Out and About (Tbilisi)

If you have ever wondered what is the current relationship between Georgia and Russia, the answer is below... (found in the center of Tbilisi)

Out and About (Mtsketa, Georgia)

Mtsketa, the ancient capital of Georgia, is the most beautiful in the morning when the crowds of visitors haven’t arrived yet. You’ll see the majestic Svetiskhoveli (The Life Giving Pillar) Cathedral – the place of coronation and burial of the Georgian Kings and nobles. (The tomb of Vakhatng Gorgasali, the founder of Tbilisi is there.)

Up on the mountain there is Jvari Monastery – the 6th century, can you imagine?

In Mtsheta, the ancient capital of Georgia, there are narrow streets to explore,

Ripe grapes to admire,

Gardens coloured with leaves and fruits,

Calm waters of the river

Don't miss it.

Out and About (Tbilisi, Georgia)

The kids had a school break last week and, being an experience traveller, I decided to take them to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.

And there we went.. not by car, not by plane but by an oldfashioned train. And, oh, how oldfashioned it was. Or, perhaps simply old! The light was broken, and the lock didn't functioned, the window was smashed by the rock, but we played cards and managed to sleep, so things were not bad after all. Fourteen hours went by and then we arrived ... to find

This,

And this,

And gorgeous this,

And intricate this,

And wonderful this,

And 14 hours on the train were well worth it.

Baking Madness

Yesterday seemed like a great day to bake chocolate chips cookies! Why? I don’t know. I haven’t made them since we left Iceland and my internal clock said that it was time. My older son decided to help me, and out from the cardboards came flour, and white sugar, and brown sugar, and vanilla, and salt and chocolate chips, until we discovered that we were missing baking soda and eggs. This minor obstacle wasn’t going to stop us. We went to a store and got the missing ingredients.

With everything in order we started the process. All the time while measuring, and adding, and beating, and mixing, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something smelled strange. By exclusion I zeroed on a just opened package of flour that we happened to ship with consumable from the States. It had a chemical smell, more as a cleaner than baking substance. I tasted it and, yep, the taste was off also. Not trusting myself I asked my sons’ and husband's opinions – the first ones pronounced it “weird”, the latter didn’t find anything suspicious with it.

Since the dough was ready and the oven was preheated, but mostly out of curiosity, we continued with baking. After 11 minutes in the oven and appropriate cooling time, we cautiously tried our creations and inferred that our cookies were irretrievably ruined. Not only they turned out unappetizingly flat but they had a distinctive aftertaste of some cleaning liquid. We sighed and tossed all batch away along with the barely used pack of flour.

You think it would be enough baking for one day but, no, the allure of the chocolate chip cookies was way too strong. My husband went to the store for a new package of flour and by dinner time we had a tray of fresh, with height, good tasting chocolate chip cookies!

The moral of this tale – if flour has a chemical taste, baking will only reinforce it.

Appeasing the Fate.

“You remember that you not suppose to celebrate THIS birthday, yes?” was the constant refrain during several weeks leading to the important event of me turning yet another year older.

I heard it from my mother and from my sister, from my grandmother and from my uncle. When I started to hear it from random acquaintances - a hairdresser, a woman with whom we got to chatting while sitting in a cafe, a cabby, who gave me a lift to the embassy, I really was forced to pay attention to this unwritten law – you are not suppose to celebrate your 40th birthday!

“Why? Tell me why?” – I asked again and again. “Bad luck”; “Hey, it isn’t my rule, you just not suppose to”; "You don’t want to incur bad luck, do you?” were the mysterious answers. And I did cave into outside pressure. Well, I planned to cheat a bit and go to the restaurant with my husband, but the forces of nature conspired against this foolish plan and sent some indigestion on me, so eating wasn’t all that appealing.

So, I want to make sure that all those gods or demigods over there who keep a keen eye on the protocol of birthday celebrations know that I did not celebrate THIS birthday.

But since nobody told me anything about presents – I received plenty of those.....