Our last day in Yerevan, Armenia, and the last day of the whole trip, was another pretty chill day. We were mopping up the last points of interest in the city that we could come up with and generally taking it easy.
This part of the world is the most skilled at and hungry for dried fruits than anywhere I've ever been.
I was hooked on the Armenia pizza thing lahmajo at this point so I popped into a place that specialized in such and ordered two.
Those and a drink were a little over six dollars. I'm going to miss the prices around here, that's for sure.
Mike was looking for locally made board games that were also in English. That ended up being a tall order.
I headed back to Republic Square for some last bits of tourism. I don't really think I was rewarded for my effort.
I made a visit to the History Museum of Armenia.
The museum was a very strange and unpleasant experience. There were loots of mean looking older worker ladies constantly watching me. They were also very heavy handed with which exhibits I should look at first. “Start at the third floor!”
In addition to the stationed guards I had a KGB tail following me from a distance as well. When I left the territory of one weirdo the next would begin. If I turned the corner of an exhibit they would reposition so as to have eyes on me at all times. Like have there been a rash of antiquity thefts or what exactly is these peoples' problem?
Fast walking and disinterest in the history of their country were my chosen defenses. I have zero pictures of the interior. Whether this is because no photos were allowed or I was having such a bad time I was busy jogging out of the place I don't remember but I think it's telling either way.
A friggin karaoke vending machine is a fantastic idea. Sometimes I just want to yell a song in the middle of a mall but social convention tells me not to. It's very sad.
Mike and I took cabs to the Ararat factory/museum. It was a pretty cool place but I believe the issue was that they didn't have any tour guides that spoke English. Anyway we took a look at the shop and then left.
I was admiring the space ship shape of this stadium when I realized there was a little shanty town under it.
We stopped for a sip at the Kilikia Beerhouse.
I'll have the largest beer container you produce, please.
Mike and I both bonded over our love of the large Georgian dumplings called khinkali, so we thought Tumanyan Khinkali was a fitting place to have our last meal together.
Weird unordered appetizer of croutons and chickpeas.
I was feeling real wild today and ordered us a plate of the fried khinkali as well. Not as good as the originals but I'm glad I tried it.
That's a good looking brandy factory right there.
Armenia, it's been real. To the airport!
"and it was all yellow"
While I was ardently journeying my way home Ern was... I want to say excitedly waiting for me.
It's always Oktoberfest at the Frankfurt airport.
Sometimes you just get a dream flight.
When I got home I splayed our treasures from exotic foreign lands out on the table. I picked up some of those little chocolate booze bottles at the airport in Germany.
Being away from Ernie for so long was a new painful feeling. I was able to do several video calls with him and he seemed to be happy to see me but I wondered if I was ultimately causing him more stress by frequently reminding him I was gone. On the other side of the coin it is nice to have people to miss and who miss you back, and rather than mourn the last embers of the trip I just got more excited to be home.
Aside from the base level tourism activities a feature of this trip was the numerous conversations Mike and I had. We often were stuck in a deserted pub or in the back of a van for hours on end and had ample opportunity to talk about life and its ups and downs.
He’s pretty socialist in a way that I think is fairly rare in Americans. Even our Democratic Party is pretty conservative compared to him. For example I tend to think economic growth is a fine goal, and that siphoning some of that off for social programs is the way to prosperity for all. He seemed to be of the opinion that chasing growth was the problem itself, and it caused more harm than it was worth. I’ve been investing in the stock market effectively my whole life, and its growth is very important to me for retirement and just financial wellbeing in general, so I realized I’m pretty complacent in the evil deeds of the country’s giant corporations.
We had plenty of disagreements about the trip in particular. I am more of a planner when it comes to trips and he seems to like to book his beds one night at a time wherever he lands. Not murdering each other despite our extremely close quarters through the stresses of travel I think is a testament to our long enduring friendship.
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