Very long dinner trip

After getting back from the excursion of today, we saw what there is for supper in the hotel. It did not look good, nor taste good. They sticked to the plain chicken and they had some other stuff, mostly full of coriander.
So we asked the guides if they can take us to some restaurant to eat. A lot of teams did that and we were told that it is possible, as we will have no more exams. Great.

They hired a marshrutka, this is a little bus like the ones were in Yerevan. This was suposed to take us to the restaurant in 20-30 minutes they said. It took more than 1,5 hours, as we were in a traffic jam.
We went pretty far away anyways, up to the mountains, further than the fun park.

This was a kinda fancy restaurant, but not expensive compared to our european prices though.
The food was ok. It was the national food mostly, 3 or 4 of us, including me, ordered some dish with meat slices baked with cheese. This was tasty, but not too much. The guides told us that this is huge and we will only manage to eat it if 3-4 of us take it together. Well, I would be able to eat it myself alone, unless I ordered other stuff like hatsapuri (also together with others).

The only problem was the confusion of the orders by the waiters or the guides translating, as the waiters spoke no english. This was surprising, as I thought that this restaurant is visited by a lot of tourists.

The view was awesome on the other hand. The lights of the city were visible, including the TV tower on the other mointain. We had a lot of time to enjoy it, as our table was outside and when we finished, we had to wait an hour for the marshrutka to arrive and take us back to the hotel.So we ended up spending much more time waiting for marshrutkas and in them then in the restaurant.

When we got back, some other teams said they went to the city centre and ate there in Wendy's. We decided to go there tomorrow if we want to go out, as there is no Wendy's at home. We'll see.

Excursion to Sighnaghi

Today we had a long excursion to a part og Georgia called Sighnaghi. Our own guide had some stuff to do, so we went with Nanuka again.
Firstly, we went to see a town with a castle. The bus ride was kinda long, we played cards, slept and did all kids of stuff not to be bored. After all, it was fun.

So we got off the buses and went up to the top of the little hill there to the remains of the castle. The view was awesome from there. It took a lot of time for all the people to see it and come down on the same little stairs and the bus guides were crazy already, becouse of the delay. As always.

After coming down, we walked around in the town. After like half an hour of super slow walking, we ended up at a museum. Thos was not too interesting, but the view from the balcony upstairs was good.



This time we were very hungry already, at least I was. We were told that we are going to go to a restaurant, but it is like half an hour bus ride there. So I ate all my biscuits that I brought and we were good to go.

Fortunately we were in the first round of lunch, as we were in bus 1. The other half of the people ate after us. The food was pretty good after the anti-diarrhea food of the past days.





After lunch, we went to look around. The restaurant was next to a monastery, where we looked around. They have nice gardens with fruits, spices and all kings of plants.





Nanuka told us that there is a nice place with a water spring  in the valley. We went down there on a long-long stairway. More than 500 stairs.



This is some kind of holy spring, where people wash their clothes and believe that they get forgiveness for their sins. They were queueing for this.



The way up was less pleasant, but there were little places with bences to stop, sit down and have a rest.



After this, we sat down in front of the monastery and waited for the departure.
The way back was short for me, as I was sleeping all along.

Food interview and reunion party

When we got back to the hotel, the sofas and smaller tables were removed from the hall and placed in the hallway of the hotel downstairs. They were prepearing for today's Reunion Party.

The guide told us that some people will come from the government to ask us about the food we ate and they will try to work out which dishes caused the diarrhea. We went downstairs, sat down in the hallway and waited for those people, while playing cards and socializing.

The guy had an excel sheet with all the food from the first days of the olympiad and asked about them one by one. Sometimes I was confused, as I did not remember everything precisely what I ate. But mostly the answer was yes, as I tend to try all the interesting dishes on this kind of events.

About an hour later, the mentors arrived with buses and the reunion party started. Before going to the hall to eat, we talked a lot in the lobby, discussing the problems and the experiences generally. 

The best thing about theis evening was that we met the mentors, the next was the food. Finally we got normal food. It was way better than the food normally served in the hotel, so the first days' food. And incomparably better than the anti-diarrhea food fo the past days.
After the mentors left, a lot of students stayed out of their rooms. Beside the ones looking for WiFi or doing something else on their phones, everyone was socializing. We all exchanged little gifts that we brought from home and talked a lot. The atmosphere was totally different from the past days, as there was no more exam ahead of us, just two days of fun and a closing ceremony.

Theoretical exam

Yesterday we went through the advanced topics and read some of our notes as preparation. Other than that, we were mostly sleeping the whole afternoon.

Fortunately Soma came back from the hospital yesterday evening and he said that he even enjoyed the stay there. He has started the exam some hours later together with the others visiting the hospital. They have written it separately from us.

The exam was in the same building as the lab exam and we had the same kind of lunch. Finally it was some normal food, not the anti-diarrhea stuff. It felt like years of eating that by now.

The tasks were not too hard, the time was almost enough for me to do all of them. I feel good about the exam. I’m sure it was better than last year and I hope for a gold or a silver medal.

Most other students told me that it did not work out that well for them, which made me a bit sad, because it was ok in my opinion. And on the other hand, they were not that happy to hear that I’m happy with my feeling of results.

On the way back, we were waiting half an hour near the university in the buses. It seemed like we were waiting for police cars that will accompany the our buses.

Anit-diarreah lunch

This morning, we heard that more than 10 people are already in the hospital. And more have diarreah already, possibly from some food eaten in the hotel.

I feel a bit of it too, but it is nothing compared to the constant diarrhea I had in India. I can eat everything still. So better keep doing everything normally and not tell the guides, as for I do not want to go to the hospital.

Because of this, we get the simplest food possible, which is mostly the diet after a very bad diarrhea: plain boild chicken, cooked potato, rice. That’s it. There is no spice, not even salt on it, so it pretty much has no taste at all.

I looked around in the dining hall and the people who were eating looked very bad. They did not look like that normally, just when they realized what they were eating.

The dinner was half cooked rice. I had to fight with it a lot to stop being hungry. That was the point when we were jealous of the Chinese and other people smart enough to bring instant noodles. We went up to the room to eat some biscuits and other food we had instead.

5-hour excursion for 1-hour amusement park

Today we went to the amusement park of Tbilisi, which is on the top of one of the mountains. the faris wheel is even visible from our room window.

With a reasonable amount of delay and waiting in the bus, we got there and went around a bit. The view was great from up there, but when we arrived to the entrance of the amusement park, it turned out that it is not yet open. They told us, that it will be open 1 hour later, so at 11 am. OK, we are already used to waiting, so let’s just keep on practising.

Finally it opened at 11:30, and we could go in.

The roller coaster was a bit short, but there were like 3-4 occasions to be upside down during that short ride.

We tried the ferris wheel, which was awesome. I liked the view from up there.

After this short fun, we had to go back to the hotel, but first, wait for everyone and then for dunno what.

Finally, 5 hours after departure, we got back to the hotel. Spending 1 hour actually in the fun park.

At least the bus ride was comfortable. :)

Diarrhea and replacement guide

Today evening Soma was taken to the hospital with diarrhea. He only had temperature, but after all it was better that he went in to be cured very fast, as he is needed to be fully functional on the theoretical exam in 2 days.

Our own guide went with him to the hospital, so we got a replacement guide, Nanuka, who is originally the guide of Estonia. We sat down talking with her after supper, and talked for like 2,5-3 hours. She is very nice and cheerful. I’m glad we got her as replacement.