After the hike up the hill, it was time for more ice cream. We didn't realize it at the time, but this was setting the kids' expectations that they would get ice cream at least once a day. Not that we didn't have some, too.
After the ice cream break, we had time to look around some more. Georgia has a lot of cool architectural details, like this church door.
As we walked around town, there were many of these little lanes, shaded by pergolas covered in grape vines. Georgia has an 8,000 year history of winemaking, and many families make their own.
Our guide Marika pointed out that this house was owned by a Dutch family. President Shaskavili's wife is Dutch - and could give Carla Bruni a run for her money in the fashion department.
Tbilisi has a lot of baths - basically spas. It was a popular resort for officials in the Soviet era. Some of the baths have beautiful tile work, including this one.
The domes below cover baths that are partly below ground level.
Georgian banquets ("supras") are infamous. They go on for hours, and heavy drinking is basically mandatory. The "tamada" is the toastmaster; this statue is a reproduction of a figure dating back to the 4th century.
This is not a Georgian toastmaster, but it is great graffiti.
As we were walking around after the tour, we found this synagogue.
After looking around some more, we caught a cab back to Kirsten's house. Kirsten's house is on a small street that not many cab drivers know, although ours didn't admit it until we were in the taxi and on the way. We know not many drivers know where it is because he kept pulling over to ask other cabbies, and kept getting shrugged at. Finally, after Vernon insisted, he called Kirsten's housekeeper Manana and asked for directions. Eventually, we made it back.
The exciting part was that while the driver was trying to find his way, Vernon had taken out his blackberry to get Manana's phone number. In the excitement of finally seeing Kirsten's house again, he either left his phone on the seat or it slipped out of the belt clip, and Vernon didn't notice until the driver had been gone for at least 15 minutes.
Fortunately, since the driver had used his personal cell phone to call Manana's cell, we had his number. Manana called him back, he found the phone in the seat cushions, and drove it back to Kirsten's house. Vernon started carrying the phone in his pocket instead of on a belt clip for the rest of the trip, and now there's at least one cabbie in Tbilisi who knows where Kirsten's street is.
That evening, Kirsten took us to a dumpling restaurant. It was great. The dumplings are called "khinkali", and they're big. You pick them up with the little knob of dough on the top to eat them, then you put the little knob back on the plate. Cielo really liked them. And the almost-empty bowl in front of her used to have tomatoes and cucumbers in it ("shepherd's salad"). Everywhere we went in Georgia the tomatoes were fantastic and the kids (and adults) ate them up.
The national dish of Georgia is really khachapuri, though. It's basically a kind of pizza and/or cheese pie, depending on the style. The one Kirsten is displaying here is the "Ajarian" style, which is not only full of cheese, it's topped with butter and an egg.
