I HATE TAXI DRIVERS!

To tourists they are the biggest con artists in the world. On our way to the bus terminal in Tbilisi we agreed to pay 5 lari for the ride to. When we got there, with our stuff in the trunk of the taxi and the bus about to leave, he then demanded 7 lari. I lost it right then and there. I reminded him that the deal was for 5 lari, and he was incredibly rude about it. If this were Japan during the 15/16 Century, his head would have been lopped off by a samurai's sword (preferably mine). Ross didn't think it was worth it to argue over two lari but to me it is everything. You can't just give into this behavior. Unfortunately I had to in order to make the bus. I handed over the extra two lari and told him to help us with our bags. Once we had all of our things, I concluded our business with the following words in Turkish: "Oruspu çocuğu senin amına koyim!" He twisted his eyebrow at me, curled his lip and went back into his cab, and drove off but not before I said within earshot the english translation. If he has seen any American movies that haven't been voiced over, then he should have understood what I told him.

It isn't just this time either. There was the previous Taxi driver on our first night in Tbilisi who kept trying to screw us by raising the price on us. Also a lot of taxi drivers in Istanbul are just disgusting. One of them tried taking advantage of my friend while she was drunk and trying to get home. The only cab drivers I didn't have a problem with were the ones down in Diyarbakir. They were kind and very helpful.

The experience in Tbilisi angered me the entire ride back to Turkey. That plus we had to sit in a very small bus with little leg room and I couldn't sleep to save the life of me until people started getting off the bus. I was so tired when we got to the border that I was disoriented and incredibly hot headed. Ross noticed this, asked me if I was tired and I said "very." Then he responded sarcastically, "oh poor baby." My arm came 5mm away from smacking his face. I was able to stop myself at the last moment. Word to the wise: never upset me when I am tired and angered.

Day Two in Tbilisi (June 16)

This was an interesting day in the Georgian capital. Basically it started with us looking for the bus station to see what our options were in terms of getting back to Turkey. I was contemplating staying for an extra day or going back tonight so that I don't have to pay for another night in a hotel. It took us nearly 90 minutes to find the bloody place. The directions the hotel gave us were way off, and we were wondering in every different direction looking for the bus station that seemed to not even exist. Also, the second language of choice in this country is Russian, unlike in Turkey where it is English. So communication was quite difficult at times. Eventually we just gave up and hired a cab to take us to the terminal. The cab tried to rip us off as usual but we just gave him the amount we agreed on and left. While at the station we were looking for times in which buses were leaving for Trabzon. There was unfortunately only one leaving at seven. We wanted to look around for other bus companies but while we were doing it we just got harassed by employees from every different bus company trying to tell us what we needed to buy, when all Ross and me wanted to do was think. We started telling them in Turkish that we understood, and to literally leave us alone for a bit. As we contemplated, we decided that we weren't going to need buy tickets immediately so we just walked away. This way we could think more clearly about how long we wanted to stay in Tbilisi, and get some lunch.

The lunch we had was unusual but very good. Here is a picture.

Our first place that we both wanted to visit was the castle overlooking the city. Walking there was kind of tricky though since almost every road leading to it was under construction. While walking there though we passed by what seemed to be a predominately Muslim part of town, complete with Turkish Baths. I did ask the owner of the baths if in Georgia, woman could message a male client but she responded in Turkish "Hayir" and I left with my hopes dashed. I wouldn't mind experiencing a Turkish bath sometime, but to get serviced by another male goes a little out of my comfort level.
When we got to the castle area, which was also turned into a park, we realized that this was like the makeout point of Tbilisi for young couples. The park was loaded with young, twenty something couples just enjoying each other in their own private little areas scattered throughout the park. This made walking with Ross extremely awkward. I needed a woman on this part of the trip. It did have a romantic setting. However near the top of the castle we saw a couple going all the way while hiding under a bush. Too bad for them that the bush was right next to the walk way that I was walking on. Ross and I debated as to whether we should continue walking on the path, or to find another path to other side of the fortress. At that point though I figured it didn't matter because they were the idiots that decided to depants right by a walking path and in a public place. So I just walked on by them. They noticed me, which caused the guy to pull up his pants and the girl to pull down her skirt. The glories and follies of youth...

In the same park though we saw Tbilisi's version of the Statue of Liberty except it is referred to as the Mother of Georgia. This 65ft woman holds a bowl of wine in one hand and a sword in the other. Basically this is how you interpret the symbolism. Because Georgia has a history of being invaded and conquered but also a history of defiance and nationalism, Georgia believes that the best defense is to treat all outsiders like guests, which they feed and wine until they become friends. The sword then obviously stands as a warning to potential enemies. Apparently it wasn't very intimidating to the Russians.
The castle was very impressive though. I was under the impression that invaders of all sorts probably wouldn't want to invade Tbilisi unless they had a weapon derived from gunpowder because it would be very difficult to overtake its position on the hill overlooking the city and its location near the river. It was fun to climb up the walls though. The path Ross and I took to get to another section had to bypass the walls of the keep. Thankfully there were some places where I could put my foot and fingers in, so I climbed up and over. Ross had some difficulty since he doesn't climb much, but he got over with only a little help. The view from the top was great. You could see the parts of the city that are remnants of the soviet era, which were primarily located on the edges of the city.

After that, we crossed a good portion of the city to see the Holy Trinity Church, the second largest Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. The largest is in Moscow. It is a symbol of the Georgian Resurrection, unity and immortality. Parts of the complex are still under construction but most of it is finished. Some of the walls still need to be painted. This church however is still breathtaking. The height of the cathedral, which can hold up to 15,000 people is 85m and towers over the entire city. This is without a doubt a doubt one of the largest structures in all of Georgia (What does that say about the culture of Georgia as compared to the US?). Inside the church is a great collection of new and old paintings of specific angels, the Holy Virgin Mary, and of Jesus. This was however a place for worship, not for tourism. Our presence was tolerated as long as we remained respectful.
After the visit to the church, the weather turned from being sunny to having thunderstorms. We ran back to the hotel. On the way, we both decided however that we both missed Turkey and that we both didn't want to spend money for one more night in a hotel. So we got our stuff at the hotel at around 6:30pm, called a cab that came at 6:55 to take us to bus terminal for a bus that was leaving at 7:00.

I wish I could say more about this day, but I am currently studying for finals.

The Surprising Beauty of Tbilisi, Georgia (June 15)

Tbilisi, Georgia

The trip from Yerevan to Tbilisi was the same as the one getting to Yerevan…except this time we had a mad bus driver! What took us over 6 hours to travel the first time took us only a little over 4 hours this time around. The difference was that we didn’t have any smoking addicts with us this time, and the driver apparently had a need for speed. However, add speed with bumpy roads and you will create sick passengers. The funny thing is that I was feeling sick before the bus ride, and during the bus ride I got better. My reaction however was opposite to Ross’ and another female passenger’s (this is a joke and not bad grammar). While I was sitting in the back, I was using the bumps to rock out to music. Everyone else just started feeling nauseous, and one female passenger (other then Ross ☺) puked.

Once we rolled into the bus station we started asking for directions on how to get to the Old City from the metro station we were at. It was extremely difficult to find an English speaker. I started asking every young female ages 18-25 because this demographic seemed to have the highest likelihood of having English speakers. To bad my biased estimations were wrong (I ran out of young females to ask), because the first person that understood some English that we met was Beka. He was a college student studying Economics and he personally guided us to the Old City since that is where he was originally going. He showed us to the area in which he thought we should stay at all the while telling us a little about the city. He gave us an outline of places that we should visit, and we parted. We found this nice hotel that was modestly expensive. We took it though because we felt the need for AC and comfortable beds for a change. We left our stuff at the hotel and then went out to explore the city of Tbilisi.

First thing we wanted to do was to get some food because we haven't eaten much for the last couple of hours. We asked the man at the front desk, who spoke English, what are some good kinds of Georgian food that we should get. He gave us a list of things to try, and the name of a restaurant to go to that he recommended that was great on prices and quality. When we headed out, we saw a side of Tbilisi that we never would have expected. What characterize cities and towns in the Soviet Union are buildings that were erected cheaply, and quickly. This resulted in architecture that was ugly and depressing. However every post Soviet Country has been trying to restore some of its old culture that the Soviet Union destroyed. Tbilisi has been for the most part very successful in restoring its downtown area. Many of the streets, buildings, and houses have been rebuilt and the city takes its influences from mostly French styles. It had a great vibe.

The restaurant was perhaps one of the best aspects of my time in Georgia. I had Mcvadi (very cheesy bread that went well with a sauce), Khachapuri (a cream and meat stuffed bread), and a Trout dinner. All of it came with a cheap bottle of chilled Georgian wine that was actually pretty good. All of this costed me less then 25 lari (16 dollars). It was absolutely delicious. As we were finishing our wine and talking, a woman by the name of Maggie approached us. She was an American who worked as a traveling journalist for magazines like Backpacker (cool job). She hasn't heard an American voice in a while so she decided to join us, ask us about what we thought of Tbilisi, Georgia, our trip to Armenia, what is going on in the world, other traveling adventures, and other random subjects. She also shared her wine with us which was a plus since we finished ours.

We parted ways and we payed for our meal. I gave a good tip because the meal was great, and the cute waitress who only knew a little English was extremely patient with us and always smiled at me. Which brings me to my next subject: Tbilisi woman. I don't know how it is possible but the women of Tbilisi are for some reason incredibly attractive. In fact they can compete with the woman of Istanbul and many of these girls would win in a beauty contest. I loved this so much! Best of all they are all incredibly friendly even though we have no idea what we are saying to each other. As we were exploring Tbilisi, two girls who were along the river saw us, and then immedietly started talking about us. I couldn't understand what they were saying because it was either in Georgian or Russian. Both way I looked back and smiled and they smiled back. I waved high to them and then they started bursting into flirtatious giggles. When we were walking away, one of their friends ran after us and told us to come with him. They tried with what little English they know to speak to us. They asked us where we were from, and we stated America (because everyone likes America now). They asked us what we were doing in Tbilisi and we told them that we were visiting. We all were trying to speak a combination of languages to each other. They tried speaking in English and Russian, and we tried English and Turkish. Eventually it came down to drawing pictures and hand gestures. The two girls along with their lone male friend motioned us to follow them. I was at first resistant, but then the very cute Georgian girl named Mariam took my hand, so naturally I allowed myself to be a victim of Karma. They took us around the backward, hidden alleyways of Tbilisi until they arrived at a building. Still holding my hand, Mariam guided me along a dark hall, up a flight of stairs and into a room to show me her place of work. Ross protested through most of it most likely because he wasn't certain that these strangers were trust worthy and because he already had a girl waiting for him in Trabzon. However I joked back to him by saying, "this is the good kind of trouble though and this is going to be one great story to blog about."

It turns out though that they worked at a craft school for jewelry making. They called someone on their cell phone who spoke English and he translated for us what they were saying and he translated what we were saying. Basically the school is also a place for female refugees from South Ossetia to pick up another trade. It was interesting to hear about the damage the Russians have done to Georgia but it was even more interesting to hear about how much these girls loved America. They were also especially curious about me because I showed that I was much more interested in this conversation then Ross. They asked me why I was here, why I wanted to travel here, and what did I think of Tbilisi. It did however get tiring after a while drawing all of these pictures and making so many hand gestures that we decided that it was time to leave. They accompanied us out and said goodbye. The lesson: to make an adventure more interesting, flirt with the local woman! I'm sure mother would approve...

Now moving on to a different subject. Tbilisi has so many churches it is unbelievable. Many of them survived the Soviets development plans and some have been recently rebuilt. It isn't just churches though. Tbilisi also has a Jewish population that attends a very old synagogue, and also a Shia Muslim population apparently because we saw an operating Shia Mosque. However we didn't go inside while we were there since service was going on, but we did go into a lot of the churches and the one synagogue. The churches of Tbilisi are very similar to the ones in Yerevan. Same structure, same theme in the paintings and frescos....there were many similar characteristics. It makes me want to look into it a bit more.

Later on our first night in Tbilisi, we continued to walk around the city. We eventually found Parliament and other government buildings. Apparently though we just missed a rally/demonstration aimed at impeaching the President of Georgia. Apparently the president was kind of an idiot and apparently in Georgia, idiocy isn't allowed to govern the people. If only America operated in such a manner...

There was also a very interesting Eifel Tower look alike that was fairly recently built in Tbilisi. It makes sense though because every thing else looks as if French Architects built it.

Overall, Tbilisi was a very surprising place! It has certainly done well for itself in terms of rebuilding a lost culture after the Russians left. However, the economy in Tbilisi isn't doing so well because the price for oil has dropped in recent months leading to a recession. Well that is what happens when you establish an economy based off the extraction of resources (this is a pun aimed primarily at the World Bank and IMF).

Armenian Conversation

Before leaving Yerevan to head back to Georgia, I got into an interesting conversation with the young woman who helped us get settled at the hotel that we stayed at while in Yerevan. Her named turned out to be Lusy. She is planning on going to the University of Yerevan this fall I believe to further her study in English and to learn Spanish (Ella quire hablar espanol!). She asked me why did I decide to come to Armenia...

This required a complicated answer. She had a good reason to wonder though. Very few Americans ever travel to Armenia, let alone know where Armenia is. Most Americans would generally want to travel to a more European setting such as Spain, France, the UK, Germany, and others. To be honest, before coming to Turkey, I was planning on spending most of my travel time in the Aegean (Greece and Turkey). I did however the exact opposite and focused my attention more in Eastern Turkey. I told her though that I had the privilege to study at Bogazici University in Istanbul for the Spring and Summer semesters, and while living in Turkey, I have learned a lot about the history of Turkey. The history of Turkey and Armenia is one of the same, but the two countries interpret this shared history so differently from one another. I have heard the Turkish side many times, but the Armenian point of view was hidden to me. That is one reason as to why I wanted to travel to Armenia. I wanted to get their input on historical events. The other reason was, I didn't know anything about Armenia except for its location, the capital is Yerevan, their border is closed with Turkey and Azerbaijan and stuff I heard from Turks. Therefore, I felt that there was a need to cure my ignorance and become more aware of Armenia by getting a crash course experiece. The third and final reason is because I was on an adventure and in order for an adventure to be exciting you need to travel into the unknown once in a while (which I must say, traveling without a guide book of the region and improvising was exciting!).

I was going to ask her about the Armenian Genocide but she got to the punch before I did. She asked me what I thought about. This is a subject I always avoid giving my opinion on. I have never had much oppurtunity to research it in full. My only source has been Wikipedia's page on it, but that can't be trusted since it is missing a lot of source citations last time I checked. However from what I do know, it was either genocide or ethnic cleansing. However, I do remember studying the Young Turk movement in my freshmen year at ISU. From what I know, the three leaders of the young Turks, were nationalistic, and racist military men and their ideology described the Young Turk movement fully as a nationalistic movement aimed at glorifying Turks and increasing their status over all others through the use of military force. However, when I was trying to stay politically correct, I felt like I was just regurgitating what Obama said in Ankara a month earlier. That was when I said, "screw it, it probably was a genocide, and Armenia has been continually screwed over ever since." Can't appease everyone, so I will just stick with the truth.

She went a little further with my thoughts but she wasn't as spiteful as I was expecting. There were two things though that she wanted though. The first was for diplomatic relationships between Armenia and Turkey to be restored. She was concerned as too why these two countries who have so much shared history, ethnicity, and culture can be enemies. That was moving to hear. The second thing she felt that needed to happen though was the returning of land that was taken by the Turks that were inhabited by Armenians. Two good examples of this is the abandoned city of Ani and Van. However, the people who live there now had nothing to do with the Armenian Genocide and it would be kind of wrong to just remove them from their homes. However, the Armenians lost so much in the early 20th Century that if there was any justice in this world, they should get something back. However, the present generation of Turks never committed the acts of genocide. However there should be some kind of reparations. Hell, just opening the border again would do so much for the Armenian economy, along with the Economy of several Turkish areas like Kars, and Van. However this is incredibly hipocritical coming from an American because we don't call what we did to the Native Americans a genocide (which it was).

We started talking about Armenian culture and how it was very close to Greek and Turkish culture. In fact they had the same kebabs (which were still delicious). Tabla (Backgammon) is the board game of choice just like the other places mentioned. Also during the times of the Ottoman Empire, all three groups lived in peace with each other and intermingled amongst the groups. They are practically all family but they all have stupid feuds between each other because of nationalist feelings. However we both greatly wanted Turkey and Armenia to open up to each other again. Can't we all just get along!?

We also then started talking about the difference between students in Armenia vs. America. This is another case of where I have to discredit those rancid, tasteless American Pie movies. She had a stereotype of American students built around our popular teenager movies which are completely over the top! Thankfully she understood.

Unfortunately, the minibus that would take us to Tbilisi arrived. I gave her my full name with an email address to reach me. She just gave me her name because her family didn't have a computer. She told me though that she was expecting her family to get her one as soon as she enters school. I told that we should keep in touch, because I would like to continue our enlightening conversation.

The Wonderful Night in Yerevan.

Here is the link to all my pictures taken from Armenia.

Armenia: Yerevan, and Echmiazdin

This is a video of our last night in Armenia. It was a spectacular water show where many residents of Yerevan come out to watch. The show included music from many different genres. Some music included American oldies, and American Alternative, but it was mostly classical music. I got to hear a glorious mixture of orchestras that originated in many different parts of the world. For instance, Italian Opera, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin were all included along with soundings of a classic Russian orchestra, which was easily recognizable (sounds like something from the movie The Hunt for Red October). Overall the water show gave me this weird feeling of peace and love for this country that I didn't have before. I can't wait to see what the future has in store for small, but significant, Armenia.

Trying to get to Garni and instead we found...Hogwarts?

After getting back from Echmiadzin we attempted to go to another very historical town of Garni which featured a fortress along with a very old temple/monastery of Greghard. When we got back we started looking for the 58 or 66 bus to a place called GAI Poghots (behind Yerevan's showroom) from Berekamutyun and then taking the metro there. We kept on getting distracted on our way there however. For instance, we ran accross a Shia Mosque with a beautiful courtyard in it. We decided to take a look in it since neither of us have seen a Shia Mosque considering most of Turkey is Sunni. It was a nice piece of architecture that added color to an almost colorless city. However, it was also partially a madrassa. I don't have too much of a problem with Madrassas in this part of the world since they are more liberal then there counterparts in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. However I wasn't too thrilled to see a picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme ruler of Iran, overlooking the classroom. After what has been happening in Iran the past couple of weeks, I think he deserves the middle finger, a fist pump (same thing as middle finger in Turkey) and one large ass kicking.
After getting on the right bus, we tried telling the bus driver where we needed to go but they had no idea what we were trying to tell them. We had a sneaking suspicion that we might have miss wrote the directions down. However, we got off the bus at a pretty interesting location. We got to see this one very famous statue dedicated to all the cossacks who fought and died in the Russian Persian Wars in 1826-1827. At that time was using the area of Armenia, I believe, to stage military conquest over the northern frontier of the Persian Empire.



We started walking around the park close to the area. Throughout the park we noticed even more monuments dedicating themselves to the closeness between Russia and Armenia. And on our way there, we saw a peculiar building with an even more peculiar flag...
The house I would probably belong to if I wasn't a muggle.
Harry Potter's house...
Oddball house where my good friend Lessa belongs (jk)...
And the evil house, the one my sister goes to (jk)....
Ross and I accidentally came across Hogwarts...in Armenia! Basically we found the Chucky Cheese substitute in Armenia. This place is themed like a Chucky Cheese is in the states, however this theme is far more superior then a pizza loving mouse. One thing Armenia has that America doesn't I guess. While Ross and I were busy making fools of our selves outside the entrance, one of the employees who spoke some english started talking to us. She gladly took the oppurtunity to practice her english with us. She also started hitting on me which was flattering and surprising. She was an Armenian that wanted out, and like many look to the rare American who might cross their path as their only way. She told us her dreams of one day leaving Yerevan for New York City, and what she wanted to do there. It is interesting how the American Dream has been exported to many other cultures/nations all around the world.

Wedding Crashers, Armenian Style! (June 14)

While exploring Echmiadzin, Ross and I stumbled across a wedding ceremony that was taking place in an ancient Armenian Church called the Church of St. Kayane. Typically this church is open for tourists but today somebody didn't put up a sign (in english) saying it was closed for a marriage ceremony. I was a little uneasy about it but Ross wanted to see more. I protested, but he convinced me to join him since I was curious myself. However, it was a little wrong to do it, especially since it was a little hypocritical for both of us to enter the church. Either way, we got to see part of an interesting Wedding service where, under the cross an extremely young couple (no older then 18) got married. It was a beautiful service, and the church with all of its history and natural beauty made it a perfect place to have a wedding. However it is interesting to note that Armenian weddings go through similar traditions not only with other Christian sects but also Islam. It makes me wonder who was influencing whom.

The beauty here was in details of the church and also the artwork. Professor Robert Langdon would be in heaven here perhaps since there is so much symbolism in the paintings. I am curious though how much of this tradition has changed over the years, because this service was heavy on tradition where as many American weddings aren't so much anymore. That might be attributed to our diversity and lack of historical culture as compared to Armenia, yet it still interests and puzzles me.

Either way, Ross and I started to then debate over the bridal party. I wanted the tall, dark and pretty one, he wanted the one with blonde highlights...