OK, so I know I've already told you about the campy side of day 10, but I haven't share our Yerevan based antics yet, so I shall do that in a timely fashion.
We hit the hostel at around four and performed a shop-for-food and showering ritual. But with double showering and extra lather to get the camp grime off. I'm probably exaggerating as we didn't feel that bad when all's said and done, but it was nice to get back to civilisation. Plus we treated ourselves to real towels from the hostel instead of travel towels.
Once we were all clean and shiny, we had our now-traditional Armenian lunch of Levash (the yummy flatbread), cheese, crisps and a mountain of fresh fruit. We had developed cravings during camp and most of the way home we had pondered the delights of spreadable cheese, Dorritos, Snickers and towels. Snickers would come later though.
We put in several loads of washing which our lovely Hostel kindly took care of. Whether they found it strange that we had matching tops with our names on, we'll never know.
Feeling refreshed in the evening, we set out to take in a bit more of the city. We walked down to Republic Square which is beautiful at night. All the buildings are lit and there are lots of people about enjoying the atmosphere. It was dark but warm and we sat near the fountains.
Apparently each night from 9 to 11, there are fountains but we missed out as we waited for half an hour but they never started. It did start to rain though, so we dashed back to the Hostel. Unfortunately we got quitewet and grubby and undid a lot of our earlier good showering work. Alas!
We cheered ourselves up in the traditional manner using food. There's a supermarket just round the corner from our hostel and they sell all manner of marvellous goodies including 4 kinds of Snickers! You can have normal, dark chocolate, almond or peanut butter. We went for peanut butter as a sugar boost and it was wonderful :D.
Rachel also treated ourselves to some milk. We've been drinking black tea at camp but now we were back, it seemed like a good idea to get out the emergency teabags and brew a proper cuppa.
Well. It wasn't milk after all. It was thicker, more like yoghurt and separated in a terrfiying fashion in the mugs. Black tea again then. We weren't quite sure how we could have got it wrong. But the phrase "pasteurised milk" on the bottle had confused us somewhat.
However, all was well and it was time for bed! Glorious Bed!
The next morning, Day 11, we upped and breakfasted at the hostel on sausages, bread and cheese and apricots. Then we took our postcards to the post office and spent a not inconsiderable amount of time licking and sticking. Each postcard required two or four stamps and so we sat in a rather lovely post office around a large table with a shiny black top stamping away on upwards of 50 postcards.
We needed lunch after that! More specifically, we needed chips. Job done. It was quite warm in the afternoon so we popped back to the hostel, retrieved our now clean clothes and played guess-which-socks-belong-to-whom. Got some more milk. Turned out to be still not milk. Gutted. Got some more Snickers.
In the evening we set our again to meet some our new friends from camp who had offered to show us around the city. Again it was nice and warm and it was so lovely to be shown round by some locals. Their English is amazing and they told us lots about the city. We went to a bar called Calumet - plus sampling the lovely blood orange juice they have in Armenia - and they bought us each a necklace to remind us that we always have friends in Armenia. It was so lovely of them to take the time to help us out and we're going to miss them when we leave!
To finish off the evening they took us back to the fountains to see what the display should really be like. It was amazing, full of people and the waters danced to the strains of music ranging from Classical to Rock to, well, Star Wars.
We dropped into bed tired but happy that evening, having made sure everything was packed and ready to go the next day.
Today we're going to visit the Genocide Museum and then we're climbing aboard a bus to our next destination: Gyumri, Armenia's next biggest city. We're going to be doing 2 days of training in a number of places, city hopping, meeting and working with new leaders. Looking forward to it!
Team Armenia, over and out.
xxx
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