16th October to 13th November 2010
Hmmm, where to begin? We spent a great month in Georgia's beautiful Capital city. We never intended to stay the better part of a month but with it being such a beautiful, interesting place to stop, Djalma's asthma and some new friends the time raced by.
Because I never made any notes about what we did and I'm now faced with four weeks of recounting, I think I'll summarise it:
The first few days we spent with Levan and his very welcoming, very friendly, very loud family. The first night we headed out with every intention of larging it up in the Tbilisi night scene, instead we got drunk on a park bench drinking Natakhtari's finest out of a plastic bottle before heading over to his friends place and then back out into town to some very quiet clubs before heading back to one of his friends place drinking vodka and listening to music until 3 o'clock in the morning. It was easily one of the best night's we've had, such an easy going group of people and a great vibe – of course getting drunk with someone other than each other helped a lot!
We spent the next day recovering at his house watching The Invention of Lying and stuff on you-tube while being cooked for by his Granny. We made up for our inaction the next day though with a long painful visit to a big outdoor market. Excruciating doesn't begin to cover it, we started off well enough but after an hour wandering around the different stalls without anything catching my eye Djalma decided it was time for some spending action and forced the hard sell of each pair of socks/tights/boots that we passed, it was funny to begin with but after we'd bought me a pair of boots, several pair of socks, tights and T-shirts for both of us I'd had more than enough and was begging to go home or at least somewhere else, when he pointed out some underwear and insisted that we looked at it, I was pushed ridiculously close to tears, only to look around to see that they were huge pink granny affairs, we left after that swearing that we';d never go shopping with each other again. We had a nice lunch in a Georgian restaurant in a pretty (and expensive) part of town, some of the delicious aubergine wrapped walnut paste and salad. Stretching our legs a bit more, we walked around town and up to the new church on the hill. It was beautiful and we watched night settle over the city from the gardens outside as well as taking ridiculous amounts of photos.
The next day took us to the Azerbaijan Embassy, a big park nearby, McDonald's (filthy big Macs please) and the botanical gardens, we decided to round off the day with a beer on a bench outside the sulphur baths, a really pretty part of town with lots of flower gardens and people out for a stroll or a little drink themselves. The botanical gardens themselves were a relaxing place to walk around and despite it being mid-September there were still a few flowers in bloom for me to take pictures of.
Over the next few days we went out and walked round a bit more taking pictures while Levan was at work – he even took us into his office one morning. His family, Mum, Dad, Grannies, and little brother, were very sweet and his granny made us breakfast every morning, in fact I think she did all the cooking, but having taken up so much time in their living room we soon decided it was high time to move out and find a place of our own.
This place of our own was a small room the first night and a little flat for a good week. We cooked a lot, I was surprised at how much I missed it (but not the washing up naturally). Djalma wasn't feeling too amazing at this point but well enough for a trip to Levan's dacha on Saturday afternoon. Levan, his Dad and a boy picked us up and took us to their little house in the country just outside of town. For anyone who hasn't lived in Russia a dacha is a small house away from the hustle and bustle (and pollution) of the city, many families have them – it's not like an English country house which you have to be a squillionaire to afford or keep - and use them like a weekend holiday home or just move out there in the summer and commute in. We were going to help pick grapes, which Djalma did very happily but I was happier having sneaked off to take pictures in the country and of Zura's (Levan's dad) garden which he is, rightly, very proud of. The grape picking finished and all boxed up, the feast commenced.
Oh. My. God. The tables in the neighbours house were groaning underneath the weight of the different dishes and jugs of wine, interestingly for over 15 people there were only two small bottles of water to help all the wine down. We ate and drank like kings. It was the first time we'd been to a Georgian dinner and it didn't disappoint, after the cold dishes were cleared away freshly barbecued pork and beef were brought in, heaven on a plate.
All the while the Tamada (Georgian for toast master – one man who raises the toasts for the evening, it is rude to drink without a toast so you have to wait but when you drink you should drink to the bottom of the glass) was calling out toasts, they came quicker the more we drank and while I kept up with the boys I only managed to keep my head by emptying the water bottles (thankfully there were more than the two on the table), keeping my head didn't last long though, by the time the dinner had finished and we were herded by Zura back to his dacha, I was stinking drunk and fell over in the flower bed (I also remembered discreetly vomiting somewhere in the garden but never found the evidence). I woke up the next morning partially dressed, with my trousers on inside-out (to protect the bed from the mud on the inside of my trousers I later discovered) and feeling disgustingly awful – not helped when Zura brought up some fruity brandy as a hangover cure – he almost got the floors decorated. We left for Tbilisi later in the afternoon, Levan had decided that continuing to drink was the best way to beat his hangover, not that it worked very well, and was far too noisy on the way back until he fell asleep, I still can't decide whether he is the best or worst person to be around when hungover. Djalma had woken up with an awful cough and a tight chest as well as his hangover, poor sausage couldn't even go back to sleep (I refused to get out of bed until we were about to leave).
We then spent the next two weeks inside while he wheezed, drank terraflu, saw a crap doctor, wheezed and sneezed a lot more (worryingly so). The dust in the mattress and the duvet was too much so he camped out in the living room while I slept in the bedroom, eventually this got to be so annoying we changed rooms and ended up in a first floor room with a much cleaner mattress and duvet – heaven. During one particularly nasty coughing and sneezing episode, I started looking at flights to Brazil but we decided to call out a decent doctor from a Western practice, she was with us within half an hour and very thorough and the medication she prescribed actually worked. Cue the best nights sleep in two weeks.
At some point during those two weeks in confinement was his 31st birthday, so I went shopping somewhere posh and spent loads of money on yummy food which, when I came home after getting lost in the dark, I lovingly prepared for him while working through a bottle of red Saperavi, yum.
We sometimes ventured out in the cool crisp Autumn afternoons, wandering around different parts of the city for an hour or so just breathing in the fresh air. Without a kitchen to prepare food in we ended up going out to some great restaurants. The last ten days in Tbilisi we ate at an incredible Indian restaurant (an absolute garlic fest), a Chinese, a Mexican, an Irish bar, a gorgeous Thai place and several Georgian restaurants, needless to say we're looking much rounder for it too, but my taste buds tell my tummy that it was completely worth it. During the third week it was Levan's 26th birthday so we went round to his place and were treated to another feast cooked up by his Mum and his Grannies, neither of us were up to much and by the time the rest of his friends arrived, much later, we were ready for bed.
We would have left for Kakheti sooner but as we were waiting for Djalma to fully recover as well as finish his course of antibiotics we stayed put and went back to Levan's place for another three or four nights for more of his granny's cooking and to save money on accommodation.
We went to the Sulphur baths early one morning, by early I mean about an hour before midday, for a steamy, oo-er, hour in a private room. This was fantastic, the private rooms combine the steam room and the hot pool with a separate sitting/changing room. I had a scrub and foam bath from a lady who rubbed me down with what felt like wire wool (with other people's previously sloughed off epidermis left behind on my skin, yummy) despite it looking so disgusting, it felt great and my tingly skin kept me awake when Djalma felt like nodding off. We took our hot, pink selves outside to cool down and get a cup of tea while writing a mammoth pile of postcards. We went for a long walk to the Turkish quarter on a mission for baklava but ended up getting a peanut macaroon instead.
The couple of days in Tbilisi we managed to go out on the town, this time for a proper pub crawl. We started off in The Hangar, an Irish bar, walked along to the same part of town as the Indian, where we drank in another Irish pub, with real Irish cutomers! And finished up in an American bar with some excellent live music and creative hairdressing. The next day we went out to a Khinkali restaurant with very good veal khinkali and more beer and not long after that it was time for us to say good bye, we left the following day having given them a little house plant a copy of the flower pictures from their garden. It was difficult to say goodbye, they were all so lovely, but we managed although I did have tears in my eyes during the walk through town. We both felt so lucky and I think, as my Mum would say, 'blessed' at having met such a generous welcoming family. We got the metro to the outside of town to the main road going to Kakheti, time for tears over, time for wine, here!
