Croatia and the Dalmatian Coast

November 27, 2011
Ron and I are ‘sluts for travel’, in his words, so any time he has work we try to take a trip to explore an area new to us. When we finished the assignment in Tbilisi we headed to Croatia. We arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia and were met by our apartment host, Nives. Unfortunately our luggage did not arrive with us. The drive from the airport was beautiful, along the Adriatic coast.

Our first day, we took an early morning walk through old town and came across two women selling hand made table linens. We bought a few pieces and continued on our way. We stumbled onto the ethnological museum and loved it. It was housed in a building originally used as a grain storage house. The displays were simple but very educational. The building was fascinating.

The weather in Dubrovnik was sunny and warm, so we only needed our sweaters. We had left TBS in our winter parkas because it was snowing when we caught our 5:00 a.m. plane to Munich. In Croatia, we sat outside at an outdoor café and had espresso drinks mid-morning and again at lunch where we sat outside and by this time we had shed our sweaters. We continued to explore the town and then took the City Walls Walk. The walls were built around the city as a defense in the 10th century and modified in the 13th century. The guards could walk along the top of the walls and now so can tourists. It took about an hour, stopping to take photos. We had great views of old town and the islands off the coast. We took the cable car up the hill overlooking the city to take photos of the sunset which sets at 4:15, much earlier than TBS. When we got back home our luggage had arrived.

On day two we had a slow morning, enjoying coffee and pastries in the room. Ron and I are coffee snobs, being from the land of Starbucks so we travel with an electric teapot, good coffee and a cone with filters so we can make our own coffee. We then went to the Franciscan monastery built in 1317. Still standing was a fountain from 15th century in a lovely garden in the center of the monastery. There was a pharmacy that has been in use since 1717 and has displays of various items used in the pharmacy. We also visited the museum that contained various religious items. Next we visited the Rector’s palace, an important political and administrative center of the Republic of Ragusa (this area at the time was Ragusa). The building was built in 1435 and was a wonderful structure and contained many items of interest from the various periods in history. The beautiful locking trunks fascinated us with their intricate locking devices. We saw some
exquisite Italian ceramic vessels used in pharmacies from the 15th century. We bought a traditional Croatian Easter egg at the shop there. The eggs in this part of the world are most often dyed a deep red color and here they decorate them using a batik technique.

November 30th
Today was our 26th anniversary and we rented a car and drove up the coast for four hours to Split. Along the way we stopped in Ston on a recommendation from Penney, a friend and from our host in Dubrovnik. What a lovely area. A lot of oyster beds are found here and we first stopped at a sweet hotel on the water and had coffee outside and enjoyed the sunshine. We explored the area taking in the salt pans that have been here since 1000 A.D. We went back to the hotel and ordered a simple lunch, deciding to split an order of ‘crispy fried oysters’. The order came and we ate the first oyster and ‘had a moment’ as Sandi, Ron’s sister likes to say. The oysters were perfect: hot, light, moist and tasted faintly of the sea. After eating the plate of oysters we looked at each other and decided more was better and ordered another plate of oysters. Heavenly. Back into the car and we continued up the coast exclaiming about the beauty the entire way.

When we got to Split we were surprised to discover it is a very large city and we were lost in terms of how to get to our hotel. But after two stops and a lot of frustration, I asked a man in a parking lot if he spoke English. Lucky for me he did. He did not know how to find our hotel so called and lo ad behold he told us to follow him and he took us there. We were so grateful as we were so lost.

OMG, I about fell over when I walked into the lobby. I have learned of this hotel from Trip Advisor and never looked at the photos of the hotel online. Ron and I love simple traditional, homey kind of places. This place is out of this world. The entire lobby is white: white high gloss furniture with purple or lavender accents pillows, silver floor tiles, stark white walls. The white light fixtures are too strange to describe. Our room has a glass wall between the bedroom and bathroom so one of us can sit in the bedroom and watch the other one bathe. Weird. Our carpet is bright strips of bright aqua, soft aqua, deep purple, lavender and two tones of taupe about three inches wide. Our light fixture shades look like the three foot fringe off of a leather jacket Cher wore in the 60’s. The curtain that can be used on the glass wall between the bedroom and bath is silver. The desk chair is modern molded plastic. All the furniture is stark white with a high gloss finish. The tile wall behind the toilet is heavily dimpled and totally iridescent purple. Who ever decorated this place was very good at consistent design concept but OMG what taste. It is so not us. We managed to survive however.

We spent the next day in Split exploring what had been Dioclenitian’s palace, the Roman emperor from the fourth century. Our hotel was five minutes away from old town. It was interesting to observe how parts of the original structure had been incorporated into 16th century churches and homes of wealthy nobles and modern day shops and cafes. In its day the palace was huge. We relaxed in the afternoon with Ron working on a report and me reading on our balcony overlooking the waterfront. We got up early on Friday to drive back to Dubrovnik. We had planned to take photos of the spectacular coast but unfortunately there was a lot of haze and it made no sense to try and take photos. We arrived at the airport in good time and read until departure at 4:00. We flew to Zagreb, changed planes for Munich and changed again for TBS, arriving bright and early at 4:00 a.m. We got to bed at 5:30 and took a pill and slept until 10ish. We are staying at Leslie’s house while she is at a wedding in FL. We got up and walked to a couple of nearby shops for butter, eggs and bread for our breakfast. Ron spent the day working on his report and I lazed around the house and managed to do a load of laundry. We went to a nearby Indian restaurant, our fav and asked our friend Rick to join us as he lives nearby and his wife Dorothy is in the US recovering form surgery. Rick is the Peace Corps director here and as we were waiting for our dinner, 11 of his volunteers came in for dinner. PC volunteers in Georgia make 250 GEL a month, that’s about $130 a month. They were in town for a meeting as they all live in rural areas of Georgia. As we were leaving Ron and I paid for their dinners as a random act of kindness. We asked the cashier to wait until the volunteers were ready to pay their bill before telling them and to thank them for their service.

On Sunday we had brunch with Kirsten and her son Aquil who also live nearby. We have massages scheduled next then over to Lily’s for more goodbyes. Gia will pick us up at 2:45 in the morning for our 5:00 flight to Munich, Washington DC then on to Portland, a mere 27 hour trip! OY!

lies, damn lies and statistics

November 23 2011

Ron and I read a daily Georgian English language paper here. Today’s paper had a small article on the unemployment figures in Georgia. You have to love this. Just more proof about how useless statistics can be. I quote “Official statistics claim that unemployment in Georgia is 16.3%. Official statistics identify an unemployed person as someone who is older that 15 who was not employed for even one hour for the last seven days who has been searching for a job for the last four weeks and was ready to start working in the following two weeks. One cannot be considered unemployed in a rural place if one possesses at least 10 sq meters (a meter is 39 inches folks) of land. (Emphasis is mine). Of those employed 17.4% live on approximately GEL 2 a day. (a GEL is 60 US cents). A total of 80% of the rural population is self employed. That means they work on their land. (that probably means they are growing some veggies to prevent starvation). If we add up all those figures and assess the reality then unemployed is around 60% in the country.” End quote. OY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I went to my former housekeeper’s home for a visit. I had never seen her house and she wanted me to see it. Nino and Zura started building their house about eight years ago when he had a good job. Before they finished the house, he was laid off and he hasn’t had regular employment until he started working as a guard for the embassy in August 2010. So the house remains unfinished. Most of the downstairs is completed although it was not heated. The kitchen and dining area are heated and that is where we visited. Zura’s mother lives with them and she prepared tea for us. When we sat down at the table, there was a bowl of fresh fruit, three kinds of ‘preserves’, two kinds of juice, something that looked like a hamburger bun, some salami and ketchup. Zura wanted me to try everything. I cannot handle much sugar so literally ate a quarter of a teaspoon of the preserves and about two inches of the juice. Zura’s mom comes from a rural village so making all these items is common. Unfortunately there was so much sugar in each of these items I could not taste the fruit. Just about then Nino’s mom came over. She lives next door. She brought cake with a half inch of sugar frosting and two kinds of pastry that I thought it might just be baked dough. No such luck. They were filled with sugared fruit. I took the thinnest slice of the cake. I thought I was going to throw up on the way home from all the sugar. I wanted to eat a teaspoon of salt to counteract the sugar.. They were curious as to why I didn’t eat more but I explained that I had eaten breakfast before coming and that I had a noon lunch date. Mind you most people in the family are overweight. No surprise there given the diet.

My friend Steph from MN said her mother-in-law who is Georgian offered to boil them bake a turkey for her family for Thanksgiving. When Steph asked why would she boil and bake a turkey she discovered that turkeys are so tough here that boiling is necessary to tenderize the bird. No Norbest or Butterballs here folks! You can also assume the birds are much smaller if she has a pot big enough in which to boil a turkey.

November 24, 2011

Today is Thanksgiving and it is cold. With the wind chill factor it is 28 outside. It is gray but dry. The hills are covered with snow and the clouds are hovering over the hills obscuring the tops. I walked for 30 minutes to pay for a scarf I bought a few days ago from a local artist. I didn’t have the money on me at the time but she insisted I take the scarf. Great technique so I couldn’t change my mind.

After I returned to the hotel, there was a knock at the door and one of the housekeepers handed me a replacement shoe shine brush. I had set the dried up one by the trash can this morning. After she handed it to me she said in a thick Georgian accent ‘Thank you for the money’. I leave tips for the staff. Then she said ‘Happy’ and she tried so hard to remember the word and I said ‘Thanksgiving’. Her face lit up and she smiled brightly. I thanked her and off she went.

After describing the weather today and the hills, the sun came out and the beauty of the sun on the hills made me weep. Or maybe it was the housekeeper’s gratitude.  This place can be so grim and yet it can transform into a place of such beauty.

Ron and I ate a simple dinner at a nearby German restaurant.

Black Friday. We woke up to a snow covered Tbilisi and were grateful it was a light snow that was dissipating by the time we got up. I walked to the laundry and it was bitter cold, the kind that makes tears come into my eyes.

Today is Ron’s last day of work. He will teach half day then go to the office to do his paper work. We will have dinner with our friend Leslie at one of our favorite restaurants, Vong, an Asian fusion place. Tomorrow we will pack up and store two suitcases at Leslie’s and have brunch with Lily, Adey and Fantanesh, our friends from Ethiopia. At 4:00 a.m. Sunday we will fly to Croatia for a mini vacation. We will be there for six days then return to TBS for two days before flying home on the 5^th.

Back in Batumi or rain on the Black Sea

November 10 2011

There are some odd things about Georgia. One of them is change. Most merchants start the day without a ‘bank’, meaning a cash drawer with various denominations of coins and bills. They expect the customer to pay the correct amount. Does that seem backwards to you? Today I ate lunch at one of the hotel’s three restaurants. This is one of the larger hotels in Batumi. There are four floors of rooms, totaling 145 rooms. I had soup, bread and water for lunch. The soup was four lari, a steal, the bread was free and the water was three lari, ridiculous since the soup required more labor, ingredients, etc. My total bill was 7.70 lari as service is added to the bill here. I gave the waitress a 20 lari note and the cashier left the room and went into another restaurant to make change. OY! BTW a lari is about sixty cents.

We arrived Monday and it snowed overnight. Since then is has been raining. I got out for a walk the second morning here when there was a break in the weather but now rain is predicted everyday we are here. Fortunately there is a brief break everyday and I am able to get out for a walk. Otherwise I would get a severe case of cabin fever and go postal! 

I drew a name from the Salvation Army Angel Tree in TBS. The name I drew was a 77 yr old woman who requested warm clothes or food for her Christmas gift. I tried for two days to find a wool shawl for her. Since I don’t know her size it didn’t make sense to buy a sweater. After discovering I couldn’t communicate my need to store employees I asked Marika with whom Ron works to write out in Georgian what I needed. Bingo. I found it in the third shop I tried. I then continued the search and got wool gloves and socks, a knit hat and scarf. Shopping in developing countries is an adventure. You don’t have the luxury of a department store. Most shops are the size of a large closet with one sales person. The shops are often unlit and sometimes unheated. The stock is quite limited. It is hit or miss in terms of what you will find inside of the shop. I probably spent a couple of hours buying these few items. My feet were very tired by the end of the day.  

Batumi is under construction. Parts of town have lovely sidewalks. I don’t need to watch where I am walking as the sidewalks are new and level with no missing pavement. Most of these are actually quite lovely, made of pavers in various patterns with cut stone, mosaics with smooth river stones, etc. There are curb stones and no concrete. The sidewalks are made of cut stones and arranged in a variety of pleasing patterns using two or more colors. The streets are often the same. In other parts of town the sidewalks don’t exist. They have been torn up in anticipation of replacement. These areas I have to watch every step. There are rocks, gravel, mud, large holes for sewer access…well you get the picture.

 

Jason and the Golden Fleece

Ron finished up his first week of classes in time for us to have a brief outing. We went to lunch together, our first since arriving on Monday. Then we went to the art museum a few blocks away. It was a small provincial museum. When we exited it was pouring rain so we came back to the hotel. Ron read his book and I read the NY Times on line. We ventured out again for dinner. Being tired of Georgian cuisine we walked over to the Sheraton, a large, new hotel near by because the rain persisted. We went up to the 20^th floor and we were the only diners there. The menu was limited but we decided on pasta and were pleased with the decision. Half way through our meal a party of four arrived and joked about not having reservations. Ron quipped ‘I think you will be seated with no problems’.  The only English channel we can get in Batumi is CNN news so our viewing is limited. We read until bedtime. 

Today we have had a lot of rain, rain mixed with snow and then two healthy hail storms. Then we had a thunder storm with rain and now it is snowing to beat the band. Oy! I really need to get out daily but haven’t gotten out of the hotel yet today. It is cold here, in the high 30’s. Hopefully the rain will abate and I can get to the grocery store for more soy milk for tomorrow’s bowl of granola.

Nov 13 2011

We never got out on Saturday as Ron worked all day teaching, but we did today. We walked over to the ‘Dophinium’ at 11:00 and they had a show at 5:00 so we skipped that idea.. We continued our walk in the rain and went to the archeology museum. It was unheated and therefore cold as the temps are in the 40’s now. But it was dry and had a good exhibit of local area finds. The guard walked ahead of us and would turn the lights on the display case as we approached. When we finished viewing he would turn off the lights. It gives you an idea of how tight things are in this country. Afterwards we walked to the grocery store to get soy milk and some snacks for our room. We stopped on the way home in a small warm lovely café and had a light lunch. It was pouring rain for some of our walk and even with umbrellas we got soaked: our gloves, our pants below the knees and my backpack purse was wet inside and out. We stayed in our room for the rest of the day.  Ron worked some and I read and did e-mails. and ate dinner at the hotel.

November 14

Today the sun came out. Hooray! After seven days of rain I needed a break. I bundled up as it is still cold and took a long walk by the sea. Batumi’s fortune is its beach and it recognizes that fact. So there is a wonderful broad walkway along the sea that goes for miles. I walked for 40 minutes in one direction and still didn’t come to the end of the walkway. There are men out everyday cleaning the beaches of debris. Even though it is off season the beaches remain spotless. The beaches here are made of smooth, colorful rocks ranging from large stones the size of my foot to pebbles and occasionally mixed with coarse dark sand. For the most part they are mid sized stones making it difficult to walk and I would imagine very uncomfortable for sitting. Unfortunately this part of the world is way behind the curve when it comes to awareness about pollution so Batumi, a city of 122,000 (2002 census), puts all of its waste water (yes that does include raw sewerage) right into the ocean untreated so many people get sick when they swim here. No surprise there. Some how, no one seems to have made the connection between the various physical problems one has from swimming in polluted water. All the countries that border the Black Sea are polluters from industry as well as untreated waste water. We take a lot for granted in the US; things like clean air and water come to mind immediately.

Tuesday November 15th

We had another glorious day of sun until about 4:00. I took a walk after breakfast along the sea. After lunch I went on a photo expedition. There are some beautiful buildings here with some special features like the iron work on doors and balconies. Hopefully Ron will have time to post some. The temps are in the high 40’s to the high 30’s during the day. Many shops have their doors open because they aren’t heated. I doubt that many homes are either. So when the sun is out you can count on people flocking to the streets, sitting in the sun on benches, walls or stoops. They also come out because they live in such tight quarters. It is not unusual for families with children and perhaps a grandparent to live in one bedroom apartments. Again most of us have much to be grateful for in the US. On my walk I passed a street sweeper and asked if I could take his photo. He laughed and agreed. I wanted his photo because he is a city employee and his broom is made from branches from a tree or bush. It is not a manufactured item and this is all I have ever seen in Georgia.

 I just was reading about Batumi and learned it is the wettest place in Georgia, getting 107 inches a year. Well no wonder!

 Wednesday November 16th

The rain is back but I got in a short walk after breakfast before the rain came. I walked out onto the beach and never saw any sand, just stones. They were pretty with all the shapes, sizes and colors. I walked to a Ukrainian restaurant where Ron and I had dinner earlier this week. I was the only woman who was dining among about 12-15 men. As I sat at the table, I spied three holes in the curtains, just the size of a cigarette burn. We have one in the upholstered chair in our room the same size. We also have a burn in the carpet and two on the tub. We sit at the same place every morning in the breakfast dining room. There is a burn in the curtain there also.These Georgians love their cigarettes and their cars.

Travels in Georgia and some musing

November 8 2011

Last Friday Ron went to Borjomi, about two hours from TBS, and taught on Saturday then came back to TBS. I spent the night with our friend Kirsten and her son Aquil as we were required to move out of the Betsy (our hotel), as my expenses are not covered. On Saturday the weather was perfect: a blue, blue sky, sunny and warm where only a turtle neck shirt was needed. I walked to Old Town and ate lunch outside and then walked back to the hotel, 40 minutes uphill and the last five minutes on level ground. Oy! I have managed to stay busy even living in the hotel with no responsibilities other than hand washing in the evenings and occasional ironing. I found an inexpensive alternative to the hotel laundry and walk there to take our shirts and jeans. 

Maia Bazuashvili is the massage therapist we used when we lived here. On Sunday she invited us to visit her home in her village and her apartment in TBS. She came to the Betsy and her cousin drove us to the village, about 30 minutes west of TBS. Maia’s mother wanted to meet us as we had paid to put a new roof on her house which had been leaking badly. The home is quite old as Maia’s grandfather had built it. It is in a small village. It is a large home that is now divided into two separate living quarters. Apparently there was a family feud in the past and the result was the sealing off of one part of the house. Maia’s part includes an entry where wood is stored for heating. There a large room that will eventually we divided into two bedrooms, a small kitchen and dining area. From here you go outside to a large covered veranda and enter another room which was heated. There was a dining table, a couple of beds, a playpen for the two year old Maia has adopted and a crib. There was also a china cabinet in the room. Down below were tow storage areas, dirt floor basements. One is used for food storage and wine making, a given in any village. I assume there was an outhouse in the yard. We met Maia’s mom, her older sister and her baby. Maia’s sister will keep the baby in the village this winter as Maia’s apartment is not heated. Nino, Maia’s sister, has not been able to find work for five years. She will not do housework for pay so she takes care of the baby. The baby has Down’s syndrome. He doesn’t yet walk or talk. In addition he has had heart surgery and may require additional surgery on his aorta to improve the blood flow. Fortunately the surgery is paid for by the government but medical appointments, tests and medicines are not. 

After visiting the family in the village we went to a late lunch which Maia had insisted on. We ate Georgian fare: two kinds of meat, cheese bread, plain bread. Then we went to her apartment in TBS. Maia has lived there for all but 2 of her 45 years. She was two when the family moved in. The building is the classic Soviet style concrete box. She lives in the fourth floor and the elevator hasn’t worked for years. Unlike most places her stairwell is now lit, the lights were installed two weeks ago and are operated by motion detectors. There was a small entry way, a living room and a bedroom. The kitchen was small as was the bathroom. The bathroom had a corner where all the tiles were missing and plumbing was exposed. Obviously this was a result of a repair many years ago. On the other side of the kitchen was a small storage room. Maia had hung the photos Ron gave her when we left in June and she had a cabinet in the living room that she called her American corner where she has numerous items from events at the embassy’ This included red, white and blue foil decorations, small fliers and banners. It was quite touching. 

 Maia works half time at the US embassy as a janitor and makes $2.00 an hour. She supplements her income doing massage and housekeeping but her massage clients were Americans who worked at the embassy and they left this summer with the normal rotation. The woman who employed her as a house keeper left as well. Maia has been unable to replace that income. This is Georgia and how it goes here. Maia supports her mother, her sister, her son and helps support her niece and nephew whose mom, Maia’s younger sister, died six years ago from cancer. The father of her sister’s children finds work only occasionally. Although Maia was very embarrassed by her meager means she did want to share her life with us and we were deeply touched. She is a very special person and will always hold a special place in our hearts. Afterwards we came back to the hotel to pack for Batumi.

Ron and I came to Batumi on the Black Sea coast yesterday. Gia, our former driver who now works for MSI, the same company Ron is working for, drove us here. I was reminded how much I dislike traveling in Georgia. Ninety percent of the trip was on a two lane road, heavily traveled by Turkish semis that are bringing products to Georgia and Russia including a lot of Georgia’s food. Georgia imports 85% of its food from Russia, Turkey and Germany. In addition to the semis, there are many Georgians on the road. I don’t need to mention again how poorly and recklessly Georgians drive. Gia is an excellent driver and very professional. He obeys all rules of the road (except maybe the speed limit). We got 20 minutes out of Tbilisi it started to snow. After 60 minutes we had to go very slowly and questioned as to whether we could get to Batumi, our destination. However we passed through the storm. Our journey took six hours. We were supposed to leave TBS at 10-10:30 but left at 1:30 due to some poor program planning, requiring night driving. It is best to never drive at night in ROG due to driver error and drivers who drink and drive. In addition to all the traffic we had to contend with, there were numerous cows and cow herds crossing the road going home for the eveining. The worst was when we would round a bend in the road and come across cattle in the middle of the road. Oy! There were sheep and pigs beside the road as well creating potential danger. 

It is not unusual to pass through the center of towns driving 40-50 miles per hour. On the open road 80 mph is normal. I sat in the back and could see the speedometer. Gia’s car came from the US although it is a Japanese car. But his odometer is calibrated in miles not kilometers. We will be here for 12 days and Ron will be teaching workshops for local government participants. Alas we arrived at 7:30, tired but alive. We dined in the hotel’s Italian restaurant as we are quite tired of Georgian fare.

This morning we woke up to a dusting of snow in Batumi. This is very early for snow. When we lived here in 2009-11 snow usually occurred after the first of the year. One of the cars traveling after us with staff yesterday had to turn back to TBS because of snow and many accidents. I am grateful that didn’t happen to us as Ron’s schedule is full and doesn’t allow for any wiggle room. He works six days a week here and usually has a few hours of work on Sundays as well. But he is happy to have work.

It is interesting being back and for a short stay. One day this week as I was walking around TBS I was observing and analyzing my experience. Sometimes when I am in a developing country I grow weary of the experience. I was thinking about why that was. When I got home this summer after 21 months in Georgia I summed up the country by saying it was grim. This week I said ‘grim and broken’.  Georgians are grim and I don’t blame them. This is a very poor country with very few opportunities. Even if you can find a job which many cannot, the pay is not a living wage. When the Soviets left in 1990-91 they took the jobs by closing the factories, and they took all the money in the banks so Georgians saw their savings and livelihoods disappear overnight. Then there was a civil war to add to their misery. There is a small middle class here but those in the rural areas are desperately poor and there are many poor in the cities as well. Consequently as you pass people on the street, they are not smiling. Even if I can make eye contact and I greet the person, I often get nothing in response and smiles are rare. That is what makes Georgia grim for the most part. The broken part of Georgia has to do with everything else. The sidewalks are atrocious. They are either heaved up by tree roots, missing pavement, or are gravel or mud or have large holes or divots, enough to turn your ankle or experience a dangerous fall if you don’t watch every step. I have to look at my feet when I walk. The roads are missing pavement or manhole covers. This week while walking I discovered tree trunks in the streets that had been sawed off a few inches above the payment and three inch metal stubs sticking up about eight inches from the curb. These must have been sign posts at some point but someone cut them down but left enough of the post to do damage. As a pedestrian I often have to walk in the street as drivers park their cars on the sidewalk leaving no room for pedestrians. It is rare to see a building that doesn’t scream for attention: broken railings, loose tiles, concrete siding sloughing off the side of the building, painting that is so long overdue, stained walls, mildew and mold abound, etc. This is what I mean by broken. There area few historic buildings that were once grand, even beautiful but now they are falling apart in disrepair. However, some have been restored and the government is trying to focus on key areas and make improvements to structures and the city infrastructure.  The one thing the Georgians know how to do is light up buildings.  Tbilisi and Batumi are at their best at night.

Due to foreign investment there are areas in TBS where there is restoration occurring. Old Town is a prime example where Ron likes to say ‘it has been restored to a condition it never was’. All the homes and commercial building have been or are being given new facades. This is also true of Signaghi, a tourist town two hours east of TBS and Mskheta, a town west of TBS. The same goes for the central parts of Batumi.  Unfortunately the Georgian government is not doing anything to develop the economy in a sustainable way. If the foreign investment left, the country would have little measurable economy. There are a handful of extremely wealthy Georgians. Some of these men made there wealth in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. I previously mentioned Bidzinia Ivanishvili who is worth $5.5 billion. He has done wonderful things for Georgia. He is paying for the restoration of the TBS opera house and the restoration of the original administrative building at TBS State University. Both are huge products costing in the millions of dollars.  In his village he built a community center as well as repairs on residents’ homes. He built the French School in TBS, a private school. He also contributed heavily to the construction of the Orthodox cathedral.

Tbilisi from the travelers perspective

October 20 2011

For the past couple of days the weather has turned blustery with lots of wind and occasional rain and cold. We had to shut the window in our bathroom due to the cold but discovered nothing gets dry in there with no air circulation. We wash out our socks, underwear and handkerchiefs daily and have a small clothes line that we use for our hand washing when we travel. So today I climbed back on top of the tub edges to open the transom over the window so our items didn’t mildew. 

Today I met three friends: Nino, our former housekeeper, met me for coffee, Maia, our artist friend, met both of us for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants Pur Pur and I met Satvir, a young man from India whom we befriended through our favorite Indian restaurant. Pur Pur is owned by an artist (metal worker) and has a rather unusual yet creative décor and a great menu. We always meet with Maia there as it is close to her apartment. It was great to see each of our friends and find out how they were doing. 

Ron has been busy at work and that makes him happy. His last job here was boring by comparison. He will be training people in local government on a number of topics but this week his proposed schedule has change literally everyday. We hope to get a firm schedule by next week so we can plan accordingly. Ron will travel to at least one location outside of Tbilisi to do the training and hopefully I will be able to join him. 

Last night we went to Little India, our favorite Indian restaurant. After we came out we were waiting for a taxi and I watched three different people back up though a cross street. It was dark and a very stupid and dangerous move but so very Georgian. Needless to say I still find myself muttering under my breath about the bad driving here. When I got home I discovered we had heat from the radiators in our room. No more worry about getting our hand washing dry.

October 22, 2011

The weather has turned back to Indian summer here and it is delightful. Yesterday I got a manicure and went to the laundry on the metro to pick up our clothes. They weren’t ready so this will require another trip across town on the metro. I walked so much yesterday while on errands and meeting Ron for lunch that everything hurt: my feet, my back and my hips. Good lord, getting old is not for sissies!  I came back to the room and rested, took an ibuprofen and a very hot soaking bath. Later we went out to dinner but eating in restaurants is beginning to catch up with us so we had soup and a light green salad and bread at our fave Italian place. I loved going out to eat but three times a day gets old rather quickly. I am grateful that the food at our hotel is good. Many places that include breakfast serve a poor meal, high in carbs and low in quality. The Betsy has a great buffet with eggs to order any style. The fruit is fresh daily. All the bread products are fresh as well. They do not serve lunch although there is a small coffee shop run by another company within the hotel. They have a limited lunch menu and espresso drinks. Dinner here is good but expensive so we often go out for dinner. 

Today Ron is working (it is Saturday). He got his travel schedule. This week he will go to Batumi on the Black Sea coast for three days to do some training. I will check out of the Betsy and stay with Kirsten and her son (and Ron’s nose brother) Aquil, friends from the US embassy while Ron is gone. Then Ron will be in TBS doing more training for a week. Then we will go back to Batumi and stay there for two full weeks while he does more training. I will go with him then. There is little to do in Batumi so I decided to stay in TBS for the first trip but go with him for the longer trip as neither of us likes to be separated for long periods. After 26 years we are rather fond of one another! 

Yesterday I did a little shopping looking for bar soap and hand cream without perfume. Since 85% of the products in the grocery stores are imported from Russia, Turkey and Germany, I can’t read the labels. I asked a clerk who showed me what to buy. She got it half right. I have soap without perfume and hand cream with perfume. Yuck! 

Today when Ron is finished with his work we will walk down the hill and over to the dry bridge area where there is a daily flea market. We only bought one thing there in the time we lived here, a hammered copper pot. But we love to go look, seeking treasure. There is everything from war metals, old coins, used dishes, antiques and junk, particularly a glut of jewelry that looks like it is plastic imitating amber and the like. Some of the cut glass and china is lovely but ornate and not our style. 

October 24, 2011

Bidzina Ivanishvili is a Georgian billionaire (worth $5 billion ) who recently announced his intention to enter politics. He made his money in Russia when the USSR collapsed. He currently lives in Tbilisi. As soon as he announced his intentions strange coincidences occurred. First his citizenship was revoked because he also holds a Russian and French passport, i.e. citizenship. Georgia apparently doesn’t allow for dual citizenship. Funny that it just now became as issue as he has lived here for a while. Next the government seized a vehicle that was transferring large amounts of cash from a bank to his bank, claiming that money was being laundered. In fact it is a common practice for banks to transfer large amounts of cash back and forth. But they arrested the employees in the vehicle and seized the cash ($2 million dollars and 1 million EUROS). It is evident that the current administration is anxious about his intentions to seek the PM position which the current president is considering so he can run for president again. Gee this sounds vaguely familiar ala Putin. 

More news from Georgia. It was reported today that 11 out of 20 meat samples taken in supermarkets in Tbilisi and Kutaisi, the second largest city in GA were tainted with a bacteria. No wonder my friend Steph who lives here gets food poisoning frequently. We rarely cooked with meat when we lived here and normally we dined in finer restaurants so didn’t get sick. OY!

Back in Tbilisi

Oct 13 2011

Ron and I left for the airport on Monday Oct 10^th to fly to Tbilisi. When we arrived we discovered that our plane would be late due to bad weather in San Francisco. To make a long story short, we could not make our connection in SF for Munich so we came back home and caught the flights the following day, Tuesday the 11^th.  I had completely emptied the refrigerator before leaving since we are to be gone for almost two months. So we had nothing to eat. We dined out for dinner, breakfast and ate lunch at the airport the following day.  

We caught a 1:00 p.m. flight to SF, had a six hour layover, then caught a flight to Munich and had another five hour layover before flying into Tbilisi. We spent 30 hours in transit, arriving at our hotel at 5:00 a.m. on Thursday. Our former driver, Gia, offered to pick us up at the airport. It was wonderful to see his smiling face when we emerged from collecting some of our luggage. One bag didn’t make it. We managed to sleep for a couple of hours then got up and had breakfast. We are in the older part of the Betsy Hotel. The two previous stays were in the newer section. We have a pleasant room with one wall of windows overlooking the city. We have a bathtub/shower which is not available in the newer section. I love taking a bath so was excited to see one in our room. My joy was short lived however. I discovered that the plumber who installed it was a knucklehead. He put the faucet at the end of the tub where your back rests, the slanted end of the tub. So it is impossible to lean back while the water is filling the tub. If you turn the water off and scoot down under the faucet you can relax but you have to be careful not to bump your head when you sit up. How do I know this? I bumped my head and manoschevitz it hurts. The other wend of the tub is narrow as your feet don’t need the width and there is a knob in the tub at that end that you turn to close the plug so it was impossible to use that end for my back. It also is not slanted but straight up and down.

Ah Georgia! 

After breakfast I walked with Ron to his office to see where he worked. It is close by, maybe 15 minutes by foot. Our friend James Wall got Ron and me to start walking for exercise when he visited us this summer and I truly hope to walk all over Tbilisi this trip as we will not have a driver as we did before. Luckily the Betsy is located near downtown, high on a hill overlooking the city. I can walk to the main drag easily and also to the metro. It is a steep climb coming back up the hill but it is all good exercise. 

October 15, 2011

We are sleeping quite well for the most part. I did wake up at 4:00 this morning but was able to get back to sleep around 6:00 and slept until almost 9:00. The weather was beautiful yesterday and today. Sunny but not too hot. Since we didn’t bring hot weather clothes I am grateful. We have made connection with many friends already. Yesterday while Ron was working I had lunch and ran errands with my dear friend Steph from Minnesota. Last night we had dinner with 13 people we had met through IWA when we were living here. Today, Saturday we had lunch  with Lily, her four year old daughter Adey and her nanny Fantanesh. All three are from Ethiopia but Lily has lived in the US for many years and works here for the World Bank. We met over a year ago and became fast friends. Tonight we will eat at the hotel.  

Ron and I are walking a lot. One of my goals is to do a lot of walking for the time we are here and hopefully be more fit by the time we leave in December. Yesterday we tried to find a better path for Ron to walk to work. We walked for 45 minutes and ended up going to the Radisson for a decent cup of coffee before coming home. Yesterday afternoon we tried to find a gallery that we like here that had moved to our current neighborhood so we walked another 45 minutes. Later we walked to dinner, a 20 minute walk. Yeah! 

Coming Home

July 9 2011

To wrap up our ROG adventure, we returned to the US on June 15^th. We were in DC for two days while Ron wrapped up with Treasury and visited a couple of international non governmental organizations to talk about future short term assignments. Treasury asked Ron to be on the intermittent list as well. We visited our kids and grandkids which was a real treat then headed home arriving late Sunday night, June 19^th. Jane Burke was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and bring us home.

On Monday Jane moved in with us as Jim, her husband, is bicycling across the US and their house is occupied by people with whom they are doing a house exchange. We unpacked our six suitcases and started on the 30 boxes that we stored in our basement while we were in ROG. I needed to go to the grocery stores where I shopped to stock the pantry and refrigerator. It is so easy to shop here with such a wide availability of items. I bought many things that we had not had for the 21 months we had been gone.  Monday night the three of us went to the mattress store and bought three new mattresses: one for the apartment, one for a guest room and one for us. We had fun acting like Goldilocks at the store trying out various mattresses.

On Tuesday we finished the boxes. Ron was busy in the office working on the presentation he was to give in Vietnam, leaving on Thursday. I woke up Wednesday and went down to the kitchen and realized I was thoroughly exhausted. I had been operating on joy and excitement about being home but had been going non stop. My body said slow down and I did. I started working a while then spending time at the computer or some other non physical activity.

On Thursday I took Ron to the airport and off he went for eight days. While gone, I ironed, god what a mountain of ironing was left after unpacking six suitcases. I still have more to do. I gardened, buying and planting plants for the patio and porch pots/boxes. It really helped me feel as though I had reclaimed our home. It felt rather unlived in when we arrived. There is a ton of maintenance that needs to be done but we have started on it and hope to finish by the end of August. When Ron returned we used our neighbor’s power washer to clean our patio, deck and sidewalks in the backyard. He didn’t finish but he got the majority of it done. Next we will clean the mold off the deck and the apartment deck and steps. NW winters take their toll. He has a lot of touch up painting to do outside and in the apartment which we will rent in August. For now Jane is our neighbor there. Jane has been a great help. In the evenings the three of us worked the daily crossword, a fun activity for all of us. Ron got our computers set up and the office straightened out. What a mess it was. While Ron was gone to Vietnam, numerous problems arose: the internet went out, the basement floor had standing water from a plumbing problem, the TV didn’t work and the car died. I was at my wits end as these are the things Ron always takes care of and I felt under the gun to make progress while he was gone. Fortunately we were able to communicate and he gave me guidance and all of it got resolved. Let’s just say that re-entry has its moments: highs and lows. Joy at being back home and bumps with adjustments.

WOW! A month has flown by and I never finished this. To wrap up, we are still are catching up on maintenance. As I reflect on ROG, I realize the word ‘grim’ keeps coming to mind. Our experience wasn’t grim but the country is somewhat grim with its Soviet era architecture, so many people wearing black clothing and often walking down the street with grim expressions. We are most grateful for the chance to spend 21 months there and to travel throughout the region. We are one lucky pair of love birds.

We will return to Tbilisi sometime in Oct. as Ron has a promise for 48 days work between Oct-January. As this is a different job and different employer we will be on our own as it were. No benefits from the embassy, Bummer.  But the work will be challenging and within Ron’s passion which is local government.

A fantastic week-end of fairy chimneys and fabulous fun

June 1 2011

Ron and I had our last fling and went to Cappadocia in central Turkey over the Memorial Day weekend. We left at 4:45 on Saturday morning. We had gone to bed at 10:30 but got up at 1:00 to read as neither of us could sleep. We stayed up and got out of bed at 2:30 to be ready for Gia (our driver) at 3:00. We arrived in Goreme where we were staying around 11:00 Saturday morning. It was an easy trip except for the lack of sleep. We checked into a charming hotel owned by a father and son team. They love flowers and had done a great job of planting all kinds of flowers in pots on the various patios and terraces. It was just lovely. We were right in town making it quite convenient. After unpacking, Serder gave us the rundown on what to do while there and made arrangements for a tour of the region the next day. We went to a nearby café and had a light lunch and walked around the small town. We went back to the hotel and rested for a couple of hours then got up and walked to the open air museum. This region had been the heart of the Hittite Empire and later a vast Roman province mentioned in the Bible.

About ten million years ago three volcanoes erupted and left a thick layer of hot volcanic ash over the region which hardened into a soft, porous stone called tuff. Over eons wind, water, and sand erosion wore away portions of the tuff, carving out elaborate, unearthly shapes. Boulders of hard stones, caught in the tuff and then exposed by erosion protected it from further erosion from below. The result is a column or cone of tuff with a boulder perched on top called a ‘fairy chimney’. Entire valleys are filled with these formations, many of them amusingly phallic in appearance. The tuff was easily worked with primitive tools and the inhabitants quickly learned how simple it was to carve out sturdy dwellings: a cave could be excavated very quickly and if the family expanded, more carving could produce more space.

When Christianity arrived here its adherents found that cave churches could also be easily carved and decorated. Large communities thrived here and the quantity of rock hewn churches they left are unparalleled. When Arab armies swept across this region in the 7th century, the Christians retreated to vast underground settlements that the Hittites may have excavated.

Many of the caves and villages were inhabited by descendants of these early settlers right up until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire finally culminated in an exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey. (from Lonely Planet)

In the open air museum we walked and crawled around many of these structures: churches, homes, storage rooms. It was fascinating. There were busloads of tourists with us as well, so sometimes we had to wait to get inside a room. Given how fatigued we were I was surprised we lasted for the 90 minutes we were there. We had walked a couple of miles to get there and on the way we thought we were at the museum and it turned out we weren’t so we spent about 25 minutes wandering around another interesting place filled with fascinating rock structures. Because we couldn’t find a ticket office and knew there was a charge for the museum we knew we had made a mistake even though there were busloads of tourist here as well.

That night we walked to a restaurant and on the way stopped in a shop that had tribal treasures. We spied a fabulous textile that had been decorated for the interior of a nomad’s tent. In addition to lots tassels there was a lot of hand needle work, and shells and buttons sewn into the banner. The young man who was minding the store said today was the first day the store opened. We asked him how much for this textile that was about 10 -12 feet long. He said $100 and we about fell over. So we bought it. We proceeded to the restaurant and had our dinner. At one point the owner stopped by our table and said ‘you bought the best thing’. It turned out he had owned a carpet shop for years and knew exactly what this piece was. He was able to give us much more information than the sales clerk in the store. The piece was from the SE of Turkey on the border with Iran and was about 40-50 years old. It would have been made by a woman as part of her dowry. We were thrilled to learn more about the piece and to be complimented by the man who knew the trade. The piece had been marked $250 so who knows why it was sold for $100.

The next day we were picked up at the hotel at 9:00, taken to the tour company office and then got on a small bus with 11 others and spent the entire day touring the region. We stopped at a viewpoint overlooking a valley that had many of the tuff houses, then headed for an underground city. This is one of the cities where Christians lived to avoid persecution. Apparently 6,000 people could live underground here for up to six months. It was incredible. The structure was very sophisticated with air vents and this particular ‘city’ had been excavated down to eight levels although there were 12 levels originally (the lowest four have not been opened up for fear of causing structural problems for the floors above). There were areas for making wine, cooking, storage, church services, schools, etc. At times we had to bend over almost double to squeeze through the passage ways. Some of the tunnels were quite long. Just when I thought I could not stay bent over any longer the tunnel would open up and I could stand up. Again there were lots of tourists but it was manageable. For sanitation the inhabitants used pottery ‘slop jars’ for toilets. Because of the small space, there were no private rooms for families as such. It was all shared space, shared meals, etc. They even had stone doors that could be closed off to prevent the raiders from entering.

Next we walked through the Ihlara Valley. This was a 2 mile walk along a stream. There were churches carved into the rock with frescoes, as well as cliff dwellings. We ate lunch in a restaurant overlooking the river. As we drove through the region there was a lot of agriculture. Here they grow wheat, barley and potatoes. The land is quite fertile due to the mineral rich volcanic soil. We also saw grapes grown here although we didn’t try the wine. We often spied women working in the fields. They wear very modest dress here: long sleeved blouses, long skirts or pantaloons to the ankles and head scarves. Very warm dress for this climate at this time of year.

Next we visited the Selime monastery. This was a very steep walk, and scramble over another large structure that included a huge kitchen with a soaring chimney, a church with a gallery all around it and all sorts of evidence of the troglodyte lifestyle. It was quite sophisticated in the design and size. It also was quite scary to be so high up with no real protection from falling: no handrails etc. We finished the tour with the obligatory trip to the onyx factory/store, a large jewelry store mostly. We arrived back at our hotel at 6:00 physically exhausted.

Near our hotel was a minaret and five times a day in the Muslim world there is the call to prayer. In the good old days a man would climb to the top of the minaret and chant the call to prayers. Not so today. Today there are loud speakers. In our case the loud speakers were of poor quality and the volume was ear piercing. So every morning we were rudely awakened at 4:30 with this distorted screech. OY!

On our last day we decided to go at a slower pace. We had already seen quite a lot. We walked to the ‘otogar’ (bus station) and caught a local bus to a town nearby. We wanted to see the Valley of the Fairy Chimneys. We asked the driver to let us off at the road to the valley which was a 2 kilometer walk to get there. Unfortunately he let us off at a different place unbeknownst to us. We walked up this road and when we got to the end of a  town we asked someone where the valley was. The man offered to give us a tour and show us his town. Again we scampered over rocks and went to the large church of St John the Baptist carved from rock in the 12th century. It still had some of the frescoes barely visible. He then showed us the valley and we realized we were in the wrong place, the neighboring town of Cavusin. Our new friend Mehmet took us to the f airy chimney valley and Ron got a few photos. 

Then he took us to the next town of Avanos, famous for its pottery. We were toured around a ceramics factory by a handsome young Turkish man. We bought a plate, highly decorated with the tree of life motif and the family signature design. Ca ching! We caught a bus back to town and ate lunch and walked around town, poking around shops. Then we went to our favorite coffee shop and had a ‘pancake’ which is actually very thin bread, think crepe, that had mashed bananas and chocolate sauce and heated on a stove and drizzled with more chocolate sauce. YUM! We meandered back to the hotel and sat on the terrace and read until time to catch our shuttle to the airport. We arrived in TBS around 3:00 and were in bed by 4:00a.m. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to sleep so got up and took turns bathing. That did the trick and we slumbered until 8:45. Short night. On Tuesday Ron headed out to the embassy for his regular meeting there with the ambo and others. I met with Lala our seamstress to see if she could make repairs on our old textile we had just bought and she loved it. She will have it back to us before the packers arrive. YEAH Lala!

We now have two weeks before time to leave. We will be busy with a farewell to TBS party on Saturday and getting ready for packers who will be here on Wednesday. There still items to sale and give away but we are doing pretty well so far.

Daily life and getting ready to come home

May 20 2011
We leave ROG on June 15th. Ron will be closing down the program here and we will fly to Washington DC for Ron to wrap up with Treasury, to turn in his computer and some files. We will have a shipping company do our packing as we are not allowed to do our own packing, probably due to insurance regulations and maybe to ensure that we aren’t taking contraband into the US. We are not allowed to take any food items so I must give up my spices and what is left in the pantry. One of my tasks is to make sure we use up as much food that is in the freezer and panty as we can in this last month. Last night we had guests for dinner so I made a spinach ricotta pie and managed to finish off the kilo bag of spinach. I made my last month’s supply of granola and used up most of the nuts in the freezer. I am making progress.

Today I am going through the closets and taking out all the clothes that we will not need until next fall/winter and putting them in one of the guest rooms for shipping. I need to make two ‘piles’: one for air shipment and one for slow boat shipment. If we are ‘light’ we may get to ship everything air. It turns out to be cheaper if you don’t have a big shipment which we do not. We will have a lot less weight with consumables since we aren’t taking any food. We do still have lots on non food consumables like hand cream, soap, shampoo and the like. We also have added 11 carpets, five pieces of artwork, two small tables and two mafrahes to our load so we will be in suspense as to whether it all goes air or not. It would make life much simpler if it did as we plan to visit family and friends when we return and not knowing when a shipment will turn up makes planning more difficult.

For the past few weeks I have gone through bookshelves, drawers and closets to sort and toss out what we don’t want to ship. I am doing my best to avoid the overwhelming task of getting out of here and remaining stress-free. So far I feel good about the progress. We will also ship Ron’s ‘jeepi’ but that is done on our own and through a different shipping company.

At this point we do not know when the shipper will come. Treasury puts in a request to a logistics company in the US who then contacts the shipper who then contacts us to arrange a date.

May 21, 2011
Just when I thought I had seen it all in terms of bad driving in Georgia yesterday I was astounded to see someone going through an intersection against the light in reverse!!!!!!!! I also saw a man turning onto a major four lane city street with 5-6 year old child in his lap and the child was steering. OY! I have never gotten used to the way Georgians drive and doubt that I ever will.

I went to lunch with my friend Kirsten and her aunt who is visiting from the States. We sat outside at a café on a popular street and were interrupted four times by the same two boys who were begging. After the second time Kirsten said in a loud voice ‘ARA! ARA!’ which means no in Georgian. The older boy shot her a bird, walked off and was back in two minutes begging again. After four times approaching our table and every other table, Kirsten went and asked the manager to call the police. The boys scampered away.

May 25
Yesterday the shipping company reps came over to survey our shipment. This involves walking through the house showing them what is going and what stays. Our house is filled with embassy issued furniture and appliances which remain here. Our walls have many photos that will not be shipped, etc. We asked for a pack out date of June 8th or 9th. On June 10 the facilities maintenance folks from the embassy will come over to check out all the appliances and equipment to make sure they are working. On Monday the 13th we have our embassy inspection showing that all is in order, there is no damage to the house or contents and that we are leaving the place spic and span. Nino, our housekeeper is working hard to clean all the windows inside and out as well as the window iron grates and sills. In between we make trips to the embassy to get ‘checked out’. This is a 15 page document telling us what is required: fill out forwarding address, make a template for labels, turn in our radio (used for emergencies), pay any outstanding bills (we are exempt as Treasury pays all our bills), show that we have no books checked out that have not been returned. Well you get the picture. We decided to start early to avoid any problems getting home. Can you tell we are ready to come home?

Today I worked on the inventory of what we would be shipping, itemizing the items and assigning a value for insurance purposes. What a tedious task!

Our weather is grand: cool mornings and evenings and warm sunny days. This lifts my spirits. Tbilisi is blessed with lots of trees. Many streets are lined with large trees forming a canopy over the street or at least providing shade and greenery. It softens all the concrete that is here from the Soviet era.

Romantic Greece

Monday 11 2011

Ron and I just returned form nine days in Greece. Oh my goodness! What a wonderful time we had. Greece is every bit as romantic as we had hoped for. Many years ago Ron’s mom told us we should go there as it was a very romantic place. A few years ago I suggested we go there to celebrate our 25 wedding anniversary. Our anniversary is November 30th, not a good time to go. I read that many of the island families go to the mainland starting in late Oct or early Nov. We decided to wait and I am glad we did. We left here on Thursday afternoon April 28th and flew to Athens by way of Istanbul. We arrived at midnight and our only option to get into town was to take a taxi. It cost $74. We think we got a driver who had never had a fare before. He could not put the address into his GPS so he asked someone where to go and lo and behold we ended up in some industrial area on the far side of town with no houses or commercial sites. We told him he was way off course. Mind you we don’t speak Greek and he didn’t speak English but we asked him to call the hotel for directions. Back into town and he had to stop three more times for directions. It took well over an hour to get to our hotel. The desk clerk asked what took us so long! The meter read 99 Euros but fortunately we were on a fixed price from the airport. Our hotel was great, a big room and bath with a tub, my personal favorite. We were a five minute walk to the Metro and four stops from the Acropolis.

 The next morning we walked to a nearby sidewalk café and had wonderful Illy coffee and croissants. The sun was out the entire trip, a welcomed gift. Off to the Acropolis for our first day. I am glad we went early as the tour buses landed as we were coming out and the place was swarmed. This was Good Friday and the entry was free, saving us about $36. Afterwards we walked to the nearby Acropolis Museum that had many of the statues and other items from the Acropolis. There was a wonderful documentary that showed how the various structures looked originally (3,000 years ago) and how they changed from various abuses. Christians destroyed some of the pagan god statues and motifs, the Persian invasion, the Venetians blowing up the Turkish arsenal that was housed inside the Parthenon, acid rain, etc. We pondered just how did they get those huge stones on top of those very high columns in the Parthenon? They have to weigh many tons and they didn’t have cranes or so we assume.



Next was a delicious lunch outside again. We wandered the neighborhood that was loaded with nice shops, restaurants and galleries. That night we took the Metro to the port city of Piraeus for a seafood dinner. We ate by the waterfront. The meal wasn’t anything special but we enjoyed the adventure.

On our second day we returned to our breakfast spot and ate inside as it was earlier and still cool. Afterwards we walked to the nearby National Archeological Museum. It was Easter Saturday and we got in here free as well. Because it was a holiday there were fewer guards so some of the rooms were closed. We still enjoyed what we saw including finds from two of the islands we would be visiting. We saw items that were 4,000 years old including clay pots, figurines, tools and wall paintings. Humbling to say the least. Next we walked to Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the largest temple in Greece. It is gianormous. Hard to even imagine how this was put together and that it still stands, well some of the columns still stand. It was started in 600 BC but not finished until 131 AD (when it was completed by the Romans) as they ran out of money while working on it. After this we wandered the neighborhood looking at shops old and new. We found a shop mentioned in our tour book that had unique items. It was a great shop with very unusual items including antique textiles that were not affordable (500 Euros), wood carvings, and copper pots. We found a delightful metal work piece that we will hang in our kitchen at home. It is quite playful. From here we found a lovely outdoor café where we had lunch. Rocket salad, yum. Then we went to the Belgium chocolate shop we had spied earlier and treated ourselves to some absolutely decadent caramel filled dark chocolate. We went back to our hotel and rested. Then out to dinner outside (is there a theme here?) and ate a wonderful meal at an 18th century mansion that had taken five years to restore. From here we walked toward the Acropolis to take some night photos

On our third day we got up early and took the Metro to the airport and flew to the island of Mykonos in the Cyclades, population 9,600. We stayed in the town of Mykonos whose population is about 6,000.

I mention this because in high season which is July and August the town swells to 120,000. OY! Spare me. There were huge cruise ships in the harbor and waves of tourist would be on the streets once they landed. We were quite surprised at the number of Asian tourists everywhere we went, particularly young Chinese in their 20’s and 30’s. Mykonos is very picturesque. Every building is white and most have colorful trim: classic Greek blue, green and red. Most streets were quite narrow and only motor scooters or motorbikes could travel on them. All this added to the quaintness. They had specialized tiny trucks to pick up the trash.

Our budget hotel was great. We had to climb up a lot of stairs to get to it as the streets were too narrow for our taxi. Then we had to climb about ten steps to get to the reception desk. Our hostess showed us our room, up two flights of stairs. I was about to have a heart attack when Ron said we had reserved a room with a double bed not twins beds. She suggested we leave our luggage and she showed us another choice with a double bed up more stairs. About that time the owner showed up and invited us to coffee in the reception area. He served us delicious espresso and Easter rolls. He also gave us each an Easter egg dyed dark red, a tradition in Orthodox churches. Apparently Mary had eggs at the tomb and when Jesus came out of the tomb the eggs turned red. Kostas showed us a ‘game’ where you hit your egg end against another’s person’s egg end and whose ever doesn’t crack is the lucky one. Ron won with Kostas and with me. He is one lucky guy! After a short conversation Kostas decided to upgrade us to an apartment that slept five. Kostas insisted on carrying our luggage to the room. No argument from me. The best part was we had a private terrace overlooking the town and the Aegean. We ate breakfast there and read there each afternoon.

After unpacking we walked around town which is quite small and charming at every turn. We ate outside and had another rocket salad, spinach pie and mousaka. This was followed by more walking and back to our room to sit on the terrace and veg. After our rest we walked to the five windmills that had been used to grind corn. There were in various states of repair from fully restored to in need of a lot of work. See photos. We waited until sunset for Ron to get some great shots. Kostas had recommended a restaurant and we ate there at 8:30 which is late for us but we were the second customer and he was an English speaker as well. Since it was late we ate light: sautéed mushrooms and a meat salad finishing with espresso. It was divine. Later that night Kostas and his wife Marianne went to hear the Greek music at 11:30 and enjoy drinks but we were in bed then.

On Monday we dined on our terrace eating our airplane Easter bread and Kostas’ Easter egg and I made coffee. It was simple but adequate. The scenery was worth it. We took some clothes to the laundry and explored more of the town. We were particularly interested in seeing the art galleries as we always buy a piece of art for our anniversary and we were celebrating our 25th. We have been looking for months but hadn’t seen anything that interested us. We stopped to ask directions for a particular gallery and the owner of the shop knew the two artists and took us outside to show us how to get there. She added that they may not be there but to call them as they lived nearby. One of the artists was from Mexico we learned. We found the place around the corner and were peering onto the window when a man walked up and asked if we wanted to go inside. He had a key. It turned out he was one of the artists. Probably our friend had called him. We liked three of the paintings but asked if we could return at 4:00 (when it was time to pick up the laundry) as we wanted to check out a couple of other galleries. We went to two or three more galleries but didn’t like anything we saw. We ate another great meal, a gyros plate, in a garden restaurant. We returned at 4:00 and bought one of the paintings that his partner, Dorlies Schapitz, had done. It is an interior shot looking out onto a balcony. It reminded me of a Matisse painting done in North Africa. Ron asked Luis what had brought him to Mykonos and Luis said ‘a boat’. HA! They wrapped the painting in card- board and off we went. Later we discovered Luis had come from Mexico over 50 years ago and was well love d in this town. They honored him on his 50 anniversary of living there by printing a book of his works. We purchased his book as another memory of our experience.

On Tuesday we took a boat to the nearby island of Delos, an uninhabited archeological site. Delos is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece. According to legend Leto gave birth to Artemis and Apollo here in 3000 BC. Ionians arrived on Delos around 1000 BC. By 700 BC it was a major religious center. Delos was a city complete with theater, cisterns, sewerage system, temples and sanctuaries. The homes of wealthier residents had mosaic tile floors and wall paintings. It was awe inspiring to walk around ruins that were part of a thriving community 3700 years ago. Wild flowers were in profusion here: yellows, reds and purples predominated.

We came back to Mykonos and ate lunch then walked over to the port to catch a ferry to our next stop, the island of Santorini. It was a 2.5 hour trip and I was relieved that is was as smooth as riding a train. I have a tendency to get motion sickness. Santorini was colonized by the Minoans in 3000BC. It was a volcano that erupted in 1450BC that formed its crescent shape. It is now a stunning island with its white villages clinging to volcanic cliffs. We were picked up by a prearranged van to take us to our hotel about 30 minutes away from the port. We passed through Fira, the biggest city on the island and proceeded to the northern tip of the island to Oia, pronounced Ia.

We had splurged and booked a ‘cave’ cottage. These are a tradition in Santorini where houses are craved into the side of the volcano. Our host/owner was out of town when we arrived so we were met by her assistant who doesn’t speak English. We managed. The owner called us upon arrival and she upgraded us to the honeymoon cottage because I had mentioned that we were celebrating our 25th anniversary. What a treat. She had a small basket of treats and two Easter eggs dyed red and a bottle of wine. Our cottage had a kitchenette, a large room for sitting/eating and a bedroom that was a nook further recessed into the wall of the volcano. See photos. The best part was our terrace overlooking the caldera of the volcano and the Aegean. It was spectacular! We ate breakfast here every morning. I had brought granola and coffee just for this occasion, having seen the photos of the cottages on line. They all have terraces. If you want to see them, go to www.lavaoias.gr . The owner is an architect and she bought then remodeled the cave cottages. She did a great job with plantings outside on the terraces and simple antique furnishings inside. We were comfortable and enjoyed the ambiance of the place. We unpacked then walked through town.

Oia has a ‘sunset walkway’ made of marble tiles for much of the way and cobblestones for part of the way. At the end of the walk is a stunning viewpoint for watching the sunsets. Unfortunately we had heavy clouds or a fog bank each night but Ron still managed to get some good shots. Oia is different from Mykonos. It is much smaller with a population of 400. There were more shops with higher quality merchandise and better art galleries. It seems to have a more narrow audience than Mykonos. Mykonos is also considered a party town with lots of bars. We liked how much quieter it was on Oia. We could see cruise ships across the way and we would have short waves of tourists in Oia but discovered that they are bussed in for only an hour and then back to another town or the ship. So at times the walkways were almost empty. We also discovered some really great restaurants in Oia. I don’t think I mentioned that eating in Greece was quite expensive. We had a lot of meals that cost $70-$100. Our drinks were bottled water. I took Ron out to celebrate his birthday on the 26th to a really good restaurant and we also went out the next night to a fabulous restaurant owned by the same people. That meal was $150.

We spent our days exploring the town and visiting shops. On Wednesday I bought a scarf and we walked down to the port of Amoudi to have a lovely calamari meal sitting on the deck of the restaurant. The trip down was a very steep trip with 300 steps with a steep sloping sidewalk between steps. I opted for taking the road back up. It was longer but not as steep. We also walked to the neighboring village of Finikia where all the houses are the traditional Greek house. It is not a tourist town but a regular village on the outside wall of the volcano. This side is a gentle slope down to the sea and there is a lot of agriculture here. There are many vineyards and they are most unusual. Because of the strong winds on the island, they do not stake the vines. Rather they leave them on the ground and create a spiral circle as the vines grow. If they staked the vines they would break from the winds.

On our last day we took a bus to Fira, population 2100 and walked around town. We visited the Prehistoric Museum of Thera, which houses some extraordinary finds from Akrotiri. We saw a gold ibex from the 17th century BC! We also saw pottery pieces with what is known as Linear A. In Minoan times, before the Mycenaean Greek dominion, Linear A was the official script for the palaces and cults and hieroglyphs were mainly used on seals. We ate a quick lunch at a gyros stand before catching the bus back to Oia. Around 5:00 we were picked up and taken to the airport for a 40 minute flight back to Athens. Given that we were leaving first thing in the morning we chose to stay at a nearby hotel. The hotel is 7km (about 3 miles) from the airport. The owner picked us up at the airport and provided breakfast and took us back to the airport. This was a great deal for us. Gas in Greece is running $10 a gallon. Yes that is right. We did the calculations and realize we have nothing to complain about in the US regarding gas prices. Our host told us he spends 2000 Euros a month on petrol alone. But his hotel is booked every night so he is grateful. A man and his adult son rode with us from the airport and we asked them to join us at the local taverna for dinner since it was the only place to get a bite to eat. The place was full and we ate at 10:00 in the evening. Our dinner companions were from Spain and spoke Galician, not Spanish. The father was an attorney who travels extensively and his son was a jazz musician who did most of the translation for his father. We had a delightful time together. In the morning a simple breakfast was delivered to our room and off we went to the airport for our flight home via Istanbul. All in all it was a wonderful trip. We saw fabulous sights, ate great food and came home totally relaxed. Re-entry to Tbilisi was difficult. It was gray and cool when we arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon. Ron asked Gia if the weather had been like this while we were gone. Gia said ‘no, it rained.’ Oy. We ran by Gia’s on the way home to pick up a drill Ron had loaned Gia. Seeing all the concrete apartment houses in his neighborhood was a real downer for me. They are all so sad looking with exteriors that need repair and the architecture is so incredibly utilitarian and ugly. After Greece, it was too much. Fortunately the sun came out on Monday and my spirits lifted. We are ready to come home and are eager to find out when that will be. Stay tuned.