Georgia - final take! Welcome to the Jungle!

Alright! So later that night, we took an overnight train to Batumi, which is kind of the Ibiza of Soviet (yeah, that sounded weird for me too, but hey, it's true!) I'd never taken an overnight train before, so it was a pretty cool new experience.

If you know me well, you know that I passionately hate taking trains - I just feel completely trapped inside that dirty, shitty thing, full of lame people I don't want to be around (wow, I am hugely psychotic), but this one was absolutely acceptable, and we actually had a pretty good time!

This is Levan, looking like a porn star...

..And me, looking like the gangsta rapper I so longingly aspire to be. I want hos! I want to pack heat! I want to ride dirty! I want to act a fool! I want a vest on my chest, and I want to get money! I want to pop caps in brothas' asses! Front on me? I'll cut ya, gun-butt ya or bump ya! I'm not the type to get knocked for D.W.I., I'm the type that'll kill your connect when the coke price rise! This flow's been mastered, the ice I flash it! (THAT'S IT - FIDDY THENT IS A LOLCAT!) Chokes me, I'll have your mama picking out your casket, bastard! (Alright, seriously, these are Fiddy Thent lyrics, from his truly refreshing and innovative song, What Up, Gangsta (sic). That's, uhm, pretty sad.)

Anyway, nevermind that rant, when we finally made it to Batumi and the Black Sea, the rain was pouring, for the first time on the whole trip. Kind of typical, and this is the facial expression I initially got:

Still! We had a really nice hotel..

..which had a lot of cool amenities, so we didn't really suffer too much. Also, the town itself was pretty cool too, and full of Georgian glitterati (we saw Georgia's equivalent of Barbra Streisand! We were in this restaurant, spending time exchanging witty banter, when suddenly, the whole room goes quiet, and I'm the only one who is not turned towards the door, in apparent star-struckedness, as this little old lady walks in. I guess it was a special moment for some.)

Anywho, the hotel was cool enough, and every night, it had a fire party! I have no idea what a fire party is, but I kind of think it is related with the burning of Armenians or something similar, I don't know.

Anyway, spirits were kind of low, as you can see, dear reader(s), during the massive rain falls. As you know, however, I am extremely easily amused, and found ways to entertain myself:

I may be the most annoying person in the world when it rains, but I was super excited, since I hadn't seen proper rain for weeks!

..Although at one point it became kind of ridiculous. The Black Sea is supposed to be in the background.

Anyway, later that day, Zurab (that is how you spell it, apparently!), Nati and Georgie (I shall call him, Georgie II) drove down from Tbilisi, and we all enjoyed the luxury of having a balcony with a roof.

We couldn't let the rain stop us from exploring the city, though, so instead, we ventured out on an excursion into the jungle.

Actually, the Green Point (or, Cape Verde, as I prefered to call it), was originally made as a resort area for top communist officials by Stalin himself (I forgot to mention, Stalin - The Steel Man - was originally from Georgia and the appropriately named town "Gory". I guess Georgians are a bit ambivalent regarding him - on the one hand he is kind of a bastard, but he is also their flesh and blood, so, well, they were ambivalent.)

Anyway, this resort area used to be a place for the top commies to relax and recuperate, but it's now essentially a huge botanical garden, with funky trees and such in every direction.

The highlight, however, is the Green Point itself, where, out of the jungle, there is suddenly the most amazing view of the Black Sea coast.

It was really cool, albeit it insanely steep - apparently communist officials have little fear of heights (and thankfully, neither do I).

You do understand why it's called the Green Point, though, because, well, it is kind of green. I mean, it wouldn't have made sense to call it Yellow Point, or Fuchsia Point. It just would be weird.

We're phooning the fuck out of that steep rock, by the way!

Then, long story short, we went out and got drunk with some peace corps people, and then we all drove home in one much-too-small-for-us-all car.

But then! Oh joy of joys! The next morning! The most glorious sunshine the world has ever seen, transforming Batumi from a dreary communist hellhole to the most splendid beach resort, with awesome beaches and general awesomeness!

We actually traveled around to see a couple of different beaches (and also to fight the most severe sunburns any of us have ever had in our lives.. Indeed, Georgie was like a hairy tomato.), this one being literally on the border of Turkey..

Seriously! That, at the end of the beach, is Turkey! There's a mosque and a minaret (which means light tower! Ha, bet you didn't know that!) and we could hear the muezzin calling out his adhan (dude, I know so many appropriate arabic words for this sentence!), or call to prayer. Either way, this is the south-east corner of the Black Sea where Georgia meets Turkey, and, well, looked like a pretty peaceful border to me.


Either way, we were just incredibly excited to be on the beach in such great weather..

And the waves were nice too!


After being sufficiently toasted in the sun (I mean sunburnt, dammit, I am not a fucking stoner!), we went to the Gonio Fortress, which was originally founded in the first century A.D. (!), and has gone through the stages of being Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and then finally Russian, Soviet and now, eventually, Georgian. Kind of weird to think about.

Either way, it used to hold an enormous amount of soldier, and is even rumored to be the last resting place of St. Matthias, one of the 12 apostles. It was huge, and fairly overgrown (It seriously reminded me of the jungle in Guatemala), but must have been an impressive sight back in the day.

..And I look scary as fuck.

..With Georgie doing his Broadway pose!

How appropriate! The last picture of my 1450 or so is a sunset! It's been a fantastic trip, and thanks to Georgie for proving why Georgians are by far the most hospitable and generous people in the world (I seriously spent not a dime when I was in Georgia, Georgie paid for absolutely everything even though I insisted. We seriously almost got in a fistfight about this.) So thanks dude, and come visit in New York or Oslo or wherever I may end up in the near future!

Well, this is it, folks, you're done! I'm free to blog about other things now! Like for instance, today I saw Brad Pitt! (Seriously, I saw him: He was in a horse buggy thing with a little kid next to Central Park (I walked to Columbus Circle today to get some fresh air), and there he was, with a huge bunch of paparazzi photographers running along the buggy). It was kind of surreal and very unexpected, but apparently he is working on some show or something here (He is on the cover of New York Magazine this week,) so maybe it's not so weird after all.

Oh, and I got a tax refund from last year (on my U.S. tax, that is .. I'm kind of curious to see my Norwegian one, I just feel like I pay these enormous amounts of tax) so I'm totally buying a Blackberry. I mean, I could have afforded that before, of course, but I mean, now I can buy something kind of useless for money I never expected to get!

And work is fun, lots of stuff going on, nice new people and interns are in place, and Mats has already taken several very weird pictures of me DELIBERATELY picking my nose, so yeah, good times are being had!

Have a great week, everyone!