Blog Archive: April 2017
Famous Tbilisi Restaurant Review
| Restaurant reviews | 13 seen
Famous restaurant in Tbilisi is another so called high end restaurant located in the quiet are of old town on Abo Tbileli street (Puri Square)
Famous restaurant is one of the best places to enjoy European & Georgian cuisine in Tbilisi in a pleasant music and a special atmosphere of comfort and playful romance.
During our latest visit here (February 2017) we learnt that a chef we already knew from master class in Asian cuisine - gourmet chef from Russia Natalia Chvileva runs this kitchen and it was real pleasure she come out from the kitchen just to say hi!
Restaurant Famous in Tbilisi
This is a unique crossroads of thoughts, feelings and sensations of taste, which is located on the first floor of an old 19th century mansion. At one time, Georgian intelligentsia lived in this house and in the basement of this building was an underground casino, which gambling bohemia enjoyed visiting.
In addition, Mikhail Lermontov lived in the house next door. Here, in the heart of the capital, 200 meters from Freedom Square, the silence of Lado Gudiashvili Square protects our guests from the noise of the city. It’s easy…
John F. Kennedy International Airport
| Airports | 11 seen
John F. Kennedy International Airport (IATA: JFK, ICAO: KJFK, FAA LID: JFK) is a major international airport located near South Ozone Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States, 12 miles (20 km) southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway into the United States, the fifth busiest airport in the United States and the busiest airport in the New York City airport system, handling 58,956,288 passengers in 2016.
Over ninety airlines operate out of the airport, with non-stop or direct flights to destinations in all six inhabited continents.The airport features six passenger terminals and four runways. It serves as a hub for American Airlines and Delta Air Lines and is the primary operating base for JetBlue Airways. In the past, JFK served as a hub for Eastern, National, Pan Am, and TWA.
For most of the times, when traveling to the United States for transatlantic flights, I've been using this airport at least for one direction.
See: About…
PAUL Depuis 1889 Bakery & Restaurant in Tbilisi
| Restaurant reviews | 41 seen
I'm glad seeing more good dinning places and restaurants popping up in Tbilisi, there is huge demand for a good place, and worldwide known French Paul bakery & restaurant brand seems have made a good decision opening a branch in Tbilisi on Abashidze street.
At Paul bakery you could get freshly baked bread and other French pastry goodies,in this article I'll stick with restaurant review. I love Paul because of salads and desserts. I've tried other things, like burgers here, though they are decent, there are better places to order burgers. Once at Paul stick with what they are best - pastry and damn good salads and entrees.
An appetizer plate
Smoked salmon, duck breast.. really good choice for appetizer.
Salads with mussels and shrimps
One of the rare places in Tbilisi, you could get goodies like this.
Pancakes with orange syrup
The Empire State Building & Observation Deck Tour
| Tourism objects | 36 seen
OK, this finally is off from my bucket list. Here is the tip I would give to myself - buy "skip the lines" tickets to avoid long hours waiting in the lanes. it started to remind me my dear Georgia after the second hour of waiting in the lanes and hugging with Italian family to sing Bella Ciao. Amazing. Paid a visit to the Empire State Building, January 5, 2017
The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located on Fifth Avenue between West 33rd and 34th Streets in Midtown, Manhattan, New York City. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet (381 m), and with its antenna included, it stands a total of 1,454 feet (443.2 m) tall. Its name is derived from the nickname for New York, the Empire State.
It stood as the world's tallest building for nearly 40 years, from its completion in early 1931 until the topping out of the original World Trade Center's North Tower in late 1970. Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Empire State Building was again the tallest building in New York, until …
Khinklis Sakhli / Khinkali House on Moscow Avenue, Tbilisi
| Restaurant reviews | 70 seen
I usually don't hang out in this area of Tbilisi, just recently we returned by marshrutka from Hiking Route in Georgia - Norio Village - Martkopi Monastery and were really starving, and agreed to leave the minivan as soon we will notice some restaurant, that's how we ended up here in Moscow avenue (somewhere between Samgori and Isani metro stations) and found this interesting Khinkali house.
Now, I must admit I had a feeling I've traveled back in the time to the early 90-ties, a disco scene, music from late 80-ties and fish aquariums. Though the food here, and especially khinkali was delicious.
Interior at Khinkali house on Moscow avenue, Tbilisi
It is a really spacious hall with separated seats,pretty surreal but cool
Georgian khinkali
Now, I love khinkali and here they were just delicious. I've decided to prepare khinkali at home, could be a cool experiment for food blog series.
Grilled meat
Now this is one of the rare places in Tbilisi you can order whole tenderloin steak
Q1 2017 Online Income Report - $5,886.46
| Blogging | 9 seen
First quarter of 2017 has been very interesting, tried and applied some new ideas, launched two separate websites and started to generate first real passive income from peer to peer lending.
As there have been a lot of changes in the past three months, this year's online income reports will be different from previous quarter reports, they will cover not only earnings from this blog, but will include earnings from other websites and earnings from investments.
In short first quarter of 2017 (January, February and March) earned $6,335.20 what is an awesome more than double growth if compared to the first quarter of year before (see: Q1 2016 Blog Traffic and Online Income - 136,784 Users / $2,467.48), though if compared to previous quarter that's a little decrease (see: Q4 2016 Blog Traffic & Income Report - 197,850 Users / $6,921.16)
About website traffic in Q1 2017Now, I've already mentioned that in the past 3 months I've started two new websites, I decided to include all of them in this report.
ReinisFischer.comMain blog, the one you are currently reading - First quarter of the…
How To Insert Node Reference in Content Using Views
| Drupal Development | 11 seen
I this article I'll cover some details on how to programmatically reference nodes in content using Drupal views.
Such behavior I've already implemented in this blog, see for example 83 reasons to Visit Georgia This year article to see it in action. Today I was working on one of my side projects - a laptop buying guide - laptop500.com and decided to implement a new feature - best selling items of the month, by programmatically referencing laptops (nodes) from archive.
Here is how - at start you will need to download and install references module, then visit Content type you would like to add such behavior and under manage fields (admin/structure/types/manage/article/fields) add a new Node Reference field
Node Reference field
I will set widget to Auto complete text field as later it will be much easier to enter just first letters of title to find and reference nodes.
In the next window (Field Settings) select Content types that can be referenced, articles for example
In the next window, under REFERENCED…
Average Salary in European Union 2017
| Macroeconomics | 251 seen
For the fourth year in a row, I'm publishing my humble observations on average salary changes in the European Union. In this article, I've decided to compare average salary in 2017 with 2014.
Update: Average Salary in European Union 2018
For previous archives see: Average salary in EU: 2016, 2015, 2014
I wouldn't call bellow written a scientific research, as most of the data in this article are taken from Wikipedia's article List of European countries by average wage. To make it more interesting I've added the year of 2014 as a reference and made some simple calculations in Google Sheets. Data provided below might not be 100% accurate but they should give an overall insight on average salary levels across European Union member countries.
The average salary in European Union member countries 2017If compared to 2014, average median salary has increased by about 2.02% during the past three years. The average salary in EU as of 2017 stands at EUR 1,520 monthly what is up from EUR 1489 in 2014
Now, there is a new leader with the …
12 Dividend Stocks to Invest to Get Payments Every Month
| Investments | 16 seen
The other morning I read an article on Kiplinger - Great Stocks to Get Dividends Every Month, and I decided to make some calculations and speculations, as right now I'm looking to invest some money in dividend paying stocks and idea of getting dividends every month seems a very good option to make a living.
My goal for 2017 is to invest $8,561 throughout the year, not mandatory all money should be invested in stocks, in fact I have already invested about a quarter of that money in Latvian peer to peer lending marketplace - Mintos. See: Review of Mintos Peer to Peer Lending After One Month of Investing
Another, again about a quarter of my money, goal for 2017, I'm planing to invest in dividend paying stock in Baltic NASDAQ Market, see: Dividend Paying Stocks In Nasdaq Baltic Market By Yield.
And right now, an option to invest in the US dividend stocks, though with much lower yields than Baltic market, seems a good way to diversify my investment portfolio in 2017.
12 Dividend Stocks to Invest to Get Payments Every Month Issuer Ticker Price…Hiking Route in Georgia - Norio Village - Martkopi Monastery
| Outdoor Activities | 177 seen
Hiking from Norio village to Martkopi monastery is about 10km long distance (forth and back), best done in Spring, Summer, or early Autumn. The route is pretty steep, though covered with asphalt, there are parts of the damaged surface and some agility is needed.
Update: We originally did this hiking path back in 2017. in 2020 there is a new asphalt road built reaching the monastery complex
The route offers a kind of Wilderness in Georgia views, with ruined bridges, tumble asphalt, and livestock with a really nice Martkopi monastery at the end of the route.
Tip: You could get to the Norio village just for 1.5 GEL in about 30 minutes from Samgori metro station in Tbilisi
We decided to take this hiking route at the end of February 2017, here are a few shots from our route
At the start of route in Norio Village
It was a nice and sunny Saturday in February 2017. With help of Google Maps we started our route just after left marshrutka
First obstacles - mud puddle
It was a good test for my Aldo leather shoes I bought in NYC few month before.
It also reminded…
Investment Opportunity in Georgia - Fish Farming & Agro Tourism
| Doing Business | 20 seen
The other morning I was contacted by acquaintance informing about interesting investment opportunity in Georgia. Investment opportunity involves fish farming and possible agro tourism.
As this investment asks more than $300,000 and is out of my knowledge, I decided to "list" it on blog as blog is getting a lot of eyeballs regarding invest in Georgia.
Here is the proposal:
This package is to find interested investors for 350,000 USD for a 49% share in the project. The entire farm and project is as of today on a fire-sale of sorts for about 200 000 USD for 100% ownership of 41 Ha (the original purchase price of the land in 2012) near to Sagarejo, Georgia plus all the information, research, data and project planning we as developers has or ever had.
The land was evaluated by Pro Credit bank at 400 000 USD and the entire project much more. As can be seen from the projections it is very profitable, the current owner and investors just don’t have money to do it. Some of the information is not relevant anymore but the land and the project is still valid.
There are 2 main possible project directions - “…
How To Remove HTML Elements From Drupal 7 Feed
| Drupal Development | 10 seen
In this article you will learn how to style RSS feed in Drupal 7 (not sure, but most bellow written should apply to Drupal 8 as well)
I'm using RSS feeds to power up e-mail newsletters, see How To Sync Drupal RSS Feed to Mailchimp, and everything would be fine, except I had to stop automated email marketing because of amazon affiliate links included in feeds, which is against Amazon Associates TOS.
If you are sending out RSS feeds via email and you are not concerned breaching some rules with links included, this article is not for you, but if you are on Drupal, using Amazon Associates for product reviews and sending out e-mail newsletters powered by RSS, keep reading.
Solution turned out much easier than I thought at start.Visit your content type, under Manage Display scroll down to Custom Display settings and enable RSS feed
Custom Display Settings for Drupal 7 Content types
Next under RSS display settings manage fields you would like to keep, and set body to plain text (or some other predefined text format)…
How & Why To Hire a Virtual Assistant / Freelancer - UpWork.com
| Blogging | 28 seen
2017 have come with some fresh ideas and changes for me how to continue successfully grew my personal blog (the one you are currently reading).
It was back in December when I was intensively brainstorming ideas on how could I keep my 365 days blogging challenge (an article per day) meanwhile rising the quality of content.
Another reason I was looking for a Virtual Assistant / Freelancer - I was looking for ways of doing less by myself and getting more free time on other, let's say organizing issues.
This blog covers many different topics, which might not been related at the first glance, I write about my travels, restaurant reviews, also I write about my adventures in home remodeling, meanwhile I keep writing about gadgets, investments and more on. Let's say I have a lifestyle blog with fintech touch, In the past I've eliminated some of the topics in past, and keep focusing 90% on things that really matters to me.
There is a pretty popular section - All about Georgia, where I keep putting my notes on my discoveries in Georgia as I've been living here as an expat…
Review of Mintos Peer to Peer Lending After One Month of Investing
| Peer to Peer Lending | 14 seen
End of the February 2017, marked one full month since I've been investing to Mintos peer to peer lending platform. In this article I'll share some of my findings.
The idea to invest in Mintos Marketplace first arise at the start of 2016, when I was looking for a passive investment opportunities in Georgia (country). Back in these days a newly built platform popped up on my radar, see: Invest in Georgia - Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending - Mintos.com
Both individuals and entities can invest through Mintos. Individual investors must be at least 18 years old, have a bank account in the European Union or third countries currently considered to have AML/CFT systems equivalent to the EU, and have their identity successfully verified by Mintos. At the moment, US citizens or taxpayers cannot register as investors at Mintos.
Affiliate link here: Signup to Mintos.com here. By using this affiliate link for registration both you and I will receive — 1% of our average daily balance which should be paid in 3 installments for the first 90 days.
Now I was slow on actually starting to invest there for about 8 months, when…
Dividend Paying Stocks In Nasdaq Baltic Market By Yield
| Investments | 57 seen
After couple of years of pause in investments I have decided to return to investing.
It probably all starts with my New Year's resolution to save in my "retirement" fund a million dollars before I will turn 60. See: Road To Million Dollars in Saving Account
My goal for 2017 is to put aside, or more precisely to invest $8,561 throughout the year, not mandatory all money should be invested in stocks, in fact I have already invested a little bit more than $1,000 in peer to peer lending, in another Baltic "start up" - Mintos. See: My Start at Investing on Mintos Peer to Peer Lending Platform: Depositing Funds
I like Mintos because of one reason - they offer to invest in Georgian loans, as I have been living in Georgia for about 6 years, I always look on perspective ways to invest in Georgia. Invest in Georgia - Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending - Mintos.com
Now, my experience on investing in Baltic stock market starte in 2001 or 2002,when I first bought stocks of Latvijas Kuģniecība using privatization certificates. Which latter in 2005 I sold for about 500 or 600 Latvian lats and bought a Canon camcorder. In 2007 I…