Monday, June 29, 2009

me, Nicole, and CRAFTS

okay from what you readers gather, me and Nicole LOVE crafts and get together for it several times a week. and to tell the truth she is the first person in my life who i know who goes for all those different crafts and stuff - like we try everything! from decoupage to painting on glass, photography, cooking, making pots (or Eiffel tower in Nicole's case), etc.

now we have just opened a new blog about our crafts and cooking and that kind of stuff. we will keep it together so probably it will be updated more often than this blog or hers :)) Here's the snapshot for you :)



and oh god! we picked a template for the new blog, and i set everything and it seemed fine and looked great. Nicole made the first post while i was offline. and when i saw it the date was messed up :( instead of displaying proper date it was saying "undefined undefined". i thought the problem was with the template, so i went ahead and changed it to one the default blogger template - minima. no luck! i started thinking it wasn't the template problem but one of the blogger bugs. i tried hiding the date from the post and editing the html of the template - again no luck - it still displayed it as undefined.

i went ahead and created a test blog, copied the template code... and what? the date was displayed nicely but the title of the blog and the description were messed up! oh i was so pissed. i wouldn't sleep at night if i didn't fix it. so i started googling for the problem. and the answer was to change the date format and timestamp format to the "right" one for the current template which is GHEY! either the template or the blogger should've taken care of such things! anyway... now everything's up and working :) so i can go to bed :))))

oh and p.s. this is a really nice template site:
http://btemplates.com/

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Cedar point and 3 ride warriors

on the very first day of june which is the very first day of summer in Armenia and Russia, etc me, Michael and Nicole went to Cedar point which is an amusement park situated on the island.

approaching the island. lake Erie to our left and right.





the weather was not promissing at all - it started raining once we got there. and the wind was a killer. but oh well nothing could stop us from having fun!

the first chill (or thrill) ride we went on was this thing.. which was swinging from left to right and the circle was going around at the same time.



it was pretty horrible :)) but it was a good start because the next one was really giving you chills.




if you think they are going straight you're wrong. they're going down.

and now... here comes the worst one. seriously no other coaster and no other thrill ride was so terrifying as... the power tower!

power tower

power tower

as you could have guessed that thing drops you down so that you experience the free fall. but it wasn't the worst part. it was slowly crawling up and with every inch realizing how high you are. and then when you reach the top and can observe the whole park, you know that you're gonna be dropped. you just don't know when. oh god you had all kinds of time to think "why? why am i doing this to myself? what i hate myself? i could be on the sofa all cozy and warm..." and then you scream at the top of your lungs and fly down :))

then we took a break, had a lunch and walked around.

Nico

Snoopys everywhere!
Snoopy.. 2 of them!

hmm?

at the stores we saw some dragons, pirate treasures.. and more fun stuff :))







However, everything was way overpriced and you can get that stuff from various stores in the area anyway.

anyway. and then! we went on real rides. we started with a small one - the cork screw. which had 3 loops and so seemed pretty terrifying to me.





Michael said it didn't even count as a coaster. then we went on Raptor... i can't tell you much about it because i had my eyes closed for the most part and screaming at the top of my lungs. oh dear god. however once i stepped on the ground i said "it wasn't that bad! i'm still alive and can walk straight!"



raptor

raptor

Iron Dragon. this was a very fun and ride that didn't make me scream or Nicole scream "hell yes!" as she usually did at the most crazy parts of the coasters. Michael refused even going on that one and went to have a smoke. but it had a part where you go through water powder! and it looked very neat and beautiful! especially later in the evening.

iron dragon

iron dragon

after that came Mantis. in which you were actually standing. it was a really crazy one but i really enjoyed it and screamed in appreciation not in terror. Michael was surprised :D he said it was much worse than the raptor! but the thing was raptor was the first big roller coaster in my life (actual roller coaster, not speaking figuratively :)) )!

mantis

mantis

After that we took a break, had some food. sorry don't remember what it was called. some kind of cake.. ask Michael or Nicole :D other than rollercoasters there were various little fun places - one of which was this little watch tower which looks absolutelly like ones in "Age of Empires" (the strategy game i loved and used to play).



also there were various farm animals who you could play with. of course i could be found with the goats :D

they're adorable!

got water in my ear meh

then we went on the coaster i loved the best - the maverick. it was situated right on the lake, and it was simply amazing. at a certain point it seemed that you were falling right on the lake! i really enjoyed it and the line we waited for it was worth it.



i can't really describe all that with words, so i'd highly recommend going to
Maverick link and watching the "point of view video" (it's on the right).

and in general just check out cedar poin't official site and the coasters right here!

then Michael and Nicole took me to what they called an old wooden rollercoaster. it seemed it was going to break any minute and the seats were not comfortable at all. you weren't fixed in it and were being thrown against its walls which wasn't nice let's say :D.

the next one was Magnum XL-200 which has the biggest hill in the world. it was pretty bad :))) after that we want on some little fun carouselles or whatever. Then i said that nothing in the world will make me go on Dragster Hill which made Nicole try to dragg me there. i ended up not going :)) and sent Mike with her. he said i sold him out easily. i said he is not afraid of heights. what? do you know what that thing was? you just fly up and down!



faster than the wind

kicking the sky

then it was time to leave as the park was closing. my throat was hurting... but it was a tiny inconvenience especially compared to the amount of fun i had :)) it was a wonderful day... and in the end i was happy to stand firmly on the ground!

for the rest of the photos go to my flickr and here's the picasa link
cedaer point


p.s. the title of the post has to do with the park ad on TV.. there some teenagers ask "are you a ride warrior?" and that they are ready to ride on coasters and stuff :))

Monday, June 15, 2009

"mount Ararat"

first of all i'm sorry for being off blogging and flickering.. me, Mike and Nicole went to "Cedar point" - an amusement park situated on an island. it was awesome and it's a separate post. i just took more than 50 photos and i still have to go through them all, find the best ones. the other reason was my notebook adapter broke and while i was waiting for a replacement i was on Mike's notebook, and well i didn't feel like blogging from it :) anyways..

Steve found out about the existance of an Armenian restaurant! he read an ad in a newspaper! so we got all excited about it and went there today...

we got into the car and Mike put on the radio which made me stare at the player. i couldn't believe my ears - the music seemed to be armenian! i though it only seemed to me and that maybe some radio station put on some authentic music. once the artist started singing there was no doubt left - it was armenian music!!! it kind of freaked me out - it seemed i was in the wrong car or not in america at all! then Mike explained that on sundays from 5 to 7 there is armenian radio on!!!

so yeah we were listening to it all the way to the restaurant (15 mins). we arrived and it seemed small and just appeared out of nowhere. we went in - tables with white tablecloth, glasses with white napkins, chandeliers, red velvet draping... classic restaurant. the only customers were 3 people who were speaking russian. then this young girl approaches us - and she looks 100% armenian. however i spoke english to her. then she asked if i spoke russian and she immediately switched to it. we ordered some armenian food and wine (not armenian :(( ). the food was very good and homely, and there was lavash (flat bread kind of thing). we really liked it all.

the other lady who approached to check on us seemed to be the girl's mom and we got the feeling that the restaurant was run by a family which explained why food was so "right". and only when we were done eating and asked for the bill i asked if she was armenian (which was an obvious question but i was just startled that she kept speaking russian to me).

girl: yeah i'm armenian...
me: yeah me too..

at that moment her face literally got lit up, her eyes grew wide, a very wide surprised smile appeared on her face and she said "what??!!" and so it started... we switched to armenian, then she took me to the restaurant kitchen and introduced me to her mom. i was gone for good 20 mins as Mike says :)) and i didn't even realize that! they were so nice! her name was Lilit and her mom's name was Nana. Nana got married to an american man and moved here. she asked some questions about me and Michael and said he was very sweet-looking guy. Lilit had been here for 2 years already and was excited about a new girl who doesn't know any armenians around here. then we even seemed to find some people we knew in common - from my university. no need to say that we exchanged numbers, and made plans for hanging out together.

it was funny to be there in the kitchen - there was this old woman there and i didn't know if she was armenian. Lilit and Nana went out to take care of some customers and i was waiting. the woman looked at me, i smiled at her. also there was a young american guy Nick working there. must be funny for him to constantly here armenian and russian buzz :))

later it turned out that the older woman was armenian too. it was so strange to be there and see 3 women of 3 generation speaking armenian and making some food. didn't feel like america at all. later me, Lilit and Nana went back to Mike and switched to english. Nana said Michael was lucky to have an armenian wife... which made me smile :D:D then she asked us to come over to their place for dinner someday. and then she said "don't even dare to pay!" Michael was surprised by such hospitality and well like i said they were very sweet. Nana looked at food that we didn't eat and asked "didn't you like it? why didn't you eat this?" which made Michael smile - he says only immigrants do that and that it's something nice.

and the other thing was it was a lot cheaper than american equivalents! so we will be going there very often now. and we're going to take Steve and Nicole there :) i hope they like it :D

but yeah it was so much fun! so tomorrow i will go out with Nicole - we will have a breakfast together at our fav. place - "the Baker square", then we will go on a photoshoot, then will clean around some and probably craft (another thing i haven't blogged about yet). and on tuesday i will go out with Lilit and she will show me around. i'm really excited now!

i'll stop here and i will try to catch up and make more posts soon :)