Back in Armenia

It's always good to go back to a familiar place. Wednesday night I arrived in Yerevan for the second time. The driver who was sent to pick me up was a guy I remembered even. He had been a driver on one of my tours last year, and the guide of that same tour, Gevorg Babayan, called him on his cell phone once we were on the road. He called to greet me and welcome me again.

It was night time, and we drove from Zvartnots Airport into Yerevan. There was a casino strip with signs in Armenian. A low-budget Armenian version of Las Vegas.

When I got into the Envoy Hostel, Gevorg was watching the soccer game between Turkey and Armenia, which Armenia lost while the presidents of both nations were attending. That evening and the following morning I met the staff at Envoy--I knew all but one of them already. Very friendly people.

Thursday I took it easy, One makes friends very quickly at Envoy, and my first night I had met Usher, a really friendly guy from Tabriz, Iran. Since I had missed a lot of sights on my first trip, I made it my project to see everything that I had missed. I took Usher up the Cascade, a staircase built into the hill (with escalators in the inside part, and sculptures and fountains all along the way), from where you get a view of the whole city. From there we crossed the street to Haghtanak Park, where they have the Mother Armenia Statue, and under it the Military Museum, which has an exhibit on the Karabagh War. In the park, which has a forlorn and neglected appearance, they had billiard tables as well as some amusement park-type rides.

I found that I was able to read many more of the Armenian letters compared to last trip. I was actually able to make out the odd word or two. I already knew that this trip would be a productive one -- I was already able to find things more easily and quickly than when I had been in Yerevan last year.