Gavins Journey .com: Midnight Train to Georgia

In Georgia (the country not the state), I have a dear friend named Kelly. Kelly and I worked at the Stevenson Center for Economic Development at Illinois State University together. Christmas was closing fast I wanted to be with friends and countrymen for the holiday. That meant I needed to cover a lot of miles in two days to get there in time. I hopped a flight across the Caspian Sea and made it to Baku, Azerbaijan.

Never heard of Azerbaijan, have you? It’s a small but very oil rich country and the prices resembled the amount of oil money there. The Azerbaijan Embassy said that I could have gotten a 5-day visa at the airport but, alas, they were very wrong. I had to pay $100 for a full 30-day visa... I only stayed in the country one night. My couchsurfing hosts took me out on the town to celebrate the Embassy’s error with live American music!

After an overnight train, a metro ride and a couple hours in a decomposing van, I had finally arrived in Gori, Georgia... the birthplace of Stalin. The guy is all over the city in the form of statues, museums and street names. The town itself is like that of all the other small towns I have been in for the last few weeks: Dilapidated soviet buildings, cars and roads. There was still Christmas decorations though, even a gigantic Christmas tree next to the equally gigantic statue of Stalin.

Kelly and I met up and spent a short time catching up while we cooked for a Peace Corps Christmas party. Christmas music, cookies and lots of good company made me feel like I was back in the States. I eventually passed out from train-lag and overindulgence of sweets. I woke up refreshed and ready to tackle the Christmas Day in Georgia that I had hurried for. I only got one gift this year and that was from Kelly. She took me to a Georgian supra.

Kelly explained to me what a supra was as we rode to the next village. A supra is a formal Georgian dinner party. The host prepares a ridiculously large meal and invites as many people that can fit at the table. There were many rules and formalities, mostly when it came to drinking. The wine, which is all home made, may only be drank after a long-winded toast from the toastmaster, called a “tomada.” People only drink from their glass after the tomoda does and the usual custom is to drink the entire glass.

The supra drinking was exactly how Kelly described it but she forgot to stress just how much food there was. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sour plum sauce, mashed potatoes, gravey, glazed carrots, homemade pickles, two type of pepper dishes, olives, develed eggs, homemade breads, salad, homemade sausage and some sort of beef ground up with an array of spices and herbs that was my favorite dish. We had to stack plates of food on top of plates of food. The best advice I got that night was “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” but I paid no attention. I was not the guest of honor when I got there that night, but thanks to my enormous appetite I was by the time we hit the desserts. The host declared that “You eat like a Georgian and you drink like a Georgian. Tonight, you are our Georgian brother.” After a toast like that I had to drink the whole glass of super sweet wine. Late that night we were finally permitted to hit the hay and we retired to the guestrooms upstairs. The next morning as we made our way out the host presented me with a gift: A large ceramic horn that is used as a special drinking glass.