Day 2

Today we had our first real event of the trip. We attended a lecture at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. Because of jet lag I got maybe three hours of sleep last night, but I managed to stay awake and, fortunately, the lecture was quite interesting. It mainly dealt with Georgia's role in the region, and the reasons why it's so important. And it actually is surprisingly important, given its small size and the fact that most people outside of Eastern Europe have never heard of it. Georgia is very pro-West, which Russia sees as a threat. It also borders on Chechnya, Russia's most unstable region and, according to the speaker, if Georgia were to start openly aiding the Chechen rebels, Russia would be in big trouble. Possibly a slight exaggeration, but it is true that Russia has been keeping a very close eye on Georgia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They even had a tiny war in August 2008, which you may have heard of, over two pro-Russia regions in Georgia. The Georgians claim the Russians started the war. The Russians claim the Georgians started it. Investigations showed that they both kind of started it, but the ultimate result was that Russia won and things have been really tense between the two countries ever since.

After the lecture we got some lunch at a restaurant. And I got some pictures!

This is Georgian-style bread. I think I've had it at every meal so far.

And this is khachapuri. It's basically bread with cheese in it, and it's very popular in Georgia.










After lunch we walked around the city a bit. I managed to get some pictures of that too.

Tomorrow (January 7) is Orthodox Christmas, so there are decorations up all around the city center.

These little figures were lining one of the streets we walked down.

This was my favorite bit of graffiti.











Tomorrow we're leaving for a two-day trip to see some of the other parts of Georgia. I'll try to take plenty of pictures.