arriving at the tbilisi airport at 3 am was fun! i caught a ride into the city with a bunch of elderly men on a very typical soviet era minibus that was spewing smoke and stalled out every time it stopped. georgia is so interesting: it really is the modern buffer between east and west. you may remember that they had a huge war with russia in 2008 over a little territory called south ossetia, which almost ignited another cold war. to this day russia essentially controls south ossetia, which has declared its own independence, as well as another breakaway independent region called abkhazia. in the meantime, georgia is trying to join nato. and i had no idea until i got there, but there is another completely autonomous entity (thanks to a “strongman”) called adjara. such a fractious and complicated region, which makes it super interesting to this guy! i would describe the georgian people for you (mom), but generalizing is wrong. i can say, however, that they generally subsist off bread, beer, perogies and pie.
i spent two days in tbilisi: climbing mountains, exploring castles, marveling at countless georgian orthodox churches, not speaking a word of english, eating huge pierogi-like kinkhali, breathing way too much second hand smoke, riding the <20 cent/ride metro system, feasting my eyes upon soviet era monuments, entering dilapidated, abandoned communist government buildings, etc! the highlight was definitely renting a scooter for three hours on my last day. i scooted all around tbilisi (a city of 1.4 million), and up and over a mountain to some little towns in the countryside. it was the definition of catharsis for me.
all too soon, the time came to move on to armenia. i was going to take the night train, but it only goes every second night. so i showed up at the mini-bus station at 8 am to catch a minibus, which are supposed to leave “frequently” for yerevan, armenia, six hours away. well, these things wait until they’re full before they leave. by 2 pm, there were still only two people waiting, and i was starting to get anxious. so i started the long process of bartering without language to pay for the rest of the seats so we could get on the road. thank goodness for cell phone keypads so at least we can get the numbers straight! after an hour of unintelligible “discussion” and a little too much compromise on my part, we finally got on the road. it turned out that the guy who was driving the thing had spent his morning consuming alcohol; we were all over the road. one minute we’d be four inches behind the semi in front of us, the next he’d be getting a call on his mobile and forget to keep driving, and we’d coast to a stop, honking traffic piling up behind us. unless he unwittingly had us drifting off into the ditch, which happened a few too many times. an hour out of tbilisi we stopped, and waited for another hour while they brought one more passenger. probably a good thing for his blood alcohol level. at the georgian/armenian border we stopped for a 1.5 hour dinner break, so the driver could smoke another pack and pound back a few more beers. the other guy in the van insisted on buying me dinner; that was really nice of him!
