Flexibility is the key!

 03-08-2022

Always one new thing to try.  The pie-shaped bread product is filled with bean paste!
And the bread and cheese are for Ammar.  I'm not usually a breakfast person, 
but he's REALLY not one!

You can bend like a willow or snap in half!  Today is a willow day!  There are usually lots of ways to get to Tbilisi from Batumi, but the best one is the bullet train.  However.  No matter where I look on line, I can't find out if there is a train tomorrow.  They've already written me canceling today's trains.  I guess the landslide is a doozy!  The lady at reception finally gets an answer about tomorrow about the same time that I get an email.  Both answers are the same.  We're SOL.  So, there are buses at noon and midnight.  The noon buses are full for the next several days (lots of people were booked on those trains!) and midnight sounds ugly.  I tried pursuing it anyway for giggles and the website is really strange.  Once you choose a bus you get a diagram for seat selection, like on an airplane.  When you click a seat, it asks you to choose your gender, there are even little drawings!  If you click the female one it says you can't sit near a male, and if you choose the guy one, it says you can't sit near a female!  I don't know how couples can book seats?!  

There are other ways, of course.  You can fly; but you have to go through Istanbul and the flight is more than nine hours!!  It's less than 400 kilometers!  The other option is a private car/van/taxi.  Geno arrives around 11:30 and says he can take us for $100.  That's cheaper and faster than the plane and not a lot more than the bus or train - if we could take a bus or train!  It's a deal.  We'll spend one more night here and leave around ten in the morning.  We've added another night to our reservation here and I've written (again!) to the nice people at British House with our Final Plan!!  We'll stay with them a couple of nights because they are so charming and the location is good (even if the rooms are cold!) and then see if we can finish our vacation at the Huling Hotel, up on the hill.  They have such great amenities and the front desk people are amazing, without exception.  Plus, it is so nice to have an ATM and bank in the lobby and a PCR test right on the premises and the breakfasts are to die for.  And did I mention the jacuzzi!  Bathtubs are nice, but jacuzzis are better!

What a difference a day makes!  Timing is everything!  Well, and luck!

It's raining out, or maybe it will become snow?  So glad we had blue skies for the National Park and the church! As soon as I finish the first part of this blog I'll go downstairs, have a cappuccino, and we'll go out for some (cold) air and maybe some lunch. In the meantime I've got my tea and my tummy is quieting down now that we have a plan in place!  We've brought all our stuff back upstairs but won't unpack very much for just the one night more.

It's really not a good day for being outside a whole lot.  I'm thinking about what to do when Ammar comes back waving the 600 lari that he won downstairs!!  That's pretty darn cool!  He tells me that the manager of the casino is from Turkey and when they were talking the man asked Ammar where he was staying.  He said that if he had known we would be gambling he would have comped our room!  Something to consider for another day!

These are in the lobby

Taking a survey - which of these two do you like better?

I have a need to get outside and even though it's drizzling we don our new caps, borrow an umbrella and set out, just walking and talking.  We do our best talking when we're walking outside. Eventually the wet and cold are just too much and we go back inside.  I know where there is free cappuccino and, oh look! there are macadamia nuts, too, and hot Turkish tea.  I have little luck but a good time.  Ammar has much better luck and it's a thrill to watch his credits number rise and fall and rise again.  At one point he was on his last spin when he made a major score! 

It's getting late enough for hunger pangs to set in and I go upstairs to retrieve cold-weather gear (hats can't be worn in the casino??) and while I'm gone Ammar goes over the line that should allow him to collect real money, not just more points.  There's some weird discussion and I guess after dinner he'll go talk with his new buddy who keeps giving him credit.

Giggle!!

In the meantime we walk back to the schwarma place where we had the delicious chicken and this time we eat upstairs and have yogurt to drink with our meals.  Along the way we pass a small child selling little bouquets for International Women's Day and Ammar buys me one. (Yes, Awwww!) The little kid drives a hard bargain!  Quite the entrepreneurial spirit!

We walk back along side Europe Square and I get another chance to photograph the beautiful buildings in much better light than the last time we were here.  The police have already gathered in the square along with several people waving their Ukrainian flags.  I don't suppose there will be many people tonight with the weather being so ugly.

Back home for a bit of checking in on line and I finish blogging while Ammar goes down for his espresso. I'm invited, of course, but I've had so much to eat and so little sleep that I think I'll just stay put in my warm, cozy bed.  He'll be home soon, and tomorrow will be a long car ride.  But I'm sure glad Geno was up for the drive.  Six and a half hours on a bus in the middle of the night just sounded like torture!