lake Sevan.

Lake Sevan:

On Saturday, we went on an excursion to Lake Sevan.  Our first stop was Sevanavank, a monastery built on an island (now a peninsula, due to the draining of the lake in Soviet times in a failed attempt to increase farmable land.  Gosh, freaking idiots!).   While in Yerevan the snow has mostly melted away (hopefully no more snow in Yerevan until next summer), this is not the case throughout much of the rest of Armenia.  There are steps leading up the hill to get up to the monastery, which I have hiked up twice before (once on a previous excursion with Birthright, and the time before was with LCO).  However, you may have guessed why this was more difficult than before.  Yep, snow was covering the steps up to the monastery, making it more dangerous to climb up there.  I went inside briefly, lit a candle, prayed, and left the building.

the way up to Sevanavank

the view from the top of the monastery

 
While some of our other friends were throwing snowballs outside the monastery, my friend Arpine and I went past the monastery, through some areas which were in some places about 2 feet deep with snow to go to the end of the peninsula.  This was her first time taking that trail along the ridge, so I led the way since I had been there before.  On both sides of us was the lake, and if we were to slip, we would probably either die of the sudden break at the end of the fall, or freeze to death from the lake.  At the end of the peninsula is some kind of abandoned house where part of the roof is missing.  We then proceeded to climb onto the roof and take pictures from there, and then trudged back through the deep snow to meet back up with the rest of the group.

snowball fight outside Sevanavank

me on the roof of the building at the top of the peninsula

my friend Arpine also at the top of the peninsula.  

Later on the excursion, we visited the Noraduz cemetery, the Hayravank monastery (which also overlooks the lake) and a nearby hospital, and then had lunch at the house of a family that our coordinator Sevan (who has the same name as the lake)  had only 48 hours earlier asked if we could crash at their place and eat there.  After eating and plenty of drinking (in my case, juice), the family led us to start dancing inside of their dining room with only about two meters of space between the wall and the chairs at the table.  We later got on the bus and rode back to Yerevan, and (this is kind of a Birthright tradition) we were dancing in place in the aisle of the bus while it's moving on the highway.

Some khatchkars at Hayravank

the Noraduz cemetery