MoldovAnn

Igor arrived late last night, after a long but uneventful trip. He has a new apprecation for the size of the US, after the 6-hour JFK-LAX flight. I have to admit, it left quite an impression on me too! I guess I’ve always flown with a layover somewhere, so never really understood that it takes that long even with just one direct flight. 6 hours after a 10-hour trans-Atlantic flight, though, and the only words you can say are “sore butt.”

Wednesday was the Country Fair at NAFSA, one of the best parts of the entire conference (IMHO). EducationUSA advisers from over 130 countries decorated booths, dressed in traditional costumes and met with thousands of university representatives who are interested to recruit international students.

We had an Armenian princess

And some Russian ones too

And of course a great team from Ukraine

It was the first opportunity I’ve had to wear my embroidered shirt from Kosiv (western UKraine).

Several of the US university reps thought I was Ukrainian, since I was wearing the shirt, and I even was complimented on my good English!

The full set of photos are on Flickr.

This week, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia all celebrated their Independence Days. I was invited to a reception hosted by the Consul General of Azerbaijan last night. Wow, what a spread! And it was exciting to learn so much about the country. Did you know Azerbaijan was the first secular Muslim-majority country in the world? It had a brief indepence for 22-months in 1918-1919 before the Bolsheviks took over and incorporated it into the Soviet Union.