On the Road with Julie

Time to Read:

I am writing this post sitting inside an AirBnB with the best possible panorama view I have ever had from inside an AirBnB, hotel, house or home of any kind.

And the city of Tbilisi makes for a great picture to be seeing from such a vantage point. The pictures don’t even come close.

The city scape, complete with architecture new and old, against a backdrop of green ridges, rolling mountains and snowcaps peering over them – it’s just striking. We lucked out with this place! If you ever get to Tbilisi and can make room in the budget for a place that, in any other city would absolutely break the bank, but here in Tbilisi is only on the expensive side of affordable, we HIGHLY recommend it.

So, while my ocular sensory experience is flying high, there is another sense that is actually grabbing the top spot on the podium here in Tbilisi.  

Being here has led me to realize that the meaning of the phrase, “What’s that smell?” is very much like a reversible jacket. One can state the same sentence, but depending on the tone and facial accompaniments used to express it, it’s meaning is capable to be completely flipped inside out. That same sentence can become two totally different jackets. 

Imagine a face scrunched up, brow furrowed, the corners of the lips tightly clenched and climbing up the towards the nostrils in the face’s attempt to minimize all potential open airways for said smell to enter the olfactory system. The eyes are squinting in solidarity and there is a gentle gag reflex constantly waiting to go into full effect. With all of that in tow, when you say, “What’s that smell?”, we can guess that something dead, dying or somehow able to facilitate that process is probably in the air. Whatever it is, we know it’s not good.

Now, imagine the eyebrows raised in wonder, the nostrils greedily flaring to get as much of that sweet air as possible, the corners of the mouth extending to either side in a state of rejoicing over whatever heavenly aroma is floating by and the mouth liberally open in awe without fear of whatever particles might escape into its receptive airways. With this face, say the same sentence, “What’s that smell?” and you will hear, through the sing-songy tone of the words as they float around the diffuse scents, that whatever is currently being smelled is something delightful, invigorating and worthy of savoring.

My experience of big cities is often the occasional “What’s that smell?”, but with the coloring of that first scenario. The nostrils are generally just harbingers of the most proximate bit of bad news. New York City is still one of my favorite cities in the whole world (and I am gathering more and more of a resume that makes me able to make such a claim), but, walking down the streets is an olfactory game of Russian roulette. Unless you are deep in the middle of Central Park, there is a high likelihood that the average of the smorgasborg of smells on the street is the product of myriad delicious smells mixed with something fairly putrid. It all eventually evens out somewhere between “tolerable” to a thick blanket of putrescence. It’s exhaust, it’s garbage, it’s pee (human and otherwise all swished and swashed together), it’s vomit and any other number of bad decision detritus mixed with the spices and flavors of countless ethnic flavors – all mixing in the air to escort you down the street in a cloud of olfactory confusion and, hopefully, survival. 

And, for some strange reason, such a description is only making me feel my affection for the city swell, even as my gag reflex prepares to engage. For some people, the occasional cloud of putrescence is enough to turn them off from the city. Not me.

So, the bar, for me, for the smells of a city is fairly low.

All that being said, being in a city that while not nearly as thick, crowded and congested as NYC, is every bit as much a real city, pulsating with traffic and noise and activity, I did not expect to be uttering that phrase, “What’s that smell?” so often and have it be EVERY SINGLE TIME, the latter version – eyebrows and mouth-corners all raised in delightful savoring of the absolutely scrumptious odors in the air.

Tbilisi smells so good!

Ryan was here with me for my first 4 days in Tbilisi and we both found ourselves in one moment after another inquiring with a deep inhale about the incredible smells we were swimming in.

It absolutely took me by surprise when the first smell that almost knocked us to our knees in some kind of gustatory penitence happened as we descended stairs underneath a main road to cross the street underground.

This particular setting is one which I would typically associate with the most disgusting of sensory possibilities. Nope – we were both smacked in the face with the most delectable of scents from the 2 underground bakeries that sat unpretentiously in this underground passageway and another stand that had bags of spices piled upon one another. When we floated around the corner on those smells, making our way from the stairs into the tunnel itself to see the stacks and stacks of ridiculously delicious looking Georgian baked goods, I smacked Ryan and informed him that he BETTER get one of those things before he leaves or I am going to be pissed. Not being able to eat gluten or dairy myself, I like to live vicariously through him. He is typically kind enough to oblige me, eating delicious baked goods so I can have the satisfaction of knowing at least one of us had some. He’s a giver.

Well, the bread and baked goods in Georgia look so good that I have even found myself doing mental calculus, trying to figure out just exactly how sick I would feel AFTER eating them to evaluate if the pain might be worth it. I’m still calculating. Mind you, I have already gotten through France, Spain, Morocco, Germany, Austria, Italy and Latvia, case after case of delicious looking things that I cannot eat, and I have not once been tempted to suffer the consequences of an indulgence. But Georgia might break me. In each of those other countries, it is also the case that finding suitably delicious gluten free and dairy free alternatives has been much more abundant than here, but, also, I must attribute my state of temptation to these Georgian smells. It all looks SO good, but it SMELLS irresistible.

Moving beyond underground baked goods, there’s also all of the times where you are just walking down a street and some magical combination of spices just wafts through the air and lifts you right off the ground, nose first, towards whatever heavenly source must be creating them.

Then there are the lilacs. It is a smell that reminds me of home – and definitely one of the best smells home has to offer. If you have ever smelled a lilac, let alone hundreds of them, draping themselves over rooftops and terraces, then you don’t need to hear a description of how those purples, pinks and whites turn into something transcendent when they hit your receptors. Whoever came up with the phrase, “Stop and smell the roses.” knew there was no need to mention lilacs. You don’t have to stop to smell them – they come and find you wherever you are, and do everything in their power to remind you how much life is worth savoring whenever and wherever you get the chance.

None of this even covers the aromas you get, here in Tbilisi, when you are actually in a restaurant looking at the food you are about to eat. I don’t know what the typical Georgian spice mix is, but I do know that it is brilliant. I’m happy with a little vegan butter and salt on a potato. But, man, I did not know you could make potatoes taste like that! 

Now, interestingly, all of this going on about the smell experience in Tbilisi, after a little suspicion and research to follow, Tbilisi does not have great air quality. As a city of 1.5 million, there is a lot of air pollution from cars and it being in a valley means that sometimes those pollutants get trapped.

Perhaps, if I was here longer, or spending more time down in the thick of it as opposed to the spot where my school and my AirBnB are, more up one of the sides of that valley, I would start to feel the effects of the air quality. Like in any city, there are air quality issues. At the same time it is a city surrounded by so much visible nature, around it, and, even woven within it, that I find myself more often than not, feeling a fresh quality in the air – even though, I know it, scientifically, not to be the case (at least according to all of the places that measure and report such data). 

So, I don’t mean to be idealizing the smells in Tbilisi. It’s a city. I’m sure there have to be some gnarly smells somewhere. But, as a transient just passing through and grabbing a few deep breaths on my way through town, I must say, it’s been absolutely delightful.

So, what’s that smell?

I will say with temptation, a rumbling stomach, and tremendous delight, 

“It’s Tbilisi!”