Two years…I can’t believe that it has been two years since I left for Peace Corps. I think most of that is because it is ending. It is like when you graduate from college and when you look back on the years you can’t believe how quickly it went by even though during you know there we times when it felt so slow. Leaving Aygepat for the last time did not fell as final as I thought it would be because my exit was so hurried and rushed, just trying to get all my things together and to Yerevan. Once I got to Yerevan I still had paperwork to do, packing to finish up, and goodbyes to say. There was not really time for long, sentimental goodbyes and it is only now really hitting me that I’m done and don’t know the next time I’ll be in Armenia. I spent my last night in Armenia in Vardablur at my friend Robby’s host family’s house. It was nice to spend it with an amazing Armenian family and enjoy a going away feast. The next morning we headed to Stepanavan for the marshootni to go to Tbilisi, Georgia. Tbilisi is so different from Yerevan – it has a more European feel to it and is full of beautiful 19th century architecture. During Soviet times Tbilisi was the cultural capital of the Caucasus, while Yerevan was a dusty cowtown.
This was Robby’s fourth time in Tbilisi so I followed his lead and we spent to day walking around the city. On our way back towards our hostel after stopping for coffee at a bookstore and café we ran into Danny and Mike, two other Peace Corps volunteers leaving Armenia. We all went to dinner, for a walk around the city, and out to a pub with a Georgia friend of Danny.
The next day we took a day trip to the David Gareja monastery complex, about 70km southeast of Tbilisi. We took a marshootni to the town nearest the monastery and then the driver agreed to drive us to the monastery. We were traveling with a German traveler and luckily he spoke a little Russian and he was able to negotiate everything. It took us about an hour of off-roading to get to the complex. The monastery is a Georgian Orthodox monastery founded in the 6th century AD by St. David Gareja, an Assyrian monk. The complex is made up of hundreds of cells, chapels, churches, refectories, and living quarters all carved out of the mountain. The monastery was closed after the Bolshevik takeover of Georgia in 1921 and was restored after Georgia declared independence in 1991.
After we made it back to Tbilisi we went out for an Italian dinner and some Georgian Saperavi wine at one of the sidewalk cafes in Tbilisi’s area known as ‘Old Town.’ Then we walked to a huge new Georgian Orthodox church that was built in an attempt to revitalize the Georgian Orthodox church. Once we got back to the hostel I was all prepared for an evening of reading and relaxing and a quite day of packing the next day before our afternoon flight. Then Robby tells me he got an email from the airline saying confirming our flight at 4:45am, not pm! I do not what my brain was thinking when I booked the flight because I’ve been dealing with military times for two years and flight times are always in military time, but in the stress of preparing to leave I got the times mixed up in my head. Luckily Robby caught it and we were able to arrange for a taxi to the airport the next morning, get packed up, and get a few hours of sleep before we had to leave.
Next stop: Istanbul
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