IREX is kind enough to put me up at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Freedom Square. The front rooms have a wonderful view. I get to watch the traffic circling around and around the monument in an automotive ballet of near misses and skillful maneuvers. The monument had the cable skeleton of a Christmas Tree. The lights were gone but the ice frosted the cables so they formed a delicate spiderweb around St. George’s column. I got to watch the workers climb on that latticework to take it down once the ice melted. I was able to watch several sunrises, a snowstorm engulf Tbilisi and, of course, the nighttime lights on the Citadel, “Mother Georgia”and Freedom Square. I take off for home early tomorrow morning. Goodbye Tbilisi, for now.
