Best Eastern Bass Hotel Yerevan

... tyřech kilometrech chůze a jezení broskví jsme vyšlapali ke klášteru. Vešli jsme do jeho prostor, které se z velké části rozléhají ve skále. Jedna komora se tesala 40 let, a byla vytesána parádně, protože v několika místnostech akustika opravdu skvěle fungovala. Zpíval jeden, znělo to jako deset. Tak jsme si tam prozkoušeli, jak by v takové hale zněla Darth Vaderova nejslavnější replika a ...

... jsme k předem vyhledanému ubytování v soukromí u paní Anahit - je to postarší milá dáma s obrovským bytem, kde ubytovává cestovatele a hraje nádherně na klavír. Jelikož taky vlastní vanu, hnedka jsme uspořádali dlouho zanedbávanou očistu. Pak jsme se vydali městem hledat něco k snědku - po cestě jsme potkali KFC, které tu má ale jiné logo se slepičí hlavou. Nakonec jsme našli nějakou místní hospodu ...

... here is to go to music clubs and to visit open-air concerts. There are a lot of music clubs here, different kinds of music – rock, alternative, jazz, classic... The best are however the jazz clubs, as Armenian jazz school is very good. The most famous, although a little bit expensive is Malkhaz's Jazz Club. It is a place where you can here pure jazz music on the highest level. The other popular ...

... end, since there's an entry point to Iran there, but that doesn't help me, since they won't let Americans roam around freely in Iran. That's where Andrei is going, left this morning with a bottle of wine in his pack and a glass already drunk at 8am in the morning. He's a Slav. I even consider Syria in my plans, but they say it'll take a month to process the visa. But the pressing question is how to get back to Turkey, since direct ...

... built in 301 the beginning of Christianity in Armenia. Yesterday was a National Holiday to mark the Genocide, similar to our Anzac Day, Marion and I strolled the streets, and ended up at a cafe for lunch, we had to make ourselves understood, and just ended up by pointing at the menu, but we did have a very large and powerful cocktail, not exactly the correct time of day ...

... of Ararat. The tour was interesting, seeing all the brandy being aged in oak barrels in their factory (factory, aka big storage house, basically). There was also a tasting to show the difference between 3 year old, 10 year old, and 20 year old brandy. I don't know anything about brandy, so it was interesting to see that there really is a drastic color difference (the factory doesn't add any artifical coloring to its product) and how to fill up a brandy snifter ...

... I have a conversation with some local people: one eldery man is really interesting: he brought some baking technologies from Germany, now he guards some ministry or what and wants to go for some secret project to Libya. However I'm dead tired and go to the hostel quite early. There is a Belgian couple who trekked through barren parts of Armenia and quite liked it so they want to officially propose some walking paths. 22.9.2008: To the south In the morning I want to see the Ararat ...

... was born on the roadside, as her family fled from the Biblical Ararat to Yerevan. They left behind their homeland as the Turkish army razed entire villages around World War I. Many in her family were killed. Overlooking Yerevan is the Museum of the Armenian Genocide and a symbolic grey monument of stone slabs with an eternal flame in the center, which acutely describes the deaths and exodus of well over one million people. I visited the museum to get a better ...

... I'm too sentimental and don't want to lose our Armenian identity that may or may not be changed with this face lift. And whether I like this or not, this extreme development since we became a republic, funded mostly by the diaspora (people like me who live in other countries, who have a few more dollars to spend on luxuries and want to buy cheaper land and apartments in the freed ex-soviet state) has mostly just created this fast-paced ...

... to embrace these people after being made increasingly aware of how much they are hurting and have been wounded. Or at least I should be going home and sharing with others about this as I try to understand everything that has happened. I am afraid that with a few days off for "fun" I will forget the paradigm shift that has happened and I will so easily fall back into my American skewed ...