Zac and Ari in Ani

Family and friends are important to me. Last night I hosted a dinner for family and colleagues. It was wonderful. While it is a lot of work, I find it exhilarating and they are delighted too, meeting new people and learning about them. One of my colleagues has a spouse who is an artist, does big stuff and works at the Nixon Presidential library, arranging the exhibits, an interesting fellow whose company my family thoroughly enjoyed. My two intern pharmacists were present, they are both going to pharmacy school at the University of Southern California. People and family means effort and they are all worth it. Just as this trip costs me a lot of money but the joy I received in return is priceless and I'm sure the experience they had is also priceless.

The interiors of St Grigor

I was told blue is from lapis lazuli which is a very expensive mineral even today. So when I see blue in old frescoes I know this is an expensive piece of work. St Grigor is the only church in Ani that has any surviving frescoes and they depict Armenian saints and holy men with stories from the bible. When we first entered the church we were the only people in there. It, being Sunday, I broke out in prayer, couldn't help it. I recited the Lord's prayer then I sang 'Amazing Grace' just as other visitors began to come in. It's a museum and one is not supposed to sing hymns or say prayers but there were no guards around.
It is still so beautiful that I couldn't help but sing praises to the Lord. Seeing these pictures again gives me goose bumps. I am so blessed as to be able to be in such a beautiful place with so much history, a history of joy during its hey day and a history of sorrow when the Armenians were forced to leave.

St Grigor

The church of St Gregory, an Armenian saint built by a pious and wealthy Armenian, Tigran Honents. This church is also known as the Tigran Honents kilisesi. It is the only church in Ani with any surviving frescoes and this is now the exterior, a huge chunk has broken off. It sits on a little plateau overlooking the Armenian border. If one is in Armenia and is looking from the other side, they would see this area which some Armenians still call Western Armenia. It is one of the few churches in Ani which is still fairly intact, most are mainly rubble. Some mistakingly call this place 'thousand and one churches', the honor actually goes to another area in Turkey near Konya which I will visit next year. In the olden days pious and wealthy people build churches, or donate art work to adorn churches and that is why we have the remains of so many churches. I remember being in Leece, Southern Italy a few years ago, there was a baroque church on every block. Leece is another fascinating place. I digress.

Wild flowers and more wild flowers

I thought I died and went to heaven. The display of wild flowers was so incredible. I've never seen anything like it. For one thing it was made possible by the enormous wide open spaces and so the flowers just grows and were everywhere. I had misgivings about going to Eastern Turkey because I was warned about the PKK, the Kurdish separatist movement but we didn't meet up with any. I think the largest concentration of Kurdish people lives in the South Eastern part of Turkey even so only some are involved with the PKK. I still want to visit the South Eastern part, PKK or no PKK. Turkey is a fascinating country. We have more exciting adventures ahead.