Latvia was a place I would've liked to have seen more of, but our stopover wasn't really long enough to leave the airport and go into the city of Riga. Truth be told, I just wanted to know if all the legends were true about eastern european women getting fully dressed up, makeup and all, even if they need to just pop out to the bakery.
No matter, it's a bit like that anyway in Georgia, but I'll get to that later. So when we arrived in Tbilisi at 4.30am, we were met by both Michael and Ufuk, who, troopers that they are, stayed up all night in order to be awake to pick us up. It was nice to see Ufuk driving, and with his own car, which he oddly decided to name "Gennaro Gattuso" (after the Italian soccer star).
Leaving the airport, there were already signs of being in a poorer country, in that there were some old ladies begging for money (to be fair, not a bad place to find donations; the airport), and wild dogs roaming around, scavenging for whatever they might find. On the way back to Ufuk's, we drove down "George W. Bush Boulevard", which got its name basically God knows why, but if I were to guess I would say "let's suck up to the Americans so that they might help us later. That idea obviously backfired last August, when the Russians really kicked the Georgians' asses in South Ossetia... and now they're also stuck with a stupid street name.
After a bit of food at Ufuk's at 5.30am, we all crashed. Verena and I had only had breakfast that day, and didn't want to exchange money in Latvia just so we could buy dinner in the airport, so we had to settle for a small bag of chips each, purchased with the few Euros I had on me. That was a strange experience in the Latvian airport, because I've noticed in the last few years that if I'm tired and hungry, or Verena for that matter, neither of us are all that pleasant to be around. So, we had some "interesting" discussions in the airport indeed. We ate then forgave each other. Ha.
What I call "the next day" was really just later in the same day. Poor Michael and Ufuk had to still go to work, and so both of them got about 2 hours' sleep each. The lucky guests slept until 3pm in a very comfortable bed. About Ufuk's flat. What a flat! It's 120 m^2 paid mostly in part by the german government as Ufuk is a diplomatic official (he even has diplomatic license plates), but Ufuk puts some of his own money in as well, resulting in an incredibly posh flat for less than any Canadian would pay in rent! For example, he has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a sitting room, 2 balconies, 4 metre ceilings (the doors are about 3m tall!) and to top it off, a dining room with baby grand piano.
So, once we got up and moving, we realized that Ufuk and Michael were going to be home soon, so we didn't actually go out and see the city at that point but waited for them to arrive home before we went for a walk around town, with the aim to eat at one of Ufuk's favourite restaurants in the old part of the city.
Believe it or not, this old soviet pay phone still works! I thought I'd rock the moustache so I could fit in a bit with the locals.
Georgian food is very good. Not particularly spicy, but incredibly tasty. They have these types of dumplings that are filled with meat and a sort of broth. The idea is that you're supposed to eat them without letting any of the broth spill out of them onto your plate; a sign of a real rookie. I would say "level 2" is for those who can drink the broth but end up sounding like children having soup a la "slurp slurp slurp".
Drinking is of course a very big tradition during Georgian dining. At the dinner table, there is a designated host who is then the "toastmaster"; throughout the meal the toastmaster calls a toast (a shot of vodka) and can really toast anything, and as you can imagine, can get really ridiculous as to what one toasts to. First, to guests, then to Georgia, then to family and friends, back to the guests, then one back to the host, then at some point we're all toasting the dead and lost loved ones, and so on.
The coolest bit is that we ate a lot, drank alot, enjoyed ourselves, all for the grand total of 5 euros per person, which is of course ridiculous. A meal like that with all drinks included and so on would normally cost more than 20 euros in Berlin, and Berlin is inexpensive. That's a nice part of being from a rich country going to a poor country.
Speaking of poor countries....
After that we went to a house party, which was also really cool. Lots of food and drink. It was actually a birthday party, and the girl celebrating said her mom helped her cook most of the food. I thought that was quite nice. Your mom cooks food for you and all your friends to eat once you get drunk and hungry. Nice!
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