Visiting Riga 24.04 and Yerevan 25-27.04. Amazing trip! :)

and so, my trip started on 24.04 when at 12.00
I arrived in the beautiful capital on Latvia

Thank you girls - Baiba, Evita and Laura - for the visit to the Andrejsala and sharing all the chats on this inland of secrets in the paradise of sun:) (remeber - saladus=secret in est)

And so - in the night next day I arrived to Yerevan. I must confess there was one moment I actually felt scared - when I got off the plane it was 5am local time, I was going by taxi(very old Lada) with a very typical Caucasian-looking taxidriver in total darkness driving first past a long street with many many lights which seemed as some kind of a casino place. And then the lights passed and it was totally dark - and at this point - just once - I got really scared and thought one of my favoring thoughts - only by risking going too far you can get to know your limits and get to know how far you actually can go. But anyway - the scary moment passed - and going back to the airport few days later and noticing the streets in the daytime I just laughed on myself!! :D

Anyway - I so arrived in the wonderful place called hostel Envoy - I can only say good things about the place and as I learned from the Peace Corps guys staying there in Caucasia - meaning Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Armenia there is only one hostel - Envoy - and that's why they call it THE hostel among themselves. Also I had some chats with the guys working there who shared that the place was founded by some australian-armenian guys and even though the awesome guys working there right now couldn't believe in the idea themselves in the beginning it is a nice business. Anyway - as a traveller I can only say - respect to hostels - especially such nice ones as Envoy.

About the temperatures - it was soo hot! It actually reached 34 celcius on Sunday! This was a cool change compared to Estonia, but possibly maybe even a bit to much for a relatively nordic person as me.

So - those are some of the people who made the stay amazing - AIESECers from Yerevan. Generally about armenians - well after such a short stay I can't really draw any conclusions, but I can say that as much as what I experienced the people are extremely hospitable, the love using the suffix "jan", so e.g. calling me Marina jan, or just saying jan which equals somewhat with "ito" in spanish and means dear. And this is totally the best way to describe their attitude towards each other and/or visitors.

More about people - there was a surprisingly big number of Peace Corp volunteers and EVS guys - really cool.

Some bad things I noticed are really extreme traffic(almost as bad as Cairo) and very polluted land and air. The people seemed to find it too often normal to throw trash on the street and the old cars were really even visually polluting the air to extremes. But then again a really good thing as well - all the fruits and vegetables that I ate there were real - just as I remember them from childhood. Now back home our actually good vegetable's taste sooo plastic to me. I actually bought some strawberries here just to compare - definitely ours(well probably turkish though:D) are somehow genetically mutated:D yukk!! :D
All in all Yerevan would definetly be a place where I wouldn't mind living for a while:)

haha my camera started taking all the pics in pink light - welcome to my pink world. Anyway - why I put this pic here - bacause I feel it somehow symbolizes me while traveling. When I travel it's the a bit more adventurous me than normally(even though for sure I'm adventurous home as weel hah). I feel like I really don't know who I am in a very positive way - I start to ask myself etc. And then I often start believing that I actually can fly while discovering a new place. And the feeling stays - even back home. So somewhat this sculpture somewhat symbolizes myself for me;)

haha - this I just found funny - if for an Estonian/European? SAS obviously stand for the Scandinavian Airlines, then for an Armenian it stands for the most popular supermarket chain so you can see SAS on any street.
About brands there was one more thing that amazed me - not having seen any MacDonald's around I asked my local friends and got it confirmed - there are no MacDonald's places out here. Not a single one.

The most beautiful thing in Yerevan was the lights and and fountains show that can be witnessed for free on the main square - Republic Square six evenings a week. Incredibly beautiful, and though it seemed that there were some doubts among the locals whether this is what the government should do with their money, I can just say that for a random visitor like me this was one of the things why Yerevan left such an amazing impression to me(and why for sure I'd love t go back and spend some more time/money there) - because every single one of my days there ended listening to beautiful classical music and seeing the amazing pictures. I hope that soon the city will prosper even more:)

People who made throse days special - Laura, Baiba, Evita from Riga and Lia, Zara, Chris, Manu, Arpi, Mary, Davit, Ali, Hovik, Luiza, Carol, Maria, Mohsen and others from Yerevan! Thank you guys!!!