Haghpat & Sanahin, my "Slumdog Millionaire"

In celebration of the warm weather sticking around this November, my closest sitemates and I rent out our buddy's taxi and head on a day roadtrip...

Haghpat

Haghpat is one of the most famous temples in Armenia, located in Lori Marz near Alaverdi. The area has produced artifacts from as old as the Paleolithic Era.

If you look hard, you can see what's left of the huge fresco painting of what I would consider a depiction of God on the topmost part under the arch.

We luckily came on a Sunday- heard and saw a bit of a mass!

These holes held all the precious items at the Temple.

At one time there was a concealing fake floor laid on top of them.

It is now a tradition to drop dram into the small safes, like wishing wells.

Sanahin

Sanahin is easy to miss, though you would not want to.

Lisa, Armen (the taxi driver who seems to know every past volunteer), and I lit candles next to eachother!

The flooring of Sanahin, or many monasteries and temples, must be made of gravestone markers. I don't know much about it, but these pictures show some very primitive depictions of humans. I've seen a lot of similar gravestone-like stones in many of the other places I've visited, but none like this. Maybe they were made later on, they are a little too well preserved to be as old as that style of drawing. Right?

Artifacts! Listening into a tour guide's speech (but in Armenian), I heard that the room held a great deal of precious cultural materials from various places (I caught Greek and Latin) as well as Armenian. They studied and preserved the artifacts at Sanahin.

My "slumdog millionaire"

If I really have to explain what happened, then you probably also don't get the movie reference. It hurt, but atleast the hole wasn't full of waste. I took the door and the whole floor a couple feet under with me, from trying to skip over the boards in front that looked weak. (The inside looked strong!! Kind of) Haha. It hadn't been used in a long, long time and a butterfly could have caused this. I don't know what I was thinking, I will have to remember to lay off the honey and that I don't weigh 10 pounds! :)

By the way, this kind of thing could probably only happen to me....