@Baba it's called "harcho da arajani" in Georgia but known by its Russian name "tvorog y smetana" (cottage cheese and sour cream)
@ChrisFerris okay good to know, thank you
We called the police officer this morning and unfortunately got nothing helpful. The forensics on my gabapentin has not come back yet and only after it comes back does a judge decide what to do with it. Sophy said she'll talk to her aunt to see if we can start finding a judge preemptively so that it can get processed as soon as the test comes back. Either way it sounds pretty unlikely that this will all be resolved by my 6am flight on Monday so I will likely be contacting the airlines about figuring out the best way to reschedule my ticket when I don't know my return date.
I am being very brave about the food on this trip. So far the eggplants are the only thing I've turned down 💪🏼
Oh and the white stuff is called Elarij. It's grits mixed with sulguni cheese and is extremely stretchy. You use it to dip the chicken sauce in.
Dinner out for more Georgian food. In the far left is badrijani (eggplant with walnut), in the middle is Megrelian kharcho with nuts (its chicken in some kind of sauce), Ojakhuri (pork barbecue with potatoes which was my favorite). We also had Georgian beer which tasted like beer (so, gross) and pear flavored lemonade which was very sweet but it grew on me (unlike the beer which only got worse).
We walked to around the city yesterday, Sophy lives pretty close to the center so there was a lot to see. We went to a nice park called Deda Ena (mother tongue) that has an artist market 365 days a year and a flower market. We also went to a bookstore cafe where they had a Georgian translation of Michelle Obama's book which I thought was hilarious.
Sophy took me out for ajdaruli khatchpuri which is like a bread boat with cheese topped with a raw egg yolk and butter that you mix together and then dip the bread into. It was pretty good but too salty and very rich. We also had some kind of lemonade mixed with flavored syrups. The chocolate one was too weird for me but the cream was okay. Bryson bought me churchkhela (not pictured) from a street vendor which is walnuts dipped in dried fruit juice which was pretty good! For dinner we had Khinkali which are Georgian dumplings made from a combination of pork and beef with herbs like dill, cilantro, and parsley which was very good!
In a completely unexpected turn of events, I have booked my tickets for Georgia for March 29th-April 6th! I was originally planning on going in May but there is a significant (like $500-2,000) price difference and every flight had a layover in Istanbul. This flight was much cheaper and goes through Amsterdam (I'll wave to Owen's old stomping grounds!) Thank you all for helping make this happen, I am absolutely over the moon!
@ChrisFerris ooh very cool, I like the close up of the ski tracks
Problem child #2