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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2657 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 27, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I visited Georgia (the country), and loved it.

It's an affordable and quick (3 hr flight) destination from my home base of Dubai. It has all the things Dubai is missing in spades. Nature, history, booze, European "vibes" and many more. It's no surprise that it's such a common tourist destination from here, you will see "AED" being sold at almost all exchange houses. The entire week-long trip cost me around 700 USD, end to end. I know people who have done it for even as low as 450USD by using budget airlines and living in hostels.

The city of Tbilisi is beautiful. > 500-year-old fortresses and churches are plentiful and around almost every corner. I didn't even realize there was a literal 1000-year-old fortress above my hotel room in the hills until my host pointed it out to me. Little surprises like wine cellars below manhole covers and pomegranates and grapes growing along the streets are abundant. Its also quite hilly and you get all the nice views that come with a hilly city with rivers flowing through it. The food/booze is cheap and good. Aesthetically it looks and feels like any modern European city, the infrastructure is good, and the architecture is unique. Even though it is becoming and bracing for a lot of tourism, it still feels authentic, unpretentious and real in a way many other cities I've been to don't. The pace of life is significantly slower than where I'm from. I can't pinpoint the vibe, but its maybe Slavic, maybe Mediterranean, IDK, it's its own thing.

I spent 3/7 of my days in "Stepantsminda/Kazbegi". A small town on the foothills of the Caucasus, a 15-minute drive away from Russia. The nature there was out of this world, it wasn't good for Georgia, it was good period, it would have been good in Japan or Switzerland too. Alpine landscapes with snow-capped mountains over 16000ft high. The weather was a nice escape from the heat there too. It's already below 10C (50F) there in Septemeber and is reminiscent of Fall weather in a temperate country, the trees are going brown and its cold and foggy. For me being in this kind of alpine landscape was a first, and it almost moved me, we barely have any rivers, lakes, mountains or even flowers growing next to the streets in Dubai.....

I also met groups of hikers from Israel, Slovakia, and Vietnam, in a small restaurant run by a babuskha in the mountains. Seems to be a popular mountaineering/hiking destination.

The people of Georgia are capable, stoic and friendly, men and women alike. The hosts of our accommodations treated us well, checked up on us, made conversation, and went out of their way to make sure our stay was comfortable. Even though it's business, I think it was real. They are also seemingly quite proud of being Georgian and quite neutral about the rest of the world (including "Ruzzia", all things considered), you will not have to ask to learn about their history or culture.

Overall, I will definitely go back not only given how ffordable it is, but plainly because of how good it is, it's not value for money, it's value.

Do you smoke? I couldn’t stand the attitudes towards smoking there, and I couldn’t wait to get out. The only place in the world that was worse was Montenegro. Beautiful country, though, once you get away from the people.

I'm indifferent to smoking. Smoking is just a way of life in Eastern EU.

I know. It sounds awful.

I’ve spent a year there. They have fantastic toasting parties! I liked just about every person I met, and it is beautiful.

What made you spend a year in Georgia? AFAIK its a really random country and not on most peoples radars. And it pops up on mine because it's a cheap tourist destination in our backyard.

They had a volunteer English program to boost English exposure a decade or so, and I was young and unattached, so I cotaught at an elementary school for room and board. I enjoyed it a lot (less so the teaching, but the class load was pretty light), and am Orthodox Christian, so they took me to a bunch of feast days for the various churches, and I ended up at a lot of supras.

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