Home of the Catholicos

We also visited Etchmiadzin, Armenia's version of Vatican City. It's the headquarters of the Armenian church and home to its leaders, known as Catholicos. The cathedral there houses several famous relics: from St. Peter, John the Baptist, Noah's Ark and the lance that a Roman soldier used to pierce Jesus's side after he died on the cross. Of course, there is no DNA testing. But since Armenia was home to early Christians and the first country to become officially Christian, I guess it's plausible.

As a practicing Catholic, I am very aware that some of our Catholic stuff is really weird. Relics, whether Catholic or Catholico, are among the weirdest. Inside a fancy gold box is an eyelash, or a toenail, or maybe a nose hair of John the Baptist? Gross. Or gross and creepy in the holiest of ways.
I wonder what the inside of that toenail box smells like now.

Holy Lance

fragment of Noah's Ark

The gloss and prestige of Etchmiadzin stopped at the walls of the church complex. The rest of the town looked like other places in Armenia:

Armenia's top attractions

Day two in Yerevan began with deliberation. We were going to visit Garni and Geghard, Armenia's top tourist attractions. While internet was telling me that it was possible by minibus, foot and taxi. The girl at the front desk talked me into using a private driver for the day. The hardcore traveler in me resisted. But comfort, security and her convincing sales pitch won out, so we dropped twenty bucks for our all-day chauffeur. I realized I'd made the right decision when we got to Garni and it looked like this.

That's me.

Armenia's greatest attraction looked a little smaller than I expected, and it had about 10 visitors. There were more old ladies outside the gate selling dried fruits than there were tourists inside, and no taxis were waiting. The temple was built in the 1st century to the sun god Mihr (years too long ago to imagine). The site was turned into a summer residence for a princess, complete with hot sulfur baths. It somehow escaped destruction by the early Christians and a church was built next to it instead, on top of the palace ruins. The place toppled in a 17th century earthquake and has now been reconstructed.

From Garni our driver took us on to Geghard Monastery. It was cold, windy and the road went uphill. I was very glad weren't trying to get there on foot. There has been a monastery built into the side of the mountain at Geghard since the 4th century. The monks lived in caves in the hillside, often in isolation.  The main church, built around 1200, wasn't like any I'd seen. It was a series of dim, cold chambers, silent except for a trickle of running water. The only light came through windows carved in the rock and a few candles inside. The side altars were completely dark until you came close enough to see crosses carved into the walls. In one of the rooms, an old woman in a long coat squatted beside the spring, fussing with her plastic bags and cups. I didn't know whether she was collecting holy water or washing her dishes from lunch.

I walked up the stony steps to the next chapel, a music hall famous for its perfect acoustics. As I read the sign outside, the old lady walked by with her cups and bags. She said something to me in Armenian and gestured that I should come inside. I followed. The chapel was round, supported by thick pillars and lit by a single hole in the roof. The lady set her bags down and poured her cups of holy water into a basin in the corner. She tightened her coat and strode to the middle of the room, face lit by the weak light from above. And then she sang. Her voice was light and steady and young, and that moment it was the most beautiful voice in the world. She sang the songs which have probably been performed here for a thousand years. Now, with her loose coat and disposable cups, she performed in front of a couple of shivering tourists standing in the dark.

Yerevan

The only person I know who has been to Armenia's capital, Yerevan, is my friend Karissa. She said that it reminded her of Madison, Wisconsin, her hometown. Other than the locals' love of cheese I have yet to pick up on the similarities.

We stayed at a hotel call the Elysium Gallery, and arriving there reminded me not to choose hotels with fancy-sounding names. They may be trying to compensate for something. Don't get me wrong, the place was comfortable enough. It was just... Armenian. I mean what do you expect from a mid-range hotel in the former USSR, except a place where you enter the bathroom through the shower and push back the curtain to get to the toilet? The people were helpful and the bed was comfy, but our power went out because three hundred electrical cords were snarled together into one switchboard. Every day after a lovely breakfast, we would return to a room with no towels. The cleaning lady needed to wash them and hang them out the window to dry all afternoon before giving them back in the evening.

Yerevan is filled with grand avenues and huge statues. The Soviets built buildings to last, though those buildings now fly the Armenian flag. Sprouting off of the grand avenues are dusty streets, lined with decaying apartment blocks and half-finished construction projects. The place that really represented Armenia to us was the Cascades - huge white steps in the center of town, dotted with sculptures and fountains. They are truly impressive and as you climb and climb them, they suddenly just stop. A huge section is unfinished and has been under construction for a decade or so. After a detour on some gravelly roads you finish the climb at a wide plaza with a tall tower. To your right is a park that used to house a huge statue of Jozsef Stalin.  Now Stalin is gone and replaced by a sculpture of Mother Armenia, a woman warrior holding a sword.

Park in Yerevan

Cascades

Cascade construction

Mother Armenia

Armenians are quick to fly their flag and erect their statues because, since 1990, they finally have a country to call their own. Before the Soviets took over there were the Ottoman Turks. Before them came the Persians and the Byzantines. Armenia has been ruled by foreign powers for ages, and Armenians have been broken down for just as long.  Now they are trying to rebound, furiously flying their flags. Recovery seems slow, but in Yerevan you can spot a Lexus and a BMW here and there.

Around Yerevan there are signs that say "remember and demand." The slogan refers to the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide. Over 1.5 million people were killed and they are honored at the Genocide Memorial and Museum.
Note: I learned that 43 U.S. states have recognized the genocide, but since Ronald Reagan, U.S. presidents have refused to use that term in fear of alienating Turkey, our ally and the perpetrator.
 

Genocide Memorial

Brian gazes at Mt. Ararat from the Genocide Memorial

Remember and demand

Trying to find a better life, Armenians have emigrated all over the world (much like the Irish, the Polish and so many others).  Famous Armenian-American Kim Kardashian visited Yerevan a couple of years ago. Some developer gave her a big house, in case she ever wanted to come and live in Armenia. That seems silly - she could just stay at the Elysium Gallery instead.

The constant reminder to remember and demand keeps the Armenians on guard, proud, conscious of who their enemies are, wary of who else might want to invade. Mother Armenia, sword in hand, watches over the city ready to defend them. Maybe the campaigns were not working, because people were all very kind to us and not demanding at all. Every Armenian man seems to wear a black leather jacket. Every Armenian woman seems to wear heels and heavy makeup. They didn't look like they were from Wisconsin, but they did show us some Midwestern kindness.

Being Caucasian

A note on our destination - we went to a region called the Caucasus, which has nothing to do with presidential primaries. It's the three countries of Georgia (not the state), Armenia and Azerbaijan, all formerly part of the Soviet Union. It's bordered by Turkey and the Black Sea to the west and Iran to the south, and named after the Caucasus mountain range which divides these countries from Russia. We didn't make a complete Caucasus tour, because the visa for Azerbaijan was too difficult and expensive.

The word Caucasus does have something to do with the label for white people. The pale among us check the box for Caucasian on various forms and surveys, but don't really know why. Around the year 1800, German anthropologist Francis Blumenbach divided humanity into five races based on color, skull shape and other really objective (ha!) characteristics. He found the people from the Caucasus to have a very representative skull shape and therefore all people from Eurasia got lumped in with them. There are many loud, angry bells going off in my head, no matter its shape, about this concept. We all know that skull measuring (as a scientific basis for racism) has only gotten mankind into trouble throughout history. Regardless, the people of the Caucasus, who are rather tan and swarthy, are the namesake for all of us whiteys.

The other question - which continent were we traveling to, exactly? Was it Europe? Asia? Eurasia? The Near East? There's no good answer to that question. It all depends where you draw the imaginary line.

So, with imaginary classifications and imaginary lines out of the way, I'll tell you about our journey.

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.

The attic

Our apartment is on the top floor of the building. Or, at least, it was the top floor. Now there are men building an apartment into the attic above us. This makes it harder to pretend that I live in a penthouse.

There are not a lot of people who want to move into a fourth-floor walk up. And when you consider that the European fourth floor is actually the American fifth floor (the ground floor is 0 not 1), there are even fewer interested. Which is probably why this apartment was available in the first place.

 It only takes a week or so to build of those buns of steel and not be out of breath when you reach the front door. And the view from our balcony over the rooftops of the city is pretty fantastic. I can also look down into the windows of the apartments across the street without other people seeing up into ours (at least I think so, but I should probably be careful).  The other thing that's great about the top floor is that there is no one above us. No chairs scraping, feet pounding, vacuums buzzing, feet tap dancing (hey, it's possible), etc. It's just an empty room, and we can pile some of our extra junk in front of the door. That's all about to change.

Now, starting at 7:30 every morning, workers are hammering, sawing, possibly sledge hammering away at our peace and quiet. The attic needs some work and that work is happening right above my head. All this construction is needed since there's no electricity up there, only a few walls and no plumbing. Maybe someone lived in the attic before but now it's just the bats and the ghosts. I know because I went up and looked. The bats were polite enough to hide when I came in.

It makes me wonder about the story of our building, if those walls could talk, as the saying goes. The place was originally built in 1919 and rebuilt in 1953. I don't know how much was destroyed by bombs in World War II, but I would imagine those walls were hurting. And then, what? Maybe an occasional post-war attic squatter and then decades of quiet, interrupted only by the flutter of bat wings. Until now, when floors are being laid and plumbing installed. If those walls could talk I imagine they'd be pretty angry about losing their quiet, and possibly their bats.

So if you are looking for an apartment in Hannover in a few months, remember that it's a real pain to live on the fifth floor with no elevator. Remember that there could possibly be ghosts. Remember that nobody wants to live above weird American neighbors who sometimes play loud music. Remember that there are plenty of other places to live. You can't blame me for trying. The building can have only one penthouse, after all.

A black eye and a missing tooth

It's been two days since the terrorist attacks in Brussels. Two days since the bombs exploded. And as people are wiping away tears and pointing fingers, I am thinking about what to think of it all.

I used to live near Brussels. In that first expat experience I was in high school and too absorbed in my own teenage issues to think too deeply about current events or Europe's place in the world. My family and I flew in and out of Zaventem airport and occasionally rode the metro. I remember being told to stay away from the sketchy neighborhoods at the north end of town, the ones that are now known as hotbeds for jihad activity.

So I have a very minor attachment to the small city in a small and divided country. Little Brussels is the capital of Europe, headquarters of the EU and NATO. It's the place where the biggest meetings are held and the longest documents are signed. This week's attack is sad, really sad, and scary... but does it mean something bigger than another point for the bad guys?

When I'm not sure what to think, I like to read what other people are writing. One opinion that struck me from this Washington Post article is that Europe as a concept, as a unit, might have been sucker punched too many times. It's reeling now and could be knocked out entirely by the troubled economies of the south, terrorist attacks in the west and refugees pushing to get in at all sides. I don't claim to understand current events well enough to know Europe will pick itself up or not. Daily life in the daily town where I live seems unchanged, with its social supports, safe streets and tuition-free colleges. But even Hannover was rattled by a bomb scare last November. Even though it seems like Europe has that quality-of-life thing figured out, the bad guys are here among us.

It's easy to find people pledging their 'thoughts and prayers' for victims and their families in Belgium. What else can you really do? I liked this column with the headline "It's not enough to tweet your grief." The writer's point is that, with social media, it's easy to move from the natural impulse toward sympathy to become self-indulgent. It's easy to post a flag on your Facebook page so everyone can see how you feel, and then you move on. And these expressions of solidarity only come from those sudden disasters, tragic events, events that make you want to do something. Nobody posts 'thoughts and prayers' for people suffering from chronic hunger or poverty or disease.

I actually don't really agree with either opinion. I am a little too optimistic for that. I have a little too much faith that Europe can get back up again, albeit with a black eye and maybe a missing tooth. And I believe some of that sympathy is sincere, that many of us are actually thinking and praying for victims. I feel like people often post on social media because they feel helpless and don't know what else to do. It's like making a big cardboard sign and hanging it out your window.

As I get ready for our trip to Armenia and Georgia next week, it's funny to think that I might be safer there than in Brussels or Paris. Who would have said that 10 or 15 years ago? (Not me. I am pretty sure I didn't know what the Caucasus region was 10 years ago, and I still can't spell the word without looking it up). That's the funny thing about terrorism, though. We're all the enemy and we aren't safe anywhere, unless you want to live in a cave. Though that cave probably isn't safe either.

I don't know who can beat the bad guys or how they can be beaten. I know that a lot of smart and capable people are trying to keep up, trying to block those punches before they fall. As for the rest of us, we can only hope and get used to feeling a little bit helpless.