Another outing

Today was the Perrin grandparents' last day in Georgia, so we went out to visit some things outside of Tbilisi.

We went to Gori, the birthplace of Stalin. Really the only thing to see there is the Stalin Museum.


Georgia's famous son: Josef Jugashvili, better known as Josef Stalin. You may not have known that he was not even Russian but Georgian.


The museum is a sort of unwitting monument to Stalin's legacy: a grand marble staircase but freezing cold building with no heat or lights on. The whole place has sort of a reverential feeling toward him. Like any parent would do, they choose to focus on his accomplishments and gloss over the rest. After all, he was a cobbler's son who went on to form and rule a massive world power for a quarter of a century.



Next we went to nearby Uplistsikhe, a cave city. Upali was the name of a (zoroastrian?) god; tsikhe means castle in georgian--thus uplis-tsikhe = god's castle.



They had a secret tunnel down to the river



and all kinds of rooms and storage and prisons and places for animal sacrifice and whatnot. You can google it. I'm not a tour guide. And I am somewhat skeptical about all that "this is where the guests would stay..." sort of stuff.


It was windy and so so so freezing. I kept my hands warm in my personal 20 lb heating pad named Jude.

In case you're wondering how we traveled, there are no minivans for rent. We hired a driver and piled into the back seat. Here's Super Grandma Chick with all 3 boys on her:


And here's Jude loving life without the car seat. Yep. Just on our laps. We just passed him back and forth. Buckled a seat belt around my lap and his, and called it good. Bonus--I could feed him anytime he got fussy without having to stop the car.


Last stop was Ananuri, which is one of my favorite places Paul and I visited when we were here 2 years ago. It's a castle complex with churches and towers and the whole bit. It overlooks the Zhinvali reservoir which was mostly empty. The winter snow hasn't melted in the mountains yet.



We climbed up to the top of the tower through 5 or 6 floors of little rooms that looked like this:



Luke made friends with a dog that climbed up the whole way with us.


went to the churches with us too



The carvings on this church are fabulous. Here's the Tree of Life



After this we stopped at a famous restaurant just outside of Tbilisi in Mtskheta. We had a whole feast of Georgian food including their specialty, lobio (bean stew served in cute little clay pots). They also make delicious khachapuri. Thank goodness for this ubiquitous cheese bread you can find everywhere--the boys love it. It's like having pizza, and it's on every menu, at every restaurant, and on every corner.

Well, friends, that's all for now. After a week of being up with the boys from midnight to 5 am, I think they are finally getting adjusted. Last night they were asleep at 11:30 and STAYED ASLEEP. Hallelujah. Off to bed myself now.

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Location:Gori, Upliststikhe, Ananuri