On Tuesday we temporarily closed up the house in Pico, Italy and made our way to our next destination: Armenia. As Paul says, we’re going from one motherland to the next.

I’ll post photos of from the town of Pico shortly. I have a lot to sort through and haven’t had time to review everything.

In the meantime…onto Armenia!

We gave ourselves plenty of time to get to Fiumicino Airport from Pico, fearing an accident on the A1.  We flew WizzAir to Armenia — the only airline that flies directly from Rome — and they asked for passengers to check in 3 hours before departure. We were genuinely curious who would be flying from Rome to Yerevan on a Tuesday afternoon, and the flight was full! Of course, we met people in the check-in line from California who were going to vacation in Armenia to watch the Armenian General Athletic Union (known as Homenetmen) games.

And that’s why we are in Armenia, too. D is playing on the Eastern US men’s basketball team and they’ll compete against teams from Canada, Cairo, Lebanon, Artsakh, Australia, France, Jerusalem, Armenia, Kuwait, and South America during the pan-Armenian Homenetmen games. Homenetmen is an international athletic and scouting organization that has been around since 1918, and over the next two weeks, 750 athletes will compete in soccer, basketball, volleyball, chess, swimming, track and field and more. 

Landing in Yerevan was an experience and probably a preview of what to expect the next two weeks. There was supposed to be a driver at the airport for Damian as an athlete, but none was found. Several men tried hustling us outside the airport terminal, saying they would drive us to the hotel for 20 Euro, which I knew was too much. We used the Yandex Go app (similar to Uber) for the first time and finally landed a non-English speaking driver who miraculously fit our three very large suitcases and four carry-ons into his Nissan Sentra.

I found out 12 hours before we arrived in Armenia that D’s hotel was switched. He wouldn’t be staying at the same hotel as us (I won’t get into how aggravated I am at the lack of communication around this leg of the trip.) So from the airport the Yandex brought all of us to the Marriott, and then Paul and I walked our suitcases to the Best Western two blocks away.

As we walked to dinner at 11:30pm, Paul remarked that he felt like a giant as all the men are shorter than him. We met friends of ours from NY at Abu Hagop Sandwich, a popular fast food spot open until 3am. We had sandwiches in a thick pita bread with soujouk (dried cured meat), pickles and tomatoes. 

It was a long travel day but glad to be settled in our next destination.