TRAVEL-REPORTS
Weddings, unlike lightning, strike in the same place twice...
I returned via Public transport back from France to Tbilisi. I met Tom in Venice and we spent a long and strange evening drinking wine with two German girls and an American / Iranian guy. One of the girls had a Georgian name from her ancestry. Then we slept on a bench.
It was one of those trips where it seemed we had to wait for a day for anything to turn up. We had to wait for the boat to leave the port in Venice. That delayed the connection in Greece so we slept in the greek port of Igominitsa before taking the bus on to Thessolonika, Istanbul and back to Tbilisi. From there Tom went back to Yerevan.
The positive side to all this public transport travel was that I got to do a lot of reading and thinking. I arrived back to the city with a new-found energy. The weather that evening was warm, there was a lightning storm in the distance, music and fireworks blaring from a wedding. As soon as I arrived, I went with my friend Nino up to the Tbilisi sea and went for a swim. I never done it before even though the beautiful reservoir was on my doorstep.
This got me thinking how easy it is not to make the most of your location. This reminded me of something Manoog (Couchsurfer from Yerevan) had said about when you are travelling, you often introduce your hosts to things where they live that they never knew existed.
Whilst I’d been away, my friend Vincent had decided to distill 20 litres of Absinthe and 20 litres of Georgian Chacha, with the notes, ‘drink in moderation’ and ‘good to drink’ taped on respectively. They were for the wedding of mutual friend, Aurillien.
Unfortunately the wedding happened on the same day as Tom’s wedding so I was disappointed I couldn’t attend. Apparently it was a great party and they all ended up in the swimming pool.
TODO: Georgia - October 2009 (7)
TODO: Georgia - October 2009 (6)
TODO: Georgia - October 2009 (8)
During the next couple of weeks, I went out Mountain Biking frequently and also took a trip to Zhinvali to visit my friend Davit’s village home. It had huge grape vines and we picked buckets of the delicious grapes.
Afterwards we went for a swim in the Zhinvali lake, which is dammed to create hydroelectric power. The reservoir is huge and the water was cold but very refreshing!
TODO: Georgia - October 2009 (6)
Fanny arrived back in Tbilisi after the summer with her new Kona mountain bike which is very happy with. She is still working away from the city but is looking forward to using the bike more when she is back.
My welded Explosif frame is still holding out after many off-road rides, so I’ve still yet to swap it for the new Caldera frame that Kona provided, although I’m eager to try the new frame out.