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| Mother Armenia |
May’s going to be a fun month because we have three
three-day weekends. I’m staying in town for one of those to run a 10k but have
to decide where to go on the other two. Kosovo, Macedonia, Austria and Yerevan
were down as potentials for then because I’ve heard the weather’s good.
I did bulk buy of tickets before Christmas for holidays up
to St. Patrick’s Day, starting with Kyiv and Sarajevo. I also did Chisinau and decided
after that that I needed to go warm, so I did the Oman/UAE thing for an entire
week. I didn’t realize that Presidents’ Weekend was the weekend after and I’d
be going back-to-back, but I did intend to aim reasonably warm. I figured I’d
give Albania a shot. I mean, who goes to Albania?
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| Healthy tea, in a very generic way |
So I bought a ticket and got a hotel and, looking at the
computer screen, thought, “Wait a minute. Isn’t Tirana the capital of Albania?”
I’d bought a flight and booked a hotel to Yerevan. I couldn’t recall off the
top of my head where Yerevan was and honestly had to Google it to figure out I
was going to spend Presidents’ Day weekend in Albania.
They’re all As, right? So what’s the difference? Well, for
starters, about 30 degrees. The temperature in Tirana was 42 and Yerevan was
12. Oh, man. And since I was still coughing, I didn’t think this was going to
be good. I brought a David Baldacci book – Forgotten – and figured if I did
nothing else, I’d hang out in the hotel (Hotel Meg for good reviews) and read.
I think I packed lighter than I’ve ever packed. I wore a
pair of lined jeans, a long-sleeved denim shirt and a sweatshirt. Clothes-wise,
that was it. Well, other than the super heavy LL Bean coat, a scarf and the
Centennial Classic hat/Red Wings gloves that Dana gave me. Since my flight left
on Friday night at midnight there and then left for Istanbul Monday at 6, I
figured I’d just wear the same stuff. I brought more vitamin C tablets than I
did changes of underwear.
It was so utterly cold but sunny and gorgeous. I had a
wonderful time and loved Yerevan, even though I thought it was in Albania. I
did really good not to come away with another rug – those Armenian designs and
colors were right up my alley.
Getting in the country was a little dicey. The flight –
Atlas Air – went just fine, but I was sick and coughing and we landed at 3 a.m.
I had a car hired to pick me up and just wanted to go to bed. But first, immigration.
Since I walk fast, I was pretty much one of the first people
in line and I got stamped immediately. I started to leave, and a customs
official stopped me for more questioning. OK, no worries. I got taken back to a
little room, where another official asked why I had gone to Azerbaijan.
It never occurred to me that Azerbaijan and Armenia might
not get along, but they wanted to know what I had done there – I visited a
friend – and then asked why I was in Yerevan. Fortunately, even in my
mucus-filled fog, I knew “Because I thought it was Albania” was the wrong
answer and I said tourism. Albania or Armenia, that’s what I was going to do.
They then asked where I was staying and my phone number,
which I happily gave. I don’t mess with international officials. I certainly
understand people getting selected for questions, which is what I’d assumed had
happened. And as I sat there, I realized how it would look strange for this
random American to hand over a passport with a few short stays in Eastern
European countries. It occurred to me that my diplomatic passport would demonstrate
that I was based in Istanbul, so these weren’t trips from the U.S., which
really would have been weird. (Although, quite honestly, I’ve done it before,
but not as often.) So I pulled out my diplomatic passport and asked them if
they needed to see my Turkish visa.
They backed off so quickly they risked whiplash. It had not
been my intention to play the “I’m a diplomat” card – indeed, I never said it –
but as soon as the two officers saw it, they started apologizing left and
right. “Oh, mistake! Mistake!” I didn’t see the need to apologize – they were
just doing their job – but it was kind of funny.
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