I will apologize now for the fact that there are not photos attached to this blog. Evidently the internet connection here is giving me trouble uploading. I will post photos to Facebook at a future date. It has now become a future date! :-)
This morning we planned to go sightseeing and have a picnic for lunch. First stop was the grocery store to buy our picnic items. Some chose to go in and see the store. Fortunately not all as we would have overwhelmed the staff. They really like to keep a close eye on people in the store. They will follow you around watching what you are looking at.
Supplies purchased and loaded, and we were ready to head off to Geghard. It is officially Vartavar day now too. As we are traveling through the smaller villages on our way we are watching for gatherings of wet people with buckets and water bottles along the way. Occasionally we take on a little water
but are pretty good about getting the windows shut in time.
We scope out a new picnicing spot along the way and put in our reservations to come back. We arrive at Geghard which is a monastery originally carved out of a single, huge rock. As it is Sunday it is very crowded. There is a group watching the mountain across the way. As we look up we see someone is climbing the mountain and as they arrive at the top they wave an Armenian flag and the group claps and cheers.
We move in to the Monastic enclosure and begin exploring. In the topmost carved out room we sing, relishing in the amzingly perfect accoustical surrounding. I sing "Amazing Grace" and "Sanctuary," taking turns with Leo who sings several songs in Armenian. We listen as the sounds echo in a truly lovely way.
As we finish and head back to the bus we stop to buy Gata, Walnut Soujuk and Fruit Lavash from several of the many vendors there to add to our picnic lunch. As we begin our journey back to the picnic spot we reserved, we notice dark clouds coming in.
Large drops of rain hit the windshield as we arrive at our destination. God had decided to join in on Vartavar! There was one pavilion unoccupied, which was ours. No table or chairs, but now they would bring them. We quickly moved into the pavillion with many bags of food as the table and chairs arrived. Jashsaran!
There was some salami type meat, very salty string cheese, tabboule/eech, lavash, fruit, olives, halva, walnut soujuk, fruit lavash, GATA (YUM) and chocolates for dessert! We were too full to consider carving the watermelon so that will go for tomorrows lunch at the worksite. We ate huddled around the table listening to the storm around us and hoping not to get wet. It was finally letting up as we finished. Perfect timing!
We went on to Garni, which is the oldest remaining Pagan Temple in Armenia. It was reconstructed in 70AD. Unfortunately,...it is still Vartavar, and we have three generations of very beautiful blond women in our group, Voncille, Heather and Hannah, who attract alot of water to them. There was a group of youth who set themselves up to wait for us to depart off the van. Melik yelled at them to leave us alone, but in the end it was too tempting and Hannah, the youngest, was drenched!
They then ran ahead or us looking for more opportunities to get this new group of dry people soaked. Fortunately we didn't get into too much trouble and were not too wet to get in the bus before any more drenching.
We were too late to make a stop at Vernisage so it was straight to the hotel to get ready to walk to see the Armenian National Music Association's Music and Dance Ensemble. They performed songs and dance from different regions hout Armenia. It was a wonderful show and very enjoyable to see.
Afterwards we went to a Lahmajoon place for a fast food Armenian dinner. Then we took a stroll to the Opera House area and indulged in "Melody" for dessert. I will not elucidate as my team mates for my next team will be reading this and I don't want to spoil the surprise!
6 of us headed back to the hotel and the rest of us, looking for a good time, found a jazz bar thanks to a chance meeting with some airport friends of several from our group. We enjoyed ourself immensely. When we asked for the bill we had an unexpected surprise in that there was a $5 per person cover charge. Oops!
This morning we planned to go sightseeing and have a picnic for lunch. First stop was the grocery store to buy our picnic items. Some chose to go in and see the store. Fortunately not all as we would have overwhelmed the staff. They really like to keep a close eye on people in the store. They will follow you around watching what you are looking at.
Supplies purchased and loaded, and we were ready to head off to Geghard. It is officially Vartavar day now too. As we are traveling through the smaller villages on our way we are watching for gatherings of wet people with buckets and water bottles along the way. Occasionally we take on a little water but are pretty good about getting the windows shut in time.
We scope out a new picnicing spot along the way and put in our reservations to come back. We arrive at Geghard which is a monastery originally carved out of a single, huge rock. As it is Sunday it is very crowded. There is a group watching the mountain across the way. As we look up we see someone is climbing the mountain and as they arrive at the top they wave an Armenian flag and the group claps and cheers.
We move in to the Monastic enclosure and begin exploring. In the topmost carved out room we sing, relishing in the amzingly perfect accoustical surrounding. I sing "Amazing Grace" and "Sanctuary," taking turns with Leo who sings several songs in Armenian. We listen as the sounds echo in a truly lovely way.
As we finish and head back to the bus we stop to buy Gata, Walnut Soujuk and Fruit Lavash from several of the many vendors there to add to our picnic lunch. As we begin our journey back to the picnic spot we reserved, we notice dark clouds coming in.Large drops of rain hit the windshield as we arrive at our destination. God had decided to join in on Vartavar! There was one pavilion unoccupied, which was ours. No table or chairs, but now they would bring them. We quickly moved into the pavillion with many bags of food as the table and chairs arrived. Jashsaran!
There was some salami type meat, very salty string cheese, tabboule/eech, lavash, fruit, olives, halva, walnut soujuk, fruit lavash, GATA (YUM) and chocolates for dessert! We were too full to consider carving the watermelon so that will go for tomorrows lunch at the worksite. We ate huddled around the table listening to the storm around us and hoping not to get wet. It was finally letting up as we finished. Perfect timing!
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| VARTAVAR in full swing! |
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| Vendors outside of Gari |
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| Armenian National Music Association's Music and Dance ensemble |
Afterwards we went to a Lahmajoon place for a fast food Armenian dinner. Then we took a stroll to the Opera House area and indulged in "Melody" for dessert. I will not elucidate as my team mates for my next team will be reading this and I don't want to spoil the surprise!
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| The infamous "Melody" dessert! |
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