I've landed in Yerevan and it seems really hot. REALLY hot. In fact, they've taken the effort to design their airport so that it looks just like Tatooine from Starwars - how cool is that?? But things are fine, no problems and everyone is super-friendly. It's kind of weird, most people think that I'm Russian here!! HA.
BUT, Armenia is great, I'm staying in a 'guesthouse' from some guy that tried to sell it to me for $60 dollars a night, he obviously has no shame because once I started laughing, he instantly dropped it to $30. Still expensive, but I took it without really noticing.
Some initial impressions about Armenia. They don't sell 9% king-cans of alco-energy here. Big disappointment. But other than that, it's been entirely positive. The people are super friendly, jsut to show they can say a few words in English, I've had like 4 people come up to me and just say hi, ask how I am and then walk off. Interesting. I went to the founding church of Armenian Christianity yesterday, which was pretty cool - it was built before 405 (because there is writing on the wall in Greek, the Armenian alphabet was developed in 405 for religious reasons, so it was sometime before that) and there are some cool stories about it - I won't bore you with those but there is the Holy Lance inside (the spear that a centurion used to stab Jesus), whether or not it's the one, I don't know, but I'm going to see tomorrow. I would have seen it a few days ago, but there was this girl who was working there who kept promising me the museum would be open in 30 minutes. It never opened.
Incidentally, I had the strangest meal of my life. The food was really good at this place but apparently the owner's daughter 'wanted to dance' according to the owner. The music was turned up to a level where I needed to shout to be heard, which really made for a really relaxing meal. Especially with the speakers placed beside my table and being overcharged. After that, her boyfriend who was very well dressed from the waist down (The dress pants didn't really go with the sparkly nike T-shirt - I think it was a theme restaurant) started to dance. So I was sitting down watching these two people dance right in front of me (not traditional dancing mind you, like in a club) and I was trying to eat. Long story short, that made me really uncomfortable and I left.
It was interesting today, we went up a mountain, saw an old fort and then finally almost to the top of the mountain. The mountain was a bit of a let-down from the top, but the fort was incredible - something like 1000 years old and perched right on the side of a cliff. I'm trying to post pictures but the computer won't let me.
As a whole, Armenia is really cool. Most of all, the people are just so nice - I'm blown away. Like I said before, people just approach you on the street and start talking - and it's not only in English, it's also in Russian!!! Weird.
