Two Days Later, in Yerevan

So, it's been a really intense past few days. Concerns about our own security, the safety of our friends and neighbors, and about Armenia in general loom large in my mind.  A ceasefire agreement has been reached, but we don't know how long it will hold. On my way to Yerevan today, I saw several tanks and at least 5 military vehicles with heavy artillery in tow driving towards NK. 

But to step back from that, I'd like to remind you of a photo I took and posted 2 days ago after a surprise snowstorm covered Sisian in a thick icy blanket:

Now, two days later (has it really only been 2 days,  although it seems like a lot longer than that), here's a quick photo I snapped while walking to the PC office in Yerevan. (Please forgive my finger in the corner of the picture).

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the degree to which the elevation change really affects the climate. I'm so used to having climate be a function of latitude that it blows my mind that two places, only 120 miles apart, can have such extreme climate differences. If I were driving south from Providence, 120 miles wouldn't even get me out of Connecticut- and there's no where in Connecticut that would look like Yerevan does while Rhode Island looks like Sisian did 2 days ago. And yet, because one of those 120 miles is vertical, Sisian is an ice fortress while Yerevan is covered in tulips. (Really, it's not even a vertical mile- Yerevan itself is about 1,000 meters above sea level, so the elevation change between Yerevan and Sisian is only about 600 meters above Yerevan- about 1/3 of a mile). I guess that's just another way in which the fundamental nature of life is dramatically different here than back home...