We hopped out of bed at the usual hour this morning to take in lunch at the hostel. This consisted of tomato, cucumber, cheese, bread and apricot jam. Yum! Then we headed out into Yerevan to get our final bits and pieces for camp. Rachael, Rachel and I went to hunt down card and paint. We found paper and following some creative miming, the woman in the stationary shop produced card. Sorted. Then we took a circuitous route back to the hostel to meet the others who had sorted out the Armenian phone and bought lunch.
We've discovered Armenian flatbread which you buy a giant roll of in a packet. But it's great for spreading on Nutella or cheese. Even gerkin flavoured cheese which is unusual but tasty. Chuck in some salami, fruit juice and nectarines and we managed a pretty yummy lunch.
This afternoon we got down to some serious business. We checked all the plans were in place for camp and then got down to some packing.
Packing our bags has become a minor obsession. We began our journeys with all our clothes, first aid, washbags, shoes and the like, plus towels, sleeping bags, liners, rolls mats and a third of a tent each. ie. inner, outer or poles. Not to mention the extra resources that Rachael managed to cram into her backpack. This was of necessity as we could only fly with one bag each.
Since then, we have removed the tents and put them back in their bags, removed the things we won't need over the next 2 weeks until we're back in Yerevan, and our bags are inexplicably fuller than ever. Why does our stuff take up more space in Armenia?
What with our stuff defying the laws of physics, we were pretty tired when we'd finished re-packing. So we thought we'd have a quick run-through of our camp entertainment.
Anyone passing the door of our room in the hostel and peeping inside to find the source of the racket would have found 6 GOLDies standing in a line facing an iPhone and "singing" the second verse of the National Anthem with varying degrees of success. Or making a farce out of Irish dancing. Or Scottish dancing for that matter. Or even our own dance to Yellow Submarine or the Spice Girls. And all this in the name of representing all that is truly the UK in musical form.
Let's just say that we have not yet finished practising.
Practice also turned out to be pretty energetic so we chilled by learning our new card game, entitled Backpackers. The instructions inform us that the best way to learn is to play with a group of people who already know how to play, but for those who are not so fortunate, it instructs you to play three or four preliminary hands of varying degrees of difficulty. After a hard evening's play, we have now mastered the 'easy' hands (even if Jade does keep playing multiple country cards from the same continent) and are ready to move on to...the full basic version of our game. However, we are not to be daunted and hope that on camp, we will work our way up to the advanced level.
Actually, it's brilliant! But it's got more rules than Chess, Monopoly and Bridge combined, so that's why it's taking us a while to learn. It's not because we're stupid.
Just to clarify.
Anyway, in between all this we made pasta with peppers, sweetcorn, sausage, cheese, tomatoes and the veg at lunchtime that we thought was lettuce but actually to everyone's surprise turned out to be cabbage. This pleased Jade who has made it her mission to ensure that we all eat at least two portions of fruit or veg every day. Apparently if we don't, she won't let us sleep and will hit us with a stick. On the bright side, she won't be able to sleep either, but I suspect that she is not serious.
About the stick, I mean. She's definitely serious about the fruit.
However, the fruit here is lovely and we've had apricots, nectarines, apples and even a couple of cherries that a chap in the hostel offered us. Delish!
Finally, to end the evening, we thought we'd go for a health-improving walk, so we went all the way round the corner to the supermarket for an ice cream.
A lovely way to end the day.
And now it's nearly time for bed for...
Kirsty and Team Armenia :D
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