2. How it all came true

My idea of a Georgia trip is rather a coincidence, than deliberate. Three months earlier, in the most inaccessible areas of my brain, has grown the concept to go to Azerbaijan. I do not know why it happened and why Azerbaijan, but on one of July days I woke up filled with an obsession so strong, that until now I'm scared of myself. All my free time I began to devote organization of this expedition and was looking for another crazy wanting to go there. But most people, as it says one of my friends, even don't think about going to place in doubtful area of the world, which are marked on the map by numbers and their names must be sought in map symbology. Maybe it's right, but I can imagine how a few years ago could be the reaction of friends of American or Australian guy to news about travel to Poland, without a reason. Yes it's true, that we aren't always understood. When at the beginning of September, I realized that I can't find anyone neither among my friends, nor even over the net, I decided to go alone. And then just a trivial quirk of fate changed my goal by a few hundred kilometers to the north. One day I wanted to go to my parents' home by train. Running on the platform I decided to buy something interesting to read. I wouldn't stand four and a half hour trip without something to do. Three minutes before departure at newsstand I asked for National Geographic, I paid and got into the car. I was really angry as I realized that I didn't only overpaid, but in addition didn't get what I wanted. I could expect on National Geograpic Traveler similarly high quality, but I didn't ask for Traveler! Boredom overcame my irritation and I began to read. It was there that I found dealing with a whole A4 page advertisement: "Polish Airlines opens direct flights to Tbilisi from $ 90. " So I decided to change my plans and to visitGeorgia. I also found a great argument reassuring my family from the worries that mymadness is associated with mental illness (or temporary mental incapacity), which will inevitably lead me to death, or at least a physical disability. Nobody ever told me this directly, but I suspect that few people from work or family thought i was mad. So I told everyone that I made a conscious and deliberate decision to refuse from Azerbaijan and choose Georgia, for reasons of solitary travel and the desire to improve the safety of my trip. Or something like that. I do not even know why I travel to any of the Caucasian countries could be dangerous, but if in our society, Georgia is seen as a safer place than Azerbaijan, why wouldn't I use this universal belief for my own purposes? And in that way I cut off all discussion like "don't go alone", because I had already bought a ticket and choose more secure, a Christian country with a fairly good reputation in Poland.

1. A trip to Georgia - Introduction

It is said that Georgia is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It’s also said that this is one of the oldest parts of the world where civilization was founded, that it’s a country in which Christianity became the state religion before any modern European country, and that it’s a country which wasn’t afraid to oppose the great Russia. There is said and written a lot of different things about Georgia, that really are insignificant in comparison with what is experienced on-spot. Everything we read and hear has an entirely different meaning after we go there and see, taste, smell, touch, listen to the locals and just try to understand them, forgetting about not necessarily true mix of information available for us by mass media. However, with every passing day the memories becomes blurred, details disappear - the sounds, smells, colors, and we forget the names. Everything we have seen, what we know fades, remaining expressionless. After some time the only thing for us is, it's an emotion. I still remember when I smiled at my newborn sister, although I can’t remember how she looked in the cradle. I also remember the immense sadness at the loss of a loved one many years ago, even though I don’t remember her face. Key events in our life squeeze emotional imprint, which will never be able to get rid of, even though if we tried very hard. But it isn’t worth trying. The memory of what had happened somehow defines us who we are. The man who wouldn’t have the past labeled emotions behind him couldn’t hold his own personality and among the eight billion people cease to be an exceptional and unique. I think, when I will be dying and get a chance even for a few seconds to consciously say goodbye to the world, my short trip to Georgia will be one of the emotional images that will flash before my eyes. Just a few days spent there, carved somewhere deep inside of me so enormous stigma, that I wouldn’t be able to ever forget it. About such a kind of deeply understanding i am writing about. I don’t remember complicated place names and maybe even the names of people whom I met. But I will always remember what I felt. On the plane to Tbilisi, I met a man who at age 65, after more than thirty years, decided to fly to Georgia to visit his friend. It seemed to me a little bit exaggerated pathos, as this man told me that he was flying, becouse he don't want to die without visiting Georgia again. For me it was naive to think that after more than thirty years without contact with each other can survive friendship, and I for me it was totally irresponsible idea to live for two weeks with that person. Who knows what during those thirty years could happen and how much this man may have changed. People are changing and those who were good a month ago now may not be. I listened to a man from the plane and felt how much I don't understand him and how much abstractive is to me what he said. I didn't think that, as I meet him on the plane during return flight, I will realize how wrong I was.