Not a lonely planet

View from Lizzie's Porch

The rest of my time in Kapan was really great. I don’t remember what I said in my last blog, but Lizzie can attest to the fact that I just slept. The first two days, I slept. Anyway, hanging out was exactly what I needed. Lizzie and I decided to move her couch to the balcony she had; one of those big ones. Best idea we had the whole time we were there. It was great to just sit outside in the sun, on a couch, and just hang out with her and our other friends.

Tuesday night, Lizzie had couch surfers. A guy from California and his girlfriend of four years from St. Petersburg, Russia. It was really interesting to have them there. I told about my misfortunes with a girl from Russia/Ukraine. Great story. Anyway, I made spaghetti and we stayed up and spoke about I don’t know what. The next morning, they made little pancake banana crepe things. It was really good. Then they left. They said they might come back.

Lizzie and I went out to do some errands. Some other volunteers came over for a little bit and left to go to a mental ward in Kapan to take pictures or something. Soon thereafter, a writer from Lonely Planet, the guide book, called Lizzie. We met him at the square. It was a lot of fun. We got in the taxi with him and went on a ride into the country side. His name is Mike Kohn. He is from San Francisco, lives in Ulaan Batuur, Mongolia, and writes the Lonely Planet guidebooks for Armenia and Israel. Maybe some other countries, but those I know for sure. A guy in his mid-thirties, he travels around for 5 weeks at a time and writes about the countries. It seemed like a cool job. He knew a limited amount of Russian, but had been in touch with Peace Corps Volunteers the whole way, just getting numbers from one, connecting with another. Good way to travel.

Lizzie was funny, because Mike also wrote the last edition of Lonely Planet Armenia and compared Kapan to Pittsburgh and made it seem like Sisian was a better city than Kapan, which it’s not. So, while we were waiting for the taxi to get gas, Lizzie went on and on about how much better Kapan was than Sisian, and why Mike would chose to compare Kapan to Pittsburgh. Kapan is a mining town. So is Pittsburgh. The comparisons end there apparently. Mike told us about his life as a traveling writer and what its like. Really interesting.

We got to a Nature Preserve and Lizzie and I translated for Mike. So, on Lonely Planet’s dime, I got to see some really beautiful parts of Armenia. Armenia really has some breathtakingly beautiful places. Really. Some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, but you really have to know where to go to see this stuff. As a tourist, it would be hard to see the same things, unless you had some local or PCV going with you. Amazing.

Afterwards, we returned to the city. We invited Mike to come over for dinner. I reheated some of the eggrolls we had made earlier, and I helped Lizzie make Burritos since her mom sent over 7 packages of taco seasoning mix. There were roughly seven people there. Mike Anderson came down that day from Artik to hang out too.

Mike is a funny guy. I left Sunday from the conference and rode down with Lizzie and Sue to Kapan. A six hour drive which isn’t too terribly bad. Mike decided that was going to go back to Artik because he had to go to school, or felt guilty he wasn’t going to be at school. I spoke to Mike on Monday, he didn’t go to school. I talked to Mike on Tuesday. He went to school for two hours. He really wanted to come down to Kapan so I pointed out that he wasn’t doing anything at school anyway, so on Wednesday, he made his way down to Kapan. Eight hours, by himself. He could have saved a lot of trouble.

The couch surfers came back to Lizzie’s that night, but there were six people sleeping there that night. They didn’t seem as thrilled about that, but a free place to sleep is a free place to sleep. And it wasn’t that bad. They left at 9am while most of us were still asleep.

We made breakfast and packed our things and headed to Goris to go to Patrick’s birthday. Lots of random volunteers hanging out. We had some really great food. Like last year, Chris and I stayed behind with the help of Mike and Ashley and we washed the dishes. Last year, the women there were doing the Armenian thing of saying “no” when they really meant “yes” when we asked them about dishwashing. This year, I really don’t think they wanted us to help. We are much slower than they are. They were appreciative that we helped. We headed to where the other volunteers were. We hung out and then came back around 11pm in the rain.

That was it. Mike, Patrick, his wife, and I got a cab back to Yerevan. Mike and I hung out with Gayane and Mane and then we went to bed early. The following day, I came back home. It is nice to be home, but it is still cold. Come on. When I spoke to my parents yesterday, I was wearing a sweater, a fleece, and scarf, along with my fleece pants. Its turning greener, but the temperature hasn’t gone up. Soon, I hope.

Two more weeks of school starting Tuesday. Apparently tomorrow is some kind of holiday. Another one. Happy Mother’s Day Mom. Hope you and Dad do something fun. Dad, don’t take her to McDonald’s.

Grandma is not leaving when I thought she would be leaving. We don’t know when she is going to leave. Yeah.

Planning for our COS trip is going well. We have bought our tickets for all the places. We are meeting Cormac in Riga and traveling around the Baltics with him. Looking forward to seeing some of my friends I hadn’t seen in three years.

Until next time...