A shot from before the party began. Here is the decorated tree, as well as signs sending Christmas and New Year's greetings in both English and Armenian.
The President of AUA is also a full professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Here we are on a live link with him and his wife: we are in Yerevan talking to him live from Baltimore (a nine-hour time difference).
Waiting to speak to President Armenian live from Baltimore.
I was last in line to speak with him.
Being introduced.
Here I am chatting with Dr. Armenian. I was the only one who spoke in English with him (although I did share one greeting in my best Armenian).
Following our wonderful dinner together, we enjoyed a delightful show put on by a professional company of dancers and musicians.
More entertainment!
A fun, holiday-themed show.
You can see the musician playing the keyboard for them -- to the left of the tree.
Traditional Armenian dancing!
Another musical number.
Here is the table we were sitting at. We sat together with other faculty and staff from political science. What a good evening, and too much tasty food!
Drafting the American ex-pats to learn some Armenian dances. To the far right of Elizabeth and me are Bill & Mary Lackie and their daughter, Claudia, and next to Elizabeth is Cyrus Azarbod. Mary is the AUA Registrar, and Cyrus teaches computer science at Minnesota State University.
Are we getting better yet?
We're all concentrating very hard. Honestly.
At last, others begin to join us.
And the circle grows . . .
. . . . and grows . . .
More and more people join us.
Soon everyone is joining in.
Are we finally getting it?
Armenian dancing is a very fun part of their rich history and tradition.
The floor is all marble. This is the AUA cafeteria. The school was used as a Soviet institute during the communist era.
I think we're catching on.
This was a very fun evening.
I see Cyrus's two sons, Michael and Bobby, finally decided this looked like fun, too. Bobby is in the bottom right of the picture, and Michael is two away from him, moving counter-clockwise.
Everyone!
A great party.
Everyone made us feel very welcome, all of the time.
Another shot of one of the banquet tables.
A close up of us.
We had a great time. What a party!
