To Conclude

I had hoped that over the course of my journey through the Caucasus, I would be able to write more. But, unsurprisingly, Max and I rarely had time on the internet to do more than say hey to our parents and check necessary travel information.

Since the last time I wrote, many things have happened. I'll share one of my favorite days of the trip, since I won't be able to recount everything.

One day we needed to get from Azerbaijan to Yerevan through Georgia, since Azerbaijan and Armenia don't dig each other. It started with an outrageous taxi ride from western Azerbaijan to Tbilisi with a mysterious Moldovan who winters in Tyumen, in Western Siberia, and summers in Azerbaijan. Among the many services he offered as a driver, one was a three day car ride to Moscow, costing about $2500, begging the question of who exaclty would pay that much to be DRIVEN to Moscow, and why?

So after overhearing us talk about how we were going to eat lots of Xinkali once we got to Tbilisi, he decided he wanted some too and proposed we stop at our first opportunity, just over the Georgia-Azerbaijan border. He ordered 30 big dumplings. He ate 15, Max ate 8, and I ate about 6.5. Max and I were working on digesting for the rest of the day. The man was a Xinkali eating machine. He was silent as he went about his business, and we were bursting with questions about who he was and what he did, but he didn't really want to talk--only adding to the mystery. We shared our marshrutka ride from Tbilisi to Yerevan with two short Armenian ladies carrying with them approximately 27 bags of varying sizes. What was in those bags was anyone's guess. When we asked, they said something about sewing needles. Adding to their cargo, they bought three watermelons at our first stop. The watermelons rolled around the van for the rest of the ride, getting pierced by chair legs until the marshrutka floor was slick with watermelon juice.

We stayed in Yerevan for several days, resting and lounging in cafes, and from there we stopped in Dilijan, in the Armenian mountains, then went back to pass our last couple nights in Tbilisi, city of dreams.

I was thinking this was going to be a concluding entry, but then I got distracted writing about xinkali and the taxi driver and the watermelon ladies. I thought maybe I could write something that would Sum Up this year I've had. But basically life just keeps rumbling along, one day you're in Siberia, the next day it's Baku, and then all of the sudden it's Grinnell again. I hope I will be seeing the former Soviet Union again soon. In the meantime, it no longer seems appropriate for me to be blogging at Krasnoyarskhelen.blogspot.com. Maybe I'll start making use of my tumblr.

Anyway, thanks for reading, we'll be in touch.