Touchdown in Tbilisi at 5AM this morning. I left the Paris apartment at 9AM yesterday. I had been traveling for almost 24 hours. I’m exhausted.

The cliché (it is said) is that Tbilisi represents the epitome of East meets West: a Silk Road crossroads where Arab, Ottoman, Mongol, and Russian imperial forces each left their own distinctive cultural mark. Upon retrieving my luggage and attempting to get a taxi to the Tbilisi apartment, I am overwhelmed—sensory overload. Strange smells, Russia meets Turkey; pandemonium. Taxi/Uber/Bolt drivers and people rushing about everywhere. The language difference. And remember, it is only 5:30AM. Taxi driver drives like crazy. Roads are already busy. As we approach the apartment building, wild(?) dogs seemingly everywhere. Untethered dogs—lots of them. Big wild dogs. I’m not kidding.

My apartment building is nice(ish) (the apartment really nice) but in close proximity to crumbling Soviet-era apartment buildings. Apartment blocks typical in Russia and Eastern Europe. A Khrushchyovka. Usually a 5 or 6 -storied concrete-paneled apartment building with notoriously small apartments, extensively constructed in the 1960s and 1970s to solve the housing problem. I’m in the section of the city called Vake. It is said to be nice.

Not at all genteel like in Paris or Paris’ melodic language. Kinda gritty.

Mike stops over and we take a quick walk and have a late lunch. We are both tired from traveling. Mike is just back from NOLA, where he attended a wedding.

Candoo Restaurant. Nigvziani badrijani, eggplant rolls and the key ingredients are, eggplants, walnuts, garlic, spices and lemon. Yum.

We also have Lobio (Georgian: ლობიო), it is a popular dish made with kidney beans and usually eaten with marinaded vegetables. Ours came with cabbage. Saperavi, Georgian red wine and the traditional khachapuri, this soft, cheese-filled bread with an egg in the middle is the national dish of Georgia. Everything was delicious! Sorry, we were so hungry that we ate before I remembered to take more pictures.

The wine-making process in Georgia involves pressing the grapes and then pouring the juice, grape skins, stalks and pips into the qvevri, which is sealed and buried in the ground so that the wine can ferment for five to six months before being drunk. Most farmers and city dwellers use this method of making wine. A qvevri (also called a churi in western Georgia) is a large, egg-shaped clay vessel with narrow bottom and a wide mouth at the top.

Well, that is about all I have for today. Cooking class tomorrow.