Trip to Armenia

Over Christmas, I visited a friend in Yerevan, Armenia. One of the benefits of this job is having friends in interesting places all over the world. The city of Yerevan was typical Soviet-style architecture, but outside the city were two amazing historical locations. The Geghard Monastery was originally established in the 4th century, and you can easily feel the history of the place. Even newer construction is still hundreds of years old. We arrived at a time when the lighting was great for taking photos, and the incense from a service was still hanging in the air when we were able to go inside the main chapel. Simply beautiful.

On the road up to Geghard is another fantastic piece of ancient history. This Greek temple is the only one I've seen that is still completely intact. This is the back side of the temple, and it was too dark to photograph the other side, but it is so well-preserved that it was possible to imagine that it could still be in use today.

Overlooking the city of Yerevan is the massive statue of Mother Armenia. The way she holds the sword is meant to make the statue resemble a cross. A bit of a poke in the eye to the Soviets from the oldest Christian country in the world.

Trip to London

Over Thanksgiving, I went to visit a friend in London. The trip was short, but I did get to see some interesting things. Like Big Ben...

Buckingham Palace...

And Trajan's Column in the Victoria and Albert Museum. I'm not sure this photograph really captures how enormous this thing is. It's a reproduction of the original, split into two parts to fit inside the building. Carved into the column are pictograms showing Trajan's victory over Dacian tribes.

Last Road Trip in Timor-Leste

After two years and many road trips for work, there was one spot that I hadn't seen, despite being relatively close to Dili and on the way to other places I'd been. Maubara is home to an old Portuguese fort that is now a tourist site. There is also a nice handicraft market across the street from the fort. On this last trip before departing Timor, I realized why I had never seen the fort -- I had always been looking for the handicraft market. Since they are directly opposite each other, I didn't see it until my colleagues pointed it out. I was glad to have a chance to take some photos before leaving Timor.

The purpose of this last road trip was the launch of a project in Oecusse. I had posted some photos from an earlier trip, but I had a chance to take a few more.

This marker shows the historic spot where the Portuguese landed in Timor. The 500th anniversary was in 2015, and the government was making a big effort to create a nice tourist area around the spot.