Mike and I had a bit of a difference in travel philosophies. He wasn't very excited about tours I think because of the lack of control over your time and maybe a perceived lack of authenticity. I don't disagree with those criticisms but I think that they are more the mark of a bad tour rather than every tour. I think a good tour has the pacing planned out so that you don't resent having to leave an interesting place too soon or are stuck in a boring place for too long. Also a good tour is taking you to interesting local businesses and not trying to make money off of you at scammy gift shops. He also didn't want to rent a car, which kind of narrowed things down. Public transportation within a city is one thing but using it to do day trips out of town isn't ideal in my experience. Anyway, we went on a tour and I thought it was a pretty good one.
We did stop at a gift shop type place but it was a pretty good one I think. They had a ton of the grape juice and nut sweet churchkhela which was fun. It was good stuff not postcards and magnets.
One aspect of the tour that was unfortunate is that it was bilingual, so we were expected to sit in silence for long periods of time while the guide spoke in Russian.
This place I think won the "tour or wander around by yourself" argument single handedly. We stopped at this little hut on the side of the road and had fresh baked bread out of a tandoori type oven and sampled cheese.
The Russians were conversing with the locals a bit and then it hit me that we were in the former Soviet Union, and probably still in what could be considered Russia's zone of influence. I'm not sure that I've visited such a place before. Most places in Eastern Europe that I've visited used to be in the Soviet Union as well, but now for the most part I see them as asserting their independence more strongly and being more prosperous now than Russia.
There's no way in hell we would have found this place on our own.
We visited the Monastery of St. Nino at Bodbe.
There was a big deal Georgian Orthodox ceremony happening when we arrived. There was a news crew.
Mike satisfying his tea addiction.
Some of the Russians stopped for warm beverages at a little shop along our walk.
The Russians bought mulled wine but it was so slippery they kept spilling it. It look jarringly like I was following an injured dear through the snow.
Next we stopped at Vineria Kakheti for lunch or dinner or something. In a nice little bit of stagecraft we all ordered our food then headed downstairs to learn about local wine while they cooked.
The eastern part of Georgia is Kakheti and is the primary winemaking region of the country. It's known for its Saperavi and Rkatsiteli grapes.
The traditional Georgian winemaking vessel is known as a Kvevri. I thought that these were so cool because they looked just like big versions of the ancient Roman amphora. The traditional way of making the wine then is to throw the grape juice along with the skins and seeds and all into the jug then seal it up to ferment.
We brought a certain sophistication to the tasting and loudly said fancy words like terroir so everyone knew we were better than them.
This was a nice salad with a walnut paste.
"Beans in clay pot with pickles."
"Khachapuri Imeretian (Georgian Pie with Cheese)". You can see how much variance there is in the different kinds of Khachapuri. The one we had earlier was like a bread boat filled with a raw egg and a stick of butter sitting in a little cheese lake. The one we had today was like a little quesadilla.
Back in Washingston Ern was having good times with his grandma visiting.
We headed back to Fabrika Tbilisi because that seemed to be where the party was. This time we checked out the actual hostel which seemed to be the center to activity.
We had some dinner with a couple of Turkish friends we made on the tour.
We met a couple of Georgian guys along the way. Ika was the son of a Georgian pop singer and the other named Dizzy was the brother of someone who won a local chef tv show competition or something. I'm not sure if either of them had a job. They seemed to be well off and bumming around. I don't remember this guy's name but he was very interested in American culture and wanted to talk about tv shows and music and stuff incessantly.
I thought these guys were a little too high energy for me personally but since we were in a growing group I thought they were a fine addition. They also were happy to show us some cool local spots so that was a plus. We ended the night at Karaoke Bar Sadarbazo. It was fun but definitely a low budget affair: several times the song stuttered because the internet was bad and I think we were just singing over YouTube videos.
Mike had some more hilarious issues with his coat zipper that the locals were amused by. He's a real crowd pleaser.
On the drive back the cab guy kept doing the sign of the cross every time we passed a church.
Back at the hotel I got to talk to the big man when he woke up in the morning.
He's a cutie boy.