After I landed in Yerevan at night, at two in the morning, my father met me in the airport with two men I've never met before. He was drunk, unfortunately, to celebrate my return. One of the men who was with him had an iPhone and took photos of our initial meeting, but I forgot to ask him to send them to me, maybe later I can get them.
My father was acting funny, I think partly because he was drunk and partly because he was flustered by our finally meeting after 19 years of not knowing where we were. I was weirded out because I didn't know the two men in the car with us, they were driving because he was drunk. He whispered in my ear that he didn't have the money to ever pay them back, insinuating that I need to hurry up and get some money. I had to find an ATM in the city, so they drove me to a supermarket. He made me get $200 and give them to the two men for the drive. The rest of the money he used in a bazaar to buy food. It turned out later that I had family waiting for me in Yerevan who were planning on having me stay there and that there was a shuttle that would later take me to Abastumani for only $50 or less. I was upset when I found this out, and everyone in Abastumani and in Yerevan was upset with him too. Oh well, that was a mistake, hopefully the way back will be less awkward.
It was dark, so I didn't take any photos of the city, I will return and take some on the way back to the US. Until then, I have photos of the drive once I woke up after a short nap in the car. The first thing I took a photo of was the flower fields I always remembered from my childhood. Everyone thought I can't possibly remember from 3 years old, but here they are! I knew I was right!
There was a lot of water all over the place. In the picture above, once I went far enough into the flower field I found myself at the edge of a marsh I guess, there was just water all over.
My father asked to pull over in this village. My aunt explained it was the village where his mother's father was the pope in a church. He wanted me first to meet some distant relatives whom I've never met. I really didn't care about them and didn't want to meet them, I was way too tired. But he kept saying that no one believed him that I was coming to see him and that he had to prove to them that he was telling the truth. I thought that those people really didn't matter, he should have thought about the fact that I just came from a 30 hour trip from across the world and that 24 of those hours I spent flying in a plane and it I really didn't need to even be in a car at that time on an 8 hour drive, especially when my relatives in the city where I landed were expecting me. I was incredible mad at him. He was being absolutely selfish and lacking in any comprehension on how to meet a tired daughter who needed comfort. But he was happy.
It was extremely early in the morning and the distant relatives were still asleep. He woke them up. The husband sat at the table with us while his wife started setting the table. He said "Bring the vodka" and she brought the vodka. He poured my father a full shot, 100g., and himself half a shot and made a toast to our meeting. My father drank his shot, while he just touched it with his lips. Once my father emptied his shot glass, he said, "well, you want more?" and my father, like an idiot, nodded in approval.
I say an idiot because he already quit drinking and said he'd only drink to celebrate my return, but he had already been drinking for 40 hours at this point. He drank first the day before my flight was scheduled to take off, on the way to Yerevan to meet me, once I landed he asked me to get some congniac and drank it in the car with me and I asked him to not drink any more because he promised that he would only drink to celebrate my return. This terrible man, I don't know if he knew what he was doing or not, kept pouring him the stupid shots of vodka and my father kept drinking them, while he just didn't even sip his little half a shot.
Then the wife set a table with chocolates, bread, cheese and watermelon. I ate a little bit of everything and my father kept saying, eat more, eat more and I kept explaining to him that I didn't want to get fat and didn't want to eat more. He was really making me madder and madder by the minute. I ate a little bit of the watermelon and later told one of the men who were driving us, and they said that it's very dangerous to eat watermelon in that season, and I remembered that it's true, because people sometimes die from eating it at the wrong time, because watermelons sometimes carry very dangerous diseases in them and this time was one of those seasons. Wouldn't it be a hoot if my father caused me to die on our first meeting because he was drunk into a super. Ugh.
The evil man who was the distant relative said that his wife is a teacher and so all these people always give them things. His house was very rich, carpets and fancy paintings everywhere. I didn't like him one bit. The men in the car didn't even come into the house they waited for like an hour outside in their car. I hated this meeting.
This was the next stop after the unwanted meeting at some church that my father's grandfather used to be the pope in. The church was locked so we couldn't go inside.
My dad had a photo of me in my childhood next to these two stones. I don't know what the stones are for, they're next to the church, maybe they're grave stones. He wanted really bad to get a photo of us next to them, so here we are. I look very excited in my photos, but really I was just going in and out of consciousness due to extreme exhaustion.
Next stop involved asking this fine lady to let me use her outhouse. Afterwards my dad insisted that I take a photo with her. A memory for a lifetime. The lush foliage you see in her yard is just stuff that grows. She didn't have to plant it.
Have you ever seen a storks nest? I haven't until this day. They make these giant nests on top of light posts.
No comments:
Post a Comment