As we wrap up our time in Armenia, here’s a few observations from me, and I know Paul will have his own thoughts to add separately.

• The hotel we stayed at is located on Italy Street, next to the Italian embassy. Behind the hotel is an abandoned amusement park ride and a functioning planetarium.

• There is a lot of construction, both new construction in the city and unfinished construction likely from the Soviet collapse. I wish I had counted the number of abandoned structures that we’ve seen because it’s really mind-blowing.
• Most everything is translated in both Armenian and English, and menus and misc. items have translation into Russian. On our floor at the hotel, there is a firehose located in the elevator bay and its instructions for use are in Italian and English, not Russian or Armenian. And the fire extinguisher is in Russian, Was there a sale on surplus Italian safety equipment and that’s how the hose ended up in Yerevan? No one here would be able to read the instructions in an emergency.

• There seems to be a paper shortage in the country. We have yet to eat at a restaurant where we were given one menu per person. Someone always has to share. Additionally, there have only been two restaurants with full size napkins. All of the other meals have had diner-style napkin dispensers or boxes of facial tissue on the table.
• Around the city and countryside, there is above-ground piping everywhere, which we learned is gas lines, whereas water is below ground to supposedly help keep it cold.

• While most of the cars have steering wheels on the left there have been some on the right. Some cars even show miles per hour instead of kilometers. There’s a lot of inconsistency and types of cars here, they could be from the US or from Asia.
• We haven’t seen that many people playing backgammon. Only once in the park and once at the side of the road outside of a block of stores. 
• For many nights Yerevan was very windy at night, starting around 6pm. Like “a hurricane is coming” type of wind. The breeze would have been welcome during the day as it’s reached 100 every day we’ve been here. 
• Armenians like their fruit, especially peaches, watermelon and apricots. We’ve seen old ladies selling fruit in bags on the sidewalk, platters of fruit available for dessert on every menu, and it seems like everyone eats watermelon after a meal. There are a lot of fruit smoothie stands throughout the city…like the frequency of a Dunkin or Starbucks in the US.
• When we landed in Yerevan we saw people being greeted at the airport with long-stem bouquets. I didn’t think much of it, but all over the city we’ve seen girls carrying bouquets of roses, large and small, wrapped in paper. Sometimes coordinating the bouquets to their outfits. We’ve asked friends who have visited Yerevan multiple times what the deal is with the bouquets culturally, and no one seems to know.