Part 4: Smooth Landing

Isn't this adorable? This greets you as you step off the plane.

We made it. My first impression as the plane landed at twilight was that the terrain looks like Utah with large flat grassy expanses and mountains rising off in the distance. But the architecture (at least surrounding the airport) was decidedly different, it was definitely Communist. And then the airport itself is new construction, all swoopy glass and metal. As we drove up the main highway (named lovingly after George W. Bush) I thought that it looked a bit like what I've seen of Greece, around Athens.

The city of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia and our home for the next three years, has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years. The many layers of civilization were immediately apparent. Ancient stone churches dot the landscape, filled in with nineteenth and early twentieth-century stone architecture, side by side with the ubiquitous dull Communist-era buildings and highrises, but what was surprising was the post-1991 construction: all ultra-modern glass, metal and cement feats of architecture and balance. It makes for a diverse and surprising landscape.

As we drove closer to our neighborhood we decided that by night it looked like the proletariat side of Nice (which we've only ever seen at night). The streets are still decorated in honor of the Orthodox Christmas, on January 7. It provided us a warm and charming greeting. After seeing pictures for many months, it was a surreal and happy moment to stand before our actual home. Then we collapsed.