Day 14

Well it's our second and last day in Gyumri and we had a surprise in store for Amy.  Or Emy as the Armenians call her.  It was her birthday!  Jade, Rachael and I had wrapped up a few goodies the night before and we snuck into breakfast early to pile them on her plate, bedeck the table with balloons and stick a banner to her door.  We sang a rather tuneful rendition of Happy Birthday and some of the hotel staff joined in.  They had in fact been giggling and singing earlier but with much spluttering and hushing we managed to supress them until the surprise was unleashed.

We made a good breakfast - same as the day before - and as the tea was Earl Grey, I swiped a few teabags.  Ditto the hotel toiletries.

At the training later, the leaders presented Amy with a fairy cake supporting a candle in the shape of a closed flower.  When it was lit, it sang happy birthday and the flower opened with a small flame on each petal and a larger one flickering in the centre.  Magic!

Our Armenian correspondant interviewed the birthday girl and in her own words, Amy had a "lovely day with nice candles and good wrapping paper".

We finished our Gyumri training and presented all the participants with certificates and our badge.  A big shout out to our translators Siriq and Nare who made our trainings possible too!

After training we went with our translators, Anahit, Agnes and Anna to have food in a Georgian restaurant.  We tried a drink called Tan which has the consistency of milk but the taste of yoghurt and you add salt to it.  It was strange as our brains found it difficult to connect the dots between texture and flavour.  I also supect this is what we have been buying under the impression that it's milk.

We sampled various things including Georgian fried cheese and something a bit like pizza.  Tori and I opted for some dumplings which were about fist-sized and stuffed.  When I cut into one, lots of liquid poured forth.  However, the Armenians exclaimed at us in consternation and explained that you are supposed to bite into the dumpling and drink all the broth without spilling any.  It's a sign of respect and honour to the Georgians.

Let's just say that I disrespected the Georgians three times until I got it right on my final dumpling.  Tori had much more success, but we both agreed that the best bit was the yummy beef and herbs filling.

After dinner we hauled out our stuff and moved off in a couple of taxis to our next destination: Vanadzor.  Again, we climbed up and down mountains, negotiating hairpin bends and hit our new base.  Vanadzor seems bigger than Gyumri and our taxir driver, who was leading the second, had to stop five times to ask for directions to our hotel.

We got there in the end though, and while it was inexpensive, it turned out to be a bit swish.  I think it was the hotel where the 70s went to die and in our two family rooms, the beds had shiny gold valances and one of the rooms had a giant dining room table.  Our new translators Siranouche and Marianna came along and joined us - we had met at camp - and we settled down for the night ready for the next day's training.

A vertiable cornucopia of GOLD love,

Kirsty and  Team Armenia

P.S. For a sneak peek at what comes up next, check out this video of us on the local news in Vanadzor!  And note particularly our team leader who has clearly been practising her Armenian :D