Eating my weight in Georgian food

Georgia, Georgia… Georgia on my mind.  I couldn’t get that song out of my head for a good two days.  I know it’s not the right Georgia, but it’s a good song.  The plane was late, but Rob was there anyway!  We headed over to his place and let me tell you, it was nice.  The outside looks like old soviet block style apartments, and the hallways inside look like that too.  But when you get inside the apartment, it’s a different story.  Wooden frames, lovely furniture, a huge TV and stereo system.  He had the penthouse apartment.  Granted this is not the normal apartment for teachers.  The apartments are usually nice but he found one with a Georgian friend, so it was even better.  

I’m pretty sure all I did while I was in Georgia was eat.  We had dinner every night at a new restaurant with Georgian food.  We had eggplant covered in walnut paste or garlic paste (Badridzhani Nigvsit).  For every meal we had Georgian bread.  It’s a type of flat bread, but you can get it filled with bean, cheese, or egg, cheese and butter.   The latter is my personal favorite, dipping the end pieces into the melted butter and runny egg… mmm delicious.  We also had spiced beans over plain bread, grilled lamb, honey walnut yogurt, nuts covered in fruit-leather, cheese filled mushrooms and shawarmas.  The last one of that list isn’t Georgian, but it was still yummy.

cigarette claw machine?!

Well besides the food, Georgia is interesting, to say the least.  The first couple of days I was there Rob had to work, so I walked around by myself.  I saw beautiful ornate grand buildings right next to soviet block type buildings that were falling to pieces.  The Raddison is right next to a bridge that houses several homeless people or beggars.  It was mind blowing.  You could see at one time that this country was rich and had help to make things beautiful.  Now, after the soviet reorganization, they are only just getting on their feet.  So things are not well maintained and they still haven’t figured out all the little things.  I mean you can get cigarettes out of a claw machine.  That's weird.  But they are pulling it together, roads are being repaired, structures built and they have a decent public transportation system (in Tbilisi).  They are a baby country.  They will be in great shape in 20 years… maybe.

So, as usual, I did a lot of walking.  The first day I got rained on, so I only made it to the McDonalds, which was quite impressive on it’s own.  The McDonalds looked like one of the richest buildings in the area.  The next day I made it down to freedom square, but I had no idea what I was looking at, or where to go.  So from there I wandered around and eventually felt uncomfortable with my surrounding and headed back to the apartment.  Rob later told me that Tbilisi is really quite safe.  If I had known that I would have wandered around quite a bit more.  But it turned out ok, because Rob took me around to the sites that I didn’t discover on my own.

We took a night walk on Friday to show me the old city.  We found a pub that served Georgian wine.  I really like the on tap home brew.  Rob was telling me everyone makes their own wine.  And to have wine on tap in a bar is quite normal as well.  I really like the wine.  The kind we had was a pinkish brown color, a bit sour, but still had a nice flavor.  I thought it was more like a vinegar drink than a wine.  We also had some of the bottled of Saperavi Georgian wine the night before.  It was a full bodied red.  I enjoyed that one a bit more.

After wine and food, we got the last cable car to the top of the mountain where Lady Georgia resides.  We were literally walking up to the cable car at 10:59:30 and the person working the ticket booth still let us on.  No problem.  The view was stunning; the whole city lit up and was rolled out for our viewing pleasure. And once we got to the top, the castle and Lady Georgia weren’t too bad either. I really enjoyed the castle walk down.  After that we went to Old Town, saw where the party was, passed it up for more walking and found the sulfur baths.  Now I tried to find these again in the morning, and I couldn’t.  I wanted to take a dip.  I guess I am not meant to be in any baths this trip.  I missed out in Budapest as well.   

The next day was full of thanksgiving goodness.  A week early for the celebrations, but I’ll never pass up on a turkey. 

 No thanksgiving could be complete without football, so we found the closest thing to it in Georgia.  Rugby!  I had never watched a rugby game before in my life, so I did some research before we went and was still lost.  I met some of Rob’s friends at the game and we gossiped.  One of the guys was nice enough to explain to me what was happening.  I really liked the game.  I thought it was much more exciting than football, because of the continuous action.  I feel like in football they stop every couple of seconds to do something new.  

One thing I did not like about the Rugby game is that the Georgians booed the other team, a lot.  When they were making field goals or when the other team was doing well.  It seemed vulgar to me.  You just don't treat visitors to your field that way.   Just another cultural thing.  I know Argentina does the same thing and a few other countries.  After Rugby we headed back to the house so I could prepare a casserole for the party.  

Thanksgiving in a foreign country is always the same.  It’s nice, but not as nice as home would be.  It is also usually filled with lots of booze, something that was never really prevalent in my nostalgic childhood.  Some of the wine that was brought was squashed by the feet of the bringers.  how cool!  Some of the girls had gotten to participate in wine making and were given some of the wine they helped to make.  Rob had done the same thing with some Georgian friends as well.  It sounds quite interesting.  It was a lovely wine even though it had a bit of a bad cork smell and a tart taste.  Apparently I like tart red wines.  

 At the party it was a lovely bunch of teachers from all over.  Most had worked in other schools before Georgia.  I even met a girl who worked in Korea and knew the same people in Jeju I knew.  It’s a small world, sometimes I forget.  

Sunday we knew we had to make the most of it, so we took  off to look for a place where I could get some Georgian wine on tap to bring with me to Oman.  Of course the two places Rob knew of were closed.  It’s Sunday, I expected nothing less.  Everyone has to work the next day.  

We made our way to the 5 day war memorial and the everlasting flame.  I had seen it on my way in, but it was nice to see it in person and say "hi" to the soldiers that are posted by it.  What a boring job, but still important.  The 5 day war is the war between Russia and Georgia in 2008.  Russia backed the Ossetians to take part of the Georgian territory.  The frighting lasted five days and then a cease fire was signed.  Russian troops are still posted through out the territory and the land is still disputed today (you can see it on the above map).  

 After that bit of walking we headed up to the funicular up to where the carnival is.  The view was a bit obscured by the mist, that had decided to settle for the past few days over Tbilisi, but it was still beautiful.  We didn’t take any of the rides, but just walked.  It’s always nice to see the sunset over a city, we did that over beers and then headed down the mountain.

My last meal with Rob was a shwarma and tarragon soda, which I didn’t like (I don’t like carbonation).  A perfect ending to many good things in Georgia.