A Happy K Is a Happy K

Despite the cold, wet, slushy streets, Batumi turned out to be relaxing and fun. The first evening involved an incredibly overly mayonnaised pizza (I know, I know…..any pizza with hot mayo on it is not going near my mouth), a few beers at “The Quiet Woman Pub” and an accidental cup of rich, molten, sexy chocolate.  The chocolate was amazing, in part, because it was so unexpected. After the pizza fiasco (none of us touched it and left it completely intact on the table), we found a pub and tried ordering dinner again, thankfully with much better results. We sat for a while and when it came time for us to leave, instead of going straight back to my colleague’s flat, we walked across the courtyard of the pub to check out what looked to be an observation tower (maybe 10 stories up). The deck was closed, but the café on the third floor was open.

The guys were in the mood for something sweet, which suited me just fine, so we went up, sat down, and started checking out the menu. Immediately, I zeroed in on the hot chocolate, which sounded good to everybody, so we ordered a piece of cheesecake, a chocolate muffin, and three hot chocolates. First came the cheesecake, which was okay. Then came the chocolate muffin, which was a bit stale. But then came three, espresso-sized cups filled with hot, melty, oozy, silky, chocolatey goodness.  At first we were all a bit disappointed, “What? No hot chocolate?” But once we had a taste, it turned into a chocolate love fest.

I just have to say that guys that I can bond over chocolate with are guys that I am probably going to know for a long, long time.

After we licked our cups and paid the bill, we started walking back to my colleague’s apartment. We opted to walk along the seashore, which was magical all in itself. It was snowing lightly, waves were crashing, there were a few inches of fresh snow on the ground (and it was pretty cold so all of the puddles and slush had hardened up), and we were just three folk enjoying the heck out of a winter evening. Once we got back to the apartment, we said our goodnights and I crashed pretty hard. (If you’d like to read another account of the evening, please click over to my colleague’s blog.)

The next morning, the guys got up and went out to run some errands while I lounged around. Once they returned, my Batumi-based colleague had meetings to attend, so my other colleague and I decided to go out and explore the town. By exploring the town I mean we actually just decided to walk along the shoreline. We looked at renting bikes to ride in the snow, but the Batumi Bike Rental machine seemed to be turned off. We decided to build a snowman instead. There were a few other people out wandering, building snowcreatures, and similarly enjoying the fresh sea air and that ethereal ephemerality that comes with a rare snowfall. By all accounts, that there was so much snow in Batumi was highly unusual but I’m so glad we were there to enjoy it.

That evening we played a Norwegian version of rummy and went out to dinner at a traditional Georgian restaurant that had the most fantastic eggplant. I’m not even sure how to describe it: thin slices of eggplant wrapped around what I think was crushed walnuts and garlic and something else (maybe cheese? maybe ground vegetable?) and topped with pomegranate seeds. We also had grilled pork and chicken and salad and bread and fish, and it was all very good, but the eggplant was divine.

The plan was to have a bit of an early night, which we did, because I wanted to be on my way out of Batumi by 10 the next morning. In the morning, things went mostly as planned. I was up at 9:30 and we were out the door by 10. We said goodbye to our Batumi colleague and started to make our way to where the marshrutkas were parked.

Pretty much as soon as we were out the door, though, we realized that we’d need breakfast and more coffee before facing the ride back to Kutaisi. After a few wrong turns, we found our way back to the café that had served us the cups of chocolate love. For 9 laris/$5.50 each, we had coffee, eggs, and toast. By the time we found ourselves at the marshrutkas, it was nearly noon. We found the right van, got on, and waited. And waited. And waited. In all, we probably waited 45 minutes before the van left. Happily, we weren’t squished in the back corner, so the wait wasn’t such a big deal. The drive to Kutaisi was a scant 2 hours, which was about an hour shorter than the incoming drive to Batumi had been.

After disembarking, we had a quick bite to eat (lobiani and cups of beer that were forced on us by a guy in the lobiani shop), and my colleague helped me find a marshrutka heading to Tbilisi. Thankfully, the van left pretty much right after I got on it and I was on my way back to Gori in no time. Ten lari/$6 and 3 hours later, I piped up with an “okayokayokay” to indicate I needed to get off because we were near Gori. (The problem for me with taking marshrutkas is that they don’t actually go into Gori but dump you off at the highway turnoff, which is a bit inconvenient…..not quite sure how to get out to the highway to hop on one, either….) I got off, found a taxi, asked him to take me to the Stalin Museum, and suddenly I was home.

I walked into my flat, turned on the water and nothing came out of the tap. I tried the kitchen faucet with the same result. I texted my landlord’s daughter to see if having no water might be normal, and she texted me back to say they’d check on the pipes and get back to me. As it turns out, my pipes had frozen while I was away, so the next morning (which was yesterday, Saturday) some people came over and spent the day replacing the pipes. About 5:30 pm Saturday night my water was back.  I hadn’t showered since Wednesday morning, so I was veeeery glad to have hot and plentiful water once again. I later received another text message asking that I leave the water on in the bathroom to prevent the pipes from freezing up again, something I’m more than happy to do.

Aside from my frozen pipes, it’s been a great week, and even though I didn’t talk about it, I managed to get quite a bit of work done on top of it all. I’m very fortunate to have in-country colleagues I adore.