No, No! The Republic, not the State!

 October 11, 2021 Amazing what you see in the middle of the night Sunrise I'm addicted to the cheeses and olives!  And breakfast should always have tomatoes and cucumbers! It's a gorgeous, blue-sky day and there's a lot of walking to do to make up for yesterday!  I'm fully fortified with a Turkish breakfast and I've brought the rest of my toast back for my non-breakfast eater!! There's a lot of conversation; but eventually we venture out to see what the world has in store for us today! We're going to explore the other end of Batumi Boulevard, starting at Ali and Nino, and working our way southwest.  There is our espresso/latte stand for starters and a couple of tourist traps beckon for comparison shopping. A couple of young men have peacocks that they are offering to tourists for photo ops.  One of them keeps bathing the birds in the drinking fountain to keep them cool.  I don't risk incurring their wrath by grabbing a shot!  If we don't find any pla...

 October 10, 2021 My tummy thinks oatmeal with fruit and nuts and tea is a better choice for this morning! Not great weather for being outside;  lovely for staying in! I was finally able to order our train tickets back to Tbilisi! But.even four days out there weren't any upstairs seats available! Today is mostly a day for rest and catching up; but the evening is for FISH!  It turns out that the place we went for dinner does, indeed, have a bone fide fish market with it!  This time we venture inside the industrial space and are greeted by rows and rows of fish mongers with their iced goods on full display.  I have to admit that I'm overwhelmed!  My experience with fish is to ask the nice man at Publix for that lovely salmon fillet, please, or to snatch the package of frozen tilapia.  I wander around taking pictures and trying to ignore the ones that are obviously trying to extract oxygen from the unfriendly air around them. Ammar thinks that because I'm...