Weekends in Oktomberi

September ended & October began & everything was just great! During the beginning of the month, my volunteer friends and I kept ourselves busy by first spending a weekend in Batumi and then Tbilisi. First was Batumi, Georgia's 3rd largest city and the capital on the region of Adjara. It's a beautiful small city on the coast of the Black Sea. Packed with my bathing suit, beach towel, and suntan lotion, I soon discovered we had a pretty chilly weekend. Regardless of the "bad weather", we had a fabulous time. The city center, where we mostly hung out at) is very colorful, clean, and it has a European-like feel to it. I loved it! When you leave the center, however, things start to get a little bit more rough. My friends Teresa, Sheena, and I discovered a cute little cafe that served things such as salads, pasta, pizza, amazing desserts, and other non-Georgian foods. We were delighted! Despite severe complications with the waiter, we returned twice that weekend. Now the weather was chilly and I had no sweaters, so that of course meant I had to do a little shopping..... Lets just say Teresa and Sheena had to intervene. I was not happy then, but I thank them now.

The following weekend, we went to Tbilisi. By "we", I mean Teresa, Sheena, my British friend Mike, and my Puerto Rican friend Walter (a cool group of people). We did a little exploring of the country's capital and basically had a great time. We did some exploring of Old Tbilisi, which I fell in love with and then climbed up to a 4th century fortress, Narikala which offers breathtaking views of the entire city. However, the main reason to go to Tbilisi that weekend was to watch some football! One of my favorite things in the world! It was a EURO 2012 qualifier match between Georgia and Malta. Despite the bad fame of the Georgian National team, they actually won 1-0 and the crowd was happy!

The following weekend very different but exciting. It happened to be the grapes' harvesting season in the region of Imereti and my host family was hard at work hand-picking grapes from their vineyard. I couldn't resist to help! Besides the fact that I got super muddy and ended up exhausted, I was having a blast. The very next day we took those grapes and began the wine-making process! I can't describe this as anything but interesting! As I helped crush the grapes, I couldn't help feeling extremely grateful for this experience!

I ended up going back to Batumi in the middle of the month to spend another weekend. The weather was still chilly but I had a great time. Walked around the city, had some delicious fish and mushroom soup, and hung out with some Peace Corps volunteers that live around the area. It's always great to meet other foreigners!