If you asked me what my top 5 countries to visit are before I die, Armenia would not have made that list. I have nothing against the place. In fact, if it weren't for Armenia, I would have no one to keep up with except the Jones's. (If you didn't get that joke, you need to climb down from your high horse and start watching some trashy reality television. You only live once, so you might as well spend at least some of that time living vicariously through uber-rich dysfunctional families, botoxed housewives, and celebrity has-beens).
My point is, a few months ago, I probably would not have considered buying a plane ticket to Yerevan. Partly because I didn't know where in the world Yerevan was, but mostly because Armenia just doesn't scream "Come visit me!" However, being in Georgia, Yerevan is only a $20 train or marshrutka ticket away. So why not? And I must say, I was impressed.
I got school off on Friday and Monday, and my friends and I grabbed the overnight train from Tbilisi on Thursday. We were seated in a compartment with a nice Armenian woman, who only spoke Armenian and Russian. To us, she only spoke Russian, assuming, despite our blank stares and shrugging of shoulders, that we understood everything she said. She immediately offered us fried potato cakes and iced coffee (sans ice). The compartment had beds for us, so after crossing the border and getting our visas around midnight, we turned in.
We got to Yerevan quite early in the morning and grabbed a taxi to the Envoy Hostel (best hostel in the world - if you go to Yerevan and do not stay at Envoy, you are stupid, or you are rich and are staying at the Marriott or something, in which case that was probably the better move.) This began the tedious task of trying to figure out how much money we were spending on taxis, food, accommodation, etc. The currency in Armenia is the Dram, and 1000 dram is about $2.45, or about 4.50 lari.
After a quick nap we went out to explore Yerevan. It's a beautiful city. It has a population of about 1 million. It seems fairly clean, there are some nice parks, good shopping, and as far as the restaurants go, there is some variety that is severely lacking in Tbilisi. Unfortunately, Taco Maco, which promised tacos and burritos, was not yet open for business. It's a damn shame, too. I could have used a taco.
We made the short walk to the Cascade, which is a huge flight of stone steps leading up the side of a hill. The different levels of the steps have monuments and gardens, and built into a hill under the steps is an art gallery. When you get to the top, you see the monument commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Soviet Armenia. Once we got to the top, we went to a park down the street which led to the Mother Armenia monument, and a small and strange military museum.
After that we went to the Armenian Genocide Memorial and Museum. This was definitely worth the visit. It was a very well laid-out museum, and was very informative and moving. The memorial was a stone structure built around an eternal flame in a depression in the stone. When we went there was music playing and white daisies and carnations surrounding the flame.
Afterwards we walked around the city a bit, and at night we headed to a little cafe that promised live guitar music. The guitarist was a young Armenian woman playing Spanish guitar and singing in Spanish and French. On the way home we stopped in the Troll Bar. Because why wouldn't you? It was a little dungeon-like place decorated with medieval maps and Lord of the Rings posters. So pretty much awesome except for the awful music they were blasting.
The next day was Education Day. We started out at the Matenadaran, which is the ancient manuscript museum. It had some really interesting manuscripts and we spent quite a while looking around. Then off to lunch. We found a shockingly cheap outdoor restaurant with good food (I had hummus, wiener schnitzel and Mexican coffee, whatever that was, for about $5). Then we were off to the State Museum of Armenian History, where we saw someone who was probably the president walk by us. He was being photographed by someone with a supernice camera and had 2 secret service looking dudes with him, so I'll just assume that's who it was. In the evening we went to an Armenian restaurant...because we were in Armenia and figured we should do that, and then went to a little cafe for a few drinks. After which I was completely exhausted and went to sleep because I am turning into a lame old person.
On Sunday we took the short trip outside the city to Echmiadzin, which is like the Vatican of the Armenian Church, and the former capital of Armenia. We saw a mass at the Mayr Tachar, which is the main cathedral, looked around the other churches and then met an American studying in Yerevan who had actually gone to the same college (and was in one of the same classes) as my friend Mary Ellen that was there with me. Small world! (Side note: Speaking of it being a small world, we talked to a woman from Canada who was doing a 3 month tour all around Europe with about 20 other people. She was staying at our hostel in Yerevan, and then a few days later, when I was in Tbilisi for my S. Korea interview, I ran into her again at a cafe and we had lunch together). We went on a trek with her to try to find the Surp Hripsime church which was built on the site where Hripsime was killed after she refused to marry a king, and it holds the stones in a little chamber in the back that apparently were used to stone her to death. Then we visited the museum at Echmiadzin where we saw a piece of the wood of Noah's Ark, the Holy Lance used to pierce Jesus' side while he was nailed to the cross, relics of various apostles, and pieces of the cross.
We decided we should probably do something fun for our last night in the city, so we searched for the expat hangout bar Calumet. This was difficult as the entrance is sort of camouflaged into the street. We finally got there though, and hung out on floor cushions drinking Armenian beer.
The next day we reluctantly headed to the bus station and caught a 5 hour marshrutka back to Tbilisi. It was a great trip, a nice break from Georgia, and I'm really glad I went.
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