Seaside. Day 1

The introduction

So, my sister went home after being in Germany for a couple of months and studying there _ she has summer vacation and she’s here in Georgia now, so she wanted to go to the seaside very much and she was always talking about that and so on and so forth and, well, she always loved the seaside _ from the early childhood. I guess, mainly that was because we always went to the seaside. I think, she was 3 years old or something like that when we first went to the seaside and since then we went there every year and every year it was all of us and our uncle and aunt and grandmother, too. So, I can say, that we were all there having good times, because back then it was kind of hard to go to the seaside with children and stuff like that as it was not good times for our country and people didn’t really have money and staying there at the seaside cost money and besides, we were children and we wanted some stuff and so on and so forth.  I remember, there used to be these bottles of juices called “Tsivi Chai” which means “Iced Tea” and those bottles were 2 litre bottles, I guess, well, at least they were pretty large and there were different types of them, I mean, they had raspberry iced tea, peach iced tea, apple iced tea and other stuff and I think I liked raspberry iced tea most of them. And I guess, the three of us liked that one _ me, my brother and my sister. Or, perhaps they liked that peach one, I don’t remember now. I know that nowadays my brother likes peach iced tea, he always buys this Fuse Tea with peach taste.

Anyways, we planned to go to the seaside in the middle of July or something like that. Batumi was the choice, but it was not clear where we would stay yet. Maybe we liked other towns, like Kobuleti or something and then we would stay there and not in Batumi, of course, but going to the seaside almost often includes visiting Batumi, because it’s the city of the seaside in Georgia. And since it’s been renovated it has become really nice and beautiful and there are many tourists and you can walk in the Batumi Boulevard and so on and so forth.

So, there were some options of when we could go to the seaside as my brother was working and he had some days off and he said we could go either of those two days and stay there for four days or so. So my sister chose one of them and everyone agreed on that and so we got ready for the road trip and I remembered this part from Hangover when Alan screams “road trip” and there’s this girl in another car and she stares at him and things like that. That’s a great moment among others. That’s one of my favourite moments from that film. And that film is really good if you ask me.

Preparations for the road trip

Well, the preparation for the trip was hilarious. We had all our bags kind of packed, we weren’t going to stay for a long time, so it seemed that we didn’t really need many things to take with us, but still it became much luggage and I was wondering what was inside my bag that it was that much.

And we prepared some snacks for the road, too. Actually I was thinking of taking some potato pies, you know, potato puree in a dough baked in the oven or on a pan. I really love those, but when I buy them, I don’t really like them, because they bake them without much spices and stuff like that, and I just love when they have spices and especially some black pepper and when I can feel that pepper in the pie. So I had some potatoes and I could prepare them pretty easily in the oven. But I didn’t really know whether or not I should prepare them. Then my sister asked if we should take some snacks with us and I told her that I was just thinking about it, so she was really glad and when I told about potato pies, she agreed to that, too, but she also asked me to make some  cookies, preferably crispy cookies and that was simple, too, so we would have those two snacks in all and I started preparing them.

First of all, it was time to boil some potatoes and then to prepare some dough for them. And the dough for the cookies was really easy to make, I have the recipe written in my another blog about crispy cookies, which are really delicious and easy to prepare and they turn out plenty, so it’s a really good idea to prepare them for this kind of trip or anything, actually.

I remember, when we went to the seaside someone used to prepare some snacks for us, children, mostly, for when we got hungry on the road, we could eat them and not be hungry anymore. Mostly my grandmother made some snacks, it was a baked dough with a tarragon and rice filling and my brother loved them very much. She also made some potato pies, but pies with tarragon was mostly what she used to prepare. If my mother prepared the snacks, it was mostly some sweet cookies, I guess, which were soft and had ground walnuts in them. We also had some “Tsivi Chai”or “Iced Tea” and maybe some watermelon to eat when we got to the seaside and stuff like that. So, it was usual for us to have those kind of snacks in the car and so we prepared some for ourselves, too. We also had some apples and plums and stuff like that taken with us.

For the midnight we were all set to go and we had packed all the things and stuff like that and it was time to sleep, I guess, because without some sleep we would be just walking dead at the seaside and not feeling the seaside at all, if you ask me. My sister went to sleep really early and I was just packing some stuff and wandering around. And downloading some movies and music for the road or something like that, if there was a bad weather or whatsoever, I could watch them, or I could watch them until I went to sleep there or something. I really did put some effort in doing that. Then at last I went to sleep, too.

It was 4 a.m. when we had to wake up and at 5 a.m. we were all in our car heading to the west. Our mother saw us off as she was at home. So, we hit the road! It was a cool morning, the sun came up soon and as we went out of the city there was this large supermarket “Smart Supermarket” and we stopped there as my brother wanted some Coca Cola and my sister and brother bought some of them. For me I had some water. Well, I had water for all of us, but they wanted fizzy drinks, so they bought them. And there were these two dogs, which came to the car and even if I wanted to go out and buy something or just wander in the supermarket, I couldn’t get out of the car because of them. And besides, there was no need to get out of the car, so I just didn’t mind that.  Then a car pulled on that parking lot and two women went out. The one that was driving didn’t mind the dogs, but the other was pretty scared and couldn’t get out of the car, because when she did, those dogs just went to her and she went back to the car. The other one was trying to get rid of the dogs so that her friend could get out. Some time later this women got out of the car and they both went to the supermarket. While I was watching them, my sister went out of the supermarket with a Coca Cola, Mirinda and something else and my brother came to the car, too, and they both sat and my sister asked me if I wanted any of the drinks, but I said that I didn’t, so we could continue our trip and we could keep going all the way to the Black Sea.

There was this 4 or 5 hour ride until we reached the seaside, so we had some music  playing mostly and we took pictures and stuff like that. I was kind of sleepy on the halfway, I guess, and perhaps I slept for a couple of minutes, too.

When we came to Surami and I saw people waving those Nazukis I just really wanted to eat some of them, but I didn’t really want to stop the car, so I thought I would buy them on our way back home. If you are in Georgia and happen to visit Surami, you should definitely buy some Nazuki. It’s not something fancy, it’s just a sweet bread with cinnamon and raisins and stuff like that, and it’s delicious, if you ask me.

So, you know, nature calls and we wanted to go to the toilet. There were some petrol stations, but they didn’t have WC and then we saw one of them and there was written WC, but they told us that it wasn’t functioning and that there was a toilet nearby on a gas station. So we went there. There was this sign saying “Paid toilet 50 Tetris”. Well, we paid for it and went in and it was a disaster! Okay, not so much of a disaster, but almost a disaster. It was clean, though. But still…

Rooms in Kobuleti

In an hour or so we were in Kobuleti, that’s where we used to spend our holidays every year and it’s like we know this town most of all. However it was pretty changed. Well, it changes every year, if you ask me. Moreover, it has been a couple of years since we last visited it. later years we just used to go to Ureki _ that is a town next to Kobuleti and in contrast of Kobuleti beach, there’s this sand beach and there are no stones, which everyone hates, I guess, because when you go into the water with your bare feet, it’s just crazy walking on those stones.

There were plenty of cafes and restaurants and people were walking outside and stuff like that, although it was a cloudy weather and kind of raining. So that there were not many people at the beach. Besides, it was 9 a.m. so maybe they were asleep because of the weather, or maybe they were having their breakfast or something like that.

As we didn’t really had decided where to stay, and because our first stop was in Kobuleti, we decided to ask around and see what rooms cost for a day and where we could stay and stuff like that. We saw a large room on the seaside street, it was for 20 Laris for a bed, if I remember correctly, for a night. It had a fireplace and a piano and 4 beds and a drawer and a ventilator and chairs. Well, it wasn’t a bad room, but we wanted something cheaper and also that room was really large for the three of us, it wasn’t really necessary to have this kind of a large room. 

So we moved to another house. This one had a room on the first floor for 20 Laris and there were two beds and they could add one bed to it and the WC was outside and they said we could use the kitchen and stuff like that. It wasn’t a bad idea for us, because we wanted to pay cheap price, of course, and at the same time not to be in a room, where it wasn’t comfortable or something like that. And we wanted to stay for just 4 days and it was not a big deal, if you ask me.

There was another room, too, somewhere nearby. My brother saw it. it cost 50 Laris in all and had a TV and air-conditioner and stuff like that.

Then we moved somewhere nearby to the center and there was this house, where they had this room with three beds and WC just next to it and they said they would rent us the room for 30 Laris in all for a day. That wasn’t a bad one, too, besides it had a straight path to the sea.

However, it was a rainy day, so we couldn’t swim or anything, so we thought we would go to Batumi and if we didn’t find there the proper place to stay, we would just visit it and then come back to Kobuleti and take any of these rooms that we saw. So we went to Batumi.

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