Early morning, December 30th at Zvartnots Airport (now known as Armenia International Airport), about 200 cheery local Armenians are ready to hit the uncultured Egyptian resort city of Sharm El Sheik. I swear I had never seen that many smiling Armenian faces gathered in one place in this country before. (You all know how serious looking Armo's from Armenia usually are.) But what an amazing sight to see so many local families with their kids and grandmas heading to a vacation country so many people dream about. Tickets weren't cheap either ($1,000+.) and throughout the 10-day trip I noticed many of them spending lots of money. How could they afford this? And a quarter of the passengers on the flight my relatives and I later took to the miraculous city of Luxor were Armenians. (By the way, tours to Luxor cost about an additional $200-250.)
Sharm is definitely not a place I really cared much to visit, but it was the only flight to Egypt, and the last one Armenian Airlines was flying. (By the way, Armavia is the only local airline company now. And if I'm not mistaken either owned by one of our well known mafiosos or high ranking government officials.)
There is really NOTHING Egyptian about Sharm. No historical sites, and hardly any decent Arab-Egyptian restaurants. It's basically a tourist spot to get away from the cold, mostly jammed with Russian, Scandinavian and Italian tourists, who yearn to relax by one of the most beautiful seas in the world ... the Red Sea. So much so that the majority of local shop owners speak fluent Russian and Italian. Most of the annoying shop owners, thinking we might be Italians, would greet us with a "Ciao". A couple of times we were asked if we were Turkish, and a quick crash course of the Genocide would scare them away. Actually, anytime my relatives (both born in the Middle East) would answer back to "Ciao" with a "Marhaba", the shop owners would just walk away, thinking we might be Arabs whom they could not even squeeze one Piaster (Egyptian cent) out of.
Our priority excursion to the city of Luxor was AWESOME. Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and the Temples of Luxor and Karnak were just amazing. We also flew out to Cairo, instead of taking the painful 6+ hour bus ride through the Sinai deserts. Of course we visited the popular tourists attractions ... the Giza Pyramids, the Sphinx, the brilliant collection at the Cairo Egyptian Museum, and the popular Khan el-Khalili Bazaar. (Man did they have a lot of tasteless art. But I did manage to buy a couple of inexpensive "derbeke" drums.)
I was in doubt to take this trip, but when mama found out I had the chance to go see Egypt she kept reminding me how much I've been wanting to see her since I was a kid. (It's a 'her', right?) A second trip is definitely needed to see some of the other places we didn't have enough time to visit.
Our flight back to Yerevan was delayed for 8 hours. Picture 200+ Armenian tourists, with their luggage and their 2 or more carry-ons per passenger, gathered in a small airport, not much bigger than our own Yerevan airport. One guy even had a one-metre high plastic camel as a carry-on. What other airlines would allow that on-board? After finding out our flight was delayed, and waiting around doing nothing for over an hour, our group leader managed to get us a bus back to our hotel to relax for a few hours before returning to the airport for our flight back to our beloved freezing Motherland.
Back in Armenia and our social troubles continue ....
My relatives have the most "apush" neighbours. We were gone for 10 days, there was a snowstorm, and the entrance to the building was completely covered in snow and about 10-cms of thick ice, yet no one bothered to clean it up. For 2 days my relatives and I made tremendous effort to clean it, but the ice was so thick we could barely get it to crack. The neighbours downstairs refused to help. They are the ones I got drunk with a couple of years ago (check my Jan 11 2003 log.) Three guys in their twenties and their father, all refused to help clean up the entrance THEY also use (not me, I don't even live there, yet I went out over half a dozen times in 2 days trying to crack that stubborn ice.) Then there is the guy upstairs, and an idiot cop in his 40's in another apartment. No one helped.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to gather a group of decent Armo's, both local and diasporan, and build a new city in an unpopulated area of Armenia, and eventually seek autonomy. Naming the region Armenutopia or Armenadise, or maybe even Armenadraxt, a place where all respect eachother, and with the aim of setting an example for any disrepectful Armenians. I had done an interview in Noyan Tapan newspaper a few months back, and my "we need to respect each other" quote was the title of my interview. I really think so much of our daily problems in Armenia comes down to the issue of respect. (A little off topic, the youth fraction of the Republican party wants to pitch an idea to the government of renaming this current Armenia as "Eastern Armenia". It's not a new idea, but definitely interesting.)
Once again, Happy New Year to all! Almost everyone I've spoken to has made really positive predictions about 2005. I have a good feeling as well. :-)
Sharm is definitely not a place I really cared much to visit, but it was the only flight to Egypt, and the last one Armenian Airlines was flying. (By the way, Armavia is the only local airline company now. And if I'm not mistaken either owned by one of our well known mafiosos or high ranking government officials.)
There is really NOTHING Egyptian about Sharm. No historical sites, and hardly any decent Arab-Egyptian restaurants. It's basically a tourist spot to get away from the cold, mostly jammed with Russian, Scandinavian and Italian tourists, who yearn to relax by one of the most beautiful seas in the world ... the Red Sea. So much so that the majority of local shop owners speak fluent Russian and Italian. Most of the annoying shop owners, thinking we might be Italians, would greet us with a "Ciao". A couple of times we were asked if we were Turkish, and a quick crash course of the Genocide would scare them away. Actually, anytime my relatives (both born in the Middle East) would answer back to "Ciao" with a "Marhaba", the shop owners would just walk away, thinking we might be Arabs whom they could not even squeeze one Piaster (Egyptian cent) out of.
Our priority excursion to the city of Luxor was AWESOME. Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and the Temples of Luxor and Karnak were just amazing. We also flew out to Cairo, instead of taking the painful 6+ hour bus ride through the Sinai deserts. Of course we visited the popular tourists attractions ... the Giza Pyramids, the Sphinx, the brilliant collection at the Cairo Egyptian Museum, and the popular Khan el-Khalili Bazaar. (Man did they have a lot of tasteless art. But I did manage to buy a couple of inexpensive "derbeke" drums.)
I was in doubt to take this trip, but when mama found out I had the chance to go see Egypt she kept reminding me how much I've been wanting to see her since I was a kid. (It's a 'her', right?) A second trip is definitely needed to see some of the other places we didn't have enough time to visit.
Our flight back to Yerevan was delayed for 8 hours. Picture 200+ Armenian tourists, with their luggage and their 2 or more carry-ons per passenger, gathered in a small airport, not much bigger than our own Yerevan airport. One guy even had a one-metre high plastic camel as a carry-on. What other airlines would allow that on-board? After finding out our flight was delayed, and waiting around doing nothing for over an hour, our group leader managed to get us a bus back to our hotel to relax for a few hours before returning to the airport for our flight back to our beloved freezing Motherland.
Back in Armenia and our social troubles continue ....
My relatives have the most "apush" neighbours. We were gone for 10 days, there was a snowstorm, and the entrance to the building was completely covered in snow and about 10-cms of thick ice, yet no one bothered to clean it up. For 2 days my relatives and I made tremendous effort to clean it, but the ice was so thick we could barely get it to crack. The neighbours downstairs refused to help. They are the ones I got drunk with a couple of years ago (check my Jan 11 2003 log.) Three guys in their twenties and their father, all refused to help clean up the entrance THEY also use (not me, I don't even live there, yet I went out over half a dozen times in 2 days trying to crack that stubborn ice.) Then there is the guy upstairs, and an idiot cop in his 40's in another apartment. No one helped.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible to gather a group of decent Armo's, both local and diasporan, and build a new city in an unpopulated area of Armenia, and eventually seek autonomy. Naming the region Armenutopia or Armenadise, or maybe even Armenadraxt, a place where all respect eachother, and with the aim of setting an example for any disrepectful Armenians. I had done an interview in Noyan Tapan newspaper a few months back, and my "we need to respect each other" quote was the title of my interview. I really think so much of our daily problems in Armenia comes down to the issue of respect. (A little off topic, the youth fraction of the Republican party wants to pitch an idea to the government of renaming this current Armenia as "Eastern Armenia". It's not a new idea, but definitely interesting.)
Once again, Happy New Year to all! Almost everyone I've spoken to has made really positive predictions about 2005. I have a good feeling as well. :-)
posted by Der Hova at 2:13 AM
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