I found out that not only was the airport fogged in... but Francio (the man Romanian who sat next to me on the 11 hour bus ride from Yerevan to Tbilisi) said that the airport was also upgrading its air traffic control system. It should be completed by the end of the year. On the way back to Armenia, I just might have to do the long bus ride again! Normally, the bus ride should be about 5 hours (by taxi) to about 8 hours (by marshutney) Well, Austrian Airlines rented two very nice western style tour busses and even bought food for us to eat! It took us about 5 hours to reach the Armenian/Georgian border where we sat for 4 hours while both countries checked every persons passport and then the Georgian side also went through each bus looking for anything that might be smuggled in. They even checked some of luggage which made one of the Austrian Airline employees livid! She didn't want any of our luggage checked. But, one man's suitcase was opened. Of course, it took 20 men standing around watching this to happen while the owner of the suitcase opened it up. After everything was checked, we finally were able to keep driving to Tblisi. It only took us another two hours to get to the airport there. Then, it was onto Vienna and then onto the US. The thing which struck me at about 4AM when we finally reached Tbilisi was how much garbage there was being pushed around by the wind.
6 votes 
