Wanted to go somewhere to test out my new passport, so I booked a ticket to Georgia (the country).

Within an hour driving around, I got pulled over by an angry officer who handed me a little tube in plastic wrapper and asked me to open it. I had no idea what to do with it, so he took it back and forced it into my mouth. Then he attached a little handheld device and asked me to blow. It finally hit me that this was a breathalyzer test!

The device made a few beeps, then the officer walked back into his car and drove away. Few minutes later, I got pulled over again. Different officer, but same process. No words were exchanged.

It’s like the Georgian police were trying to preempt an accident. But that wasn’t enough since I still managed to crash into one of their cars after I lost traction on a snowy highway.

Turned out I hit the car of a Police Major. Pretty quickly there were five police cars, two criminal investigators and a translator trying to analyze the scene. They took me to the police station, where officers took turns shaking their heads at my flip-flops, as if that was responsible for the accident.

Aside from that, Tbilisi lived up to its tagline of being “the city that loves you.” Though the attendant at the naturally heated sulfur baths did try to kick me out because I wore a swimsuit; nudity turned out to be not optional!

But maybe my favorite part was climbing up the walls of this castle at dawn to catch a sunrise over this beautiful city! It made me wonder the purpose of this fortification if a lousy climber like me can easily ascend its walls with flip-flops.