news flash: the black sea isn't really black!

This weekend we had a rather lazy, anticlimactic (at least for me) visit to Batumi on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia. Probably more than any other part of Georgia, I was intrigued by the Black Sea coast and had been dying to go there. The main disappointment was the weather: clouds, chilliness, and rain were not conducive to living it up on the beach, and that weather dominated Saturday and Sunday. We finally got to the beach on Monday and had a pretty good time. It's a rocky, like big rocks, beach, and so it's not the most comfortable to lie on (and let me tell you, when a wave knocks you over you don't get a mouthful of sand, you get your knees torn up by rocks- take it from me). Nevertheless, we enjoyed some sunning and swimming, and the rest of the trip we mainly sat at the charming guesthouse, read, ate, and drank. Very lazy.

You can see the patio of the guesthouse to the left, and you can barely make out the hammock that looked up into grape and kiwi vines (did you know kiwis grew on vines? I didn't). It was great- situated kind of on the side of a mountain that overlooked the beach. It was actually not in Batumi but in a smaller town a bit closer to the Turkish border called Gonio, the whole of which was attached to the side of the mountain and filled with people's houses and lots of vegetable gardens and livestock. I think we basically took the amazingly charming Gonio by storm and were probably the talk of the town. It’s hard to figure out if all the locals were gathering at the guest house because that is the normal place to gather, or because everyone was interested in us. Although Batumi is the primary tourist spot in Georgia, I imagine it rarely attracts many Americans, and even if so, they stay in Batumi and don’t go to the surrounding villages. I am fairly sure that the children that gathered at least were there because of us. Scott and Julian, probably because they are still children themselves (and they will say so too, it’s not just an insult), were like the pied pipers of the kids. For a couple hours on Sunday they gathered a swarm of at least 20 children and taught them to play tag. They were having so much fun that the older men wanted to play too- it was hilarious. The little girls weren’t allowed to play. The little one on the right of the picture was my favorite- she was like a little doll and I wanted to take her home with me. Highlights, besides the town and swimming, also included: a baby calf walking into the kitchen of the guesthouse; making a “vodkamelon” from a watermelon on the beach; playing carnival games in the park in Batumi-- I never won that stupid hedgehog from the claw-grabbing-toy game; interesting but not so comfortable overnight train rides there and back, which the boys thought was a perfect time to drink all night and make friends with Georgians by sharing their vodka.

Well, happy July 4 everyone. I was thinking that this is the third time I've celebrated the 4th in a foreign country. The American embassy is throwing a big party at a nearby lake on Saturday, but unfortunately we will be in Baku, Azerbaijan. Giorgi-Emory is up for constructing some kind of cook-out, but as there is not a grill to be seen, we are not quite sure how we're going to arrange that. Perhaps we can find some activity at one of the expat-frequented bars around. Honestly, I don't get all that patriotic about our independence, but I do like the festivities that usually celebrate it in the States, so maybe I'll do like I've done in Bangladesh and Argentina and think about all the swimming and fireworks people are doing back home and smile.