I left Batumi first thing in the morning on the first train to Tbilisi. The train was really cramped and uncomfortable, despite being a modern Swiss made one, and even though I'm sure the train itself was capable of higher speeds, we never got above about 65. Much of the ride was very slow, so the whole ordeal took closer to 6 hours. It wasn't as scenic as I'd hoped either, but so it goes. When I got into Tbilisi, I took the subway system toward my hostel. The subway is nice, if not terribly extensive. It's only two lines and one of the deepest I've ever used so I spent about 5 minutes on the escalator both entering and exiting. My hostel is nice enough, but I've only booked one night because I had a hard time getting a good read on what it's like.

I explored the city a little bit and it reminds me a lot of Skopje in that it's clear the city has very recently decided to become "quirky" and tried to reinvent itself. There are weird modern buildings and monuments everywhere that are obviously trying to stand out, though whether do so in a positive way I'm not sure. Still, it's nice enough and has some attractive old churches. Lots of cats everywhere too. I was tired enough that I didn't get to do too much with my afternoon, and I didn't have the energy to do much more than cook in the evening. I made plans to make plans with some people tomorrow about a trip up north with a rental car and went to bed.