Ending our visit

This is probably the last entry from this trip; there might be a follow-up after we are home though: don't rule it out!

Previously, we covered our Wednesday excursion and lunch.  Now we will catch up with the rest of the week.

 

This was actually from Wednesday, but had to share it with you.  This photo was taken through our friend Beso's gallery window; he is working on a cameo.  Marty loves the window shots and occasionally captures just what she thought she was seeing.  

Thursday we had double meals out (no, Marty doesn't want to step on the scale).  First we had a great lunch with Nana Kalandadze and her husband Tumuri, followed by dinner with The three Datos...David T, David N, and David B.  This is a standing joke as they will always introduce themselves to each other doing, Dato  Dato, Dato Dato, Dato Dato....this is what guy friends with the same name do after knowing each other more than 12 years!  We went to a khingali place near the house and ate way too well.  

 

This is a renovated house in the Old Town which has kept the character of the historic albeit right now a wee bit "bright".  Below, also in Old Town is a renovated hotel with elegant metal work.

 

 The next series of shots are just street shots we like.

The shot below is of two women on a very cold and windy day, selling stockings/tights near the Marjanishvili Metro.  

 

 

The mother of all radishes is grown here in Georgia.  Those above are nearly baseball sized and are not bitter and don't split open.

 

Above is a very typical corner market with all the fruits and vegetables being displayed.  

 

A nice doorway in our general neighborhood.

 

This is what will be lost as restoration comes.  It will be replaced by plastic doors with no grillwork.

 

Also not far from our flat.  This is just one of many visual treats that make us love this older parts of the city.

 

This is one of the treats made in this part of the world: honey cake.  It is a wonderful layered affair that gets even better on the second day.  Dato's daughter, Tamo, is a wonderful baker and on our next visit she will give me a baking lesson!  

On Friday we had a wonderful lunch with our friend Maia.  She lives on the top floor of a building without an elevator...102 steps up from the entryway.  Maia is also a great cook (seems to be a genetic thing here in Georgia as we don't know any Georgians who are not!).  She fixed us a yogurt soup with herbs that was just amazing, plus salad, plus her most unusual amazing khachapuri, a recipe she has developed from something her mother made, so it won't be found in any recipe books.

 

 

Dessert was baked pumpkin stuffed with apples, raisins, plums, apricots,and walnuts.  

 

Above Maia is cutting the pumpkin and then she sliced it into serving pieces.

Saturday we had a great lunch at Dato's home prepared by Ia and Tamo.  Really amazing food, as always, and great company.

And so we close with an event from Friday morning.

We have walked around and connected with more friends, but maybe the most interesting event was the call Friday from our upstairs neighbor.  It came from Zaza's daughter, requesting that we sign a document saying that we have no objections to Zaza's renovations above us.  This document needed to be signed by all the neighbors: Mamuka (directly above us), Khatuna (next door), and us.  Simple process right?  Go to the Notary with one's passport and sign.  Well, not so simple or straightforward. We all headed out from our little neighborhood and headed to a Notary in Vake, another region of the city.  After finding parking places and congregating at the appointed address, we found that we had to go to some other Notary, this one a ways away on Chavchavadze Avenue, where parking opportunities were even worse.  That done, we sat in the anteroom, while Zaza and his daughter, "Ellen", conferred with the Notary.  After about fifteen minutes, they appeared and told us that really we must go up the street to Liberty Bank before the Notary could notarize.  Off we went; this took another twenty minutes, then we all went back to the Chavchavadze Notary.  There, finally we all put our names (in Georgian), along with passport numbers and signatures, on a blank sheet of paper: this was finally notarized.  At this point, Marty and David were nearly an hour and a half late for our next appointment, and for what: signatures on a blank sheet!  We never saw the actual document that we were signing off on.

So, now we are packing; trying to find protected places for the Georgian delicacies coming back with us.  There are a couple of bottles of wine, but the rest of liquid things (tkmali and chacha) are home-made and are in plastic soda bottles and recycled glass wine bottles.  We've done this many times before, so there should be no problems, either from rough handling enroute or from customs inspection.  Fortunately we really have two hard-sides bags into which things needing protection can be placed.  Once we are packed and the flat cleaned we will really be ready to come back to the US and our home, friends, and family.