2020 Recap: Love, Lockdown & Lobiani

First of all, I’m genuinely sorry for the corny title. I tried to find a different way to organise this chaotic year into something approaching a logical format – but in the end, some bad alliteration was the best I could come up with.

Every December I write a post to summarise the year that was. The normal format is a chronological summary of my travels accompanied by a laundry list of happy memories and some words downplaying my professional achievements (boy, do I regret being so modest now!).

This year things are a bit different. But I want to keep the same overall tone. I’m not here to lament about all the bad and crazy that happened in 2020. Instead, I want to try and focus on the positives.

Having said that, I do have a bit of lamenting to indulge in. Let’s get that out of the way first.

In one way or another, I think we all lost something in 2020. Some of you probably lost a lot. I lost most of my income, and I lost my confidence as it looked like everything I had worked so hard for was slipping away (let’s just say it wasn’t exactly the best year to be transitioning to full-time travel blogging, as was my intention in January). I lost sleep over visas, taxes, and my partner’s health, and I probably shaved a few months off my overall life expectancy worrying about family back home. People I love died. My business almost died. I watched countless friends and colleagues suffer. And I watched a country I love so dearly struggle to keep its head above water.

Looking back now, I feel a huge sense of guilt because despite those things, 2020 really wasn’t that bad of a year for me. I feel terrible writing that, but it’s true. Compared to other people, I have nothing to complain about. I certainly don’t feel like I came out of 2020 on top, but I don’t think it was a wasted year either.

So like I said, I’m going to focus on the positives while also recognising how extremely lucky I am to be able to do that. Things could have been very different – there are many alternative scenarios where I probably wouldn’t be able to face writing a review of 2020 at all. I’m immensely grateful that none of those played out.

I’ve chosen to structure this recap around three themes: Love, lockdown and lobiani. (Lobiani being a Georgian dish of bread stuffed with mashed kidney beans.) Lobiani is my ultimate comfort food, my safe space, carbs on carbs, and something I’ve been eating way too much of lately. It’s a good motif for the year in general.

Here’s a quick recap of 2020, and a preview of what I have planned for 2021.

Love

The biggest thing that happened to me in 2020 was getting married.

Weddings have never interested me. I detest people fussing over me/looking at me, but I have to say that February 1st, 2020 was a pretty wonderful day. All Ross and I wanted was a casual ceremony and a yummy lunch, so that’s exactly what we did. We invited 12 people (family plus four close friends) for a ceremony at our city registry, lunch at a swish Thai restaurant, and a fun photoshoot in the CBD with my friend and colleague Kelley behind the camera (that’s us on our wedding day in the photo above). I’m especially grateful to my mum, and my friends Caitlin and Andrew, who all did a million things to make the day special.

If we had waited another month, our wedding wouldn’t have happened. This is the first example of incredibly good, purely accidental timing that made our year not so sucky.

Then began another love story: Me and Tbilisi.

When we left Georgia last summer after our last trip, I was satisfied. I knew I’d return eventually, but the burning urge I’d felt to always go back to Tbilisi and be in Georgia had left. I wanted to move on with my life, and I was content to do that in Australia. Ross and I started looking for a place to settle down. But it was far more difficult than we had anticipated.

Moving to Tbilisi is something we’ve contemplated ever since we first travelled to the region in 2017. The decision to relocate here for the first six months of 2020 wasn’t exactly a well-planned one – and if I’m totally honest, it wasn’t motivated by the best of intentions. Things weren’t panning out in Australia. I’m incredibly impatient, and Tbilisi felt like the easier option.

So after a layover in Qatar, we arrived in Tbilisi in the first week of February, days after the wedding. I finally got my mini bottle of wine at airport immigration. I didn’t know at the time how badly I was going to need it.

For the first month, we rented an Airbnb in Marjanishvili and mostly stayed put. I walked around every day with a stupid smile on my face – I was so happy to be back. We ate at all our favourite restaurants, caught up with friends, and did all our favourite things. Wrapped up in our Tbilisi Bubble, we had no real appreciation for what was unfolding around us.

The virus didn’t creep up on us – it hit us like a ton of bricks. There had been chatter of course, but it wasn’t something we were taking seriously. At the start of March we decided to take a little trip. It was only when we arrived in Gori and found that all the museums were closed that we realised the situation in Georgia was getting serious.

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Suddenly we had a 48-hour window to decide whether to return to Australia or stay put. It already felt too late to be travelling – the airport was the last place we wanted to be – so we opted to wait it out.

Lockdown

In hindsight, coming to Georgia when we did (and choosing to stay) was the best decision we could have made. The second best decision was taking one of the last trains to Batumi and spending the first lockdown on the Black Sea instead of in the capital.

Batumi is the perfect place to be ‘stuck’. We were able to secure a great apartment walking distance from a supermarket, and most evenings we walked along the beach at sunset. For the first time in five years, I found myself with a proper kitchen and I rediscovered how much I enjoy cooking.

By this stage my blog had reached its lowest point. While many people pivoted away from travel, I decided to double down – maybe because it was the easier thing to do, maybe because I love it too much. I used the first lockdown as an opportunity to make this website more useful, more comprehensive. I really hope all the hard work I’ve been doing pays off in the future. But there’s a very long way to go before I can cash that cheque.

Our four-week planned visit to Batumi became four months as Georgia remained in lockdown. By the end of it, I had fallen in love with the city.

Lobiani

Summer brought more freedoms and we were able to move around again. We made the most of it, spending two weeks in Pankisi Valley with our friend Nazy and her family. I joined a press trip with Karavanly (the highlight of my summer), and Ross and I did a road trip back to Western Georgia. Case numbers were so low at this point, we almost forgot the virus was a thing. I think a lot of people pushed it out of their minds for a few precious weeks – something we would all come to regret later.

When a cluster emerged in Batumi, Ross and I had to re-route and ended up spending a fortnight in Zugdidi instead. This was the beginning of the end. We could see another lockdown was imminent, so we headed back to Tbilisi for fall.

It was around this time that the rose-tinted glasses I’ve always looked at Georgia through came off. Visas, insurance, tax, sourcing medication – suddenly we had a whole lot of life logistics and bureaucracy to deal with. It was also around this time that I started eating a lot of lobiani.

At the end of the day though, I was still in Georgia. I felt safe, and I was immensely grateful for that. All around us people were desperately trying to get into the country, and we found ourselves among the lucky category of people who happened to be here when this whole thing started.

Georgia dealt with the first months of the virus so well. I don’t think anyone could have predicted how badly things would turn at the end of summer.

Looking ahead to 2021

Georgia is entering 2021 under lockdown, with rumours of a hard lockdown coming in January. In the past six weeks I’ve left our apartment half a dozen times to buy groceries. That’s it. My main priority right now is to stay well.

I rarely have a clear idea of what the new year will bring – this year, I have no clue. Returning to Australia is pretty much impossible given the caps on reentry and the cost of flights and quarantine. The best decision – I hope – is to keep sitting tight.

Thankfully Georgia recently announced an extended visa amnesty, which means we don’t have to worry about leaving the country until July. I managed to secure a Remotely From Georgia permit just in case we do need to duck across the border, but I hope we won’t have to use it.

We’ve decided the safest thing is to stay put in Tbilisi, so this is where we’ll be spending January and February. When spring comes, we’ll reassess our options.

Until then I’ll keep doing what I do – even if it’s stubborn or stupid – because I love it. Thank you so much for sticking with me.

Wishing you good health and a happy start to 2021!