Pochalyista!

Some stats on our trip so far:
4 airports: sfo>munich>kiev>tbilisi
4 alphabets: latin, cyrillic, georgian, armenian (yuliya refers to the latter two as "squiggleys")
3 hostels
3 countries visted

I agree with Yuliya that our flight with Lufthansa met expectations. The flight attendants kept speaking to me in German for obvious reasons. I have learned some of the cyrillic alphabet and about a dozen Russian words. I have learned no parts of the georgian and armenian alphabets and none of the words.

The georgian and armenian hostels we stayed at are actually homestays that are recently remodeled and very nice. The georgian homestay has a pair of delightful lovebirds. The family gave us some home made freshly fried bread with bean paste which was amazing. The hostel in yerevan was in the city center and had a view of the cascade from our room (okay just the top of it).

At the Armenian/Georgian border we met a delightful orange tabby that we named border cat. I also composed a song about it. It put fear into the diapered miniature schnauzer that was riding with us on the marshrutka (katie calls it a rutiera).

There seem to be no other tourists in yerevan/tbilisi except for at the homestays, so it's been interesting. So far the locals have been nothing but welcoming, friendly, and exceedingly polite. We say good bye to Katie tomorrow morning, but reunite with her in about a week.

-Amy