Caucasian Vacation Part III: The Real Armenia (Day 1)

Armenia was a suprisingly short flight from Aleppo. We arrived in no time, and were in no way prepared for the spectacle that was the Armenian International Airport in Yerevan. Once you are off the plane you walk down a long hallway out into a customs area, just like every other airport. What wasn't like every other airport were the girls in old Russian uniforms and miniskirts that were the greeters. Both Chris and I started laughing as soon as we saw them. I mean really big cold war dress caps, and really tight miniskirts. Bleached blonde hair, a smile, and a little wave; the were stewerdesses for mother Russia...I mean Armenia. Once you get over the novelty of this pair, there was another pair in the visa booth. And another pair in the checkpoint booths. And another pair in the exit booths. Are there any men in this Army? The men were outside the gates. Lugging luggage on the inside of the airport, and fighting for taxi fares on the outside. Luckily Chris made a friend with the people he was sitting with and they helped us negotiate a decent price to go into town. From the airport the city looked like any other. Not as nice near the airport and nicer towards downtown. We couldn't really tell though...it was like three or four in the morning.

We found the student dorms/hostel place that was listed in our Lonely Planet and rang the bell. There was a guy sleeping in the room right off the door. Chris spotted his feet. We rang again. Finally this old guy got out of bed. I felt bad for waking him...he looked like he needed the sleep. He let us in and shortly a woman scampered down the stairs to see what we wanted. "Did we have a reservation?" she asked. Of course not; that would take planning which is a skill we seem to lack. She made a few phone calls wnd within fifteen minutes a tiny little women hobbled down the street to take us to some apartment for two nights. All in all they were very efficient in finding us a place to stay, and gave us a very good price. Our abode was located just across the street, up about four flights of stairs. We had running water (which I guess can be a problem), hot water (debatable), and the place to ourselves. She even gave us a key. Chris and I talked for a while about our plan of attack for the next day and hit the sack. I took the bed and he took the couch. We were out like a light.

The next morning I don't remember what time we awoke, but it wasn't too early and it wasn't too late. We decided to explore the town. Chris and I have always been big walkers and went off to explore on foot. We rounded about a quarter of downtown when we decided to cut into a park. By then we were looking for an ATM to exchange some money for the next two days. In this park we say the most amusing statue I have ever seen. The two fingers you give some when you tell them to "piss off." Or the European equivalent of "the bird." The statue was of the two fingers from the wrist up, and the other hand was cupping the palm while the two fingers were up. It was odd and it became our hand signal for the next week. Not just the two fingers...you had to cup the palm also. A sort of cryptic fuck you. People were really amused and befuddled everytime we did this to each other. It's thier damn statue and they don't even know what it means.

After getting some bad sandwiches and coffee we explored further into the center of town. Yerevan is on the build. There were many large buildings being constructed, and many old ones being renovated or destroyed. It had the sense of something coming. Like spring, things were growing. It also had the sense of old eastern block buildings and Russian architecture. For every nice building there were three or four that were straight concrete with random stuff hanging off the balconies. There were plenty of nice cars and new restaurants mixed in with old cars and businesses. We wandered into the Marriot to ask for directions and learned something very important. Actually we learned two things: do the math conversions before you buy the five dollar cappucino, and whenever you need help finding something go to the Mariott. The girl at the service desk in the Marriot was awesome. She explained stuff to us, and gave us directions, called people to find answers for us, and had a great smile to boot. We must have been amusing coming to town with no idea about anything and asking questions that your average Marriot patron wouldn't ask. We should have asked her about the statue.

What we found out that morning set our itenerary for the next two days. How to get to Lake Sevan, where to go that evening to drink, where was the train station and how much to get to Tbilisi. She was probably the most helpful person on our trip. We left to find the train station. It was a bit further than she mentioned. After walking for about an hour we found the station. Classic Russian architecture and empty. We actually caught the one lady the ran the place on her way to the bathroom, so she turned around and in broken English, worked out where we needed to go. Our tickets were pretty cheap. For a sleeper car I think we paid fourteen dollars each...or was that for two. Either way it was a cheap ride to Tbilisi for the next evening. I garuntee a bus ride and a hotel would have cost much more!

Having purchase our tickets we took a microbus back to our hotel and took a little nap before we attempted to go to Lake Sevan. When you mention Lake Sevan to Armenians they get all doe eyed and look off into the distance like they were remembering the best day of their life. I think this is actually the eyes rolling up to the part of the brain that creates fiction. Most Armenians I have met in Syria haven't been there. In fact, most of them haven't been to Armenia. Hence the fun of this trip was to put to test how beatiful Armenia was, based on accounts from people that have never, or rarely, been here.

The bus to Sevan was packed. When it pulled up people ran and pushed thier way on like it was the last bus on Earth. Again we both laughed. Whats the deal with pushing into lines. It's like these people think no other bus will come. Make a system where you buy a ticket with a seat number on it...even the Syrians figured that one out. We got on the next bus running and pushing (when you weigh 100 kilos you can really push your way onto a bus). We got on with a couple of other tourists. East Berliners that were on a short vacation. They had good English so we chatted the whole way to Sevan about Europe, Germany, the Middle East, etc. We arrived in Sevan after about an hour and we were all a bit shocked. It was really beat. Like an American Indian reservation beat. Worse than an African township beat. This place was grim. Grey, dilapidated, and old. Everything that was new was closed down...failed or bankrupted. The hotel the Germans were staying in didn't exist anymore. The guy, who spoke Russian, worked out with a taxi driver to look at a place on the lake he owned and would rent. First of all the lake is really big but there isn't anything there. Maybe there were a few nicer resort areas that were hidden away, but this place was pretty barren. All I could think of was Loch Ness...and I've never seen Loch Ness. I'm betting Nessy would turn her nose up at this place. The taxi guy's shack was laughable. Barely built, loose carpet laying on the floor, old shitty furniture. The German was trying hard not to show his disgust, but his friend was flat out not having anything to do with the place. I remember her saying something about crazy people and dirty...you get the picture. So they started arguing in Russian and he thanked them over and over again and politely declined. The bright side was we were walking distance from the old churches on the peninsula and could easily get up there from the beach.

Little did we know we arrived mid-mass. The main church is still in use, and there were monks singing inside one of the churches. From the top of the hill the view of the lake just confirmed my Loch feelings, and Chris agreed with me. Not much to look at but open space has beauty all of its own. It was really nice to hear the monks singing from inside the church, and they merrily went down the hill after the services had ended. Oficially Armenia is the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion, and subsequently has many old churches scatterd around it's small area. Chris and I had planned of visiting these, and visiting the most famous at Echmiadzin tomorrow - for Easter.

The Germans found a monk that knew a guy that had an extra room in the maintenance house for the monestary. They were happy to have a place to stay that wasn't some scarry Russian's shack, and we were now looking for a way to get home. Apparently buses don't go back to Yerevan from Sevan after a certain time (nobody will tell you when) and we had to take a taxi back into town. This guy drove a taxi that seemed to run off natural gas. He filled up on something at a filling station but it wasn't gasoline. And he would drive and then coast, and then drive and then coast. I guess we just got the pikey driver that didn't want to use any more gas then he had to. Like the arab taxi driver that turn thier lights off so they don't burn out their bulbs. Dumbass.

After what seemed to be a very long time we eventually made it back to town. No what to do. We needed something to eat, and we wanted a nap. I can't remember what we ate, but we did take a nap, and then ventured out to go drinking! The girl at the Marriot reccomended a Jazz club to us that we found earlier and made out way to that evening. It actually had great Jazz, just not any girls to look at. Chris and I were playing this game where we timed how long it took us to find a girl that we would both give an eight out of ten to. A sort of "which country has the cutest girls" game. I can't remember how many tens of hours it took us to agree upon an eight in Yerevan but it was a long time. Armenians have pointy chins, eagle noses, and high rounded cheekbones. All of these things can be very cute if they are well blended and one or the other. Not when they are the predominant feature, and all occur at once. Needless to say it took us a long time to find an eight, and she deffinitely wasn't a pure-blood Armenian. Another small fact that we learned was that most Armenians speak Russian. The older ones mostly speak Russian. The middle aged ones know Russian and speak Armenain. The younger ones speak Armenian and know English. If we wanted to communicate with someone older our best chance was in German, younger in English. Anyone middle-aged we couldn't really talk to. With that said, our drinking was oriented with each other and and younger crowd. By the end of the evening we were drinking god knows what with this crazy bartender and were completely drunk. Almost stumbling drunk. We drank lots of water and tried to eat something...I don't remember much. I do know we felt like hammered shit, and looked like death warmed over. Which sets us up nicely to go repent our sins, on Easter Sunday, at the most famous Armenian church in the world...hungover.

Caucasian Vacation Part II: Armenia (TMBCITW)

With our plans set(sort of), and our tickets purchased, we were off to the airport with one bag apiece, a few hundred dollars, fully charged IPods, and a desire to see the most beatuful country in the world(TMBCITW). Getting to the airport is never really a problem in Aleppo as taxis love to drive out there since they can try to stiff you for more money. Lucky for us we knew the scheme and knew exactly how much to pay. Arrival at the airport was mildly amusing since it was Friday afternoon and everyone was out having a picnic in the median and sides of the road, next to the airport highway. The exciting youth were doing there best to wreck thier motorcycles showing off to one another(and anyone else who would look), as well as run into cars, people, and the random concrete object.

In Aleppo the airport is always fun becuase everytime you go inside, you just never know what will happen. Sometimes you can purchase your exit stamp at a window in the lobby. Sometimes at a window on the other side of the security check. Sometimes you can get it from the guy that is checking your passport. This time it was out in the lobby; we found this out after having gone through all the security checks and then having to walk all the way back out to pay two bucks for a stamp. The window inside had been covered in carboard and taped shut with no sign. The best part about this was that we just walked right back through all of the security checks without being checked. What's up gun or bomb! How easy would that be. We didn't even go back through the screeners. Eh no problem just go right ahead! Needless to say we felt EXTRA safe in the Aleppo airport. We arrived with about an hour and a half to spare and had to convince the lazy slacker behind the counter that we actaully DID want to check our bags, and that meant that he actually DID have to type on his little computer. AFter checknig in, and getting our bags checked, we took our carry-ons up stairs to the duty-free. On previous travels I had learned that a friend of ours from last year was currently working in this particular shop, and I wanted to go see if he was working so Chris could say hi. I also wanted to buy some headphones...my crappy Ipod earbuds were buzzing and I wanted something that wasn't the size of an Air Traffic Controller's headset for my week long travels. After finding Salaam, and getting some headphones, Chris and I settled in for a short wait until our flight began boarding. So we thought.

When we walked upstairs we noticed on one of the screens that our flight would be boarding soon, and when we went back to check, the sign said our flight was boarding. The only thing was, the giant line of old russian looking ladies sitting and waiting told us that the plane wasn't boarding yet. We asked at the boarding checkpoint and they told us upstairs. Ok, so we went upstairs and looked for a gate. I didn't remember a gate upstairs but maybe they were adding on. Nope. There is no gate upstairs...they were telling us to wait upstairs. After pacing around for a while, and not seeing any planes on the tarmac, we decided the plane we were catching a ride on hadn't arrived yet. So there we were, in the airport, at the beginning of "three hour tour." We checked many times snd still nothing had changed. I asked inside the duty free (for aspirin first!) and they said the plane hadn't arrived yet, and the airline was buying everyone a beverage. Well hot damn a beverage! My time is deffinitely worth less than a two cent coffee! After sipping our "expresso" I overheard one of the employees say something in Arabic about something was coming after ten. Chris and I assumed that meant the plane and groaned in synchronicity. "Welcome in Syria!" Now we were scrambling for some entertainment.

Usually I travel with many things, and a deck of cards is one of them. For some reason I left my cards at home when we were packing and had to go back into the duty-free for some cards. The only cards they had were some Heineken cards that came in a promotional pack of three cans of beer(who drinks three beers), or with a cheap bottle of whisky. The beers were the cheapest option (we could drink them later), and they also came with a pen, a notepad, and DICE! After playing a few games of cards I started explaining how to play craps to Chris(thanks Dave). Shortly we were rollin' the bones against a wall in the airport betting with our new cards that we had split for placing bets. Gambling in Syria is illegal, but playing for cards isn't! After a short while we gathered a crowd of seedy looking russian guys around us. All extremely curious about what we were playing, and wanting in on the action. I think they understood the idea that we were playing a dice game, and it was a betting game, but after that the concept was lost. We let them throw and chatted with them a bit, but then they started pulling money out and started betting in Armenian on each others roll. We had to explain to a young guy that had pretty good English that it was illegal and he should tell them. He was from Aleppo and knew already, and quickly told them to hide their money or they will get in trouble. They just took our cards and spread them over the pile of cash. By this time we were just amused by the scene and sat watching. Eventually they won/lost and went away. Back to throwing for cards. The young guy came back over to us and told us that these were bad men, criminals, and we should stay away. How fitting, the first people we meet on our way to a failed Russian state were considered criminals by thier own kind. SWEET!

Eventually we saw the old ladies start to rile and shift, signalling the arrival of the airplane. This was about ten-thirty in the evening. So after many hands of cards, many games of craps, music, Sudoku, reading books, and chatting to people, our plane finally arrived. Getting on the plane was a different story. When I first arrived in Syria I was amazed at how unorganized everything was. Nobody knew how to line up, stay within lines, or had any idea of taking turns. Everything was, for a lack of a better word, a clusterfuck. This how arabs are...Armenians are worse. I saw people climbing over each other to get in line, cutting, pushing; it was mayhem. Everyone was running like it was the last roll of toilet paper on Mother Russia's shelf. We just waited back and let everyone push ahead. We had been waiting all that time...what was a few more minutes.

Once we were on the plane it was more of the same. I actually felt really bad for the flight attendants. They were screaming at the passengers like you would an unruly class of children. Saying things like "we can't take off unless you all sit down!" I was half expecting the captian to shout over the intercomm "do you want me to pull this plane over?!" People were stealing each others seats, yelling at each other over luggage. At one point a steward just looked at me sitting there calmly, and shook his head. I couldn't help but start to laugh. I apologized to him and told him that I sympathized. He was oviously flustered, and for an Arab to be flustered with a crowd of people really says something. When all the "children" were put into the correct seats, and all the "crying" had stopped, we were ready for takeoff. What a mess, but I now know a group of people worse than Arabs at lining-up...Russians!

Chris was sitting ahead of me on the flight. Our ticket agent didn't book us together, so we just listed to music and worked on the same Sudoku puzzles. Racing each other in seperate seats as we flew through the night sky. Our competition was interrupted by an evening meal. We didn't expect that...and it was actually good(who would expect that)! After my meal I finished my puzzle ahead of Chris and promptly got up to rub his nose in it (he always beats me in chess). Then we started our desent. After all that time waiting, our flight was only just over an hour. The wierd thing was that even though Armenia is not located much further East than Syria, it was two hours ahead on the clock. Just one of the many ways, we were soon to find out, why Armenia was "special."

Tune in next time to find out why a statue of two fingers explains a mother's sorrow for her lost children...