100th Post!

I wanted to write something big and meaningful for this, the 100th post I've sat at this computer and typed up random blurbs, thoughts, impressions - what have you.

Unfortunately, everything sounds bad. It all sounds stupid, and lame, and unoriginal. I'm bored writing it, I'm sure you'd be bored reading it, and I think we'll just skip all that boredom for both our sakes!

So, in keeping up with the lists that I'm oh so fond of, here's another one!

100 Small and Ridiculous Georgian Moments!

1. The 50 lari cab ride our second night in country, where we were taken up into the mountains, drank wine with teenagers, and I got my first marriage proposal.
2. Finding a bar with insanely good happy hour deals, and then bringing more and more people to it until they eventually ran out of happy hour beer by the third day.
3. Thinking we were so clever for carrying the hotels business card with us so we could get back easily after a night on the town during orientation.
4. Deciding upon places to eat based solely on the quality of their bathroom.
5. Expanding on number four, having the first question you ask be, "How's the toilet?"when you try a new restaurant/bar/cafe.
6. Being surprised at all the medical waste randomly on the ground, and then being even more surprised when my host siblings started chasing each other around with hypodermic needles full of water.
7. Being chased by a huge dog for the first time.
8. Sleeping on a balcony and getting drunk with the woman who ran the hostel.
9. Getting felt up by an old guy with no teeth while visiting a fortress from the 6th century.
10. Carving a pumpkin with ridiculously dull knives and a Swiss Army Knife.
11. Making hot toddies with homemade ginger-infused cognac.
12. Using the straight-out-of-a-Russian-horror-film restroom on the cross country night train.
13. Pregaming for an evening on the town by going to the grocery store and imbibing in free wine samples.
14. "Fuck it, I got this" being the best phrase ever.
15. This has ceased being surprising. Confusing, yes. But surprising, no.

16. Playing the best game one can play on a hopping Saturday night in Telavi; "Boys Driving in Cars, Looking at Girls, Looking at Boys Driving in Cars, Looking at Girls, Looking at Boys Driving in Cars, Looking at Girls..."

17. Thinking it's hilariously fun to walk on a corn covered floor.

18. Finding various human bones in a cardboard box in a monastery that's famous for throwing pigs out of the windows at invading Muslims.

19. The tortoise with painted toes that someone brought to a bar one night.

20. The five shmerry Santa's by the big tree outside of Parliament over Christmas while crying children protested sitting in their laps.

21. My family calling me Julie for the first five weeks in country, and then realizing that most Georgians I associate with on a more than passing basis call me Julie, or Diane, or Jewana. You know, anything that's NOT my actual name.

22. Ani calling smiling a lot "pain in my face."

23. Bebia telling me that since she has no teeth I should eat the crispy fried potatoes. 

24. Accidentally buying dude shampoo because fuck Russian.

25. Accidentally buying body wash and using it as shampoo because really, fuck Russian.

26. Seeing a monk with an iPhone and iPad and wondering what the hell kind of apps he must have on them.

27. Watching Tbilisi's crazy cat lady and her cats in boxes, in bird cages, in socks, and cuddling with a stray dog she's petting with her feet while playing panduri and singing.

28. Breaking into the yard of a sixth century church so you can light a fire with old beer bottles and drink more.

29. Watching German stewardesses on Lufthansa deal with Georgians.

30. Mastering the Link Chic outfit for school.

31. Having texts like, "I'll meet you at Stalin" be a normal thing.

32. Taking a selfie with Stalin and feeling absolutely zero remorse about it. 

33. After nine shots of chacha, I am coherent for about an hour, and then I will put myself to bed, because I think that's when I stop being coherent.

34. Learning wine jugs have numerous uses, such as light covers on electric poles.

35. That time my teacher told me I was saying "plumber" incorrectly, and that the way I spoke was confusing the children. 

36. That other time my teacher told me that I said "chaos" wrong, because it starts with a "ch" and not a "k."

37. Having to wrap up my computer in a flannel shirt so that it's battery wouldn't die overnight even though it was plugged in.

38. Being able to find any smidgeon of Disney, even in the middle of a former Soviet satellite state.

39. Suddenly feeling like a 13 year old, drinking secret beer out of a paper bag while sitting on a patio in the park overlooking the plains.

40. Making snow angels with Ani in the weird woods behind our house.

41. An old guy outside of the Rustaveli metro stop had a telescope set up and was letting people look through it for 50 tetri. I didn't have any money, but I asked him if he had it pointed at Jupiter, and he got so excited I knew what it was that he let me look through for free.

42. That time I actually wrote, "Dungeons and Dragons is a widely developed and accepted canonical source, so at least I'm not using the Dragonriders of Pern as the basis of my dragon related opinions and appreciation," after talking about how scary and dragon-like Georgian is when people are angry and yell.

43. Walking down any street in any town and thinking, "These houses would make the Home Owners Association just cry..."

44. This being outside of my room for over a month.

45. That time we thought this was a good idea.

46. When my teacher told me that I was pronouncing "shadow" wrong (and you probably are, too. It's pronounced "shade-oh" after all. Good thing we, native speakers, are able to learn important lessons such as these...). 

47. That time my teacher told me the past tense of "spin" was "span"...

48. Having "Do you have a husband?" be the normal second question asked of me after "Where are you from?"

49. Roadside meat stands, and their hanging pig heads, have stopped being weird.

50. Getting the hell out of the house and finding something else to eat when the ubiquitous black meat is being cooked.

51. When we hid in a cave on a mountainside and watched a herd of goats and sheep pass by so we wouldn't have to mess with the huge, scary shepherd dogs. 

52. "No more, thank you," is not effective when it comes to food or drinks. "A little more, and then done," is much better, and you will actually be listened to. 

53. "Joanna. Daleh chacha," is an awesome phrase when it's just me and my host mom and it's only 5 pm. 

54. That time Allison was a badass and carried a sheep we stole down a muddy, rocky, really unstable mountain path. 

55. "Oh, you're American? I'm Chechen." "Cool! Do you live up near Bakuriani?" "Yes. In Pankisi. Because I am Chechen." "It's beautiful up there. I'm very jealous." "Yes. There are many Chechens there. From Chechnya. I speak Chechen. Because I am Chechen." I think Chechens here aren't used to Americans who don't give a shit that they are, in fact, Chechen.

56. Plates of food on top of plates of food on top of plates of food at supras.

57. "Sakartvelos Americas megobrebs garmajos!" being the ultimate toast if you want to make any host love you.

58. If you want to have fun in the village, find the owner of the salon.

59. Electricity randomly going out for no reason when the sun is shining and there is no wind.

60. Having herds of livestock slowing down your transportation being a normal part of any trip.

61. Walking towards a group of abandoned buildings to do some exploring and then deciding not to as two men with automatic weapons come out of the buildings with a pack of barking dogs.

62. That time Andy Samberg's doppleganger was a waiter at a restaurant and we kept staring at him.

63. How we accidentally took this awesome picture,

and then immediately decided that we needed to start a girl band. Aptly named the Three Gogos, our first album, which will naturally go platinum, is called "The World Is Our Marshutka Stop"and features classic hits such as, "It's Her Dead Place," "How's the Toilet?" "Village Life," and the metal cover of Disney's "Let It Go."

64. The day I realized delicious jongjoli was a flower on a tree and not just a weed was mindblowing.

65. Every time the mountains made me grin like an idiot.

66. When there were pants in the hot water heater.

67. Sixth grade Gio saying, "I AM ENGLISH MASTAH!" after he finally understood something grammatically tricky.

68. The day I realized that my kids know verbs like "kill" and "die" solely because of Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, yet still struggle with "to be."

69. My off-road driving skills merited a marriage proposal. 

70. Ani and I sat on the upstairs porch one day talking about how we wanted to be birds so we could fly anywhere and poop on people that we didn't like. But then we realized that there are so many dumb people we don't like in the world that everything would be covered in poop and you would need boats to get around. Makin' a difference, one kid at a time!

71. The night I realized the confused evening songbird, who has followed me from Michigan, to Los Angeles, to Michigan, then Texas, then back to Michigan, has finally found me in Georgia!

72. That time a random haughty Egyptian we met in a bar gave me an Egyptian coin, and told me it would bring me good luck.

73. The day glaring biology teacher actually hugged me and called me a kargi gogo was a fantastic day for my ego.

74. Drinking mint tea and eating bread with Bebo at 10:30 pm, since we didn't know where anyone else in the family was, and when in doubt, eat.

75. Drinking water out of a fourth century well that's tucked away in the mountain woods.

76. Being told we, two Americans and a host sibling, would be able to milk cows at a certain time, and instead herded them from one end of the village to the other. 

77. When our sixth graders were learning about astronauts, and my coteacher turned to me and said, "I think everything became bad after we went to space." Interesting, I thought. I wonder if she hates the space program because she saw it as a gross appropriation of funds to something not necessary, while the needs of the people went unheeded. She then continued, "The sky is only for God, and we are not supposed to be there. So now, bad things happen because we feel like going to God's realm." Fucking of course.

78. Finding a car sort of buried in a hill, with only the door open to the world, and then being told by a seven year old that the pigs live in the car. Naturally. 

79. When Sophia and I were sitting on a bench in the town center, eating some ice cream and playing "Boys Driving in Cars, Looking at Girls, Looking at Boys Driving in Cars..." A group of girls stopped in front of our bench, one sat sneakily down on it while the others pulled out a camera. Thinking they wanted a picture with the fortress, we moved down to give her more room, but she got even closer to us and then some pictures were taken. The girls introduced themselves, they asked our names, and then took more photos before leaving the two of us really, really confused. Especially since we weren't even that touristy. There was an Asian family on another bench, for fucks sake!

80. That time there was a chicken in a plastic bag full of children's clothes on a seat in a marshutka. 

81. Seeing one of the girls who works at our preferred hostel out on the town and her, wasted, grabbing me in a hug and telling everyone around us that I am her favorite TLGer. 

82. Feeling ridiculously happy at seeing these in a book store here.

83. Tskaltubo.

84. That time a friend and I accidentally wandered into a strip club but didn't understand what it was until the next day when we put all the brass and neon light memories together.

85. When we had a picnic at a fourth century church and accidentally broke a bench at the table outside because it was rotting wood.

86. Playing the jankiest homemade version of Cards Against Humanity ever to have graced this good Earth.

87. The Kotex spokeswomen outside of the Isani metro station giving packets of pads to little gypsy boys, who instantly turned around and started trying to sell them to people.

88. When school was cancelled for a week and a half due to a meningitis outbreak and they tried to have classes on a Saturday to help make up for it. Haaaaa.

89. The day we realized that the water park in Tbilisi isn't abandoned, but instead burned down. Digest that a second. I'm in a place where a water park burned down. A water. Park. Was on fire. A park full of water somehow was flammable.

90. Taking a trip with my teachers to Tbilisi, who all believed I would be lost forever unless I was physically in contact with one of them, to see the bones of a former bishop. 

91. Singing songs and drinking wine behind a piss smelling bus outside our hotel.

92. For all the Star Wars and badly quoted graffiti throughout the country.

93. Having the thought, "China, please just stop" occur at least once a week. 

94. Realizing every Georgian house has the exact same items: a piano no one can play, white dishes with little green flowers on them, and a terrifying collection of stuffed animals that will probably steal your soul in the night.

95. Having a belligerent Irish coworker tell the owners of the cafe we had just done three shots of chacha at that we are teachers, and having their reply be, "And tonight you are drunk!"

96. I finally understand that if anything good happens to you, you are supposed to bring cake and wine into school for everyone to celebrate. Good things include your own birthday, your grandchild's birthday, completion of the road your house or school is on, or if you buy a new car.

97. Everyone only talks about money or food unless you are giving toasts while drinking wine. And then you will talk a lot about dead people and how much you miss them.

98. Cafe Gallery and dancing like an idiot to bad techno music surrounded by coked out gay twentysomethingyearolds until five in the morning when you had said to yourself earlier that night, "I want a quiet night in. I think I'll stay at the hostel."

99. Telling numerous people that my Georgian is not very good, and if they could please speak slower, and instead they repeat what they had just said, only louder and faster. 

100. Introducing big arms to this country, and having it finally sort of kinda be understood by my host sister.

Commie Fun Park

I had a pretty surreal afternoon on Saturday. My friend Christine and I ventured up to the Mtatsminda park, which is a theme park of sorts that sits on top of one of Tbilisi's hills. It's accessible one of two ways - a bus which takes you way round the back of the hill and steadily up, or by the funicular. What's a funicular, you ask? It's this weird railway train thing that has two cars. They are at the opposite ends of the line and, through a pulley system, counterbalance each other to take passengers either up or down. 

It's actually a pretty neat thing, even if it isn't the smoothest ride. The last time I was on it was during orientation, all those months ago. Young, naive Jo was slightly alarmed at the jerky ride, the heartstopping pauses and jolts, constantly worrying that one of the cables would snap and that we would all plummet down to our deaths hundreds of feet below us. 

However, since spending a little more time here, where absolutely nothing is in my control, I've become sort of a fatalist. Not that I'm hoping to die or anything, but what the hell is the point in being worried constantly about near death experiences since I can't do anything to prevent them? It's been an enjoyable time in marshrutkas since I gave up caring about how drivers liked to pass each other at absurd speeds around blind corners, and this trip up to Mtatsminda was a far more pleasant experience than it had been the first time, as well. 

It's a pretty steep ascent, and that little white dot way up there is only the halfway point where there is, naturally, a church. Because Tbilisi loves its churches.

The funicular station at the top doubles as a restaurant as well, offering stunning panoramas of Tbilisi from the highest point around which you can enjoy with some beer, wine, and decent food. Upon leaving the station, you're dumped in front of a wide, gently sloped set of stairs, generously broken up by little platforms with various carnival type rides. You can also go right, and follow the ridge of the mountain where there are a bunch of game stands with very scary looking stuffed animals as prizes. The signs are super helpful for letting you know where you need to go. I'm glad that, since this is Georgia, there is of course a wedding hall in an amusement park.

There are also really creepy statues, like the one below. The more horrifying part of them, though, is the sheer size. This way-too-pleased-with-itself fat baby cherub thing is easily 15 feet tall, and is on the main entrance for the park. 

Basically, if you take Disneyland, reduce the budget of it by millions of dollars, and add 1970's Soviet vibe to it, you'll have the decor of this park.

Which isn't to say that there is a lack of cool shit up there, because that's not true. There's a gigantic ferris wheel that goes around and around at a snails pace. It's also right at the very edge of the hill, and that makes me more than a little nervous, so I've only ever visited the bar at the bottom of it. Shocker, I know.

There's also a pretty decent looking roller coaster, but it wasn't running on Saturday. Underneath the coaster, in a concrete space reminiscent of a parking lot, is the Go-Kart track. Georgian Go-Karts are apparently just small four-wheelers. And there are only two of them. Don't worry, though. You get a helmet for the ride, too! Or at least I think you do. There were two of them off to the side at least, so they might have just been for decoration. Like the roller coaster above, the Go-Karts were also not operational.

My favorite part of the park, though, is the Dinosaur Experience. Just past the ferris wheel is a small fenced off area with animatronic prehistoric creatures. They're motion activated, and don't do anything too crazy - opening their mouths in roars that aren't synchronized with the soundtrack, blinking with eyelids that needed to be replaced ten years ago because they had holes in the lids, wagging their arms around in weird little robotic dances. The trail takes you around the perimeter of the area, and is doable in probably five minutes.

We of course took almost fifteen, since most of the robots were exceptionally hilarious, such as the Ornithomimus making some incredibly weird sounds. I've been trying to upload a video of it, but it's not letting me. However, if you have an iPhone, go to Settings>Sounds>Ringtone>Classic>Old Car Horn and that is exactly the sound that one of the dinosaurs was emitting. I'm no Robert T. Bakker, but I feel like there's something off about this interpretation of saurian vocalizations...

What I was really excited for, and what made the two lari admission price to the dinosaur area really worthwhile (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you have to pay a few lari for all the janky rides and attractions at the top, since admission is free), was the prospect of riding this Pachyrhinosaurus. The attendant lady unfortunately dashed that hope, so this was the best I could do. Which I guess for being a 27 year old in an exhibit obviously targeted at those twenty years younger than me isn't too bad. I just really liked his shocked and concerned little face.

We explored pretty much all of the park, and while it was fairly slow and quiet that day, I feel like it's anarchy and pure chaos in the warm summer months. There are a ton of water features reminiscent of Splash Mountain, as well as numerous fountains that are obviously designed for children to run around in. Take any carnival you've ever seen, put those rides on top of a park, and voila - you have Mtatsminda.

There's also a little roller coaster for children, and we of course had to ride that. We wanted to ride the big coaster, dammit, and since that was closed, this kiddy one (called the "Happy Train," just by the way) would have to do! Who cares if we were the oldest people on the ride with no youngsters of our own, and who cares if we were laughing like complete goobers the whole time, and putting our hands up on the hills that were only a five foot drop. We were having fun, dammit! Which is more than we can say about all the actual children on the ride, most of whom were just staring straight ahead and weren't smiling or giggling or giving any indication of fun-havingness. The only reaction on any of them was one girl at the very front of the train who was unafuckingmused by us, and spent the entire time glaring at the two idiotic Americans cackling in the back cart.

Christine was most excited to do the Bumper Cars, so as we were on our way out of the park we stopped by. And of course, given our location, it couldn't just be normal Bumper Cars. No. There had to be furries on them. We hypothesized that this is what bored carnies are apt to do when days are slow. They had their costume heads over on the side, and stayed in the cars for consecutive rides. I guess when your job is "Be A Dog That Gives Balloons To Screaming Children," riding the Bumper Cars endlessly and for free is a perk.

The whole day was just full of weird, surreal little things like that. There are some Saint Bernards that are an attraction all their own - they don't do anything, and you can't pet them, and they're in a really remote part of the park. They just sit/sleep and you can take pictures of them. The old and broken parts of rides and attractions are just kind of thrown behind thin stands of trees, and you're able to get back and poke around them. There's a Ghost Castle which isn't open right now either, but there are attendants on the upper balconies of it who wave at you and call out, "Hello! How are you!", because even from thirty feet away it's wickedly obvious you're a foreigner. There are big paper mache mice at a supra, and a few roundabouts and swings for kids to play on that are chained and bolted to the ground, forbidding both the roundabouting and the swinging. And maybe these are all just side effects of the park being in offseason, but part of me really doubts that it will get all that "normal" come July.

We ended our little afternoon up at Mtatsminda grabbing a beer and some snacky foods, all the while making our own version of Cards Against Humanity: Georgian Edition. Christine and I spent most of the day in the park laughing ridiculously hard and having an insane amount of goofy fun and, judging by the wi-fi password for the restaurant, Mtatsminda thinks we're just as good of a time!

"The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go..."

...said John Muir, a particularly bearded nature lover whose facial hair was rivaled only by his adoration of scrounging around forests and mountains, and it was this quote that was rattling around in my brain when I randomly decided to go visit a particular stretch of mountainous land a few weeks back. 

While I normally hate the type of posts like the one I'm about to do (the ones where I just recount all the fun I had and bore you to death with some blow by blow recollection of how pretty it was while bombarding your bandwidth with a ton of pictures), I sort of don't care. Because the mountains are ridiculously pretty, and no amount of words I possess or pictures I take will begin to do them any sort of justice. But I'm only a human, and if I've learned anything from watching Doctor Who it's that we don't really give a shit about things being impossible, because we will try anyway just on the off chance that we're wrong. 

I realized the other day that I normally talk about places and don't give you a lick of perspective about where all they are. I suppose if you really cared you could Google it on your own, but I'm feeling particularly nice today, so here's a small map. As you can see, there isn't really a direct route up to Kazbegi/Stepantsminda. You have to duck down south to Tbilisi (which is right where the "Google" is in this map) and then catch a marshutka going north from there.

The climb into the mountains starts innocently enough. The sprawl of Tbilisi gives way pretty quickly to small villages and rugged farmland, but your first ascension into higher elevations is fairly sneaky. You don't realize how high up you are until you see these bad boys in front of you. 

And you still don't really feel like you're that high, until you see the semi trucks in front of you, and realize that the "small ravine" next to the road has now turned into a gigantic how-the-fuck-did-you-not-notice-it-before canyon. 

And up and up you go. The switchbacks are ridiculous, the climb is an incredibly steep one, and the whole time the driver, whose vehicle is naturally in questionable health because Georgia, is clipping along merrily at a way too fast pace. If you're in the very back of the van, like I was, you will get tossed around like a rag doll, and if you're insane like I am you'll be smiling the whole way while listening to some goofy ass music as the soundtrack to your trip. I highly suggest all of this, as it was probably the most fun I've had in a vehicle ever, and that's saying a lot.
 However, if you're a normal person who does not like being tossed around due to shitty quality of roads or if you are simply terrified of heights, do not ever, ever, in the history of ever, go up this road with a Georgian driver.

I suppose even above treeline there have to be strange abandoned buildings, and while I think this one is actually a proper monument, that doesn't mean there weren't at least a dozen abandoned houses, warehouses, or churches along the mountain ridge.

So up and up you go, until you're driving in a world that's only white and blue, and suddenly you're going down. The downward part is interrupted by a series of commie fun tubes that serve as tunnels. I call them commie fun tubes because they don't really go through the mountain like an actual tunnel would - instead they serve as a protected road so that, when the mountains inevitably destroy the parallel exposed one, trade won't come to a grinding halt.
My guess is that until the weather becomes better, the outer roads won't be opened for traffic, and when we were up there, these outer ones were still closed. However, that didn't deter our driver who, impatient for the semi trucks to creep through the tunnel, decided to say fuck that rope for telling him he couldn't go on that road, and onto the "seasonal" road we went.1
Whatever their name may be, and whatever purpose these tunnels or tubes serve, eventually they dump you into this high moraine valley.

When you're this high up, it's hard to remember that the bottom of the valley is still actually about 5,000 feet above sea level.

There are a ton of little villages sprinkled throughout the valley, although they're mainly on the side opposite the highway.2 There are remnants of cable cars across a few of the gorges, but I'd hazard that  they've been out of commission since before the fall of the Soviets based on their degradation. Otherwise, there are no roads proper over to these locations - just sketchtastic footbridges and footpaths up the little houses on the hills.   

And then the road drops down onto the grey granite floor of the valley and begins to climb upwards again, until this is what you see - Mount Kazbek, the Gergeti Trinity Church, and the tiny village of Stepantsminda (the town formerly known as Kazbegi). And yeah, that little smudge on the hill just to the left of Kazbek is the church.

I really do think that the sky is a different kind of blue in the mountains.

Kazbegi is the third highest mountain in Georgia, and reaches almost 17,000 feet. The fact that it's a dormant volcano just makes me love it even more.  

There's not a whole lot to do in Stepantsminda this time of year. Even getting up to Gergeti, one of the more famous churches in Georgia, is a hassle, and walking up is nearly impossible. The whole area is definitely a summertime paradise, I'm sure. There are all sorts of glaciers, waterfalls, alpine meadows, and birch forests to go crawling around in, either on foot, by horse, or by parasail. In mid March, however, it's fairly sleepy. You can take a stroll up to the Rooms Hotel, which lies at the topmost part of town, and get a ridiculously awesome view from their ridiculously awesome porch.

Also you will want to get a mug of their hot chocolate, because I'm pretty sure they literally just melt a bar of chocolate into a cup and call it good. So you get a warm and uber tasty drink, plus the view from above. Add in some awesome company, and who can't have a good time?
Buttmunches. That's who wouldn't have a good time. And since you, oh diligent reader, are not a buttmunch, I'm pretty sure that you'd have a fun time!

The Rooms Hotel is definitely a great little place, and quickly escalated as one of my favorites in this country. Their entire lower floor is a sitting area/coffee shop/restaurant/bar and they have a huge collection of books in multiple languages (Georgian, English and Russian of course), as well as excellent musical choices. I say this primarily because I heard several Beatles songs and none by Pink Floyd. Well done, Georgia! 

My friend and I could only spend the day up in the mountains, so we were not able to get up to the Gergeti church. Instead, we found a taxi driver who agreed to take us 10 km up the road to the Russian border and the monastery that sits next to it.
In case you had forgotten that this is a supremely Orthodox country, and you might have gone a whole ten minutes without seeing some kind of church or cathedral (blasphemy!!), there is, naturally, a little shrine along the way which our taxi driver was nice enough to stop at. 

Hello, Russia!
Well, actually, hello three miles of neutral zone and THEN Russia! I felt a little weird, being an American and taking obvious pictures of the Russian border crossing, hence why this is probably a little wonky of a shot.
Either way, the border crossing sits in an impressive gulch. 

The church, within spitting distance of the border, is for the Archangels Gabriel and Michael. It's also, strangely, made from a pink rock which isn't remotely native to the part of the mountains this was built in. It's one more time that the ancient world makes me go "Damn!"
It's also currently under heavy construction and refurbishment, like so many sacred sites here are. The narthex is done, however, so we were able to get inside.
I didn't spend that much time inside, mainly because it's all new and apparently I find new things uninteresting and bland (seriously, all the walls were white. No weird fucked up icons or anything! Why even bother going to church if you can't check out ancient paintings that have been defaced??), but also because the outside is, to quote John Muir again, "a cathedral of light." So what if he was talking about the Sierras half a world away with these words - it's applicable to the Caucus, dammit!

In summary, I hate the mountains, they're not that pretty, and I definitely won't be going back again.

1. Times like this make me remember that I've become so used to "rules" not really meaning anything. Crosswalks, "Do Not Enter" signs - they're all more suggestions instead of law. America is going to be rough.

2. It's called a highway, more specifically the Georgian Military Highway, and it's been around in some form or another since medieval times. Queen Tamar had a summer palace up in these mountains, and used this road as transportation. Nowadays, it's barely two lanes wide, and has numerous semi trucks that take their turns incredibly wide and creep up the mountain ridiculously slowly, which will infuriate your driver and make them pass trucks at really dangerous and inopportune times. Basically, what I'm saying is that "highway" is a really liberal term for the type of road that takes you up into the mountains.

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh My!

A few weeks ago, several of us found ourselves with a few hours in Tbilisi with nothing to do. The city boasts a zoo, and since none of us had ever been we decided to spent our time there. 

Having previously visited the Batumi "Aquarium" - I use the term VERY loosely, considering it was just a dimly lit building consisting of one big room that had a few tanks of goldfish, and some larger concrete and glass enclosures for indigenous fish which were too numerous for the size of the tanks - I mentally prepared myself to be wholly depressed by the zoo. 

Tbilisi's zoo is actually exceptionally easy to get to, as it's a hop, skip and a jump off a metro stop. It's not exactly the most ideal location for exotic animals due to its proximity to the highway. Did I say proximity? Maybe you misunderstand. It's RIGHT NEXT to the highway. In fact, you can see, and hear, the highway from a good chunk of the animal enclosures. 

There isn't really a sign for the zoo on the street. You more just keep walking until you see some fearsome lion statues with vendors outside. Naturally, they will sell Scream masks. Because those are still way big here, no matter what time of year. Four lari buys your way into the park.

The front end doesn't have any animals. It does, however, have the first boutique pet shop I've seen (I say boutique when really I mean they just sell Eukanuba dog food) and a veterinary clinic. How it works, I'm unsure, because it looked like people were bringing their dogs in. Do they have to pay four lari for admittance, or are they allowed to just go straight in since they will likely be charged up the wahzoo by the vet? If I knew anyone who had a pet in Tbilisi I'd ask them. For now, I'm left to speculate.

In addition to the confusing animal hospital, there were also some trampolines in trees. One of them was on the ground and had some kind of bungee jumper seat on it that kids could bounce on, but as to why the rest were in the trees...? 

On either side of the confused arboreal trampolines were game stands and mini rides reminiscent of carnivals. The people working them were the Georgian equivalents of carnies, also, which meant I gave them a wide, wide berth. I did appreciate Elmo's plea, though, so I ventured close enough to snap that quick shot.

This guy just reminds me of a terrifying machine that used to be in the Marquette Mall, where you could step on it, put a dollar in, and then weigh yourself. If you didn't interact with it, it would detect you walking by and say, in a creepy, dead voice, "Have you checked your weight today?" No, deceased and possessed lady living in a soulless machine. I haven't checked my weight today, nor do I want to because I KNOW THESE PANTS MAKE ME LOOK FAT OH MY GOD. I imagine this guy said something along the same lines, but I couldn't tell because he just grunted incomprehensibly and beeped. Yet another time that Russian would've been handy to know.

After finally making it past crazy commy fun park and it's shenanigans, you get to the animals, most of whom you can get way too close to. Like this unamused ostrich.

Or the pack of wolves. They were close enough that I could have stuck my hand out and touched the fence, thus attempting to poke them. I'm pretty sure this is the closest I will ever be to a wolf without being eaten. 

A few enclosures boasted a couple different animals. Notable examples of cohabitation were a dikdik and ducks, some swans and a fennec fox, yacks and shaggy mountain ponies, and, my personal favorite, a donkey with some rhinos. 

There doesn't seem to really be any rhyme or reason to the organization of the animals (shocker!). The elephants were across from some ungulates, the warthogs across from the wolves. The lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) were all right next to each other, which made me giggle a lot. It seems as though someone had a good sense of humor when planning the layout of this zoo, at least!

Probably the singular best part of the day was feeding time at the bears. We arrived to see them all converging on one part of their enclosure (which was woefully small given how many bears there were, but let's focus on the hilarity that ensued, yeah?). Curious, we watched as a zoo worker rolled a wheel barrow up to the fence and proceeded to throw something over to the bears. Squinting, we realized that they were tossing over apples. Ok, not too abnormal, we thought. I'm sure bears like fruit. And then beets and carrots went flying over, and we were slightly more confused. But the hands down best part were the loaves of bread. I know that the Soviet bread lines were a [sadly truthful based] joke and all back in the 80s and 90s, but I just want to let you know that they still are very much in play if you are a brown bear at the Tbilisi zoo. 

I mean, do bears even eat bread? I know that they're omnivores, and thus will eat [almost] anything, but bread? As part of their staple diet? They had a course of fish after the bread, and a few of them got whopped in the noggin with a frozen trout, all of which were so solid that sometimes they exploded into chunks when they hit the dirt. So I guess the bears probably aren't TOO lacking for nutrition, but considering a large part of their daily intake is bread I really have to wonder what other hilarious dietary decisions are being made for the rest of the animals. Are the hyenas getting hot dogs? What about croutons for the storks?

In watching the shitshow and a half which was bear feeding time, we also took particular note of the sign, politely warning patrons to not touch the fence.

The signs got much more comical from that point on. Since they're all in Georgian, I will give you my rough approximation of what I think they mean.

"Don't Be Human Toast!"

"Don't Poke The Grumpy Bears Because They Have Mafia Connections And Will Steal Your First Born And Make You Rue The Day You Thought You Were Funny As  A Child And Remember That Bears Are Patient And Cruel!" 

"Don't Tease The Derpy Pachyderms!"

"The Lion Has No Friends And You Cannot Bribe Him Into Friendship With Balloons And Candy!"

"No Being Happy And Having Fun!"

There were a lot of enclosures that were huge open spaces, complete with tubs for food and water, or tires for the animals to play with. And then there was the Soviet Bloc part of the zoo. Animals in these ranged from a pair of white tigers to a troop of blue-assed mandrils. Once again, no overall grouping of the animals together by continent or genus.

 Right across from Soviet Bloc Animals was, naturally, another commy fun park. Because nothing says a fun day at the zoo like a ride on a depressed ferris wheel that looks like it's about to fall apart!

 Or on a mafia run carousel, featuring zombie creatures from hell!

Of course, to enjoy any of these thrills, you have to pay. This big ferris wheel, which crowns the top of the slope the zoo is built into, is only one lari. I really regret not going on it, especially after seeing it's remarkable safety features i.e. a chain and some flimsy bars. Oh well. Next trip!

The Tbilisi zoo has something for everyone. If you don't like animals (which if you don't, why the hell are you at the zoo?), you're free to stay in one of the two commy fun parks and get sick off of gratuitous amounts of cotton candy and coin operated games. There are a plethora of fairly tame animals for you to touch through the fence, as well as some super shmerry ponies who are [not-very] willing to give you a ride in a buggy around a corral. If buggy rides are too high class for you, please consider a breakneck speed ride on a semi bucking horse for only six lari! We promise you won't get thrown off, and if you do just make sure you roll out of the way fast so you don't get stomped on!

For as utterly depressing as the zoo was, I actually really enjoyed it. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, aside from the elephant who looked like it was trying to think of ways to end its life. As is the case with most things here, I'm certain that Tbilisi's zoo would make a huge majority of people incredulous, angry, sad, upset, overwhelmed - you name a negative emotion, and you will most likely feel it if you're a sensitive person.

And I used to think I was a sensitive person.

But then I came to Georgia. Between gypsy kids begging on the streets, and the stray dogs, and the neighborhoods that look like warzones (because in some cases they were warzones a few short years ago), I've sort of become...I don't want to say dead inside, because that's not the right expression. Nor is numb. I'm aware of all the things that are fucked up around me, because believe you me there are a lot. And it's not that I'm alright with all of the shenanigans in terms of human and animal rights, cause again, I'm not. I just. Unsure how to describe it.

Dislocated maybe is the better term. I don't live here. I'm not stuck here. I'm not from here. I can't change anything here. It's not my place to pass judgement on what goes on in daily life, nor is it fruitful to do so. All I can do is take everything in, and remember that not everything has to be some life changing event. The zoo most definitely was not life changing, even though it was memorable, fun, and ridiculous.

Walking back to the metro stop after our day, I saw this sprayed onto a wall. It was like Tbilisi was sending a friendly reminder, cause really, this is all you can hope to do.