Georgia And Its Furry Friends

Scott and I just got back yesterday morning from a fall break trip to Tbilisi, Georgia with four of our friends from here.  Our interest in Georgia was sparked by the fact that one of our favorite restaurants in Astana is Georgian--I can't believe I had never tried Georgian food before coming out here.  It also proved to be not too long of a trip and a relatively affordable destination from Kazakhstan.

I'll probably write several posts about the trip, but in a nutshell, it was a beautiful country, and we loved the food.  We weren't entirely lucky with either the weather or our guesthouse owner/tour operator, but we had a good time in spite of both.

As often happens when I travel, I saw lots of animals I wished I could adopt and take home with me.  I photographed a good number of them, and today's post is dedicated to them.

Proof that cats are largely the same everywhere.

Okay, the snail isn't a furry friend per se, and I was happy to leave it behind in Georgia, but it was still pretty cool.

I'm a fairly dedicated cat person, but I liked this dog, who peacefully followed us for a while in Mtskheta.

Acrobatic Cat #1

Acrobatic Cat #2

This little cat was my favorite in all of Georgia.  We took a break to sit on some benches while walking to the Narikala fortress on the last day.  I assumed when this cat came over to us that it was looking for food, but it eventually got in my lap, curled up, and started purring.  This was great, but as anyone who has ever had a cat in their lap knows, they can be quite resistant to leaving and they often dig their claws into your legs for leverage when they do finally jump down.  This kitty was indeed resistant to leaving my lap, but eventually left without clawing me at all.  I was so tempted to bring this cat home with me, but couldn't see how to work out the logistics, especially with just a few hours to go until heading to the airport.

This cat found us later on in the walk.  It seemed very interested in me, which made us wonder if it could smell the cat who was sitting on my lap earlier.  I decided not to press my lucky by letting yet another stray cat sit on me.

This concludes the tour of Georgia's animals.  Stay tuned for more posts about sites, and all that other stuff the guidebooks tell us about!