In December of 2019, I booked a spring break trip to Georgia and Armenia with one of my good friends from school. At the time of booking, I had no worries that anything would go wrong. The Corona Virus began to erupt right around the time of our departure. There were only two Corona cases in Georgia and none in Armenia the day I took off so I thought I would be fine.
On March 7th, I met my friend in Pittsburgh and he drove us to Washington DC. In DC, we met with an alumni of our college who is actually a Georgian diplomat in DC. We had pancakes at a nice cafe and he gave us tips about traveling in his country. We then drove to a hotel where we would leave the car and the hotel shuttle took us to the airport. The Dulles airport was empty. We got through security in a few minutes and there was no line to get your passport checked. After a few hours of waiting, we boarded our first flight: DC to Munich with Lufthansa.
The flight was actually pretty good. I chose a seat with extra leg room. This was my first time flying Lufthansa. I was not very impressed with the food. We landed in Munich for our nine hour layover and quickly proceeded through border control. It did not appear as though the people in Munich were taking Corona as seriously as people in the States. We bought train tickets at the airport to go to the city center. I was not sure how the trains worked at the airport so I went up to an information desk to ask if we had purchased the proper tickets. The workers said that I had really good German and asked me where I was from. I told them the United States and they seemed surprised.
We took a 45 minute train ride direct from the airport to Marienplatz which is city center for tourists in Munich. This would be my third time in Munich so I had a bit of an idea of how the city is laid out. I was able to show my friend some of my favorite places in the city. I made sure to get some authentic German schnitzel and also introduced schnitzel to my friend. Our schnitzel lunch was amazing. After lunch, we took the U-Bahn to the Olympic Park, where the 1972 Summer Olympic Games were held. I had only ever seen the park from a distance before, but this time, I actually got to walk through the park. The weather was beautiful and there were people everywhere. We got to go inside a building to see the pool. Honestly, I was not impressed considering it was an Olympic Pool, but it was 1972 so I cannot be too critical.
We took the U-Bahn back to Marienplatz and then the train back to the airport. Our flight to Tbilisi, Georgia was a night flight that took four hours. We landed in Tbilisi at 5:30 in the morning on March 9th. They seemed to be taking the virus quite seriously at the Tbilisi airport. There were workers in hazmat suits and people were being pulled from lines to be tested based on where their passport is from. I did not get pulled and proceeded quite quickly through border control. The coolest aspect of border control: they hand you a small bottle of wine after they stamp your passport. Georgia is the birthplace and creator of wine, of which they are very proud of.
We took a Bolt (like Uber) to our Airbnb. It was about a twenty minute ride. Our Airbnb host met us at the apartment and showed us around. The apartment did not exceed my expectations unfortunately. It was quite old, the shower never got hot, the wifi barely worked and the tv did not work well. We were both exhausted from our journey so we slept until 11:00 AM. We went grocery shopping and then went to explore the city. The main street in the city has all of the clothing stores, Parliament building, opera house, etc. I was surprised to see how polluted the city is. The air quality is very poor and it looks so hazy all of the time. One of my favorite architectural features in the city is the Freedom Bridge. It juxtaposes the older architecture in Old Tbilisi.
There are beautiful monasteries scattered all around the city of Tbilisi and the country of Georgia. The majority of people in Georgia practice Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I love the Old Town of Tbilisi. You could wander the narrow, steep, cobblestone streets for hours. The Orbeliani Bathhouse is another one of my favorite artistic places in the city.
Before coming to Georgia, I did some research on the cuisine. One of the dishes that immediately caught my attention was the Khachapuri. Khachapuri can come in several forms, but the most famous is this circular bread with cheese, egg, and butter in the center. After exploring, we found a restaurant and indulged in some Khachapuri (we found out later in our trip that we were eating this dish the wrong way).
After our lunch/dinner, we went back to the Airbnb to relax. We had walked so much in the city that our feet were very tired. We made some pasta for dinner and then went to bed.
Thanks to the time change, I woke up at 2:09 AM and could not fall back to sleep. I made eggs for breakfast and then took a Bolt to a metro station where we would meet our tour group to go to Kazbegi (a mountain town in Georgia). The tour group ended up being us two and a group of 30 college students from Amsterdam. I found this to be a bit annoying because the whole trip was centered around them. They would talk in Dutch the whole time, play Dutch music and were not very friendly. We had a phenomenal tour guide named Katie. She was very energetic, spoke really good English, and gave us a lot of information. Kazbegi is absolutely beautiful. The mountains are all still snow-covered. We took a lift up to the top of the Guaradi mountain and were in about six inches of snow. It was not cold at all and the scenery was stunning.
On the way back to Tbilisi, everyone in the van had fallen asleep. I got excellent sleep that night, sleeping nine hours and waking up at a normal Georgian time. The next morning, March 11th, we were picked up at our Airbnb by a driver and drove about an hour and a half north of Tbilisi, up into the mountains. We met an Australian named Pete and a German named Louisa who taught us how to ride horses. We started with about thirty minutes of training, which consisted of how to get on a horse, approach a horse, hold the reins, get the horse to turn, walk, and trot, and how to get off of the horse. We then went on an almost two hour horse ride through the mountains. We went up and down some pretty steep hills. My horse was very slow and would not even go faster when I kicked the horse on its side. I could have walked faster than my horse. Unfortunately, the scenery was not so green, everything was dead. I never realized how badly it hurts to ride a horse. My butt hurt so much and I could not wait to get off of the horse. I was happy to get back to the stables, where a traditional Georgian lunch was waiting for us. We said our goodbyes and our driver took us back to Tbilisi. We went to dinner at a prepared food place right next to our Airbnb. I got chicken and a really yummy cream puff. After dinner, I went to sleep but kept waking up every hour.
Thursday, March 12: At 4:00 AM, I got a knock on my bedroom door from my friend telling me that Trump has banned all international travel from Europe into the USA starting Friday at midnight. Our flights home were booked for Saturday so we were not in a good situation. We called the US Embassy in Georgia and they did not even know about the block that Trump instated. My parents were on the phone with the state department and the airline. The state department did not really give us a clear answer and we could not get through to the airline. We concluded that it would be best if we went to the airport immediately to try and find flights home. We quickly packed up all of our belongings, messaged the Airnnb host that we needed to check out, checked out, and drove to the airport. We talked to the Turkish Airlines desk at the airport since they are in the same alliance as Lufthansa, and the worker said that he could book us on a flight to Istanbul and then to DC and we would get back Thursday evening, US time. The counter closed while we were trying to get into contact with Lufthansa to see if they could reschedule us, because then we would not have to pay. My friend's dad happened to be at an airport in the US while all of this madness was going on and he found a flight that we could take to Qatar that evening, and fly back to DC the next morning. We booked these flights and had the rest of the day to do something before our flight to Qatar.
We were supposed to go to Armenia but because of this travel ban, we did not end up going on our tour. I was definitely disappointed because we had an entire day in Armenia planned and I really wanted to travel to a new country. We passed some time in a cafe in the airport and then decided to go back to the city center to see some things that we had planned to see on Friday. We went to the Motherland Statue and saw the Tbilisi fortress. We took the funicular down the hill and then got some Khachapuri to eat. The waitress obviously knew that I was a tourist so she took a fork and stirred up the cheese, egg and butter in the center. She then ripped off a piece of the bread and dipped it into the now mixed cheese, egg and butter. I did not mix my Khachapuri the first time I had it. I preferred not to mix it but it seems like it functions similarly to a Panera Bread Bowl. We went to Dry Bridge Market where people are selling all kinds of old Soviet wares. Lastly, we ended our day by eating dinner in the Radio Cafe, where I got a chicken Caesar salad. We took a Bolt to the airport, got our boarding passes for our flights and had a nice and easy three hour flight to Qatar.
I had booked a hotel in Qatar since we had a nine hour layover. Booking the hotel also meant that we could go through border control easily. I do not think they would have let us through if we did not have a hotel reservation. We took an Uber to the hotel, settled in and then went to see the city skyline. Not much was lit up, which was disappointing. I did get to explore a new country so I cannot complain. We went back to the hotel, got two hours of sleep and warm showers, and went to Doha airport to fly back to the States.
This was the longest flight I have ever taken in my life... 14 hours. I was foolish and took the window seat. But this did allow me to sleep a bit. I just like sitting in the aisle seat so that I can have the freedom to go to the restroom whenever I would like. The food on Qatar airlines is just ok. The leg room is surprisingly great. I may have gotten 3-4 hours of sleep on the flight. I have no idea how I endured such a long flight. If I ever do a flight like that again, I would like to be in first class.
We landed in DC, went through customs (the lines were quite long), took the hotel shuttle to the hotel, where we picked up the car and drove back to Pittsburgh. This will be a trip that I will always remember. I am thankful that I got home when I did. I thoroughly enjoyed the time that I had in Georgia and would definitely go back to the mountainous regions in the country. As a person who plans extensively, I surprisingly took these plan changes quite well. I am grateful for the experience that I had and I hope that once we can control this virus, I will be able to travel again.