Monday, August 6th, 2012
Today our plans are to go to Garni and Geghard, lunch near Geghard and then some free time before dinner at my place.
9:30am pick up as usual. We have an interpreter and local volunteer, Nune Hakobyan, along to share information about the historic sites we are visiting today. Garni is the only remaining pagan temple left in Armenia. Though most pagan temples were destroyed after Armenia became a Christian nation, Garni was originally preserved because the king had married there. It has a fabulous view of the gorge below including some well preseved basalt columns on a facing cliffside.
Outside of the gates many vendors are set up to sell homemade preserves, fruit lavash, walnut soujuk, dried fruits and nuts. A unique favorite of mine is the young whole walnuts in the husk that have been boiled whole in a spiced sweet preserves that are very delicious.
Then we climb back onboard the bus and head for Geghard, a monastery that was orginially carved completely out of a huge single rock. On the way we stop to order lunch at the closest cliffside restaurant to Geghard. It is new within the past year. With Melik, our driver's help I order pork khorovatz(grilled), bread, summer salad, yogurt, a bit of cheese and some rice. We request food for 8 people thought the table will be set for 10. (Kristyna is not feeling well so she and Jirka have stayed behind for her to recover. Bill has chosen to stay back to spend more time with his former exchange student, Hasmik, but we have the addition of Nune and Taron, another new friend, and of course, Melik) Though our number remains the same we ask for less food because we ALWAYS have too much food. They say it will be ready in an hour. Perfect.
Off we head to explore Geghard. There are many different buildings to explore in Geghard plus a little trail to a cave with a nice view back to Geghard. My personal favorite part of Geghard is a smaller cave above the main rooms. It has a small hole that allows you to peer down to a larger room below for some cool picture opportunities. Even better though are the perfect accoustics. Each time I go I feel the strong urge to sing something and relish the reverberations! Today I sing one verse of "Amazing Grace," which lends itself beautifully. Before leaving I must sing once again, and choose "Sacntuary."
When everyone has had the chance to see everything we head back out and I buy some Gata, a delicious round flat loaf filled with a sweet layer of goodness. Several others make purchases from other vendors and we head back to the bus to go to lunch.
We arrive at the restaurant, wash up and have a seat at the table overlooking the ravine. They have taken the libery of adding a vegetable khorovatz to our menu request and the rather bland rice dish fills 2 8x12 pans....for 8 people! The meat comes last, the expectation being that each person will eat 4 large chunks of meat the size of a small fist. Not happening! So at the end of our meal we have them pack up leftovers of everything except the rice. It will fill out tonights dinner or go to the office for tomorrow's lunch! A huge 2 bags of leftovers!
When we returned the team got their first real taste of freedom for several hours. My cooking team was due to join me in the apartment around 5:30-6 for an 8pm dinner, so they had about 3 hours and the rest had about 5 hours!
I didn't waste any time and got down starting the food prep. Fortunately I talked Melik into helping me! (Man of many talents-Concrete guru, Bus driver, mechanic, plastermaster, prankster and now cook!) We started at 3:30 cooking the last of the chicken for the chicken rollups, prepping peach cobbler, apple crisp, salsa, taboule, cooking a vegetable mess from the khorovatz veggies from lunch with some chopped herbs and onions mixed in (Melik's specialty). We were still going strong when the team cooks started to arrive between 6 and 6:30. Cooking continued right up til moving and setting the table and sitting down at 8pm with the Fuller Center Staff to dinner for 14 people.
In true Armenian style there was way too much food. In the end all leftovers were packed up and sent off to the office to be lunch for the next week I think!. We toasted with wine, a little homemade vodka and "Teacher's" Scotch-whiskey, a gift from my team in honor of me being a teacher of sorts. I passed out photos as a thank you to my team and some fun gifts to our great staff. The staff passed out gifts and certificates to the team and we all expressed our appreciation. After the food was packed the staff and some of the team mates departed.
Several of us stayed for some extended celebrating and dancing. As 11pm came and went things wound down as we realized tomorrow we would part on our separate flights and should finish last packing and get a few winks. After starting the dishwasher and making sure I was down to the last essentials I climbed into bed at 12:30 with the alarm set for 2:45 am. Augh!
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