Sept 29 - Dave Matthews Band

I can't believe it's only Tuesday. I think about 3 times today I made the mistake of calling it Wednesday and Rei had to correct me. It's crazy how much we've done and how far we've come in just 2 days.

Akhaltskike's Rhabati Quarter

 We started out the day back in the Rabati in Akhalstike. We went last night and it was totally awesome, so we wanted to see it during the day, but also we wanted to see the entire thing because only part of it was open last night. They refurbished the Rabati area of old town back in 2012, so it's really well maintained and looks super awesome. It is a maybe a bit overly touristy and overly produced, but it's super cool. It's basically an old fortification with a mosque and stuff inside, and you're able to climb all over the old walls and get great views of the city. Really beautiful place. So we spent a few hours climbing around there before heading to Sapara Monastery.

Sapara and the fortress are hidden somewhere in the mountains there

Sapara Monastery is about 10km away, down a dirt road, all the way up in the mountains. It's a monastery, which is still functioning, and the ruins of a fortress slightly above it, completely hidden away from the world. Again, we got to climb around all over everything, which is a pretty great theme in this country. And inside the actual church portion they have these really old, really cool frescoes on the walls, including a hidden Jesus all the way up at the top of the steeple peeking down at you. This is the second one I've found, and I don't think I've found hidden Jesuses like that anywhere else in the world, but they're my new favorite. I think all churches should have them, then maybe I'd like churches more.

Sapara's hidden Jesus

After that we went back into town for lunch and ended up stopping at our hotel from last night for a quick bathroom break, which turned into a tea break because the owner and his family are the nicest people ever. If you ever find yourself in Akhaltsike, stay at Hotel Almi. It's wonderful, and the family that runs it is the best. Then we hit the road for Batumi on the Black Sea coast.

We made it here in time for sunset and just spent the evening walking around town. There really isn't to much to do here, but we wanted to see the Black Sea. Little did I know the beach was all rocky, which I hate (but Rei loves), so we just spent a few minutes down there to see the sunset before heading into old town for a walk and dinner. Again, super cute old town. Very different from Akhaltsike's, though. I didn't take many pics cause it was already dark, but we'll walk around some more in the morning so you can expect some tomorrow. We also had probably the best Georgian food to date. We've been eating a lot of Georgian food, and so far it isn't great. It's not bad food, there just isn't anything special or too varied about it. But that could also have to do with the fact that we know no Georgian and only know the names of like 2 dishes. But today we tried a bunch of new things, all of which were delicious, including the local type of khatchapuri. This one is the standard bread baked with cheese, but then they throw in a ton of melted butter, a raw egg, and a bit more cheese for good measure. Mix it up and use the bread as a dip, and you have a delicious heart attack. That wasn't even my favorite dish, actually. And to make the delicious Georgian food better, we ate it in an Italian-style plaza, with a random dude playing Kenny G style sax to cheesy backing tracks. It was glorious and exactly what you'd expect a Black Sea resort that caters to mostly Russians to be like.

Sunset on Batumi beach

During our long drives Rei has been DJing. She does not have the best taste in music, in my opinion (and I think she'd agree). She mostly likes Kpop. So yeah. So she's been playing music on my iPod and has a way of finding all the old stuff on there that I haven't listened to in years. I've got a new iPod set up though and I knew she'd be doing this, so I limited what I put on there and left the worst of my music collection off. She's been going through a lot of the classics, which got me thinking I should put some classics on here (also because, as I've said many times before, traveling severely inhibits my intake of new music). She has not yet made it to Dave Matthews Band, and I don't know if she will, but I'll share them because I used to love them (still think they're great, but don't listen as much as I used to) and I don't feel a year in music would be complete without them. So here's #41, my favorite track by them, off of Crash.