Week 2 and Batumi

Because I got off school early Thursday and had nothing Friday, I decided to head to Tbilisi for the night before we went to Batumi on Friday for the weekend. Luckily I didn’t have to pay for a hostel and was able to stay with my friend Joanna and her deranged host mother and sister. I hear stories everyday about how crazy her family is and there are too many hilarious ones to write on this blog. (e.g. this same weekend Joanna missed the trip to Batumi because her Mom ended up sending her into the occupied Russian area-TLG’s biggest no-no) It was great to finally meet them though and we had a great night in Tbilisi as rain poured and lightning struck the whole night.

The next day I made a 6-hour trek on the crammed marshrutka from Tbilisi to Batumi to meet up with a few friends. Marshrutkas are the most common system of transport in Georgia; basically minibuses that go everywhere. This ride was quite unpleasant and I didn’t leave until 3 because I was waiting to see if Joanna was gonna be able to come with me or if she would have to go to a nearby city with her host family. I ended up having to go by myself but luckily there were a couple cool Israeli girls and Polish guys that I hung out with on the bus. I finally arrived in Batumi around 930 and met up with James and our friends Aaron and Liz. The first night wasn’t that fun because it took a while to find a hostel, restaurant, and we didn’t end up doing much. I was, however, definitely able to see what an interesting city Batumi is.

Batumi is a southwestern Georgian city on the Black Sea and it’s the country’s fastest growing tourist destination. In one of the craziest coincidences I’ve experienced in my entire life, the one weekend I was in Batumi, there was a full-page article in the Contra Costa Times travel section about the city. The article begins with:

“Georgia’s Black Sea resort of Batumi was once a bleak site: Roads were dotted with potholes, the city was pitch dark at night, running water was scarce and the city’s best hotel was infested with rats. Today Batumi glitters with neon lights and luxury high-rise hotels dot its skyline; soon the city will even boast a fountain flowing with Georgian grape vodka.”

Batumi has sprung up in like the last five years and is a huge summer destination because of its beautiful beaches. It is only likely to increase as a tourist destination because many of the buildings, including a massive Trump Tower, haven’t even begun construction. Since we went in mid-October the city was pretty dead, but we mostly just hung out at the beach anyways so it was still really nice. The weather and water were perfect temperature and I could swim for as long as I wanted. The beaches are pebbly, which is strange at first but I thought it was really cool for a change and actually decently comfortable to lie on. Having a Natakhtari beer while watching an unreal sunset was definitely one of my highlights of Georgia so far. At night we met up with a bunch of other crazy TLGers and had a fun dinner. After that I had my first Georgian nightclub experience, which was quite interesting. Mostly older men and a lot of prostitutes but it was still fun and we danced there for a couple hours.

The next day we went to the beach for a little and then headed home. The west coast of Georgia is beautiful and has a very tropical feel to it, so our sunset drive was amazing. It is very crazy to think that you can reach mountains as high as 15,000 feet in about a five-hour car ride.

The second week was a good one. Construction shortened my Monday but the rest of the week was normal. I bought a basketball on Tuesday and went to shoot hoops at my school. Within a couple minutes eight kids joined me and we were all having a lot of fun. They were young so at first we played 1 on 7. It’s always good to boost yourself esteem by beating 12 year olds. I also played HORSE, and eventually we got a full court game together once enough people showed up. I loved playing with them and also talking NBA. There are 4 or 5 Georgians in the NBA, which is pretty impressive for such a small country. Unfortunately all of these kids’ favorite teams are the Lakers or Heat, so I’ll have to try to change that to something more respectable. Anyways, it makes me really happy to see my favorite sport becoming so international and gaining the popularity it deserves. Also, the next day my co-teacher introduced me to a cool guy from a nearby high school named Ilya who speaks really good English and is a good basketball player (for my village’s standards).  He told me he’d call me whenever they were playing basketball or soccer and offered to show me around the village. I played with him the next couple days and we went to his gym which is 100 times better than my school’s messed up asphalt. This weekend we left for the mountain area in the northeast called Kazbegi.