We just got off the plane . We are in France. We had a 5 hour lay over It has been about 3 hours. We got a little bored just sitting around.
Today is a very exciting day. The 5th graders will be going to Armenia. The day starts with school. Once school is done the 5th graders are cheering because there about to go on a trip that they will not forget.
Today was the last day, but I don’t wanna kill the vibe, so I’m going to say that today was super cool! We had a delicious breakfast, then we started off the day by taking the metro, and when we got on the elevator, it went really fast! Also, we needed tokens to get into the security gate.
Later, we went to the statue of Sasuntsi Tavit. It was in a small man made pool of water. He was on his horse, Kourgig Chalali. In his hand was a sword named Toor Gaydzagin. After, we all took pictures alone and together, and we got back onto the bus.
To start off our lovely day, we prayed in the bus for a good trip. After a while we got to the Alexander Tamanyan statue. Alexander Tamanyan is an architect who designed the modern city of Yerevan. The statue looked very nice but the unique thing about it is that there is a map of Yerevan next to the statue.
While our class was taking a few pictures, a pigeon flew on the statue’s head! After we took pictures of us and the map, we went to the Cascades which is a big staircase that leads to a great view of Ararat mountains. We had a contest about who can get down the fastest. There was an escalator and the stairs. I took the escalator with George, Alina, Sienna, Talar and, Digin Ardemis. We were the first ones down so I said we should get points for all of us.
Read the rest of this entry »
Today, in the early morning heat, we left in the bus for the TUMO technology center. We watched a film about TUMO and then went in our separate ways, the parents to the hotel and us to the activities.(The activities consisted of either robotics, sketching, animation, and game development.)
Today was a very busy day. We had to wake up at 6:00 and go to breakfast at 7:00. After a day of partying and dancing yesterday, I really didn’t feel like waking up at 6:00. Instead I woke up at 6:30. We had a buffet for breakfast, as usual I got waffles and maple syrup.
After breakfast, we headed into the bus to go to Keghartavank. We sang and slept in the bus. Finally, we got to Keghartavank. We prayed, lit candles, and examined the ancient cuneiforms. Once we got out of Keghart we went to a little market. There were crowns made out of flowers, Armenian foods, and souvenirs. I got the floral crown – it surprisingly looked great on me. All my friends laughed and they found it amusing.
Today is a very special day for me. It’s my birthday and I get to celebrate it in Armenia!!!! It’s also Armenian independence day. My friends and I were wearing the school’s orange T-shirts and heading to Sardarabad.
We had a free day yesterday. Today is day 9 and we had a lot of fun.
We are going to Gyumri . We went to a surprise destination. It was a field of stones that were shaped as letters. The second surprise was that there was so much mud that people were cleaning their shoes for 10 minutes. We all took photos next to the letter representing the first letter of our first name.
This morning we had breakfast. After that we went behind the hotel and went to see the Hotsprings and we felt the water. The temperatures of the water were 30,35,45, and 50 celsius. We walked back to the hotel and got on the little vans. The bus couldn’t go down on the path to Jermuk because the roads were too narrow. We went and saw the waterfalls.
Today we left Artsakh to go to Jermuk , on the way, we stopped at a military tank which was the first tank to enter Shushi to protect the land. During the Shushi fight a brave Armenian soldier was in this tank but he sadly died after getting shot. We also went to an Armenian church right next to the tank in which the Azeris kept their weapons and bombs. They kept their weapons there because they knew that the Armenians would never fire at their own church. After going to the church and tank we went to the Khachadoor Apovian Armenian School where we met students our age and we sang and recited poems to each other and had a great time.
We had breakfast at the hotel, and we drove to ARS-Sosse kindergarten school. The children performed for us with them singing and dancing. Many of us were emotional in a good way. We said our goodbyes, and headed to the Kantsasar Monastary.
At the Kantsasar Monastery, we saw tombstones,and they all had different meanings. One meant you’re not perfect without God. Another one meant the Earth. At the church, there were many, many Khatchkars. At the end, we were riding on a white horse waving an Armenian flag.
Read the rest of this entry »
Today we started by going to eat breakfast. Everyone needed to check out of the hotel because we would be driving to Artsakh. The first sight we saw was Gomitas’s garden. There were 61 gravestones, including Gomitas, Aram Khachadourian, William Saroian, and Sos Sarkissian. We left the garden singing Harach Nahadag and marching. In the bus we started to drive to Khor Virap. Antrias read his description of Khor Virap as well as Maral read her description of Mount Ararat. They both asked questions to the crowd. Zabel our tour guide described the boarders of Armenia and Turkey. Getting close to Ararat we started getting really festive and started singing songs.
Read the rest of this entry »