Tbilisi and more

After a long boring week of doing nothing in Shromisubani I left town. On Friday afternoon Kenneth and I hopped on a marshutka(bus) bound for Tbilisi. This was after Kenneth was walking towards my house, got rained on and then got picked up by his host dad when they were coming back home. They took us to Supsa(the closest place to catch a bus). I was grateful for that because I really didn’t want to walk in the rain any more than I had to. The dad flagged the bus and bargained our fare to Tbilisi. We paid 30 lari for both of us to get there. That’s about $18. Yep. Travel is cheap here. It was cold and rainy the whole way and overall pretty uneventful. The bus stops once along the way to get something to eat and go the restroom. It is about 6 hours to Tbilisi. Once we arrived in the city I called my school director’s niece, Tamuna, to let her know that we had arrived. We met her once before when we were picked up in Tbilisi by our school directors after our week of training and my director told me to call her when I arrived. She speaks practically perfect English so it was a nice change. She told us to come see her and her family. I figured they would feed us and then send us on our way. I always appreciate good food so naturally we headed to her house. Her family lives on the edge of town and you take the metro to the very last stop and then take a taxi to their place. 

They live in one of the many giant soviet block buildings. They are pretty shabby looking from the outside and the stairwells aren’t lit but their apartment (I guess that’s what you’d call it) is amazing. It is the size of a house and has nice floors and good walls and a normal bathroom. I’m always surprised when I go in one of the soviet blocks. Tamuna lives with her parents, her sister, her nephew and her daughter. I think her brother might also live there but he was out of town. I don’t know about husbands. I think they are married but from what I’ve seen Georgian men aren’t around very often so it is hard to know unless they say something. However it was very nice to see them. They all know a little bit of English, which is an extreme difference from my home life in Georgia. They gave us some snacks and then the dad arrived and he wanted to eat khinkali and drink tchatcha and wine with us. Tchtcha, from what I’ve read, is like Italian grappa. It is made from grapes but the alcohol content is way higher than wine. It burns like crazy on the way down. Definitely warms you up from the inside out. After a bit of eating and a small bit of drinking (only one shot of tchatcha and one glass of wine for me) we were put to bed. The couch pulled out like a futon and there was a spare bed in the computer room. There is so much to be said for Georgian hospitality. Yes, let me take in these people that I’ve only met once before and let them sleep on my couch and eat my food. Then I’ll help them find their way around the city and make sure they don’t have to worry about anything. I really love that part of being in this country. We went to bed and knew that we’d have to be up early the next day for an excursion with TLG.

At 7:30 we woke up, ate breakfast and then made our way to the Radisson where we would be leaving with about 50 other teachers to go to Kakheti to pick grapes, make wine and bread and then eat some food. Kakheti is known as the winemaking region. We called about this trip on Thursday after we had already decided to go to Tbilisi and thought that it could be fun. Later we found out that the president would also be making an appearance. It is always good to see native speakers and spend time talking with them. I’m still not quite sure of the location but it was about an hour and a half outside of Tbilisi at an agriculture school. The vineyard had a sign on it that said the US Department of States and the USDA funds it. I thought that was very interesting. Not quite sure why they do that, but they do. Picking grapes isn’t exactly fun but for a short period of time it is entertaining. You take a knife and cut the grapes from the vine then you put the grapes in a small bucket. The small bucket gets emptied into a large basket and then the large basket was carted away by a donkey. A very cute donkey. He looked so sad, kind of like Eeyore but he was white. After most of the grapes were cleaned off the plants they put them in a trough and people get in the trough (with rain boots not barefoot) and stomp the juice. Fresh grape juice is delicious, even from green grapes. The president made a brief appearance (with helicopter assistance) and spoke with some of us took pictures and just did. He seemed to be a nice guy and he even told a joke or two. It seems to me that most people like the president but they think he’s a bit eccentric. The minister (I think of education) was also present but he was there the whole time. He even picked grapes and made bread.

There was also a chance to make bread and by make bread I don’t mean add flour, water etc. I mean we got to put the dough into the “oven.” It is a big round thing and you stick the dough inside on the sides. There are coals at the bottom and somehow it cooks evenly and if delicious. It is called tonispuri(toni bread). The toni is the big round thing. There is nothing like fresh bread, meat right off the grill and khinkali straight out of the pot. We left after eating a lot of food and drinking some wine.

On arrival in Tbilisi Kenneth and I walked with our friend Ruth-Anne back to her hostel so she didn’t have to find it on her own. Once we got there we got to say hello to several of our friends and spend some time with them before we headed back to Tamuna’s house. We ate dinner, watched the kids dance around and then Tamuna, her sister, Kenneth and I went out to a club. We almost didn’t get in because Kenneth and I weren’t dressed appropriately but they knew someone who knew someone so we got in. It was opening night for that particular club. They had the band from the Georgian late night talk show, this girl with a great voice and this couple who one some sort of competition that is kind of like American idol/America’s got talent. Something along those lines. It was a night filled with good food, drinks and dancing. I haven’t had that much fun at a club in a long time. I definitely could have done without all the smoke but it was great. Also something amazing that I need to find in the US is cherry juice. It goes very well with vodka and it is pretty tasty on its own. Around 3am we finally headed home to a well deserved sleep.

The next day we got up at sometime. Ate breakfast and then went to Sameba Cathedral. It is a giant church on top of a hill in Tbilisi. It was just finished in 2004. It was very crowded when we got there and the reason was that the Patriarch(Georgian Orthodox Pope) was performing mass that morning. I couldn’t see him but I’ve seen enough of him on TV to know that he is an old, old man with a long gray beard and a shaky voice. I definitely felt blessed to be there with everyone else. There is just something about being around that much faith that just lifts you up. We walked around the grounds and down beneath the church where there is a small chapel. After that we headed back to Tamuna’s place. We stopped at an overlook of the city on our way. We then ate food and found our way back to the bus station so we could head home. After negotiating our fare and waiting around for a bit we finally left Tbilisi around 5PM. Again it was another fairly uneventful, but very fast bus ride. We were riding through this one town and picked up a new passenger and it happened to be our friend Riley who lives about 30 minutes from our village. The odds of him getting on the exact same bus are so low it isn’t even funny, but it happened. Georgia just gets smaller all the time and it is already small enough.

School this week has been pretty boring. My teacher book finally arrived and my co-teacher and I sort of “plan” right before we go into class. Much improved over last week. I don’t think I’m going to doing anything too exciting this weekend but you never know. Things just sort of happen around here.

Sorry for writing so much but I really don’t have anything better to do at the moment and there is just so much to tell you.

Also I just want to throw a quick congrats to my friend Rachel on her engagement and good luck in New Zealand!

I'll be posting photos on Facebook shortly.