Days 1 and 2

***Day One***

We had a good journey to Armenia in various stages.  Our taxi drivers competed to get us to Heathrow on time and we arrived only 3 and half hours before takeoff.  Winner.  Being Guiders, the logical next step was to find some food, so we checked in our luggage and hunted down some Italian.

We bumped into Team Malawi very briefly and then went to hop on the plane to.... Poland.  This was uneventful, apart from the unexpected sandwiches, biscuits and tea that were provided.  After some meat/cheese debate, we decided that the sandwiches contained smoked cheese.

From Poland we had a comfortable hour transferring to our flight to Yerevan, Armenia.  Customs did question Tori about the harmonica they thought she might be carrying in her bag, but having established that she wasn't carrying a harmonica, everyone smiled and waved us on.

We were met at the airport at 5:00am by some very dedicated Armenian Guiders and hopped on a taxi to the hostel.  We arrived a little dishevelled and a tad on the sleepy side at around 5:30am local time.  

***Day Two***

We began day 2 in an energetic fashion by going to bed for the morning.  Necessary.  But by afternoon, we were up, cheerful, chipper and other words beginning with ch, so we set out to complete our to-do list.  We've got bits and pieces to arrange before we go off to Camp on Day 4, but more on that in the future :D

We also managed to track down some lunch and after contemplating the longest menu in the world which seemed to take in most of the world's cuisine in some way shape or form, we settled on pizza as a safe bet.  And peach juice.  We had some initial difficulty in communicating this to the waiter given our failure to learn the Armenian for peach juice, but peach juice duly appeared and was lovely and refreshing.

Having been refreshed, the only logical conclusion is to do an unreasonable amount of exercise and so we tottered through Yerevan and climbed the 721 steps up the Cascade. (In English money, that's 3.6 Whitby's, minus the abbey).  The Cascade dominates the end of the main street through Yerevan and scales up and up, soaring above the city.  At the top is an enormous grey concrete tower and a tremendous view over the whole capital.  I was able to appreciate this more once I got my breath back.

Actually, for the faint-hearted there are escalators running underground which can transport you in air-conditioned bliss to the summit.  But we are GOLDies and therefore hardcore and so we climbed.  

But how, I hear you cry, do you know that there are 721 steps?  On the way down we counted, Rachael making notes on her hands every time we hit a new level.  I added them up incorrectly so that I could contribute as a maths teacher, and then Rachael did it properly.  So 721 it is.  Up and down.  If it seems that I am mentioning this a little more than necessary, it's because my legs hurt.

So we went to the supermarket, bought some bits and bobs for dinner and consumed lots of apricots in honour of our adopted country.  The apricots here are good.

I'll be back soon with more exciting, possibly apricot-fuelled adventures of....

Team Armenia xxxx