After a very long trip, we finally landed in Georgia, precisely in Tbilisi (the capital city). After thorough checks and passport control, I got my passport stamped for the very first time in a long time. My past flights using the new passport, were all in Schengen zones so stamps were a thing of the past. And I immediately wondered why Georgia was still not an EU member state. This question kept wandering in my mind. I thought it would be a great conversation starter at dinner times when we meet our counterparts in Georgia. And here I must add an aside note, we certainly didn’t need any conversation starters because between Dr George and Fr Joe our conversations kept flowing like Georgian food and wine on the tables.
And this is how I would like to start describing Georgia. Food and wine overflow reflecting the hospitality of the Georgian people. We have never been in a place where we weren’t treated like royalty and this seems to be the norm amongst the Georgians. It starts with an array of breads and cheeses accompanied with lovely wine and homemade lemonades. I was particularly impressed at the variety of dried fruit and nuts presented with almost every meal as well as incorporated in many of the local dishes.
The use of pomegranate varied from fresh fruit within salads to mixed with berries for homemade lemonades. Its presence was almost everywhere not just to add colour but also to tantalise my taste buds. I love pomegranate so everywhere I eyed it, I felt it was a must to try. Other homemade lemonades that grabbed my attention were those mixed with tarragon or pear juice. I must say they were exceptional. Wines are worth a mention in a separate blog of course as there is so much to say about their origin, the process and the beautiful accompaniments with certain dishes.
If I had to go back to cheeses and beans, I cannot ignore the local Khacapuri (local cheese bread), found in every place we have been and presented almost always as an entrée. For the lactose intolerant ones, I suggest the version made with beans cooked to perfection with a mixture of spices that makes your taste buds think of a protein meal. To us maltese, it reminded us of our lovely bigilla. Following this, we were always presented with an array of salads: some fresh, some grilled and served with a nuts dressing and the curious ones were the pickled vegetables. I was quite surprised to see pickled raw beetroots and pickled garlic. I was even more surprised to witness one of our guests eating whole green chilli peppers without any fuming effects.
Following these entrees, it was quite common to be served with two types of different dumplings: the cheese ones and the meat ones. I tried both. Personally, I am not too keen on these but that is of course very subjective. Perhaps, I always left space for the chicken, pork or meat served in different sauces. I particularly loved the chicken in walnut sauce. I will definitely ask for the recipe and I will try it at home. More details about Georgian food will be shared with you in my upcoming interview with Chef Florina Silvio. I heard she has already tried this recipe on the first day we were back home.
It is not common to have desserts at the end of a meal in Georgia but on various occasions we had fresh fruit brought to us along with more wine or the local spirit Chacha (similar to the famous grappa). In summary, this was a combination for a good sleep and/or contemplation about the calorie intake of that specific day. I kept looking at Georgian women and thinking how they could afford such beautiful figures with all this tempting food options. That will indeed remain a mystery to me.
This trip was possible thanks to: Director and Founder of GCC Malta Ms Maka Lashki; Director of Malta Booking Mr Efrem Bilocca; Director of Brittania Tours Mr Noel Farrugia; Georgian Co-ordinators & PR Ms Irina Tsertsvadze and Ms Tina Abashidze.
MMOexp: Hoarfrost Stomp was another of my favorites. The melee ability found close to in the Liurnia of the Lakes had both the highest DPS and damage to the area of effect. Repeated use of Elden Ring Runes it could cause frost to opponents. It was a complete crowd control device that was great to farm enemy spawns as well as to destroy other players during attacks. The patch last night nerfed the damage of the machine by a tiniest amount and also increased the time to cast. "I was able to get it in just a few minutes before closing the app and applying the patch," wrote one player. "Didn't even get to use it. It still ruined people in pvp but not as much as I was hit by it last night."
The patch was able to, thankfully it fixed a unique flaw players were making use of to disrupt PvP. The Deathblight version combines with the Eclipse Shotel weapon with the Fire's Deadly Sin incantation to build the death ailment rapidly on players who are in conflict and make them repeat backstab animations. It was reported that the Elden Ring community was split over whether this was an error or a valid element of the game however, it's no longer. A few PvP players who were unaware that the vulnerability was patched are still trying to use it, only to have it swiftly cut off when it fails.
Sword of Night and Flame was a different build that some believed to be damaged. It was located in Caria Manor, the weapon's Night-and-Flame Stance ability let players follow up an attack by using the Comet Azur sorcery to cause a lot of fire damage from a distance. It was able to wreak havoc on unsuspecting PvP gamers, however it it was equally easily repelled by players who knew the way they were acting. In PvE however it was a different OP capability that players were enjoying. The most recent patch still was nerfing it, however. The Moonveil Katana was not mentioned within the notes of patch in any way however it was evidently a stealth patch to lengthen the animation of combat.
This is where things can get difficult when making drastic changes to a game that some players view as an offline, single-player game. "Literally I just received the Sword of Night and Flame the other evening in Elden Ring, since I could not find a weapon that I like," a player posted on Twitter. "Poured every resource I could get into it after I heard that it was good, but then I was advised to update my game. It turns out that the update has nerfed the game to death."
While some patches in 1.03 introduced new content or fixed broken quests It also changed the balance of the game in the manner one would deal with a live-service game. No matter if the changes themselves are beneficial or not, it's something that players have to be able to deal with, should FromSoftware makes more changes in its mind in the future. At present, some players are dealing with it the only way they can is to search to find the latest OP build to Elden Ring Runes buy exploit.