Kutaisi, Georgia

I woke up after 09:00, but then laid in bed and hung around the hostel – I was still very tired from having stayed up late last night. I then took a shower, dressed, grabbed my camera, and walked out (around noontime) to the old part of Kutaisi, with its brick streets and classic architecture, to eat lunch. Shortly after walking out of the hostel, I passed a garbage heap and was saddened to see a dog lying there, dead, with its eyes still open; the poor creature looked like he died last night, abandoned, and unloved in this world. This thought put me in a depressed funk and I walked through Kutaisi in a strange state, where I felt separated from everyone else, in my own world, and half-alive. I then ended up at a bar, sat down, and ordered my meal: sausages with mustard, kubdari (a filled bread dish) stuffed with meat, and beer. After lunch, I walked back to the hostel, not sure whether I should rest some more or visit the nearby Bagrati Cathedral; I opted for the lazy road and returned to my bed to rest. I slept for a few hours and shortly after I had woken up, I heard a knock on the door; I figured it must be tourists looking for a place to stay and no one was here to receive them; so, I got out of bed and opened the door; to my surprise, it was the Polish man and his niece that had stayed at the hostel in Tbilisi before going on to Sighnaghi. We happily greeted each other and then searched around the hostel together to find one of the managers. There was one manager present and, lucky for us, he was the one out of three who spoke English. The Polish man and his niece checked in and then we all sat in the kitchen/dining room where we talked and enjoyed some of the hostel’s homemade wine. Then, after 20:30, I walked back to the Old Town to have dinner. I found a decent restaurant and had bread with a tomato-based dip, mushrooms with sulguni (brined Georgian cheese from the Samegrelo region) cooked in a ketsi (a traditional Georgian clay dish), French fries, and some Georgian draught beer. After dinner, I walked around Kutaisi for a short time to city the city at night. I then returned to the hostel, where I typed out today’s journal entry before going to sleep.