New park

Found a new park this morning.  Decided to run towards the ridge and happened on a side entrance.  There are trails winding up through trees and up hills.  There are some of those Scavinadian workout sites but these old men were monopolizing them!  One man had a pole he was using for stretching exercises.  Later I saw him leave the park and hide the pole in the shrubbery.  Probably quite safe there.  As I was headed out of the park, in the direction I thought I should be going I found the front gate with a guard house.  So I found another lane further down then got turned round and came back into the park.  Decided to leave by the main entrance but after I climbed the stairs out I turned around and saw the statute.  So I had to run back across the park and climb the stairs up to King Tamara (a real female king of Georgia).  Her statue has to be 5-6 stories tall and there were 365 steps up to her (I counted them on the way down).  Found a new underpass - goes right under a large fountain that is in the middle of a turn-around.

As I passed the Orthodox church on the way home I heard singing (yes I stopped and walk stately pass) and then realized it was the same service that had been going on a hour ago when I left.  It is the end of one of their four fastings and the church was full with spillover out side.  Never saw it so full, kind of like Easter.  What was fun was the childern were outside planning (a fenced-in area) and teenagers were talking while priests were outside conducting the service.  But when the bell rang, as it periodically did, they all stopped and crossed themselves before resuming their activities.