No, not that Georgia

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June 29, 2015 – Today was a long day. I woke up early, had breakfast with Jeroen and then we said good-bye for five weeks. After he left for work, I had a little more time to finish packing and getting things in order. Said good-bye to the cats and I was off to the tram. Got to the train station in plenty of time and got on a car full of kids – high school, college, who knows? Either way I was having none of that, which is how I know I am old. I moved to another and then another car and had a perfectly quiet ride to the airport.

I checked in with Ukrainian International Airlines, an airline I was surprisingly pleased with online. Airport time is always boring, but I was able to internet for a bit, so that was good. My flight had a stopover in Kiev, as I’m guessing do all the flights on this airline. In Kiev I was supposed to have a waiting time of about 2.5 hours, leaving at 7:45pm. When I arrived, I looked at the board and it said that the flight was delayed, and scheduled for midnight. That is quite a delay. I was disappointed, to say the least. Was glad they had free wifi, and even a decent number of plugs to recharge. But that, combined with the number of flights that were delayed, left me feeling nervous for my next set of flights in two weeks. I’ll be flying to Cyprus, again through Kiev, so I am worried it will be much the same story. But fingers crossed.

I made it through 6 long hours in the airport, and even got a sandwich and water from the airline for my troubles. Convenient, since I didn’t see any ATMs in the place and had no Ukrainian money with me. I slept most of the next flight, which arrived in Tbilisi at 4am. It took no time to go through passport control, but I still had to wait until 5am for my bag (which I was thankful arrived). Outside of customs I met Anatoly, the father of a Zurab, a friend of my friend Sarah, who came to pick me up. He was with Paul, Zurab’s brother. They took me to an apartment of Zurab’s that I would be staying in, and showed me how to work different things. They left and by 6:30am I was asleep.



June 30, 2015 - Paul came back at noon to show me around Tbilisi. His friend Giga drove. They took me to a lake in the hills nearby, and we walked around it. Then we went to a theme park on a hill that overlooks the city. We rode the enormous ferris wheel, with great views over the town. Then we saw a small log flume ride and Paul asked me if I wanted to ride. I said sure, and then all of a sudden I was on the ride. He wasn't. He had no intention of riding, apparently. Nor did anyone else – there were not many people around anyway, but zero people in line here. So they started the ride for me and there were two drops. After the first, I was soaked from head to toe.

Two things about this: 1. I never travel with white shirts because I always get them dirty. But knowing it would be close to 100° outside, I decided to bring one to keep cooler. Knowing I was also in a place that liked their women covered up to some degree, I was also wearing long pants. Yet instead of being demure, I ended up looking like the only contestant in a wet T-shirt contest. 2. My hair got wet. I washed and blow dried my hair before I left, so that it would have at least a week of being straight and looking good this summer. That was not to be.

After the second drop, I had about 2 seconds to be relieved it did not get me wet(ter), and then a log with the guy who works the ride came down the small drop, perfectly timed to soak me yet again. Amazing. At least it felt great on such a hot day. But it was still embarrassing to walk around like that.

Next stop was the botanic gardens. It was more like a forest where kids go to make out, but we soon bypassed them and walked around a bit. Pretty woods, but not that impressive. Then it was time to go – Giga had a gig he had to get to. They agreed to come back for me about 2 hours later, so in the late afternoon I went wandering from the apartment to see if I could find the metro station, for later. No luck. I was also looking for wifi, since the apartment does not have it, and that kills my soul a bit, as does admitting that. Amazingly, there is a grocery store/Wendy’s/Dunkin donuts complex just near the apartment with free wifi. So I went in and learned how to use the ipod I borrowed from Jeroen for just such an occasion. I do not like it. I always see everyone on their mobile device and they look happy. But I was not impressed with the mobile version of email, facebook, you name it. And it was slow. I was happy to be able to check email, but did not enjoy using it on that device. How do you people do it? Less and less likely there will be a phone in my future.

(the rest of the day is continued in Mtskheta blog)



Wednesday July 1 – I woke up at 8:30 and thought I should get up soon. I wasn’t sure what time Paul would be back, but figured it wouldn’t be much later than 9:00, and I was right. His dad came as well, and helped to sort out the hot water situation, which didn’t seem to work the day before. After my cold shower last night, I was glad of that. Soon after we were on our way to the train station, to buy tickets for my upcoming trip to Batumi. But when we got there and started asking questions, I found out that there are no longer overnight sleeper trains, and that affected my plans, so I decided not to buy the tickets yet. Zurab comes back to town this evening, and I wanted to speak to him about a day trip we have planned first, to make sure it all fit together. I also asked about tickets to Yerevan, in Armenia, but also held off on buying those until I know my plans better. There is some striking there now, and it may be better not to visit at this time. From the station we walked to the downtown area, which took quite a bit of time, but it was good to walk. We also stopped for lunch and split a cheese pie. It looks like a pizza, but different. Very good but very heavy. We walked over to the Peace Bridge, with Paul pointing out many things along the way. He left from there, at about 1pm, and then I had the afternoon to walk around. I essentially walked back the way we had come, visiting a couple of museums on the way. By 4pm I was ready to come home, and I took the metro back. It turns out that I had walked the right way yesterday afternoon when I was searching for it. It was even where I expected it would be (based on a hastily drawn map in the Kiev airport). I just didn’t see it. Instead I saw the enormous KFC building next to Chocolate world. I missed the small metro sign. Twice. But today I got back without a problem. Went directly to the grocery store with the ipod– my one stop shop for dinner and internet. The apartment has no real restaurants nearby (that I can find), nor anything to cook with. I bought a wrap for dinner and ate it while I watched movie previews on tv. Wifi would be so much better than satellite tv. Tonight I’ll go back with my laptop for some more indulgence.



Friday July 3 – Today I had a bonus day in Tbilisi since my mountain trip did not work out. I relaxed in the morning. Spent some time internetting and streaming The Daily Show so I could watch me some Jon Stewart. I was able to get one episode and I watched it when I got home. In the afternoon I headed to a hostel in the old town to ask some questions of day tours I wanted to sign up for with their sister hostel in Armenia. It was up a crazy steep hill, which was made more challenging by my hunger and flip flops. I still need to get those shoes fixed. At the hostel, I also found out about a proper bus (not minibus) that goes to Batumi and checked it out. It has movies, wifi, the whole lot, and I could buy the tickets online. I just wasn’t sure how to get to this particular station, but decided to ask Zurab that evening at dinner. Later I had some khinkali for lunch, a type of doughy dumpling filled with meat (traditionally). I also got some with veggies, since they have been severely lacking in my diet this week. After lunch I saw more sights downtown that I hadn’t seen before. Just kind of stumbled into them. I stopped again at the train station on my way home. This time I was a pro. I got in, saw a miraculously open window, rocked up and booked my tickets to Yerevan – a 17 hour overnight adventure to Armenia’s capital.



Back at the apartment, I started to pack for the next week and waited for Zurab. Him and his family invited me to dinner. His wife Isa came to the door with her dog and asked if it could stay while we were at dinner. No problem. Traffic was bad so they did not have time to go back home to drop him off earlier. I also met their soon Konstantin who just graduated from high school. They actually just moved back to Georgia from Turkey two days ago. I really enjoyed meeting them and we had a lovely – and filling – dinner. Bean soup with corn bread, spinach and walnut paste, eggplant, khinkali with beef, and kachapuri (cheese bread). It was an authentic Georgian restaurant that they have been going to since Zurab was young, and it was so kind of them to take me there.

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Photos

Church
They are all of them always busy