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Dev Talk
So since I'm on vacation, I figured I'd share some of my travels since I can't show any renders.
Tbilisi, Georgia was amazing. Beautiful city, friendly people, dirt cheap prices. We ate at a restaurant called KGB and the staff wore shirts that said
"KGB - Still watching you". Ate our fill of kebabs and Khachapuri which is essentially dough shaped in a boat, filled with cheese, butter, and a whole egg. It's so heavy and delicious, best 3000 calories I've had. Also had an endless flow of beer and wine. This is important for me because I usually don't drink throughout the year. Drinking makes me sleepy and if I'm sleepy I'm not productive when working on the game, so I essentially cut out alcohol until I'm on vacation.
After Georgia, we headed to Armenia. We were originally going to take an old soviet train from Tbilisi to Yerevan, but of course we're stupid and tried to buy a ticket on the day we're leaving and they were sold out. So we had a choice of staying one night extra in Tbilisi with no airbnb or hotel, or go to Yerevan one day early and try to book something there. We decided to go to Yerevan and none of the taxi's would drive us the 5+ hours. We finally found one who's willing to drive us to the border.
"There's taxi's and buses you can take once you hit the border", he says.
We get to the border and go through customs and enter Armenia. The
first person we meet is a random guy driving a van with no dashboard. He drives by and waves to us and pulls over. I figure he's offering a ride.
"Hey, where to"? I ask if he'll take us to Yerevan, sure he says. I ask how much?
"However much you decide". Ok, that's a bit weird. I ask for at least a ballpark figure, he just smiles and says whatever we decide.
Seems a bit sketchy, but we're tired and don't see any taxis or buses. Fine, we hop in. He needs to take care of some border check paperwork and leaves the car. Gives us his keys so we feel comfortable with our luggage in his car. An hour later, he comes back with food and drinks for us and off we go. Turns out the guy is heading home and is driving through Yerevan so he figured he'd give us a ride. An hour of swerving in and out of oncoming traffic on thin mountain roads later, he stops by some gangsta ass grandmas selling fruit on the side of the road and buys us a bag of ridiculously delicious figs. Another 2 hours later, he pulls over and buys us more food. Our mobile data starts working again and we realize he's taking the long way to Yerevan so that we have a sightseeing tour of landmarks and the famous lake Sevan, which is a
HUGE ice cold mountainous lake where you can't see the end of it.
Eventually he takes us to our airbnb in Yerevan. We exchange numbers and say our goodbyes and he starts leaving without taking any money. We fight for a while as I try to force some fresh crisp beautiful American dollars into his hand. He yells it's too much and he doesn't want it. I end up throwing it into his car. He says fine but now we need to come over and have dinner with his family. Such an open, friendly and sweet guy. So before we leave for Bulgaria, we'll go visit his family and hopefully won't make the news.
As for Yerevan, it's a gorgeous city. We did the rounds with fancy restaurants
(by fancy, I mean our combined bill being under $20), having beers for less than one dollar. Everything was wonderful and delicious but the highlight so far from my wife's perspective were the beers we had in a park. It was a tiny little rundown cafe that had about 30 grandpas sitting around each table playing cards, drinking beer and eating ice cream that says "USSR" on the label. Yes, we're lame as hell.
We have a few more days in Yerevan. Today is my birthday so we'll go find something special to do for a dirty thirty.
Oh, by the way. I convinced my wife that I should dip into our savings and spend a few grand salvaging parts from my current computer and buying new parts to make a dedicated 4 graphic card render rig. I'm excited to get started on that once we get back and double the speed of renders.
Till next week,
Domiek
!!!
