Our Trip

Day 1 - April 28

In the late afternoon of this day the trip started at Zurich Airport where most of us met for the first time. The group consisted of 30 people (about two thirds were women). Most of the group members were Swiss and a few were German. The youngest participant was 21 years old, the oldest 84(!), but most of us were between 45 and 65.

Everything went well from the beginning, the Czech Airlines flight went off on time and also the connection from Prague to Yerevan was only delayed for a few minutes, as some passengers entered the plane a little late. This was the same on the flight back from Yerevan to Prague, by the way. No comment on that ;)

Despite this delay we landed almost on time at 4:30 am local time on Zvartnots Airport Yerevan where we were greeted with heavy rain. The first thing we saw when leaving the plane were people in Soviet uniforms (only the badges had been changed) which made at least Hermann and me a little uncomfortable, as both of us had been visiting the former Eastern Block before. However, this first impression proved wrong. The Armenian customs officers were extremely friendly and remarkably unbureaucratic. Some of our group did not yet have a visa due to some administration problems, but those who thought that we would get stuck on the airport for hours because of that were to be surprised. They came to our meeting point almost as soon as those of us who had visas. Definitely here the Soviet Union had been removed completely despite the "recycled" uniforms!

After squeezing our way through Armenian family clans who greeted their homecoming loved ones with a lot of noise, hugs and kisses we finally got to the exit. There we got to know Nara, our tour guide. She did not only show us the many sights of Armenia, but was always there for us when something went wrong, somebody had problems walking the long ways, or we needed a translation, a good shopping advice, etc. She also patiently answered our endless questions and chose the most interesting restaurants for us.

We were led to our bus which obviously had once taken passengers through the German speaking part of Europe, until it most likely no longer met the emission and security standards.There we also met Gagik, the driver, who during the following days would drive us to all the places, served tea and coffee on our picnics and some more.

After a trip through Yerevan in the early morning we came to the State University Guesthouse where we enjoyed about four hours of sleep.

In front of the dining hall

Our room

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©2009 Hermann-Peter Steinmüller & Dr. Barbara Strohmenger
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