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Greetings from Scotland! Over the past week, we've been making the most of the school break by travelling to this beautiful part of the world. We've explored Edinburgh…
As of October 16, 2026, our options-selling-powered dividend stock portfolio stood at $13,456, marking a weekly decline of 1.37% compared with the previous week.This…
As of October 9, 2026, our options-selling-powered dividend stock portfolio stood at $13,643, showing a decent weekly increase of +0.72% compared with the previous week.…
This post is a result of an experiment I performed for one month in October 2015, I counted my everyday expenses and summed it up to see how much actually it costs to live in Georgia. This information might be useful if you are planing to move to Georgia or just to compare how your country stands to Georgia.
For tracking my (our) everyday expenses I installed Expense Manager Android app on my phone and entered spending just after purchases.
Total expenses in October 2015
In October in total we spent GEL 4,385 which equals to $1,823 or EUR 1,708 (according to exchange rates on November 20,2015)
Now to clarify the results for this experiment I must mention that bellow listed…
In today's food blogger's series I will show how to prepare a really tasty and delicious homemade aspic out of pig's trotters.
I'm not sure how popular an aspic is in the Western world, but it is a super popular in post Soviet countries, and is served in every fiests. Russian have a name for it - a kholodets (Холодец).According to Wikipedia - Aspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads. Nearly any type of meat can be used to make the gelatin: …
Tbilisi is city which have inspired many great poets, writers and of course travelers. Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy and even Marco Polo have spent some time in Tbilisi.
Who knows maybe the sulfur baths in Abanotubani district has inspired the great poets?!
As for a photographers - Tbilisi is a lovely destination and we have found a lot of inspiration here (This is the place I learned to create a decent night exposure photography).
This time we headed to catch the Golden Hour and ended up with lovely postcard style images from Tbilisi.
Tbilisi - thanks for being a piece of our lives.
David Agmashenebeli street in Tbilisi
Metekhi church and river…
Gelati monastery together with Bagrati Cathderal are one of the main sights in this region (Imereti) in Georgia. Although I have been living in Georgia since 2011, first I visited this site just in the Spring 2015 together with my dad, unfortunately it was a late evening already and I was not proficient of taking night photography (now I'm).
The second time I visited Gelati monastery was together with my mom already in Autumn 2015. This time I was prepared much better and instead of just taking photographs here I took HDR images.
Gelati monastery near Kutaisi
Gelati is a monastic complex near Kutaisi, Imereti, western Georgia. It contains the Church of the Virgin…
I created this simple floating banana image using a tripod, camera and Adobe Ligtrooms + A little retouching in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to make the image look even better so I did a HDR image.
Floating Banana Photography Trick
I did this image for my 365 day photo challenge project and submitted it as day 49 picture. I really feel proud of my self - like on day 1 I barely knew how to take a decent exposure using Manual mode, while on day 49 I'm photographing floating bananas already. I can't wait to see what will I submit at day 365.
Now back to the floating banana... Actually it is very easy trick. I was taking two separate images - one with a banana and background, while second…
At the start of November 2015 I took a master class in Asian Cuisine. The master class happened in a lovely Georgian restaurant Sareckela in Tbilisi and was led by a gourmet chef from Russia Natalia Chvileva. You can follow Natalia on her Facebook page: Touch to Food
The reason that made me to take participation in such master class was simple - I love to cook, I enjoy Asian cuisine and I have a food blogger section on my blog. Being a food blogger means just one - I'm always learning new things and I'm happy to share my knowledge with my readers (you). This master class was not only good for learning new things in Asian cuisine but also a good practice for my digital photography school…
Prometheus cave is one of the interesting places I have visited lately in Georgia. In fact that's the second cave I have visited here. The first one is called Sataplia Cave. In case you are into caves and speleology I recommend to visit both of them.Prometheus cave is located some 20km from Kutaisi in village Kumistavi (Tskaltubo Municipality), and if you are arriving to this lovely city - I can only recommend include Prometheus cave in your itinerary while being in these parts of Georgia.And that's how it actually happened last time I were here - my mom arrived to visit me in Georgia through Kutasi international airport, and I immediately took here to the Prometheus…
After we cleaned up our space from junk, I painted walls and ceilings in white using just a water based paint. Both our future temporary bedroom and kitchen started look decent. Then my father helped me with electrical wiring and installed a few new power outlets. Now was the right time for painting floors. I started with our bedroom. Bought the most cheapest paint available on market (brown) and started to paint.
I was hoping that for temporary solution it should be enough just with one paint layer, but I turned wrong - floor looked screwed. But that's not a big issue, because you can always add second layer of paint after the first one has dried up.
Bedroom prepared for floor…
Owning an old rural house is nice, and it's even nicer if you can both live and work from there. Since I'm into a thing called a digital nomad (place doesn't matter as long as there is an internet connection), during last summer I had setup my working place in different corners both inside and outside of our country house.I remember how back in 2014 we used Turtle lake for our working place in Tbilisi. Prior of having a basic outdoor working place there are three main important things you will need - an internet connection, a laptop and of course an electricity, speaking of the internet - in rural areas most probably you will stick with a mobile (3G/4G), you should have a phone with a…
On June 25th electricity was connected to our old rural house, and that was the next big issue to fix soon. The old electrical wiring was done like some 30-40 years ago and it just wasn't safe. Luckily I'm familiar with the best electrician, and he is my dad. So I called him and asked for both advice and assistance.
Dad seemed excited and soon he was on site, with a lot of wires, cables, screwdrivers, different unknown for me electrical measurement devices and the wiring replace works started.
Old wiring
We agreed to disconnect all the old wiring and install a new cable connecting it directly to electrical distributing point. We had to drill a few holes. In above image - white…
November started with a huge goal - not to spend a tetri eating outside, instead we decided to cook good food at home. Today I will show how to prepare a really fresh egg pasta noodles in spicy sauce.
I really love to make noodle pasta by my own - and actually it's very easy, thus a hand strength is required if you are not using some dough mixer machine.
My recipe for noodle pasta is simple - one egg for every 100 grams flour. Today I took 7 eggs and 700 grams flour. Add a little bit salt (1 tbs) and sugar (2 tbs).
Directions for preparing fresh egg pasta
Add Flour to a bowl (make a small cavity to put eggs in)
Add eggs to the flour
Knead your pasta
Today…
Tbilisi never ends to surprise (at least me). I thought I'm quite familiar with all the places in Tbilisi's Old Town, but turned out - I was wrong. It was a Halloween eve and we decided to head to Shardeni (Tbilisi Old Town) to photograph some Halloween pictures.
Prior to that we went to lovely noodles place called Fire Wok on Shalva Dadiani street, and then just to randomize our route we decided to take a slight right turn on Lermontovs street, our first discoveries started already here, so I find a lovely Boutique art shop - Estia.
After Estia we continued to wander through narrow Old Town's street when suddenly we ended in some yard which featured a really majestic building - as…
What would be a real country house without a garden? Right it would be a garden less country house. Although we have some old apple orchard and a few cherry trees there was one thing missing - some small veggie garden for our needs. There was one another major obstacle we didn't have any water supply at our rural country house. Read more: Home Remodeling - How It All StartsSo we opted for a small veggie garden to be planted into boxes, call it a mini sustainable agriculture if you prefer. We saved a lot of water at least, thus we were carrying about 50 liters in 5 litter bottles each day just to water our garden. Water is crucial and during this summer I actually…
The Tiger Lillies performed on Tbilisi Concert Hall on November 8, 2015. I must admit I had no clue what this band is all about, but had heard that The Tiger Lillies are must have. And I'm glad I agreed to visit their show in Tbilisi.
This was the second show in a row (previous one was Diana Krall's concert at the end of October 2015) I visited in Tbilisi concert hall.
First surprise arrived when we noticed that our seats was just behind tuner control
Tuner control in Tbilisi Concert Hall
What seemed an issue at start turned out to be a good place to photograph from and see in action how tuner guy works. I would say I had an option to see two shows for price of one.
Local…
It's one of the construction works I really enjoy - to patch and plaster walls - it doesn't requires a lot of skills and it's a really cheap way to get things done fast.
Today I will show you how I patched our rural country house's kitchen walls with a plaster mix for less than $10. Prior to that I removed all the junk from the room (kitchen) and applied a base paint both for walls and ceilings. Read: Removing Junk And Adding First Layer of Paint (Kitchen Works)
Tools you will need - and old bucket (I prefer used plastic bucket leftover after paint job), a trowel and some good mix of plaster mixture. In those parts of world I'm living and plaster mixtures I'm familiar with - I…
As I stated in my previous post about beautiful poppy fields near P104 Jaunipils - Tukums road in Latvia, there is a hidden treasure inside those lovely fields - an abandoned airfield.
I doubt it has been used for any military means, more for agriculture (field spraying from a biplane).
So I headed in and here is what I got:
Abandoned airfield near Tukums
The same concrete plates for runaway structure as seen in Skrunda Abandoned Military Ghost Town
Abandoned airfield
I just love such low profile perspective photography. Grey concrete in contrast to dark blue skies.
Airfield in middle of poppy fields
This is the same poppy field I wrote before…
Riga Central Market as I believe is among of of the top Riga attractions a tourist might want to visit and see. First opened to public in 1930, with main structures of the market built by reusing old German Zeppelin hangars, it now has become Europe's largest market and bazaar.
There are not many markets from which I have seen I could compare this one. The closest I can compare is La Boqueria market in Barcelona, Spain.
One of the Riga Central market pavilions
In total there are 5 pavilions in Riga central market, each representing it's own sector, like there is a dairy pavilion, meat pavilion, vegetables pavilion, fish pavilion and the 5th pavilion which…
In this article you will learn how to split large .tsv (and not only) files so you can import them to MS Office, Open Office or whatever you need using a small and neat (paid) program called EmEditor.
Here is the scenario - I have been booking.com affiliate partner for many years already, I remember few years ago I dreamt I wish I would programmatically access to all of their hotels (with metadata) , so I could import those data to some other web app and reuse data I want in manner I want to.
Recently I noticed on my Booking Central there is a new option - Data download, and here it was - All I dreamt for a couple of years ago. Booking.com offered me to download their hotel data in…
Last year we celebrated Summer Solstice on our apartments balcony in Tbilisi, this year we did it the right way. After I tried out how it's to move grass with a scythe, then with a trimmer and finally hiring a professional grass mover we started to repair our recent acquisition, after room and kitchen was cleaned out ouf junk and some paint job was applied both to walls and ceilings we did a test with a first garden party in order to prepare for this Summer Solstice night.
Now we were ready to great Sun. Since our property on that time was without electricity we decided to go creative and lightened a lot of candles and put them into jars, hang up them in trees and got a superb Summer…
Ēdole Castle is a Gothic Revival castle situated on the banks of Ēdole Lake, Ēdole parish, in the historical region of Courland, western Latvia.
I had an opportunity to visit Ēdole castle and taste some of the 17 cheeses few days before Summer Solstice Līgo was held (back n 2015). During my visit a fair called Emīla market (Emīla tirgus) took action.
Famous Latvian film Emīla nedarbi was filmed here in 1985. So that's the reason why this fair is named after Emīls.
If you enjoy medieval things and medieval architecture you will find a lot interesting at Ēdole castle.
Ēdole castle complex
It was pretty hard to photograph here that…
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