Just For Fun - Me In Sepia

When you half watch a sunrise you know that you have had a night worth writing home about. And yet – it is precisely these kinds of experiences that translate so badly when placed down on paper – and that when read by anyone else make you wonder if they really are worth writing home about. Because it is not the sunrise or that half tipsy dazzling moment when we sat on some art museum steps overlooking the stars, the moon and the city of Yerevan as it buzzed and hummed as only a bleedingly hot half middle eastern city can at 4.30 in the morning– it was not the gay bar that played middle eastern music alongside Greek house, it was not the son of our “hostel owner” – with his fashion design ambitions, his “playboy” diamond encrusted t-shirt and pink viser (all handcrafted, designed and made personally), it was not his hyperactive mother – who brought us into her apartment and offered us the folded out sofa in the corner of her living room, where an already sleeping French man – snoring like a chimney lay half naked. It wasn't curling up in that room and trying to sleep admidst his snores just as the sun rose. It wasn’t even the Armenian family that forced us into their car with cries of hospitality and warmth in half broken English and insisted on feeding us watermelon, walnuts and ice cream in their home. It wasn’t the endless wishes and prayers you have to make at every ancient site in Armenia. It wasn’t the moment when I decided that I had to sacrifice a sock in order to be able to tie it like a rag to the branch of a tree up near the caves outside of Yerevan and thereby get a prayer answered – (sometimes I wonder what kind of a God it is who only answers prayers if combined with the sacrifice of a rag or a sock). It was not swimming fully clothed in the main fountain beneath the Parliament buildings of Armenia at 3 in the morning with some wonderful Israeli's. It was none of these things – and yet it was all of these things – combined and contrasted in a tangled colorful thread of human experience that is worth writing home about. It was that feeling that sometimes life is so much more random and beautiful than we can ever imagine – and that sometimes the world smiles at you – and all you can do is gasp. And it is that feeling that I wish I could convey in words – and maybe this is why it never comes across well in a blog - I am just not sure I have the words to do it -- so maybe this blog doesn’t tell you anything more about Armenia, or Georgia – or shed light on the intricacies and philosophies of the nature of humanity – but this weekend was fun – and sometimes that’s enough of an excuse.