You know it’s a slow news day when the top CNN story on your Google homepage is “Clooney campaigns to raise Darfur awareness.” Nevertheless, I click it for the mere fact that it is about George Clooney, the “Sexiest Man Alive.”

Apparently Clooney has been traveling to China and Egypt and urging government officials there to do something about the bloodshed in Darfur. This is an issue he obviously cares deeply about, so why not give him the top (and soon to be vacant) U.S. position at the U.N.? I mean, damn, the guy’s only 45 and he’s already saved the world from nuclear annihilation, helped a bunch of Iraqi refugees escape the clutches of Saddam Hussein, and basically told that bully Joe McCarthy, “FU.” Granted, he stole all that money from Terry Benedict (that guy was a jerk anyways) and couldn’t prevent the U.S. government from assassinating Prince Nasir Al-Subaai, but we all have our “off” days. He looks ridiculously good in a suit, and contemporary American politics isn’t really about substance or intelligence, so we might as well populate the U.N. with some delicious eye candy rather than nominate another John Bolton bore fest. Dubya, let’s make this happen.

I got “tagged” with this book post by Cincy back in October and am finally getting around to filling this out. I love to read, but rarely find the time to do so these days unless I am stuck on an airplane for a few hours (and even then, I’m usually catching up on my Vanity Fair or Surfer magazine subscriptions). Anyways, here we go…

1. One book that changed your life:

Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie. I was enrolled in a world history class in summer of 2001, and after sitting through an incredibly fascinating four hour lecture on the Russian royal family, I ran to Barnes & Noble to find a book on the subject. I ended up purchasing Massie’s extremely well-written account of Russia’s last Tsar, and finished it within days. Thanks to this book (and many others that would soon follow), I re-oriented my studies at GW to focus on Russian politics and history, spent two summers in Russia, and earned a Master’s degree in Russian Studies from LSE. Of course, my current position has nothing to do with Russia, but hopefully in the future I’ll get to use this knowledge…like maybe when Putin brings back the USSR and needs a bunch of economists to staff GOSPLAN…yeah, I could totally run a planned economy.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:

This is a hard one, because there are a lot of books I like to re-read. A book that I could read over and over again? That would have to be Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. These two volumes are quite possibly the best account of World War II I have ever read. They’re historical fiction, but Wouk doesn’t skimp on the facts. If you have any interest in WWII, read them.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:

The U.S. Army Survival Manual. I have a copy of this back in California (no idea why, it’s just sitting on my book shelf), and trust me, I would need this if I’m ever stuck on an island a la “Lost.” Seriously, I need a book to show me how to light a campfire…

4. One book that made you laugh:
I’m cheating and picking two…

English as a Second Language by Megan Crane. This is a fun, light, total “chick-lit” book – a genre that you will rarely find me reading, as most of my books tend to focus on Russia, Russia, and, oh yeah, Russia. I borrowed this from my friend Moira and read it on my London-Luxor flight. It was one of the few books that actually made me laugh out loud (semi-embarrassing when you are stuck in a middle seat on a crowded plane). The basic premise of this book is that an American moves to the UK to attend graduate school. Yeah, now you know why I enjoyed it so much. The book was hilarious because I could actually identify with the author’s grad school experience: the English weather, the pubs, the horrible food, the odd grading system…basically, everything. I was disappointed, however, to read some of the reviews of this book on

Amazon:
“I think that anybody who reads this book and thinks it strikes a chord should probably get themselves to an AA meeting.” Uhhh…yikes.

And the second book, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Copeland. I’m not a member of Gen X (Gen Y represent!) but I could still identify with this tale of three twenty-somethings living in my hometown of Palm Springs, California (OK, I’m from Rancho Mirage/Palm Desert, but whatever, 10 miles away). Copeland perfectly captures the absurdity of living in a “desert resort.” This is required reading for all my friends from the desert. I’ll lend you the book if you want, just let me know.

5. One book that made you cry:

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I picked this up from a second-hand bookstore in, of all places, Luxor, Egypt. I had already finished English as a Second Language, and Lovely Bones was the only book that wasn’t some trashy romance novel or John Grisham bore-fest. I’ll admit that I didn’t actually cry while reading this, but I’ve never felt so depressed while reading a book. Odd, considering that half of my reading material in college was on Stalin’s reign of terror.

6. One book you wish had been written:
My great American novel which I will eventually write. It will rocket to the top of the NYTimes bestseller list and sell millions of copies in 30 different languages. I will then sail around the world in my ridiculously large yacht. Yeah, I’ll get right on that.

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Uh, I dunno…anything by Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. I actually own one of Limbaugh’s books. It was given to me a long, long time ago by a hardcore Republican relative. Inside the book they cheekily inscribed “To Lindsay: Know your enemy” or something like that. Maybe when I’m stuck on a deserted island I can use it to start a fire, because its literary values is practically worthless.

8. One book you’re currently reading:

The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power by Daniel Yergin. I’m slowly slogging through this 900 page monster. Not exactly a page turner, but it’s the classic textbook on the history of the oil & gas industry.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
I’ve got a ridiculously huge stack of unread books back in California…The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace…you know, the usual collection of dead Russian authors. So, one of those.

10. Six people to tag:
Damn, which of my friends still maintain their blogs? Let’s see, Emily, Ryan, Capitan, Joyce, Will, and Cindy. Anyone else who is up for it, just do it. I need some reading suggestions. The title of this entry, BTW, is a quote by Bertrand Russell.

Our flight out of Yerevan left a little after 10am. Prior to leaving, we had to pay a “departure fee”, which is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard of. You guys made me buy two visas and yet I still have to PAY to LEAVE your country? Whatev.

The flight to Heathrow absolutely sucked. It was full of wild diaspora kids (on their way back to LA, I’m guessing) who were running up and down the aisles screaming their heads off and knocking down the flight attendants who were serving everyone their drinks. I had to try very hard to restrain myself from sticking my arm out and clotheslining one of the brats. Hey parents, wanna control your kids? Oh, right, you’re too busy fidgeting with your iPod to notice that little Aram and Stepan are terrorizing your fellow passengers and convincing Lindsay that she will never EVER EVER want kids…EVER!

I had purposely spaced out my Yerevan – London and London – Washington flights (8 hour layover) so I could head into the wonderful city of London and have a few pints at a pub I used to frequent. We went to Churchill Arms in Notting Hill, which has the most amazing Thai food for six quid (yeah, the dishes went up a few pence since I lived there, but I’m not complaining). When I was at LSE, we’d eat or drink at Churchill Arms at last once a week, so I have some very fond memories of that pub. Saalim, a friend of mine from LSE, met up with us. Just like the old times, innit? (Thanks for the Strongbow and Pimm’s, dude, looking forward to seeing you in January.)

I rode the Heathrow Express back to the airport in a semi-inebriated, near catatonic state. I couldn’t believe I had to go back to Washington-effin’-DC, that goddamn hellhole swamp. I missed London’s pubs, outdoor markets, black cabs, red double decker buses, efficient train system, and generally polite population.

Maybe…MAYBE I could just stay here…no, that would be pretty goddamn irresponsible, eh? Anyways, my visa’s long since expired.

Upon arrival at Heathrow, I purchased two bottles of Pimm’s from duty-free, because I needed some gin-based liqueur to blunt the trauma of my imminent departure from London. The flight was two hours late leaving Heathrow, due to the fact that it’s, well, Heathrow, and massive screwups seem to be par for the course at that airport.

Nothing memorable happened on the flight to Dulles, which arrived a bit past midnight. Customs was surprisingly easy. There weren’t any ridiculous questions that the agents at LAX like to ask: “How did you get to all these countries?”

“Uh, by airplane.”

Or, “Armenia? Were you participating in jihad against the United States of America?”

“Uh, Armenia is a Christian nation, but no.”

Got home at 1:30am, 21 hours after leaving Armenia. Four former Soviet republics down, eleven to go!
THE END…of the most drawn-out vacation description EVER. Took this trip in July and finished writing about it in December…way to go, Lindsay!

Anyways, this post wouldn’t be complete without a big thanks to Liz and Taline for putting us up (and more importantly, putting up with us). Thanks to Brian and Andrew for their brilliant toastmaster skills at our welcome dinner…and for ensuring that the Russki Standart vodka was constantly flowing.

Cheers, guys.

I’m trying to figure out where to go for my next trip. I was thinking of hitting up London over President’s Day weekend, but might switch that to Berlin because flights are cheap and I’ve never been to Germany. A summer surf trip to Costa Rica might be in the works. Let me know if you want to come along.

Also, I’ll post to this “blog” (I still hate that word) a bit more often, so you guys can stop complaining about how I never update it.

So my tour guide in Azerbaijan wasn’t kidding when he said that crude oil was “good for your skin.” According to the NYTimes article “Bathing in Black Gold for Health and Profit in Azerbaijan“, there is a full on PETROLEUM SPA in Naftalan, Azerbaijan:

Oil spas have returned to Naftalan, a Soviet-era vacation spot.

Inside, Ramil Mutukhov, a lanky 25-year-old, prepares to be pampered and preened, scrubbed and peeled — in a bath of pure crude oil.

He undresses, hangs his trousers and sweatshirt on a peg, pulls off socks and underwear and folds a wad of brown paper towels. He will need them later. Then he steps into a mess of what looks, smells and flows like used engine oil. “It’s wonderful,” he says, up to his neck in oil in a sort of human lube job.

Bathing in Azeri crude? Jesus, it’s like a dream come true.

The petroleum spas of Naftalan in central Azerbaijan, one of the little-known but once popular vacation spots of the Soviet Union, are making an unlikely return in a country so awash in oil these days that people are swimming in it.

Here in Naftalan, visitors can bathe once a day in the local crude. They and doctors here say it relieves joint pain, cures psoriasis, calms nerves and beautifies skin — never mind that Western experts say it may cause cancer.

Eh, when have those Western experts ever been right about anything? Oh, right…

Each bath uses about a barrel of crude, which is recycled into a communal tank for future bathers, given the cost of oil these days. Mr. Mirzeyev also uses paper towels to wipe bathers clean, a long, hard process that involves several showers.

[...]

Unlike the oil from Azerbaijan’s offshore deposits, sold internationally under the brand Azeri Light crude, Naftalan’s oil is too heavy to have much commercial value. Luckily, because most of the bath attendants and patients seemed to smoke, it is not particularly flammable, either.

The resort has 80 rooms and 10 tubs, 5 for women, 5 for men. The tubs are not scoured between baths and, as might be expected, have perhaps the world’s worst bathtub rings — greasy and greenish brown.

Dude, WTF? I don’t want to bathe in communal, low-grade oil. No, sir! I demand a barrel of your country’s finest export. Fill my tub with my own personal barrel of Azeri light crude, straight from the Caspian!

Looks like chocolate

So how about it? Anyone willing to take a dip in crude oil on our next trip to Azerbaijan? If not, there’s always the beer spa in the Czech Republic. Mmmmm…beer spa.

Just bought my plane ticket. Will be there December 23 – January 1.

I expect a mariachi band and platter of double-doubles upon my arrival at Palm Springs International Airport.

Damn, dudes I’m on a roll. This entry includes two – count ‘em, two! – days worth of stuff. This has nothing to do, of course, with the fact that we didn’t do much those past two days in Yerevan!
With only two days left in Yerevan, we were trying to hit as many as the “must see” sites as possible.

Luckily, Yerevan is a rather small city, so the list wasn’t very long. We grabbed a taxi and asked the driver to take us to the Armenian Genocide Museum and Monument. Naturally, he was curious as to where we were from. When I answered California, he replied that had family members in (where else?) Los Angeles…Hollywood, of course. From my short time in Yerevan, I am now convinced that 90 percent of LA’s population is Armenian. He then asked me where my family is from.

“America.”

“Your mother, father, and grandparents?!”

“Uh, America.”

“NO!,” he replied angrily “America is NOT a nation!”

Uh, sorry dude, but some of my ancestors were in the United States before the Revolutionary War. I consider myself to be pretty goddamned American, thankyouverymuch. I didn’t want to use any brain power trying to explain this in Russian, so I just started listing countries that I knew some of my ancestors were from: Ireland, Germany, England, Sweden…typical Euro mutt heritage.

Our driver agreed to wait for us while we looked around the Genocide Museum and Monument. What to say about this museum? Depressing, to say the least, but very educational. I must admit that before visiting Armenia I did not know much about the country’s history, of which the genocide played a large role. You couldn’t help but be moved by reading the multitude of documents on display, or viewing the photos of grinning Turkish troops, proudly displaying their pistols, with the decapitated heads of Armenian men on a platter before them. And the Turks? Well, according to them it wasn’t a genocide. War is a messy business, they say. The Armenians were separatists, backed by the Russians. Sure, some 300,000 Armenians (the number the Turks use – more accurate estimates place the death toll at one million plus) died during the relocation process, but that’s hardly a genocide, right? Denial is official government policy. Those who stray from this policy are ostracized by the media and harassed by Turkish nationalist groups. When a foreign government recognizes the Armenian genocide, the Turkish government behaves like a petulant child and warns of “negative consequences.”

The U.S. government, by the way, does not dare mention the word “genocide.” When the former American ambassador to Armenia mentioned the “g-word” in a speech, he was subsequently recalled to Washington and removed from his position. We wouldn’t want to alienate Turkey, our dear ally, now would we?

The pillar and “Temple of Commemoration”

A view of Mount Ararat, the national symbol of Armenia, sadly located in present day Turkey.

Eternal flame

After the genocide museum, we went to the Matenadaran, a manuscript museum. I know what you’re thinking, “Lindsay, a manuscript museum? How totally boring!” It was actually really cool. If you’re ever in Yerevan, make sure you stop by…and pay the few extra dram for the English-speaking guide. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Statue of Mashtots (inventor of the Armenian alphabet) in front of the Matenadaran manuscripts library

The rest of the day was spent attempting to log into my GMail account from an internet café with a ridiculously shitty internet connection, and lounging around an outdoor café eating the Armenian version of a hamburger (not bad, but it ain’t In-N-Out). We had decent Chinese food for dinner, and afterwards piled into everyone’s SUVs to make a run for some morozhenoye

Andrew ordered the craziest ice cream concoction the world has ever seen. Seriously, WTF is this?

Our last day in the South Caucasus was rather relaxing, as we opted to spend the day at Lake Sevan. As usual, our driver was stopped by police on the way there and forced to pay a bribe. It wouldn’t be a proper post-communist vacation if you weren’t witness to a bit of corruption every day.

Lake Sevan

No surf here, either

We were offered fish, lavash, and beer by some hospitable Sevan locals:

When leaving, a group of Armenians playing volleyball in ridiculous looking speedos asked us where we were from. When I replied that I was from California, they mentioned that they were from “the OC.” Goddammit, people, don’t call Orange County “the OC”!!!!!!

We arrived back in Yerevan and caught a taxi to the U.S. Embassy, where we had earlier planned to meet up with Liz for happy hour at the Marine house. I told him we wanted to go to the American embassy. He responded by pulling out a map and pointing at the offices of the Peace Corps.

“Uh, no, we want to go to the embassy…at 1 American Avenue. This is the Peace Corps office.”

“I know.”

Then WTF are you showing me this map for?

The usual small talk ensued, Where are you from? I have relatives in LA, blah blah blah. And then….AND THEN…he says “Many Armenians love America, but I do not. I hate America.” At first, I thought that perhaps I just wasn’t translating the Russian correctly. Did this guy really just tell me, an American, that he absolutely hated my country? Yes, he did, as he then proceeded to lecture me on his hatred of our foreign policy.

“You bomb Yugoslavia! You bomb Iraq! Why? WHY?!?!”

I just sat there silently, held hostage to this crazy taxi driver’s rants against my own country. Christ, who do you think I am, Donald Rumsfeld? I vote, my dudes never win, I pay my taxes, and the government does with the money as it pleases. Oh, and by the way, great job your former Soviet masters did invading Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan! But I’m not gonna blame ya, dear taxi driver, for the munitions dropped back then or the protesters crushed by T-72 tanks, because I know how to distinguish the policy of a government from the citizens of that country. My eyes glazed over while he continued his rant, and my silence must have bothered him, because he kept shouting at me, “You do not understand! You do not understand!” I just grinned and shrugged, “Whatever, dude” and we stopped conversing. For those of you familiar with Russian, he kept addressing me as “ty” (informal), which irked me for some reason. Dude, I don’t know you, you better be addressing me as “vy” (formal).

At last, the embassy was in sight. I have never been so happy to see the stars and stripes. He asked me if I worked at the embassy.

“Uhhh…no…my friend does. I, uh, work in America.” I do not live in Washington, D.C., the capital of the country you so hate, and where all the bombing decisions are made.

We stumbled into the embassy, where the security guards proceeded to strip us of everything: passports, cameras, memory cards, batteries, flashlights, Advil. Compared to these guys, the TSA is full of a bunch of amateurs.

The embassy itself is an impressive, albeit architecturally bland structure. Think of a typical D.C. federal building with impeccable landscaping. The complex exudes raw, American power. The entire complex was immaculately clean, with its perfectly aligned concrete sidewalks and freshly cut grass. Even the damn parking lot was perfectly laid out with proper “suburban” asphalt and white lines to separate the gleaming SUVs parked side by side. It was almost hard to believe you were in Armenia at that moment.

We headed over to the Marine House, which, as you might suspect, is a home away from home for the U.S. Marines attached to the embassy. You can drink Corona, eat pizza, listen to American music, and play pool and air hockey with the Marines and diplomats. As much as I enjoy immersing myself in the local culture, it’s nice to take the occasional break and enjoy the familiarity of home. We hung out there for awhile before meeting up with some people at a restaurant called “Beirut.” (“Hey, isn’t Beirut getting bombed right now…ha ha!” Yeah, that not-so-politically correct joke got old quick). Anyways, the food there made me sick, which was convenient, considering we were leaving the next day. After nine days in the South Caucuses, we were finally headed home.

(Next up: We leave Yerevan and venture into London for Strongbow during our layover. And then I am forced to leave London and go back to the United States…well, not really forced, per se, but that whole concept of responsibility rears its ugly head.)