Sanahin and Haghpat

Today we had an excursion to yet another two monasteries. The weather wasn’t great, but it was still a fun, albeit long excursion. We left around nine and returned around ten in the evening. Some new volunteers have arrived in the past week and the group is getting larger. We saw the house and museum of Tumanyian, a famous Armenian poet. The monasteries were beautiful, especially Sanahin. It is really interesting to see these churches after having studied some of them in my Armenian Art and Architecture class at Tufts. Armenia is most known throughout history because of the genocide, but most people don’t realize the contributions the country has made to world history and world architecture.

We had dinner at one of the Tufenkian heritage hotels. James Tufenkian is of Tufenkian carpets fame, and has three or four hotels I know of in Armenia. This one was beautiful and it is located in the Lori Region.

Tomorrow I’m headed for a hike fairly close to Yerevan. My host mom gave me a stern talking to because I managed to escape this morning without eating breakfast. I’ve had spinach, beans, and hot dogs for three separate breakfasts this week. The food isn’t necessarily bad; it is just tough to handle at 8:30 AM.