My birthday was spectacular. It started out a little shaky with breakfast, but things quickly picked up. HM made me an Adjaran traditional birthday breakfast of papa, which is flour and water, cooked into a paste, served with butter and sugar. It’s.... well, I ate some. Luckily, they are used to me only eating a small breakfast, so when HM mentioned that there was also cake, I stopped eating the papa "to save room". The cake was delicious. It had a nutty base, and a buttery, creamy topping.
Transportation was, for once, uneventful. I got down the mountain, half walking and half riding with the math teacher from my school. I tried to get the marshrutka to stop and pick up Sailor, but I missed her stop, so she just met me in Batumi.
Since we were so early, we decided just to go to the café and have a drink. I love banana juice. There were some other teachers there, and more showed up while we chatted. Since my birthday party was limited in number (due to the smallish size of the hotel room) most of the people at the café were not invited, so Sailor and I awkwardly excused ourselves to meet Joker (because he cracks me up) at Goodwill.
At Goodwill, we bought mix and we were going to buy snacks, but decided to check out some of the smaller mom and pop shops on our way to the hotel. Also, Joker found a little store near his house that sold alcohol much cheaper than Goodwill, so we headed there with him. Boston met us outside the shop.
Laden down with bags (overnight clothes, plus alcohol and mix) we made our way toward the palace of happiness and wonder that is the Sheraton Batumi. Making one more stop on the way for munchies, we arrived shortly after 3 to check in.
It was all we could do not to squeal with glee when the porter showed us to the room. Somehow we contained ourselves and didn’t start behaving like children until after he had shut the door on his way out. A flurry of picture taking followed and my memory card got full, just as the camera batteries were about to die. So I will be relying on other people's cameras for pics.
After sitting and chatting for a bit, we decided to break out the birthday champagne. We mixed it with peach, banana and pomegranate juices. It was delicious. And, because it was my birthday, Joker kept pouring me stronger drinks than I would usually have. An hour and 3 drinks later, I was feeling very happy. B.C. (she's also Canadian, folks) showed up and had a coulple of drinks while we waited for the others. Hammer (she's from Hamilton) and Pop showed around 6:30. By that point we had devoured the cookies we’d bought and were ready for real food.
Pop had to leave for his host brother’s birthday suphra, but he came with us to the restaurant, first. Just up the street from the Sheraton is a pizza place, with real pizza. They even have real cheese (in addition to Georgian cheese). The seven of us ordered and devoured 2 large and 1 small pizza. It was so good.
After pizza, Pop left, but the six remaining returned to the hotel. I was getting to the sleepy part of being drunk, so Joker and I went straight back to the hotel while everyone else stopped for more snacks and booze.
When the others got back, more drinks were poured and the tv was turned on for background noise. Sailor and Hammer had both brought their computers, so we muted the Russian music videos on tv and listened to a random mix of music, that we chose. Scarlet (as in O'Hara; she's from Atlanta dn it's the best I could do) and Defender (because he said he would fercefully defend any female that he knows) finally showed up around 9ish. About that time, the Turkish satellite channel started showing The Phantom Menace (dubbed, not subtitled), we we talked and drank and listened to music, keeping half an eye on the tv.
It had been a really long time since some of us had seen each other. Between that, the alcohol and the fact that there were 8 of us in one hotel room, things got a little noisy. Security came up and told us that another guest had complained about noise, so we tried to keep it down. About 15 minutes later, the people next to us banged on the wall to quiet us down. Boston and I decided that we needed to get everyone out of the room, so we decided to go to the club in the hotel.
We changed and the girls touched up makeup. As I was shutting the door behind us, security was coming down the hall to our room, but they veered off when they realized that we were leaving. When we got to the club, it was empty. There were literally 20 people in there, max (including us and the staff). The music wasn’t great, but I wanted to dance, so Hammer, Sailor and I hit the floor. We lasted about a song and a half before getting annoyed with the music and heading back to the table. Scarlet was still going strong, but I was done drinking. My tummy wasn’t feeling too hot.
After moving to a corner table with comfier chairs, We all got on the floor, dancing. It was pretty fun, in spite of the crappy music. 3 different times we tried to request something decent, but the dj was apparently a substitute and wouldn’t take requests. Finally, the lame music and being sleepy drove us to leave. We knew we couldn’t go back to the room, so we went to the comfy lobby to hang out for a bit longer. Scarlet and Defender were still ready to party, B.C. was kind of for it. Joker and Hammer were kind of quiet. Boston and I were both really tired and Sailor was also tired, but drunk enough to go out if we had told her to.
After much discussion, B.C. ended up going to the bar with Scarlet and Defender and the rest of us went up to the room to sleep. Boston, Sailor and I shared the bed and Joker and Hammer each slept on the floor. It was a great night.
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