Good morning, good afternoon and good evening readers,

Coffee at our friendly neighbour’s house was all over by 11am. What an event packed morning it had been! Next stop on this sociable butterfly bus ride, PROTEST CORNER! We had actually packed our bags with the intention of going to park to get some work done. Ha! What fools we are. When the protest is happening, everything else stops!

We were met at the bottom of our road by people, music and barbeques. Ey up duck, what’s going on here then! More protests, but now they are in our neck of the woods! They have found the ranch, we must run for cover! Jokes. Everyone was really friendly, and it was completely peaceful.

“Hello”

.. “Oh, hello” we say to this random man.

From this point on the day took an interesting turn. In total, we spoke with this random man for six hours. That’s a lot of time to spend with someone, even with a life long friend. The topics of discussion were extremely colourful and we conversed about the protest, what it means to Armenia, what it shows about the Armenian character and also the importance of marriage within our respective cultures. It was really nice to be able to chat to someone about each other’s beliefs and to disagree, but for it to be okay. Differences in opinions do not always have to result in conflict and they don’t have to create a wall between the two of you. We agreed that from our conversation, we can all learn something from one another and take the parts we enjoy into our own lives. Throughout the day we were also able to practice our Armenian, try an Armenian BBQ (OMG. SO TASTY) and learn a traditional Armenian dance. Oh my, oh my that was some good eating. Throughout our conversation, our new friend told us how glad he was to hear us speak Armenian. So, a favour for a favour… I taught him a few Essex pronunciations.

If you ever want to hear something truly magical and outstanding, ask a non-native English speaker to say the words, “Butter, Bottle and Mate” with an Essex accent. Drop those T’s young sir! …

“Botuwwlll, Bu-uerrrrr, Mayyyyyeee”.

Like music to my ears.

Now enough from old motor mouth here. Enjoy some videos and photographs from my random day of urban rambling.

In kindness,
C x