come down. Anyways, after around 45 minutes outside in the pretty cold we returned back inside where we proceeded to just chill, listen to muisc, talk and play a card games called “ Wizard“ which took up our time untill we heard some quick knockking on the door. I already knew who it was and sure it was the kids asking us to come out and play with them. After a quick persuasion of the rest of the groupwe suited up again and where greeted by snowballs flying towards us when we exxited the building. What ensued was a brutal, inhumane and cruel Snowball fight spanning over 40 minutes haha. It was very cool, i dont really know what to write about it. It was simply a good and fun snowball fight. After we came back home, soaked in snow we continuied out game of „Wizard “ which took up our time untill dinner. In that time the titel of this Post actaully orignated. We came onto the fact that Angela Merkel visited Armenianin december and that i didjt  know about it. And then the conversation turned to how she would be arrving and be acting in Armenia. That brought up the suggestion that she would be , so she woudnt be exposed to risks, blended in with the armenian locals, taking their little old and half brocken busses around town and how we would react if wed get onto the small crouded transporter and just see her sitter there calmy haha. Emma was so nice to make us some Rice, fried fish, Tattoo ( soething like pickled vegetables). We enjoyed out lovely meal with some wine and a very surprisingly strong and good homemade Cherry liquior Emma gave us. Im not going to lie, im going to try and ask Emma if she can make me a bottle for when i return back to Germany.  So we had a lovely dinner with good vies, good nourishment and interesting talk about mostly one topic : Femenism ( Kira 😉 ) haha. It sounds cringy but its interesting to har the opinions ande experiences from the other peeps.

So after dinner the twp genders kinda just took themselves, me and martin chilling in my room while the girls chilled intheri room. And so the nigh passed and we woke up around 9:30. After a quick waking up tea and breakfast fro some we departed to walking back to the buststaion where they would get on the marschroutka to Yerevan. Now funilly , bcause i didnt knwo the bus scedulce , we arrived 3 hours early haha so we startd walking back untill emma called me and told me that our neighbour would be driving in  ataxi back to yerevan and that it would be even easier fro then to go that way. And so they took the Taxi back. Well and i was left on my own again, but it didnt let that get me! That sunday was also a very good day beacuse of what ensued during the rest of day. I enjoyed another nice Snowball fight with the lids in the courtyard before other kids joinded and we ut out efforts to make a snow man, here a picture of the team:

Ah and from the left on :         , Stephan,       , suren, Goshar, David

After that a few kids went back inside while the others wher just egtting started. I helped the children get their sleds from the storage rooms under their houses and as a group we set out to a very small “ hill“ at the side of the road leading to our school. Ther the kids had alot of fun riding down in their sledges or just rolling dwon or sliding with their bodeis. I also had two runs, i was quite afraid since i had no controll and i was much to big for the sldges but  i didnt die haha. They even made a little train of 4 sledges and thundered down the hill just to tip over sideways at the bottom, laugh and run up again for another ride. But yeah, that really made me a bit happy and lifted my spirits. Well  but that was about it for this wekk, here are just the pictures from the visit from my friends and the Sled-play after. Hope to see you next week!

These where fom the visit and the time outside with martin, Elisa and Kira. The next ones are from my time after they left.

Haha i just noticed that you can see the progression of their little adventure down the hill haha.

Soo Happy new year dear readers!,

I am sure that you all are glad that I am back after this break over the Christmas and new year break. I am also kinda. But also not because I will have to be typing up these again haha.

Now, lets start with recapping . Alright so I returned to Berlin and just enjoyed my time there

I must say that being in Berlin was a bit weird again. I don’t know, Berlin was having its typical winter weather of being dark , cold and wet and well it just seemed a bit more gloomy/ depressed than usual . I went ice-skating and to the movies on the first day when I arrived, not even sleeping after id already been awake for 20 ish hours and had arrived at 7 am in Germany. Unfortunately , I caught a small cold in the following few days around the time of christmas and I was worried if it would tun into something worse and id not be able to see a doctor because they would also be on holiday leave. Luckily,one of the doctors who was open on the holidays was near my place and so I gave her a visit, turned out all was really okay and I just needed rest. Sure enough after two to three days of just lying around in bed, drinking un humanly amounts of tea and water and sleeping good amounts, I turned out healthy again. And so I could enjoy my time back home again. So yeah, I just basically met up with a lot of people, went to a few parties, went out eating a lot of good things, visited friends from work and just enjoyed my.. “ old life“ if I may say in an exaggerated way haha. But well , this Blog isn’t about my time in Germany , but my time in Armenia so lets skip to that part!

So, my returning flight was at 9:30 on Friday the fifth and it went all well and I arrived at the Zvarnots International Armenian airport at around 4:30 local Armenian time again .

Funny story, while waiting to check in to the flight to Armenia I was walking down the line to line up myself and from a distance I say a Man very similar to Arthur, if you don’t know who he is, check him up in the lexicon, and it was a younger and not to meaty version of him and I just shrugged it off as like the usual Armenian guy. But later when I was in the line, a woman in front of me turned around and it turned out to be Ani, the receptionist and I found out that she and her mother went and visited relatives who live in Germany. The man who looks so similar to Arthur was his younger brother haha.

Anyways so we stood around for ages to get through immigration and security and so we are sitting around to wait for boarding to start. And I look up and I see, Holga, just walking around as he does, in his own special way haha. Turns out him, his wife and another higher manger where taking the plane back aswell! So that was a nice surprise haha. Anyways so, the flight went alright and well as I was walking out to the arrivals area of the airport I realised that if Ani and her MOm where coming back, that Arthur would probably be waiting to pick them up, and sure enough. He was haha. We had a really nice and surprised reunion which was ver sweet and in the end he even called me a cab which was very nice. So yeah, I arrived at the flat of the others at around 7 and went to sleep. 

The next few days where literally just sleeping, eating and watching Netflix or being on my phone haha. We where so lazy. the reason for me also not being able to adjust to the +3 hours and falling asleep usually at 3 am was because we didn’t go outside at all. Anyways but finally on the 8th of january i decided to go back to Chambarack nd lord was my backpack heavy.I swear it had never been as heavy as that before. But i managed to get to the bus and well, a few hours later I was back safe at emmas again where I was greeted by  Nare and Emmi. But for the rest of that day,I really just unpacked and settled  down in my room again.

So basically I just spend a week living myself into the town and into the school again. I did a Emil and the detectives lesson( which this week was very fun haha because of an interesting creative question I gave the group)  and another preparation lesson for the Goethe exams while planning out my Final plan for a normal week.  With that thought I also fulfilled a long-standing wish of mine to make a few posters which would like introduce me, show what I do,show updates and have a suggestions box. And that’s what I did. I had already set my mind to it in Yerevan because I had bought Yellow, red and green poster paper for the little Introduction poster of mine. It took a long while because of just smaller details and crafts which took up time but all in all im pretty satisfied, here is the finished product:

Also , it was a daily struggle for me to walk to school because the streets were completely frozen over and I was like taking small steps and shuffling not to slip and die because I have slipped a few times haha. But that was about it really. Todays Sunday which means that after I post this ill take it easy for my last day before i’ll do my best in the upcoming week!

Here are some pics of the frozen landscape and roads of Chambarack!:

Oh and here Martin.. here’s a pic I took o your bed so I would know  how to clean it up after I slept in it hehe …

So, the next 3 weeks or so I would be in Chambarack, relaxing from all the drama, travelling and chaos.

I started by trying to make myself a routine again. I did my reading class every Thursday or Wednesday with the 5th or 6th Graders and regularly made the text we are and will be using. Then I also started having my “ Emil und die Detektive “ Class again, Thursdays I helped Emma with her classes , which are used to prepare children from the higher grades (7-9th) for language diplomas from the Goethe institute or the PASCH initiative and their exams. There were also a few more spontaneous happenings where I had to jump in for a sports teacher for example. It was horrible haha. I went with the children to the sports hall and since the teacher was gone, the ball room/ office was closed but that didn’t stop them! since they were younger children they managed to sneak through the bars of the door and kick the balls through before coming back through them haha. But that was a mistake, I didnt really have a lot of control of the class and so the balls where flying throw the hall. hitting children everywhere, I got two balls against my head too haha. I was pretty unresponsive there and just kinda was  throwing hoops calmly while there where kids crying haha  But yeah , no one was seriously injured luckily ;). Below is a picture of the culprits caught „karmin“ handed. Them little monkeys haha.

Then interestingly, remember the kids who always used to call me out for Football? Well it seems like that stopping really was caused by the change of seasons wince the moment it got a bit warmer and sunnier, they where back on the field again and I played with them on a few occasions. The field was really littered though. The winds had blown all the plastic and garbage from the mountains down. The grown was also very wet and almost mud like due to the molten snow and so my shoes usually looked liked this after a good half an hour of playing with them:

A lovely sight isn’t it?

Otherwise , the new season was really starting to show it self. The mountains in the distance where almost always covered in snow and it chambarack turned white aswell on more than a few occasions:

Towards the end of my stay there for this year, and with the ever closer creeping holiday season I prepared a small lesson for 4th to 5th graders where we would spend a lesson or two singing a German christmas song and craft and cut out snowflakes out of Paper. I got the snowflake idea from my childhood in school and thought that it was a very efficient and easy task for the children. The song we sung was “ Lass und Froh und Munter sein“ A pretty catchy and well-known german song. Here are some pictures from that little weeklong “ workshop“ with the different 4th and 5th graders:

Well so yeah, now im in Yerevan ( my plane is at 5.am ( in around 12 hours) typing up this last blog post finally haha, i wont have to worry about writing this for like almost another month xD. Today I basically just went shopping for presents ( spent 30 euros) and figuring out how I will manage to sneak like 4 extra kilo onto the plane because my allowance is only 6Kg. I’ve been having weird feeling in my lower abdomen but im sure that will pass in the next few days. I’m already doing everything i can to help my body.

So wrapping up, the last three weeks where more of a „calm down phase“ and it was just a chill and standard time here in Chambarack and Armenia.

So I wish you all a lovely holiday, christmas and a great start into 2019!

Have some christmas spirit through the christmas decorations from the school in Chambarack!

See you next year <3

Andrej

Well now, let me tell you a bit about my experience in and my time after my „Zwischenseminar“ in Georgia !

After a short transit day in Tbilisi with the other Georgian volunteers we all met up on the next day to get transported to our Seminar location in a place called Saguramo , around 30 Minutes outside of Tbilisi.

Before the meeting up and all actually started , the people in the apartment got ready, packing all our stuffs and doing last-minute shopping. I bought some snacks and a Pomegranate vodka , distilled AND bottled in Armenia so i was looking forward to trying that haha .We all met up at the meeting location and not going to lie, I wasnt really feeling it at all haha. I just wanted to sleep. WE met our driver and the landlord of our place ,Dato, and we packed out stuff into he back of the van before we all squeezed everyone else onto the Bus. Me and Martin felt really tired and kinda nauseous because of the heat ( It was much warmer than expected in Georgia and us Armenians packed for a weather situation similar to Armenia ).

(Ugh im really not in the mood to write this but i have too hah)

Anyways, we arrived the place, and while we where driving we all kinda where disappointed and underwhelmed by what we saw driving by, but when we arrived at the place we where staying it was actually a very pretty establishment.! Sadly i do not have any pictures of the Place but if in the future i do get some, ill post em here xD. So we arrive and we get greeted by our Seminarleaders, Sarah and Nina , both pretty chill people and we get led to our rooms. ( two big sleeping halls, one for the men and one for the lady’s) and right after that lunch. It was funny since the first thing the guys did was make their beds while the girls where like “ we havent done shit“ haha.

But yeah there’s not a lot of talk about the seminar really, I havent told you guys  about the preparatory seminar, but i hated that shit kinda ( partly because I was sick) and this was also like meh. We started with a two-hour sessions in the morning after breakfast, had lunch, then some free time before having another session after 6 again untill dinner, and occasionally we had something after dinner. What was interesting though was the story of the place we where staying at and the history of the couple running it. So the couple is Dato and his wife ( a german nurse whose name ive forgotten) who moved there like a long time ago, probably in the 80s. There they started a kind of alternative fostercare thing, which over the years changed its name and meaning etc.. but it was always used for a good social cause. The children they took in normally stayed untill they where ready to be an adult and start their life on their own and yeah. While we where there, theystill had a guy( probably 20 isch, scary looking) who was with them since he was a child and a little girl called “ Perro„( or one of the other three names she had hah) wh was relatively new and who we all came to love very much. She was shy at first always hiding under tables and such but still listening to our seminar but as the week passed she opened up and starting chilling in the room and playing with us. Whats crazy though is that that kid was clever as hell. Like straight up, she could speak german, Georgian and russian fluently and the way and mannerism she used while she spoke wasnt that of a child. It was fascinating but kinda creepy at the same time.

But now what did we actually do during the seminars?

We talked about our past experiences, how we have adapted and fit into our place,e if we have fit in at all. Any interesting experiences we would have liked to share, any problems we would need help on. So as you understand it was basically about how it is being a volunteer now.

Surely that can’t be all?

Well contents wise that was the very broad basic  description. Aside from that we also had a day trip to Tbilisi which was guided by the volunteers in Georgia and we visited a small church, about 15 minutes from us away. Also we enjoyed the bomb ass food from the kitchen. It is probably under my top 3 places to eat since ive started my year haha.

So yeah, im behind on these posts, ive been working my ass off for them so cut me some slack on this one by accepting these photos from the Seminar week with descriptions where they are needed, Thank you in advance 😀   :

These were the 4 Main house animals, The cog was mainly at the other house while the cat kitten always used to chill with us. The Cow and the Sheep where in the barn with another donkey and a few chickens.

Below are some pictures from the actual seminar session. Participants which can be seen are  Elisa, Alexandra,Lisa,Elina, Josh, Martin,Clara,Rosa,Aljosha, KitKat (katharina) and Kira. Additionally there are also Nina,Sarah and Perro.

Next are just pictures from when we had some free time:

Then we have a few pictures from our excursions. First the ones to the little church:

Aaaand then the ones from our day trip to Tbilisi:

And to finish this long and visuals post off id like to end by telling you about our guest Mouse we had. On the first night, there was a mouse wrecking some havoc in the girls sleeping hall and there was a big fuss, they moved into the seminar and slept there and from the first night on, there was a slight paranoia of it.  Now and the following picture was taken in 2018 picturing the with hate fueled efforts of the mouse inquisition through an extermination squad:

Haha now I apologize for the text-less post, nevertheless i hope you at least enjoyed the pictures and I’ll see ya next time xD

Andrej

Alright so this little update  will be spanning about two weeks again.

Theres not a lot of Interesting things to document haha, just a lot of work and stress.

The first week started off with me finishing of and finalizing the work for my “ Deutsch im Museum “ Project ( Seen under the Project tab). Additionally I was also working on a new Project which will probably start Mid-January, more of that Project coming in the project tab later so watch out!. Beside that I have still been doing some work in School of course. I Have a small reading club with the 5th or 6th graders on Monday or tuesday. Its not very set into stone yet because we have to tell them each week in school like : “ Yo, yall are having a small book club in the 8th Period with Andrej“ so i will have to better my efforts there so they know it’s a regular thing. For the book club we ussualy use small children magazines  but since we don’t have 15 copies for each child , ive decided to take the matter into my own hands. Ill make a small A4 Page with a simple text and a few visualisations so that they also have a small picture as a reference with a small additonal slip of paper on which 3 or so VERY easy questions are printed. My first Edition of that was  Text about sea turtes seen here ( the future worksheets and class material will be in another tab under Projects 😉 ) :

(This is where i sleep in Yerevan by the way, lovely room isnt it 😉  )

What I also have done is , started a long-term school project which deals with processing the Book “ Emil  und die Detektive “ with a small handful of good and interested students so I can challenge them a bit more. More to that under the „Projects“ tab haha.

Now, on Wednesday I returned to Yerevan for the “ Deutsch im Museum “ project ( under the „Projects“ tab) but there was still an other matter which needed my attention. I needed to get the extended stay permit For Armenia since I would be here longer that 180 days at a time probably next year . So what I did after arriving in the outskirts of Yerevan was meet up with a Worker at the German embassy who was tasked with official translation our Passports, and thus I had to meet up with him to give him mine. While doing that I also killed another bird with the same stone and got the 3 Passport pictures which are required for the permit in a small shop around the corner. Those actions really exhausted me. I woke up early, walked 30 minutes to the meetup stop and then went to the Goethe-Centrum since no one of the other volunteers wouldnt be at the flat for another hour or so. At the Centrum I socialized a bit with the Lovely employees, they Even made me some Lunch which was very sweet and I layed in some of the bean bags for a while untill I had to leave to get to the Apartment. Once there I realized how exhausted I really was, I was shaking so I really just relaxed, ate and drank a lot of fluids to replenish my body.

( Then came the “ Deutsch im museum “ Project which I elaborated in the “ Projects „tab)

On one of the next 5 days I had to go to a Medical Centre to get  Medical approval for the permit, so that was a bit of extra stress but it had to  be done. There I realized that I have lost 4 Kilo since my 68kg around May-ish so I decided to get that and maybe more back so I really started to eat a lot more. During lunch at another cantine close the Goethe centum I ate huge portions of food and I started to spend more money on snacks and small foodbreaks at home. I Feel like I’m definitely progressing towards my goal though so I will see how well I did once I arrive in BErlin in DEcember.

Continuing my “ Deutsch im Museum“ Project has come to and end and after settling all the financial matters I am back in chambarack. The journey here was nicer than usual though. At the bus station i take the marschroutka from, always has the old dude who offers a private taxi for much much higher prices that a marschroutka and the last few times he always was like : You want a private taxi? But this time we had an actual conversation in Armenian like : How are you , etc.. so that was great xD and additionally to that, I was sitting to this curious old  lady in the marschroutka so we we traded a few questions and interesting words, in russian of course haha. But those two events really did up my mood and make my day haha. Here I worked a bit on my blog, had another two lessons, one yesterday (thursday) and one more “ Emil und die Detektive “ lecture lesson today ( Friday) at around 3pm. Otherwise ill have to clean up my room and pack up my things since im leaving tomorrow already again. Oh and where you ask? I will first of all be bringing some children from Chambarck to Gyumri for the “ Sayat Nova “ Project and after that I have my catch my Train at 00:30 to Tbilisi for the start of the Seminar on Monday.This is where I will be putting a small break. I’ll write more on sunday so I can recap the whole journey after ive actually had the experience.

Oh and what I forgot is that on saturday we had the reading out loud competition in the Geothe Centrum and my little desciples also appeared. Also though didnt win i still think they did absolutely well so i was really proud haha Below ia a picture with the organizers, judges and all the participants.

Alright, now since im in my little bed in Tblissi in the WG of the volunteers of Georgia , I can give you a slow and steady playback of the last tw days.

So the hard part of this week started on a cold saturday morning on the country side of Armenia. I woke up around 6:30 to be able to make myself a small warm cup of tea and a small breakfast before having to make a last check of my Items in my backpack. We were all set. I walked down the streets to the meeting point where the driver would pick me up with some of the students which I will bring over to gyumri. My breath was visible while I trotted down , occasionally being afraid for the dogs staring and barking at me furiously. At the meeting point we waited for 10 Minutes untill our driver arrived. While there was enough pace for all our bags there wasnt enough really for the children haha. Lucky me i guess for getting to sit in the front seat as the chaperone. What was really funny was that since the car windows were covered in Frost and ice, the plausible action would be scraping it completely off for the security of all sitting in the car but no, things are done in chambarack haha. He just rubbed out a patch of frost in front of the driver seat while the rest was still ice white and he drove us while looking through that hole for a good amount. Just a small thing which amused me haha. So we drove all the way to the Yerevan train station , got off and met up with Dana who was waiting there for all participants of the Sayat Nova Project. Soon after the smaller group from the ,in a previously written and mentioned post, Ayb school joined us and we boarded the train.

It was a pretty fun ride to be honest. I sat with th kids from chambarack we just had a conversation. We talked about many topics and they taught the words of colour in Armenian while we busted out UNO and played a few rounds. They also showed me some Armenian “ gangster“ music which was pretty amusing but yeah. Not even that bad to be honest. There was like an employee who would like give us dirty looks and always threaten us not to leave any crumbs or anything so that was funny to haha. But at the end I was still kinda bored and just wanted o get off he train so that was a relief in the end. We got out and BUM! the ice-cold air hit you, it was lovely at first but while the chaperones where greeting and welcoming each other and assigning each child a partner from the local school it became pretty freezing and we all happily started walking towards to school once all the organisational stuff was done and all the kids were gone.

I basically hung around the whole day, just checking out the school and a little of the town. I helped Dana with her planned „german city hunt“ around the town and with the FIlm shown in the evening. All in all a pretty normal day haha.

But at around 00:30 i had my night train to Tbilisi. So i lived my day up to that time to around 11:45 , where i left and walked to the train station, I didn’t want to come later after all. And 10 minutes later the train showed up and i was a bit nervous. I showed the train chaperone my ticket and he showed me my wagon. I got on the train and passed the compartments before finding mine and i opened the door to it. Luckily it was empty. The train itself was very antique and was equipped very well.  In each compartment, 4 people could sleep. Two on each side below and two on each side on top. Luckily, through out my 8 hour ride. Here is a very bad picture of the place haha: 

No one joined so I happily had the place to my self. I got settled in. Took of my shoes. Took my passport and ticket out of my backpack before putting it under my bunk and even a few minutes later. A guy was nice enough to bring me bed covers and such. So the train got into rolling and there isn’t much to say more. The only complaint i had been that the air was so hot and not really humid but like stuffy. When i tried to sleep i probably sweated all of my biological water out haha. I had like 3 Session of between 1 and 3 hours of sleep but i survived haha. At around hour 5 we stopped for the border control and the Armenian authorities checked me out and the Georgian ones checked me in. It was just like meh in the moment because i was just tired and exhausted. SO after a night of kinda restless sleeping and border control, I finally arrived in at Tbilisi main train station. From there i walked to the subway station near by and bought my self a subway card, which you could always recharge with money  ( a trip with the public transportation costs a 0.5 Lari) and went into the direction of the Goethe Insititut in Georgia. The Goethe institute there is like the headquarters for the Caucasus region and i had to deliver something from Dana to their administration so i dropped the package of there and got onto the subway again to finally go to the Apartment of the Volunteers in Tbilisi. Here also a small picture of the exterior of the building, the inner courtyard looks very good. They even have a small amphitheater thing haha ( sadly not visible on the picture):

The problem though was that , they had celebrated the birthday one one of them the night i arrived so i felt kinda bad for waking Julian who had only slept couple of hours. Nonetheless i ended up in their flat and had a really good morning cleaning their kitchen up and having a few good conversations and laughs with the Georgians. (really i did enjoy it haha, it sounds sarcastic as fuck). Me , Martin ( who was also staying there ) and Josh ( the guy whose birthday it was ) decided to spend the day by going into the city and went to visit the Georgian national gallery. There was a special exhibition about a specific kind of a italian church art and there where a hand full of really great paintings.

Some examples here :

After that we had a small walk through the main street up to a small hip restaurant since Josh really wanted us to taste the Siberian Pelmeni. We also ordered a surprisingly good tasting like green shake out of Tarragona. Mid-meal coincidentally the representative of the Kulturweit program who was supposed to visit us during the Seminar walked out and joined us , ordering the same. We talked a bit and got to know each other, but our little group decided to leave earlier since we’ve been in the city for a while and we just wanted to go home and sleep haha. And we luckily did , thanks to my efforts since he still wanted to get a DAMN coffee haha.

We came home and basically napped for a couple of hours before having a dinner with all the volunteers assembled at the apartment. After that we just basically went to sleep.

And that was basically the story of how i got to Georgia and how i spent my one day there before going off to the Seminar.