Wednesday 10 January 2007

The ABC tour of Birmingham








ABC tour stands for: Another Bloody Church tour – and I’m really glad I went on that tour of Birmingham. I thought it is the specifics of just Armenian tourism industry to overkill tourists with the endless row of churches.

Still, the tour guide was really good! Not like most of the Armenian guides I’ve seen. I mean – the guy really knew everything he was doing, saying. He was capturing the attention, playing with us – the tourists, a brilliant sense of humour with a spice of his own saying every other minute: “Ugh! Those Englishmen!!!.” I guess until we train a generation tour-guides like that guy – our tourism won’t stand a chance…

One of the fun observations he made – was the differentiation between the tourists and visitors. Visitors pretend they’re interested – tourists don’t :) …so I tried to play the visitor part, but kept taking a bunch of photos in between, which – considering my dark hair and heavily Armenian face (i.e. rather close to Arabic) was potentially not a very smart thing to do. So – even the winter season, rain and rather unpleasant wind didn’t spoil the walking tour lasting about 3 hours… the tour was really interesting – although, now as I come to think of it – we didn’t see anything really worth spending 3 hours of tourist attention on. Still – it was presented so well – that I would readily go on another tour of Birmingham!

Armenian tourism industry – LEARN, LEARN, LEARN!!!

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

they do treat you well, i must say:) we had to explore good old Bham on our own:)

august

10 January 2007 at 12:20  
Blogger Mediapitek said...

I never realized the city's so huge! I mean - it looks and feels much bigger then Yerevan... at this point at least. And looks very very modern to. I'll admit I like the Bullring - the city center quite a lot. It's just my type of thing.

10 January 2007 at 19:12  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's huge, but the center is small, and there is not much to see, actually. Whatever you do, you end up going to Bull Ring:)

My favorite spot were the canals, the Bindley place and those from the Mailbox to Broad Street. Loved walking there and looking at the water.

11 January 2007 at 12:31  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can't say I know much about Birmingham apart from the fact that Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath are from there. Wonder if there's a tour like that?

Haven't been there apart from passing through or going to the NEC for concerts. Can't even remember for who now. Roger Waters was one, but can't remember the others.

I can do a Brummie accent though, so let's see if you can work on yours while you're away to add to the Leninakantsi one. ;-)

As for the size thing, Birmingham should have a population roughly the size of Yerevan -- 1 million. However, even Bristol -- 600,000 -- feels bigger and more advanced than Yerevan. Still, it would given a longer growth, and the economy.

Anyway, enjoy.

11 January 2007 at 12:32  
Blogger belinda said...

well, my experience with Birmingham
strictly limited by tea party with august, that HUGE shoping area, pizza Hut and railway station...

bekaisa

14 January 2007 at 20:02  
Blogger Mediapitek said...

Had a great walk around city centre today... not that the city centre was great - but rather - the walk around ;)

Coffee at the Starbucks, Burger at the McDonals, bought a UK mobile card... voobshem - lriv burjuyski kayfer - bad for my health as it might be.

14 January 2007 at 20:09  

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