Vodka

When I was a freshman in college, in the dead of winter, three of my girlfriends and I, after one too many, thought it would be a great idea to paint Northwestern's "rock." The rock is painted almost every night in the university's south campus. We gathered up supplies, mostly white and green paint and rollers. We couldn't find actual paint brushes, but this did not hinder our efforts. In the freezing cold, we made our way down to the south campus in the wee hours of the morning. After using the rollers to cover the rock with white paint, we painted mostly with our fingers with green paint, "God Bless Vodka." It wasn't creative, but we weren't trying to be. It was a paying of respects of sorts, or maybe more like a collegiate ode to drinking.

I learned last night, that Armenians live this very ode specifically to vodka.

My tutor, Simon, is a studious middle aged professor of linguistics. After our second lesson last night, I learned to speak more like an Armenian two year old child -- "I eat" = "Yes utum em." After our lesson, Simon invited me to stay for dinner with a former student of his, his sister, and his sister's granddaughter. Despite having already had a light dinner, I have learned that it is rude to turn down hospitality - a common characteristic here. A delicious meal of small plates was presented, cucumber and tomato dill salad, breads, cheeses, pickled vegetables, and a bottle of vodka had made its way to the center of the table. I have never had vodka with dinner, but this is not unusual in Yerevan.

We were given shot glasses along with our water and Simon proceeded throughout the meal to toast. By dessert, we had killed the bottle of vodka, probably five shots or so each. The food helped suck up the clear liquor and saved us all from becoming too drunk.

The night was representative of the Armenian culture. Like in many cultures, the people here place a high premium on company, food, and drink. What differs though, is that folks here compared to the West (broadly speaking) seem to warm to guests faster by immediately treating strangers (such as myself) like family.

As for the picture on the right, I felt vodka photo might be too cheesy and unfortunately, I don't have in digital form of my college day shot of the dripping words blessing vodka. This picture is of yet another fruit filled Soviet car. I saw this car just as the guy was half way down the alley with his trunk and roof of watermelons.