Georgia....?

My life is a series of amazing ideas that are born in my brain and don't always come to fruition. My husband, bless his heart, has had to humor me through a lot of my ideas, and I have to say I've gotten us into some pretty interesting situations in these past four years of living abroad.

Needless to say, he was less than shocked when he woke up a couple weeks ago and I told him to pack his bags for Georgia. He had two days off and I couldn't possibly live three hours from the border of an unconquered country for a year without visiting it. After coming up blank to all of his questions-- what would we do in Georgia, what type of food would we eat, and finally- can you actually tell me one thing about Georgia, we hit the road and were on our way.

A two and a half hour drive delivered us to the border of Georgia and Turkey where we would soon come to our first surprise of the trip. After being used to living in the EU and easily crossing through borders with our car,  it kind of slipped our mind that we weren't in Kansas anymore. We'd have to leave our car here and fend for ourself on the other side. Anyone who truly knows D and myself realize that we have our fair share of opposite personality traits. I'm a more go-with-the-flow and wing it kinda girl while D has to have things planned out to precision. The thought of him not knowing this major flaw in our travel plans didn't sit to well with the big guy. We checked out the map and realized we weren't far from our destination, just 15 minutes from Batumi, and figured we could take a bus or a taxi once we crossed the border.

As we parked and stepped into the border patrol, a second issue crossed my mind, how would I smuggle my little chihuahua into the country? Sure, I had all of his paperwork with me and up to date, but its not uncommon for border control agents over here to give you a hard time over nothing and deny my little Mexican angel entry. Georgia would be Tucker's 8th country, and he is surely no stranger to being smuggled illegally across a border. I threw him in his carrier and draped my leather jacket on top of him and we were good to go. I only had one near heart attack when a young girl decided to run over and point to him as my passport was being checked by an agent, but my death stare worked on her and she turned around and ran away.

Welp.. we're in Georgia. Now what. A young guy approached us, asking if we needed a taxi and we took him up on his offer. In retrospect, this wasn't the best idea and when we questioned him as to why his car lacked a taxi sign, he stole one off another car, thinking this would somehow put us at ease. We reluctantly climbed in the car for what would be a very strange 15 minute drive. Goats, sheep, cows and all kinds of livestock in the middle of the streets, zero signs of civilization. I truly felt like I had gone back in time 50 years. Where the fuck are we and why did I think this was a good idea. To make matters worse, the taxi driver started making some very sketchy phone calls and I became 100% certain we were about to be robbed or sold into the Georgian sex trade. I blamed D for taking his Louis Vuitton duffle bag, thinking we would be safer with something a bit more discreet. 10 minutes in we started seeing some signs of life in the city and soon pulled up to our hotel. Luckily for us, the taxi driver's frantic calls to his fellow mobster friends went unanswered and thus his plan to rob us went out the window, so we got out of the car as fast as humanly possible and ran into the hotel. Not a great start, Georgia.

.

After checking into our hotel room and seeing the huge casino downstairs, a Google search taught me that Batumi was the "Las Vegas" of Georgia. Neither D nor I like to gamble but I was hoping this would also mean there would be girls in fabulous clothing and tons of great restaurants. So we went upstairs to change and I researched an authentic Georgian restaurant for us to try.

I wish I could say the walk to the restaurant was a turning point in the evening, but this would be a complete lie. Apparently Google Maps took us through the hood of Batumi and I was about ready to just write this idea down as an L in the books. As we came close to the restaurant, we pulled out my phone to figure out exactly which door it was, and a Georgian taxi driver pointed us in the right direction. "Wow the people are so nice here", I said, desperately clinging to any positive thing I could actually say so that I didn't have to claim defeat out loud. 

Our luck, and our lives as a whole, were about to change, as we took our first bite of Khachapuri. Good God. This heavenly dish consists of a ton of melted cheese, topped with butter and an egg, wrapped in a dough that tasted just like Napoleon pizza crust. How have I possibly lived 27 years without this. Finally, this trip was starting to shape up. No matter what happened now, it was worth it. 

After stuffing ourselves with cheesy goodness and Georgian beer, the trip totally took a 360. We walked a few blocks and found ourselves in the middle of a gorgeous plaza with some really unique architecture and neat coffee shops and bars. We took a seat outside one of the bars and ordered some wine when we were surprised to hear Americans at the table next to us. I obviously had to know why on Earth another American was in Batumi at this time and I insisted on getting their life stories. I yelled across to them and learned they were PeaceCorps members and one of the girls was even from Florida! Minutes later we would realize that they were also FSU graduates and they immediately recognized D from watching FSU Basketball. I have had several of these crazy small world moments living overseas, but sitting in a wine bar in Batumi, Georgia, meeting a table of people who graduated college with us and knew D by name, this had to be one of the weirdest. 

After drinks, we walked around Batumi Boulevard, a beautiful street along the waterfront covered in hotels, shops, and neat sculptures and architecture. We then went up to a rooftop bar where we would have our second weird encounter of the evening. As we were sitting and talking at the bar, a guy approached us and asked if were American. After going back and forth for a bit, he told us he was an American, living just 20 minutes away from where we lived last season in Italy. Really small world. He worked for NATO and was moving to Georgia in a few months and educated us a lot about the country and culture that we were so ignorant to. He delighted us by saying Georgia had one of the lowest crime rates in Europe, and made me feel less than stupid for fearing for my life hours earlier. It almost made me doubt the fact that my taxi driver attempted to kidnap us, but this fact I was actually sure of.

The next day we spent walking around the city and I was definitely taken back by how unique it was. Regardless of how different European cities can be, at the end of the day they all have so many similarities. Georgia was unlike anywhere I've ever been before. A lot of streets and stores we walked into felt like I was taking a step back in time. D said it reminded him of Lithuania when he was growing up. I don't think I've ever seen a place with such drastic disparities between buildings. On one side of the street there would be a fabulous, European looking plaza and directly across the street would be a tattered old dilapidated building that reminded me of the Soviet Union that I'd only seen on TV. 

These two drastically different buildings were right next to one another

Later that day, we took a much safer, hotel-recommended taxi, back to the border, smuggled back in the Chihuahua and crossed back over to the country we've called home these past 8 months. Although our time in Georgia was short, it was definitely a trip for the books. I'm so grateful for my travel parter, his openness to my crazy ideas, and the hilarious memories we're creating together.