I just returned from an eventful long weekend skiing in the Caucasus mountains with Laure and the rest of the Kiev crew. My lovely travel partner Anna W has saved me the trouble of actually having to write about this by giving a detailed blow-by-blow of the trip here.
In place of a coherent narrative, I will allow you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions about the country based on a playlist of songs we heard on our six day misadventure.
Teeny weeny string bikini – Gunther & the Sunshine Girls (playing in the mashrutka (minibus) between Sarpi, the Georgian border town, and Batumi, Georgia’s main port on the Black Sea)
Oooh… you touch my tra-la-la – Gunther & the Sunshine Girls (man’s cell phone ring tone, at a roadside stop on the way to Tbilisi)
She’s Got Issues – Offspring (on the ski slope in Gudauri. One of my friends in middle school once
put this on a mix tape he titled ‘Gill in Song’. Teenagers can be blunt.)
Smooth – Santana (on the ski slope. Another song I haven’t heard since middle school)
Joy to the World (in the restaurant of the nice hotel where the Kievians were staying)
It’s the End of the World as we know it – REM (immediately after ‘Joy to the World’)
Oooh… you touch my tra-la-la – Gunther & the Sunshine Girls (on the ski slope, 2nd day)
F*** a dog in the ass – Blink 182 (on the ski slope, 2nd day)
In short, an extensive list of the late 90s pop-rock and the sexually explicit. I’m still trying to figure out how to craft this into a good metaphor for my time in the country.