Adventures of a dumb blonde in the Caucasus' :)

There are some men on the planet who immediately consider women intellectually inferior, even before one word has been exchanged. I had this experience recently, and it really enraged on multiple levels. It reminded me also that I never wrote about my experience in Armenia, where I traveled for a few days in March.  Armenia is full of Armenians - and really no one else. It is a mono-ethnic culture, and this is apparent when you begin to roam the streets as a foreign woman. My hair at that time was lighter, almost blonde, and to my surprise this rendered me a sort of "exotic" creature in a way I have never experienced in any travels.

When I first visited the Caucasus' last October, I traveled all over Georgia with a man. Even in Tbilisi, I was almost always walking in the city with a native male. But in March, it was different. I hopped in the car with a Georgian woman, a real explorer by nature, and we took a road trip to Yerevan. Her appearance more closely resembles a European or American female. We are both "older" by regional standards - 44 and 32, and ordinary women, not dressed in any way to lure gazing eyes. I could hardly imagine the attention two foreign women would draw...on the road, at gas stations, through the border crossing, everywhere! The manner in which local men behaved can be described in one word - cavemen. :)( Read more... )