Tbilisi in the springtime

I arrived in Tiblisi in the middle of the night (3:00 am) and had a magical drive in from the very, very new airport (opened in February). I had tantalizing glimpses of medieval buildings, distant lights on the mountains surrounding the city. The hotel i'm staying in is on the edge of the old town which i'm about to go walking in. Above is a view from my balcony (it seems like balconies and spiral staircases are de rigueur here). The telecommunications tower you see in the image is lit up like a christmas tree at night, with different parts spinning like crazy tops. The hotel is right on the river whose name i've yet to learn. And it seems like many of the people here, not surprisingly, speak russian (which means that i can at least say please, thank-you and yes and no). My goal this week will be to learn a few complete sentences in russian, georgian, armenian and azerbaijani. Hmmm, too ambitious? It is a perfectly beautiful spring day here - spring seems about a week further along than in Toronto. Gotta go exploring now.