Aug 12 - Can you say culture shock?

Today we went to a different beach on the Black Sea. It was less crowded, but there was trash everywhere. One thing I noticed is that kids will be kids. Half a world away and kids are still collecting shells, sitting in the waves and throwing rocks at each other.
After the beach we took a family trip into Batumi. It was an experience. I like to call it an exercise in motion sickness. Again 7 of us in the car on twisty mountain roads and a 1 and a half lane highway, not to mention the tunnel and then the traffic in the city. Plus we stopped for lunch in a restaurant, just so I could try the Adjaran kajapuri (not that anyone listened when I tried to explain that I've already had it). I ordered a small, but it wasn't. Plus with all the egg and cheese (a soury, smoked, Georgian specialty cheese) it was a little much. Then we had to stop and run a bunch of errands, so I was not a happy camper.
Back at the homestead (a gravol and multiple near-death-experiences later) I came right upstairs to bed. It was about 5pm, but the temp was still in the 40s. The thunder rolled, but the promised rain never came. Mom called and we chatted for a bit, but my head was imploding, so I hung up and napped for a couple of hours. I went downstairs in time for supper of pizza (with cut up hot dogs on it). The rest of the evening was spent outside in the breeze peeling the outer coating from hazelnuts, which grow in my host family's orchard.
The orchard has mandarines as well as hazlenuts and it's at the back of the house. To one side of the house is the basketball court (with post holes for a tennis or volleyball net, too) and on the other is the swimming pool area. I jokingly call it "the compound", but it kinda is. Everything is surrounded by a privacy fence and you have to drive in through a gate.
The one thing that doesn't fit is the livestock. One neighbour raises cows and a little further down the mountain are goats. But the fields here don't have fences, so I frequently look out my window, to see a herd of cows migrating, either up or down the mountain. Although sometimes they're just hanging out in front of my house, standin' in the middle of the road. It makes the scary, scary driving that much more fun.