Caucasus - prologue

It's a common question around school, "What are you doing over the holiday?"
When I reply, "We're going to Armenia and Georgia," reactions range from:

• polite "oh, that's nice" (not sure where that is), to 
• inquisitive "is there a special reason you are going there?" to 
• less polite "are you guys running out of places to travel? Scraping the bottom of the barrel?" or "Brian, why do you drag your wife to these places?" or simply a roll of the eyes. 

Confession: my husband and I have become hard-core, bad-ass travelers. I started to write this while on a plane heading for the former Soviet Union, to a poor country where I could not speak the language. I was heading there just for fun.  Fun is too simple of a word, actually. It's the thrill of things you learn, the things you eat, the people you talk to, the newness of it all. Travel is usually challenging, often uncomfortable, sometimes exhilarating and it changes the way I think.

I also have become a much better packer. I am not yet at the level of ninja jedi bad-ass packer, but I did fit 12 days worth of clothing in a small duffel bag that weighed, according to the airport scale, 9 kilos (just under 20 lbs) and I wore something different almost every day. This comes from a lot of practice.

Brian and I travel a lot. I used to think that's what everyone in Europe did. With all those countries so close together and all that paid vacation time, I figured they would bounce from baguettes to bull fights to beer halls in the time it takes an American to drive to work. Not true. Germans go on vacation, but they go to all inclusive resorts in Mallorca, or skiing resorts in Austria, or windy beach resorts in Denmark. That's pretty much it. They may all have passports, but Europeans don't stray as far from home as most Americans I know.

So why are Brian and I getting away every chance we get? Is there something psychologically wrong with us? Are we searching for something? Running from something? Escaping ourselves? Escaping our neighbors?

Maybe I should seek professional help. All I know is that it's a big world out there. There are a lot of people in it and a lot of places to see. True, the Caucasus is not a typical spring break destination. It's not Daytona Beach and it's not Mallorca, but for hard-core travelers like us it was perfect.