Hotel Varazi Tbilisi

... Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion and bought it from a Roman soldier. He came home and gave it to his sister, Sidonia, who immediately died in a passion of faith, and was buried with it. But besides its religious importance, the building itself is quite magnificent and well-kept, a stroll around and inside it was quite enjoyable. <br><br>We ate another dinner in the hotel, after which we went to Tbilisi to catch the night train to the western mountains.

... like in size and appearance. The exception to this rule came massively in the form of Daddy Ebanoidze. Six foot two and twenty plus stone Daddy E was consecutively the No.2 wrestling champion in the entire Soviet union. More impressive still this guy once drank just shy of 20 litres of wine in one night- a bona fide fact. Respect. He was also playing an important role for the protest parties and it was with avid fascination that I listened (via translation ...

... now had to go through it all over again living near South Ossetia- he'll be one of the occupants of the new houses. Right now some of the houses have some of the workers living in them, and the rest of the workers are living in tents (provided by a Muslim country- they had the Red Crescent symbol on the front of them). There will be 10 villages crammed into this one,with a total of 2700 homes. The Georgian countryside still has ...

... gigolo and remotely working university teacher at the same time having no home since in his 32 years he travelled over the whole world, and so on. Walking through the streets, knowledge of Russian is nearly a necessity - but making parody of it with my Czech does the job as well. There is a usual amount of beggars (no amounts of homeless people after the war as I expected!) and some gypsy children who can be pretty importunate hanging on one's leg. Although Tbilisi is relatively a ...

Hallo zusammen, von Gori bin ich dann zurueck gen Tblisi gefahren. Kurz vor Tbilisi liegt Mtskheta, die alte Hauptstadt Georgiens. Heute ist sie Weltkulturerbe fuer ihre alten Kirchen, es gibt auch eine alte Burg, aber die ist nicht so interessant. Die bedeutendeste Pilgerkirche ist Jvari, gebaut auf einem Berg ein paar kilometer ausserhalb der Stadt (mit herrlichen ...

... 1850)near the mid-station. The church is being rebuilt, and the road is pretty rough.The church is pretty, well-situated, and we are taken over by a cheerful old priest who shows us into the 5th century cave church, the hermitage of St David Gareja, with a spring and deep pool with steps down into it. Supposed to be good for the eyes, but DP doesn't bite. Back down to internet. Run into Rob in the first place, internet is slow ...

... to see what is all about. Indeed, it was one of the biggest churched I've ever been to, and the artistic frescoes and other decorations were absolutely countless. Hundreds of paintings from different eras and hundreds of years old frescoes decorated the inside of the church, each and every room of it. Some people came to the church to pray and to confess. When we entered one of the rooms, we met four local girls who sang like an ordinary church choir. Their singing was ...

... alphabet was possibly created to bring scriptures to Georgia, the second state in the world (330 AD) to adopt Christianity as the official religion, which became loosely tied to the Eastern Orthodox Church. St. George the Dragon Slayer is seen as the root of the country's name. George was likely part of pagan mythology before becoming a saint, then and now seen as a destroyer of evil, like Padmasambhava in Tibet, but also as a masculine fertility ...

We've been playing Killer for the last couple of days - you draw out a name, a murder weapon and a truck location and have to touch that person, with those weapons, in that location. For example Bob, with a water bottle, by the stairwell. Each person you kill gives you their target and the last person left is the winner, which breeds a healthy mistrust among truckmates. The game started at 7 ...

... There was loads of meat, drink and space to manoeuvre. The day was beautiful and we even managed to dance. I can say now that I have entered my 40th decade with great serenity and love - I hope this will not shatter soon. I am very disappointed by those of you who failed to send my birthday present - it involved a picture and a short blurb about how and when we met - not gold and diamonds ...