Had an epic weekend which didn’t involve much inebriation surprisingly. Got to Marjanishvili, went into Pizza Di Roma, ate a bad spaghetti with mashed cheese and chicken (I know right!), a greek salad, a bottle of natakhtari and an awesome chocolate and berries cake. They didn’t charge me for my second cup of the very classy Althaus tea.
Got hooked onto Lana Del Rey’s Video Games that was playing on a loop on the tv set with a set of other music videos. Skyped with the family while they were in Harbourville Hotel. Moved on to Mcdonald’s in a bid to get better internet. Ran into Joe and gave him a shock (hehe!). Skyped with family again and then Mesut called on the mobile. Couldn’t hear anything he said, sob sob. Went back to skype with Juana and then Elisha called again to say they are starting to cook up a storm. Left at about 9pm with the massive jam still outside, had to take a Metro and walk in the rain. New 8 GEL umbrella put to good use. Had some yummy burritos, played a cardgame of errrr… it’s a Russian word I forgot. Chatted some more, met Ali the Persian equal-opportunist that Nic the Aussie traveler described to me a few months ago. Ali is now Elisha’s colleague at the Ministry of Finance. Slept on what Elisha calls the “junkie mattress”. I love that mattress now.
DAY 2
Woke up, ate some eggs that I scrambled. Waited 3 hours to go on skype for sister’s engagement party but got stood up :( They were very busy. Watched Zeitgeist (the religion one) on youtube while I waited and it blew my mind. Went back to Elisha’s to make Kharcho with some of my favourite godawful frozen chicken frankfurters. Went to a Georgian restaurant, got bad service or rather, the lack of any form of service, left the restaurant. Stood in a crowd of hundreds in front of a massive stage and tv production, felt a few groins pressing against my butt, gross. Finally left after an hour in the crowd. While squeezing out of the crowd, was pinched on the arm by a random Georgian girl, lost my cool & almost bitchslapped her, yelled a few profanities they will probably understand despite the language barrier, witnessed a violent chickfight on the Metro escalators with lots of slapping and hair-pulling. Got to Rustaveli with the aim of watching Eurovision and ventured uphill through some rapey staircases into a horrible expat bar filled with pretentious people. Left within 5 minutes and went home in a nice taxi with no argument over the price with the driver.
DAY 3
Got up at almost 10am. Ate more of the leftover Kharcho and then some more eggs but this time it’s Elisha-style and made with garlic. Delish. Lazed a bit more and then Hannah made guacamole. YUMMMM. Had it with lobiani. Then lazed around some more, watched an episode of Arrested Development before heading to the Railway food court. My fave Italian stall was closed along with the Turkish one and the French one. Boo! Had a shashlik set instead for dinner! Finally left to go get my taxi back to the village. Got annoyed by drivers asking me for 10 instead of 7 GEL. Stood my ground and refused to get into any of the taxis before other people fill it up. Finally got one for 7 and he turned out to be a neighbour I didn’t know.
VERY long way home with the usual 2 men drinking beer and offered me a bottle of coke that this time I didn’t want cos gosh, I’ve been drinking too much coke. We had stops in Melaani, another village going towards Signaghi and one guy got dropped off near Natia’s neck of the woods before the driver stopped for meds at a pharmacy in the centre of Gurjaani before I was finally home. It was almost midnite by now. The family was asleep but the living room lights were on. I had to pee badly so I went to the outhouse first before I said hi to anyone. When I was done, the van was blocking the living room window but I thought I saw my host dad in his undies and nothing much else. It was too big a figure to be Giorgi. I freaked out a little and went straight up to my room to pass out for the nite.
Life’s good.
Wash, rinse, repeat for 2 more weekends.
So final, so definite, the final hurdle, the final month… here we go!
I’m barely a month away from my flight out of Georgia. Today, I want to talk to you about the kindness of strangers. Last nite, in a shared taxi from Tbilisi, a man bought me an ice-cream cone when he went to get his beer for the road. Today, after I chose 2 small cucumbers to supplement my lack-of-vegetables diet at the bazaar, the man took a look at me and gave it to me for free. Yesterday, Brigid shared her fresh bread with me as I tucked into my jar of Sarelle chocolate spread.
I remember so many instances when people who were complete strangers have been very kind to me. The hitch I made from Akhasheni to Gurjaani where I was given a big bar of chocolate. A bottle of juice and a snickers bar in yet another shared taxi.
You can never go hungry in a country that is full of kind people. They may live close to poverty but they always seem to have enough to be able to share with others.
I have 4 more weekends in Georgia, what will I do with myself?
Bad romance ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardzia
Headed here with TLG tomorrow.
Also, I met the president of Georgia for the third time ;) He remembered me from Kachreti.
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