Three days in Yerevan

Internet was so expensive at the Marriott, I didn't have time to edit my photos and post on a daily basis. In addition, I was actually relatively busy during the evenings while I was there.

The grantee we visited on Monday is a branch of one of the grantees in Tbilisi. Their office is located right behind Armenia's president's house.
The role of this grantee is similar to its parent organization in Tbilisi. They ordered lunch for us. Lunch consisted of apricot and rosehip juice, some salads, and Armenian-style pizza. This pizza was topped with chicken and cheese.
We went out for dinner at a restaurant called The Club. The Lonely Planet guide said it was French-Armenian fusion cuisine. We started with an appetizer plate, which consisted of baba ghannouj, hummus, tabouleh, dolma, yogurt, a beet salad and a carrot salad. Then for my entree, I ordered manti, which are Armenian dumplings. They were served in a yogurt soup called spas. I thought it was good, but the Georgian dumplings are better
The next day, we visited a grantee whose work focused on alternative livelihood. Their project seeks to find alternative streams of revenue to discourage communities living at the border of established protected areas from cutting down trees or shooting wildlife for food.
I wish I could have taken photos of our lunch because it was really delicious. I had a delicious bowl of borshch and some pancakes stuffed with minced meat. The borshch was not puréed, but was more of a stew, which I prefer. Yum! served with a giant dollop of sour cream and some cilantro!!

Final day, we visited grantee whose project was looking to establish a new protected area in Southern Armenia and to create a management plan for this PA. The woman was so nice and set out a pretty big spread of Armenian goodies.

There were dried apricots, peaches and plums:
Candied walnuts:
raisins and hazelnuts:
and some grapes.

And we ended up finishing pretty early, but we ordered some salads and vegetarian cabbage rolls into the office.
For dinner, we went out with the grantees we visited on Monday and with our colleague with whom we traveled from Georgia to Armenia.
We had a traditional Armenian meal, which included some Armenian wine and brandy:
A cheese spread (yes, the stringy stuff is cheese, not cabbage), some sautéed spinach, and some cured meats.
I actually forgot to take a picture of the grilled meats we had for our entrée, but it was good, but quite a bit too well done for my taste.

We ended the meal with some Armenian (not Turkish!!) coffee and a traditional Armenian cake.

And since I really had no time to explore Yerevan, here are the only non-food pictures that I got. This is a picture of the hotel we stayed at:
Yerevan has lots of these public water fountains, which Lonely Planet advises tourists not to drink from.
And this is the building where one of our grantees was housed:
My trip to the Caucasus region was really amazing. It was so great to gain this new perspective on my work. I look forward to more travels...and I'll try to schedule things so that my posts are less food-centric. But, you know, when you're in the office till 6:30 pm, there's not much to take pictures of.