The rather groovy barDepending on the time, I shall try and find a bus to Tbilisi or stay overnight in Poti and head into the capital in the morning. The current issue is the language, or more precisely the script. An ability to read is essential when trying to catch a bus.
Georgian script is unique, and impenetrable to outsiders. Now I know that Wikipedia should not generally be quoted, but I will, and this brief entry should offer a glimpse into the linguistic quicksand into which I am entering:
“The Georgian word for “alphabet” is ანბანი [anbani], derived from the names of the first two letters of each of the three independent Georgian alphabets, which have the interesting characteristic of looking very dissimilar to one another yet which share the same alphabetic order and may be seen mixed to some extent, even though there is no official distinction between upper and lower case in writing the Georgian language”.
Get it?
A life ontheoceanThe problem of finding the correct bus will be coming apparent. All I have to do is to find the bus station, which will be filled with minibuses and Georgian passengers in a wonderful mayhem, and find the one going to თბილისი. When I say “bus station”, don’t think of the shiny facilities of western cities, think muddy marketplaces full of noise, colour and idiosyncrasy.
Fortunately Georgia is not a very large country, and I can’t go terribly far wrong, although it might take an additional day or so to get there if I end up in a Russian-occupied border zone by mistake.
I have a Snickers Bar for company (don’t be fooled by the wrapping on a Ukrainian Snickers Bars; they are not the same, and taste rather different; not exactly fishy, but different, nonetheless). I didn’t get breakfast this morning because my place at table 10 had been taken by a Georgian woman with her small grandson; their place had been usurped by someone else, and I couldn’t see an empty seat other than one at a table full of swarthy men who appeared to be wrestling team from Turkmenistan.
Greifswald DIningFood, other than at the proscribed time and in the proscribed portions is unavailable on the Greifswald.
So the plan is in place. We dock, wait for the Georgian border controls to do their thing, then I find the bus station, track down a bus, go to თბილისი and check into the hotel. Or not, depending on how the day unwinds.