Batumi

I arrived in Tbilisi early Wednesday morning on the 1st of August. Dima met me at the airport. It was a special moment for us to say the least...
His mother Nyra speaks almost fluent English and used to be an English teacher at Tbilisi University, his father Chemil- who is a retired Engineer -speaks no English but is great at sign-language! :-) They are both such lovely warm and friendly people. And even though he didn't speak English, Chemil took great pleasure in showing me their wedding photos and Dima's baby photos! Hehe.

I went to work with Dima later that first day and met his PA and uni-friend Eka- who I am now happy to say is my friend too! And that evening we went out to explore the Tbilisi night-life (ok, it was a pub crawl but it was great fun- lots of dancing, some drinking and a lot of laughs!)

On the Thursday night, after another productive day helping Dima with some translation work, we took an eight hour over-night train to the Black Sea coast for a three day break- staying in a small and developing town called Batumi. We spent the night on the train drinking vodka and chatting (and dancing!) with a brilliant group of lads- only one of whom spoke English- before arriving in Batumi the next morning (drunk, I did a repetition of the "me n Alex in Vilanova" thing- running into the sea fully clothed!!! Refreshing and hilarious but dumb! hehe!). The photo above shows a typical Batumi street on the Saturday afternoon. The watermelons only cost about 50p each!!! In Batumi, we spent the days on the beach swimming, sun-bathing and eating (boiled and salted corn-on-the-cob, juicy nectarines and things called churchkhela that resembled candles but were actually walnuts on strings coated in a sweet hard waxy jelly made from grapes!). The nights were spent at the huge beach clubs (inc. Ministry of Sound DJs!) dancing and drinking with the guys we met on the train. Heaven!