Making our new house into a "home"

An attempt at fried eggs with an aluminum frying pan and no spatula was a minor disaster. John was able to salvage something by eating from the pan. We’re gradually adding to our list of must-have acquisitions (lamps, frying pan, and spatula). We did manage to toast some bread on the hot plate.

Today was a walking day- so we set off on foot for the Old City. Our apartment is quite a way away, but it gave us a chance to see the sites around us- on a day where there are virtually no cars on the roads except for the Palestinians. We wandered through the Muslim quarter (found a frying pan and spatula) and saw the major sites. Another falafel sandwich. We found a Palestinian taxi driver to take us back (our feet were falling off) and may have made a contact for a Palestinian guide to take us into some of the “no-drive” zones.

Back at the apartment, it was a choice of toasted cheese sandwiches or take-out Chinese so we opted for take-out. It was the worst Chinese food we’ve ever had. The sesame chicken was like dried shoe leather with no sauce (“Chicken Negev”). When we called the restaurant to complain, they explained that sesame chicken doesn’t have sauce- and that this is not “American” sesame chicken. We retorted- is it “Jewish Sesame Chicken”… One less take-out option for our stay here.

Our new Home in Jerusalem

A talk with our dentist in Boston and we were on a quest for an endodontist (root canal specialist). We decided it was time to head to Jerusalem with an interim stop at the car rental place to clarify where we can drive the rental car. Amazingly, they don’t tell you that your insurance doesn’t cover a large number of cities in Israel. So, we got a map with details on the cities and roads that are not passable.

Then, it was time to rent our apartment for the month. We met with Lynn, the landlady, and got the basics on our new home. It turned out that a number of her relatives are dentists and she got us the name and telephone of an endodontist. She also provided us with an education on where you can drive on the Sabbath and where it’s not advisable to travel (the orthodox Jewish section doesn’t approve of driving on the Sabbath). Since it was Friday afternoon, everything was closing for the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday. So, we did a quick stop at the local grocery store for supplies to last us until Sunday. The grocery store experience was interesting. Very limited supply, all of the signs in Hebrew, a 5 shekel charge to rent a grocery cart (returned when you return the cart), extremely high prices and you get to bag your own groceries.

Since the streets basically shut down at sunset, we took the opportunity to drive through Jerusalem without the obnoxious, pushy drivers. The orthodox areas were an education. Most of the Jewish neighborhoods are immaculate. The orthodox areas were littered with trash and filled with Hassidic Jews (men with what we called “Necco” heads and “Coaster” heads. The Necco heads wear huge fur hats that look like Necco wafers and dress all in black with curls on the side of their heads. We decided that ultimately, they’re all what we termed “Shekel Heads”- looking for ways to part you from your money).

We explored the Russian compound and the surrounding streets and found a great little restaurant for spags and balls (Spaghettini). After dinner, we did a bit of “stoop sitting”- taking our two chairs outside our apartment and reading our newspapers. John also managed to create a clothesline out of a broom, a piece of marble and his socks. Quite ingenious.

Our apartment isn’t much to look at- a basement studio apartment with two twin beds, a creaky armoire, a TV that needs repair, bathroom and a small kitchenette (small refrigerator, hot plate, microwave, hot water heater, sink and a few dishes) – and parking (a rare commodity in Jerusalem). But, it felt much more like a home than our sterile hotel room- and for a $70/night differential, it made us feel a lot better about our stay in Jerusalem.

Jaffa and a drive toward the Gaza Strip

We woke to the sound of explosions. The waiter calmly explained that it was a police warning of a possible bomb threat in the area. What a relief.

After breakfast, we headed north to Jaffa. Today, it is a harbor side city with lots of expensive restaurants. Historically, it was a major port in the time of Solomon. The King of the Israelites lost the town in 1468 BC to the Egyptians. Islam spread over the city in the 8th century (other than a brief Crusader conquest). British General Allenby drove out the Turks in 1917 and it became a major gateway for arriving Jewish immigrants. It’s a very small town with a few minor sites- a Franciscan church- St Peters, a Greek Orthodox Church, a sea-side mosque and a lot of artists shops.


We grabbed a quick bite of lunch at their famous bakery- established in 1880 (an Arab pizza and a sambusa) and headed south towards the Gaza Strip. Since we couldn’t drive in Gaza, we drove as far as Ashdod and Ashkelon. Both cities are new- white buildings spread across an arid landscape. Ashdod was a primarily industrial area and had the feeling of a ‘planned city’ of white buildings with little character. Ashkelon has a large population of Ethiopian and Russian Jews and is a resort capital for Israelis looking for a beach weekend. We were able to find a shopping mall and get some wine and a cooler. A stop at the Holiday Inn got us ice and we were set for the night.
After a full day of driving, we settled for dinner at the “Stagecoach” restaurant in the hotel.

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem

We bolted from Tel Aviv and headed to Jerusalem for a 9:00 am walking tour. The tour was a three-hour walk through the four quarters of the Old City- the Armenian, Jewish, Christian and Muslim. What a strange contrast to walk in a 1 square kilometer area and see such vastly different cultures, environments, and people.

The Wailing Wall:

Armenian Church


Photo courtesy of Flickr
Via de la Rosa

Coptic Orthodox Patriarche

Church of the Holy Sepulchre the place of Christ's crucifixion. The Church dates back to 330 A.D. and contains a number of chapels and shrines controlled by different Christian faiths. Violence has broken up so many times among them, that from 1192 to this day a Muslim family is entrusted with the keys to that front door, and a family member comes twice every day, to open it early in the morning and lock it at night

We had a falafel sandwich in the Christian Quarter- for $1.00 and had our first sense that maybe we could survive for a while in this city (although, a steady diet of falafel sandwiches sounded pretty bleak).

With a new sense of fiscal conservatism, we headed for the short-term rental agency after our tour and found an apartment available for the month of August for $1000 (about $33/day vs. the $103 we were paying for our hotel).

Feeling a bit better about our extended stay in Israel, we headed for “happy hour” at Tzaddik’s Old City Deli. Beer was only 10 shekels and we got to meet a Jewish man from New York who settled in Jerusalem with a great location in the Old City. He offered genuine NY deli style sandwiches and “the only hamburger made with freshly ground beef”. Unfortunately, a group of tourists had wiped him out of corned beef, so we settled for a burger with fries and talked to Buddy, the proprietor. As we were talking, a group of 20-year-olds arrived at the other tables- the group wearing jeans and a number of them sporting M-16’s. Buddy explained that they were Israeli military-in civilian clothes.

A drive back to Tel Aviv and a chance to watch CNN and luckily an episode of “The Crusaders” on the Discovery Channel.

Israel Part 1 - Map and Route

From Istanbul to Tel Aviv

It was sad to leave Istanbul. It had truly started to feel like home. We got our flight to Tel Aviv (fortunately, not many folks going from Turkey to Israel). We had a minor problem with the rental car agency (first not finding our reservation and then once they found it and transported us to the car pickup- only to renege on the originally quoted price). We took great pleasure in walking out from their agency and walking a few steps to their competition and getting a Citroen for a lower price.

We arrived at our hotel to find that my dentist appointment was scheduled for 1:30- and it was 1:25. The hotel clerk walked me to the dentist and after an x-ray, I was in the chair starting one of two recommended root canals. Depression set in as we were scheduling the next 6 visits to the dentist to complete the work. After the mouth assault for about an hour, we walked over to the Hilton and looked at the view from the 17th floor panorama. Sitting in the “executive floor”, it was like being in the middle of a bad Woody Allen movie. Lot of loud voices talking about “doing deals” (Quote: “You could make two million”.) or the table next to us talking about which mall was “classier”.

Tel Aviv is a combination of a beach town and a modern city. We took a taxi to an Italian restaurant (good for the teeth- not much chewing) and found that it had changed hands and was now opening as Fashion TV. We experienced our first fiscal shock when we got our bill for two soups, quiche and a few beers for $60.

The Mehtar Band in Istanbul

Yet another strolling day along the Golden Horn, through the districts of Fener (the old Jewish section of Istanbul) and Balat. It was interesting to see the daily life of the neighborhoods as well as the sites along the way. There are still a number of old churches along the way, Church of St Theodosia, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, St Mary of the Mongols and the Metochion of Mount Sinai.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)
The walk took us though winding streets and cobbled streets. We ended our walk at the Palace of Blachernae.

There, we met a man who was working on the excavation of the old prison between the Tower of Issac Angelus and the Prison of Anemas. The site was fascinating- down a concrete stairway into the substructure of the palace. The dungeons were massively deep and you had to marvel at the sheer size.

After all of our trips to Istanbul, we finally got to the Military Museum. It was huge and we made it in time for the Mehtar Band’s performance. The band was dressed in Ottoman costumes, playing old Turkish instruments. It was a remarkable site- even more interesting to watch the audience as they sang along to all of the songs (men and women alike).
We had an early dinner at our favorite doner kebap place in Taksim.

A root canal in Istanbul?

Since John had his medical experience in Bangkok and India, it was my turn to test out the Turkish medical system. We headed to the German Hospital to check out my tooth and found a spectacularly sophisticated dental clinic that took me in immediately, examined and X-rayed my tooth (all for $27) and recommended a root canal. So, now it was time to try to figure out what to do (the recommendation was definitely not to have any dental work done in Syria).
Another long walk in the heat to Citibank to get cash and we found a great place for doner kebaps.
We then taxied to Fatih Camii (foundations are Byzantine). We got there while a funeral was in progress. Then we walked to the Church of the Pantecrator and discovered the source of our blue and white Turkish plates. So, we headed on our plate search to find our Turkish plates (only could find 2).
Then we took our first walk to Blachernae and had a confusing stroll trying to match the map in the book to the sites in front of us.
Dinner was at a small restaurant close to the hotel. While we were drinking wine and eating our pizza at their outdoor tables, the owners were ordered by the police to direct all of their patrons drinking outside to move inside the restaurants. Since we were in the middle of dinner the “official” allowed us to finish our meal. We spent a long time talking to the owner of the restaurant who said that it’s a recent problem due to the increasing Islamic fundamentalist movement. A small group of vocal and powerful people are “offended” by people sitting outside and drinking alcohol and they’re trying to shut them down. Just what these people don’t need…another reason to scare the tourists away. It left us feeling pretty depressed- these poor people.

Still strolling through Istanbul

More strolling- this time from the bazaar through the Sehzade Complex and numerous other Camii’s and old Byzantine churches.
After a day of strolling, our feet gave out. It was an evening of sitting on the balcony enjoying our view of the Sea of Marmara and ordering room service.
A few Istanbul sites: We saw a shotgun with a telescopic site and a man arc-welding with no gloves and no goggles.

The markets and bazaars of Istanbul

Strolling through Istanbul through the markets and bazaars. We stopped to thank Nick for his help and advice on Armenia. We followed the walking tour through the covered bazaar to Nurosmaniye Camii, Mahmut Pasa Camii
Found a wonderful evil eye store with great pricing and spectacular selection.
Dinner was at the Aladdin Café with a group of Turks and Kurds who found our travels through Turkey amazing.

Back to Istanbul

“Home” again- Room 204 at Hotel Avicenna. We pulled together all of our “stuff” and we have 60 pounds of books and stuff to be shipped home so we made a trip to UPS to get pricing.
A complete relaxation day- email and catch-up.

From Baku to Istanbul

More absurd Intourist think. When we were checking out, we were informed that there was no hotel storage for luggage. The only option was to extend our room rate for $30. (as the receptionist said, “not much money”…an interesting comment since $30 is about 1 month’s salary for the average Azeri). So, we grabbed Mamedov and hired him for the day to drive us around and take us to the airport- for $35.

What a great way to spend the day- our own personal chauffeur. We went from the hat place (repairs to the Azerbaijani hat that John just had to have--added to his collection) to a view of the city from Martyr’s Lane. On January 20, 1990, the Russians massacred over 100 Baku citizens and they created a special graveyard to honor the dead. Since then, they’ve added the 1000’s of other graves for the dead from the Karabagh conflict with Armenia. It’s a moving site..rows of graves with their faces etched into the tombstones and flowers spread around the graves.

We went to the Azerbaijan History Museum and got a wonderful fresh-faced Azeri girl as a guide. The museum is housed in the 1896 former mansion of Z Tagiev, the richest of all of the oil barons. The upper floor is spectacular- huge reception rooms; one for entertaining European guests, one for Oriental guests.

Then it was off to the airport. Since the Azeri’s are known for government corruption, we weren’t sure what to expect from the process. We got to the passport check and the bureaucracy started. The first level said, “Cross…problem”. They found the Georgian cross in our luggage and decided to make an issue out of it. We had over 5 levels of uniformed customs officers examine the cross in detail, all saying “problem”. Finally, we got an English-speaking officer who explained to us that we should have declared the cross when we arrived in Baku. We calmly explained to him that no one spoke English when we arrived and that there were no forms in English and that it was only a $15 item from a flea market in Tbilisi- and most importantly, if it was a real problem, they could keep it. At that point- with no obvious money from us in sight, they decided to “make and exception” and let us keep it. What a change from the “no problem” attitude of the local entrepreneurs, like Mamedov.
After the hassle of check in, we had “technical problems” with the plane and were delayed for an hour. We finally headed off and landed in Istanbul about 10:00 p.m.
International news:
News from home: John Kennedy Jr’s plane crashed on the way to Martha’s Vineyard. John Kennedy, his wife and sister-in-law assumed dead.

From Neolithic drawings to mud volcanos -driving through Azerbaijan

Just when we thought we had the battle won, we had to concede to the nasty Soviet “nyet” woman. Foregoing breakfast, we headed for our hired driver ($50 for the day) and took off for Gobustan. Our driver was amazing- a touch of John Belushi with a “no problem” attitude. He was an unemployed chemical engineer- driving a taxi to make a living and had a wonderful attitude.

The landscape outside Baku was parched and harsh. We got to Gobustan and were fortunate enough to get the “warden” of the site, Gurban Alesberov, to take us on a personal tour of the site and the museum.

The site was home to Neolithic man and they left a wealth of cave paintings depicting buffaloes, deer, dancing women and even ancient ships. Thor Heyerdahl came here to examine these Viking like ship drawings. Still spooked by snakes, we watched Gurban carefully.

We then hired him to take us to the “mud volcanoes”. Azerbaijan has over 300 of these volcanoes that spit cold mud rather than molten rock. Our driver stepped too close to one of them and lost his shoe (temporarily) in the mud….”no problem”.

A few mud volcanoes and we were off to the Absheron peninsula to the town of Surakhany. Surakhany is home to a Zoroastrian fire temple, with a central stone shrine burning continuously, with flames shooting out from roof corner flues. The museum surrounding the temple had awful scenes of fire worship with tacky mannequins. The history of the site is unknown, but some say it was the site of a temple in the 6th –7th C. The current temple was renovated by the Parsis from India.

Our last stop on our absurd Azerbaijan tour was to Jamar Dag (Burning Mountain), the Chimera. Supposedly, it’s a hill that burns thanks to subterranean gases. It looked a lot like they were augmenting the burning with piped gas. Mamedov, our driver, was amused with our choice of sites.

Hungover in Baku

Hungover in Baku. Breakfast was a fight as the charming hostess said, “Pay”. We tried to get across the “breakfast included” concept and thought we had the problem solved. More later.
A bit of Internet café and not much activity today as we tried to recoup from the night before.
We walked the streets and had an early dinner at Shakespeare’s before promenading on the boulevard with the locals. Saturday’s are the time for Azeri women to come out dressed in their finest clothes, for children to come out and drive the electric cars through the park and for families to sit and watch the scene.
The breakfast battle continued with the hotel…

Our first day in Baku

A few administrative details in the morning (finding a guidebook at the Hyatt) and we were off, in the heat of the Baku afternoon for a walking tour of the old city. Our guide was wonderful, a college professor who made more money as a tour guide. She gave us an interesting sense of the city and country. The country is almost 100% Moslem (90% Shiite, 10% Sunni). It’s a mix of Caucasian, Persian and Turks. The language is Turkic. The religion is actually Islam tempered with Zoroastrian fire worship. The women’s mind-set is very similar to Western women.

The tour took us to Maiden’s Tower, an 8 story fortress originally built as a fire temple in approximately 500 BC.

The old town is filled with 19th C oil barons’ mansions that have been converted to corporate headquarters for the oil companies doing business in Baku. We went through Shivanshah’s Palace. The oldest remains are from the 5th C and the complex is quite extensive.

Hot and sweaty, we finished our tour and looked for the closest air-conditioned bar we could find. We found Finnegans, the “Irish” pub near Fountain Square, complete with English language newspapers, a Russian waitress named Natasha (who could have been on the Russian men’s Rugby team) and ice cold white wine. We struck up a conversation with the regulars- a group of Scottish and English men working in the oil industry and living in Baku. The wine began to flow too freely (we couldn’t even finish one glass without the next one poured and waiting for us). The conversations were fascinating. John locked on to a Scottish guy who had spent time all over the world, travelling with the oil industry. The perspective they had was fascinating. They looked blue-collar, but were educated by experience.

I was talking to Trevor from the UK and his Azeri girlfriend (23 years old with an attitude). She had a different sense of life under the Soviet system. Under the Russians, her parents and grandparents had vacations and pensions and she got an excellent education with the opportunity to travel. Today, her sister, with three children, cannot find a job and is struggling just to feed her children. Things were not getting better today. (Although, Trevor was funding her to go to the UK for English language training in Bath and provided for her every need). This was a girl that would be nothing but problems in the future.

We staggered to Shakespeare’s pub for dinner of Thai soup and Indian curry. What a strange city.

Azerbaijan Map and Route

From Tblisi to Baku - Welcome to the Soviet System!

Our last day in Tbilisi. A chance to get to the Internet Café…a small room down a dark alley with one computer. The keyboard has been so over-used that all of the markings on the keys have rubbed off. How a Georgian can manage to access the Internet with an English language keyboard with no readable keys is beyond me—especially since they use a completely different alphabet and would have no visible clues to the letters.

We stopped at the National Museum and had a lovely guide to the Treasury, filled with magnificent and intricate gold jewelry from 3000 BC to 400 AD.

Lunch had to be at a typical Georgian restaurant… our last chance for cheese bread (that low calorie concoction of bread stuffed with cheese and topped with melted butter while cooking) and their rubbery flat bread while listening to a Run DMC song in Georgian.

It was time to head to the airport for our Yak 40 flight to Baku. The flight was filled with Westerners- Scottish petroleum engineers and Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was a typical Yak flight- packed, hot, with luggage piled in the back. When the plane landed, the luggage had fallen from the racks in the back and pinned the door shut so all the passengers had to climb over the luggage to exit the plane.

The customs process in Azerbaijan was pandemonium. As we exited the plane, they took all of the passports and herded us to a small room with two guys sitting at a table. There were no instructions or explanations while they handed out forms in Russian to be filled out prior to getting checked in. We fortunately had a few English speakers with experience to help. As we filled out the forms, the final customs checker was throwing passports around and yelling. It was mass confusion. We finally got our forms and passports stamped and headed out of the “VIP” area of the airport, looking for our airport transfer, which was nowhere to be found. We finally grabbed a taxi (well, a kid with a Lada willing to take us to the hotel for $10 US) and headed into town.

We arrived at the same time as the Jehovah’s Witnesses to the Hotel Absheron. The JoWit’s spoke fluent Russian, so we tagged along hoping to benefit from their experience. The “reception” directed us to the 11th floor where we were quoted a room rate of $60, including breakfast. Since our original reservation through the travel company in Georgia was at $95, we gladly took the reduced rate. We did have to cough up $2 for the reservation fee from the ground floor “reception”. The hotel was bizarre. Each floor is run by a different company, so each floor has different pricing, different states of renovation and different policies.

We headed to the roof top bar to get a beer and check out the view of the city and then topped it off with biscuits and a snickers bar. When we got back to our floor, the woman from the floor where we had our original reservations was waiting for us. She was furious that we hadn’t checked in on her floor (she had been “waiting all day” for us) and we explained calmly that we had already paid for 3 nights in advance and were quite happy with our accommodations. Welcome to the ex-Soviet system.

Back to Tblisi

A few minor sites on our way back to Tbilisi. We stopped at the Shaumta Monastery Complex (6-16th C), still active with a group of priests and nuns. The fresco paintings that survived in the church were spectacular. Most were destroyed by the Russians who whitewashed all the walls of the churches.

From there, we stopped at Alaverdi Cathedral, a 11th C church and at Ikalto Academy (11th C). Finally, we stopped at Gremi Architectural Complex (16-17th C) and climbed to the top of the tower to get a view of the complex.

We requested an unscheduled stop at the local winery where you could supposedly get a tasting of fine Georgian wine. Our driver was thrilled with the challenge of finding a new place to explore and set about asking everyone how to get to the winery. We finally found it and enlisted a woman from the main office to help us. She had to get the local workers to stop their welding to divert the electricity to the tunnel (they also told us about the two snakes they had killed just that morning). Once inside, we walked for quite a way down a huge tunnel cut into the mountain. The actual tunnel was 7 km long with 6.5 km of lateral tunnels running off of it. The room was filled with gigantic metal wine castes, each about 10 feet in diameter, sitting side by side. We made our way to one of the vats and had a tasting. The old man pouring the wine made 30 lari a month (about $1/day) and hadn’t been paid in 5 months.

Note- most Georgian cars have broken windshields because of the horrible road conditions. And, most drivers choose not to replace them when they crack. They just leave them cracked- there’s less likelihood of them being stolen.

Dinner at the Santa Fe…Mexican music with Georgian lyrics and a table of drunk Georgian men. After dinner, we tried some local Georgian champagne in our hotel restaurant. They should probably stick to wine.

The David Gareja Monastery - Encounter with a Viper

An early morning start with our driver and guide heading to David Gareja monastery. The road disintegrated as we got to the caves, but Black George could get through anything. We climbed to the Natlismzemeli cave (John the Baptist) with our guide taking the lead with her large wooden stick pounding the ground to alert the poisonous snakes (they’re deaf and only respond to vibration. And, according to our guide, only bite if stepped on. But since they’re the same color as the ground, it’s best to scare them off in advance). Our driver meanwhile was throwing rocks ahead of us to scare them off.

As we entered the cave, John screamed to me, “Walk!!” as he noticed a snake curled up in the doorway of the cave, about 1-foot from my leg. Turning around, I saw the snake drop to the ground and fortunately he headed out the door (not so fortunate for John as he was heading right towards him). But the snake didn’t really want anything to do with us either- we had just interrupted his siesta- and he slithered away from us as fast as he could. It did, however, provide quite a jolt. We were assured that even if we were bitten, we had about 2 hours to get the anti-venom serum- and it was only a 45-minute drive to the local hospital--a little too close for comfort for me!


Next was Lavra, a low lying cave monastery that was still active. Still a bit snake-shy, I opted not to take the hour trek up over the mountain to Vdabno. It was a very stiff hike up the mountain and over the ridge to a monastery with views to Azerbaijan –through dense brush (in my mind, teeming with snakes). John made it and returned with rubber legs.

We had lunch in the house of the seismologist living alone in the hills (with his large poster of a naked blond woman in his bedroom) and made new friends with the two local dogs (part wolf), one-eyed Bear and Sara.

From there, we headed to the town of Gurdzaani and the Church of the Dormition of the Virgin, the only church with two domes and 3 altars in Georgia. Interestingly, there are no statues or sculptures in the Orthodox religion.

We walked the grounds of Tsinandali, the home of the 19th C Georgian poet, Alexander Chavchavadze. The summer home itself was beautiful and the grounds were filled with magnolias and cypress trees.

Our guesthouse that evening was owned by a lovely woman- a doctor who works at the state run hospital (and has not been paid in 10 months). We had a wonderful dinner with flowing wine and got more insight into the war with Abkazia (1993-1995).

Driving the Georgia Military Highway

Today we drove the Georgia Military Highway with the Maka and her father driving his Lada. It was 160 km and took 3 hours and 45 minutes to get to the Russian border. The highway was built in the late 18th Century by Russian troops to connect Georgia with Russia across the main Caucasian Range. It runs from Tbilisi to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia. During the days of the Georgian kingdom, it was heavily guarded with stone watchtowers, still everywhere.

The scenery was spectacular- green carpeted hills followed by huge snow capped mountains. We stopped at Ananuri Castle, a 16-17th C fortress and two churches. We went over Krestovy Pass, 2379 meters above sea level, through the towns of Pasanauri, Gudauri and Kazbegi. Gudauri is a famous Georgian ski resort – used primarily by heli-skiiers. It started when a Ukrainian mercenary pilot, taking a winter break from the war in Abkhazia offered people heli-skiing for $10/day.

We saw the Tsminda Sameba Church in Gergeti and went all the way through the Daridi Canyon to the Russian border.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr

Along the way, John stopped to buy a few local sheep hats.


We got more insight on life from Maka. She talked about life in Georgia, working 70 hours a week, making $120/month. She also had us howling talking about the James Brown concert (which we missed by a day). He was staying at the Sheraton and she said that when he arrived at the hotel, he walked in the door and screamed, “I feel good”. He then proceeded to clean out the mini-bar and walked out without paying. And, she said, “He looks like a monkey”.

Once back in Tbilisi, we stopped at the Hungarian Jazz café for a cold beer and listened to the Blues Brothers (and another song with great lyrics, “No matter how high I get, I’ll still be lookin’ up to you”)