I walked along Rustivli eating my icecream and enjoying the sun. I got a phone call from a woman I had met the night before at the dance concert. Her hostel was near where I was so I stayed put and watched the parade of people. There was one glorious woman who had bleach blond, from the bottle hair, with a red visor that clashed exquisitely. An, also red, halter top that showed off her stomach fat that was no quite big enough to be called a roll, tight hip hugging bootcut jeans that accentuated her muffin top beautifully with white sneakers, maybe knock off Sketchers, and she was screaming in Georgian to her cellphone while people gave her a three meter radius. I could have taken a picture, but I didn’t want her to spot me and rip my head off.
They were setting up a stage and there were policemen all about. I thankfully have gotten over my fear of them, most likely because I can drink on the street and I am not driving so there go all the reasons I would have to talk to one, except to hit on a man in uniform. This also gave me reason to not fear the crazies. They could not hurt me in the percents of this massive police turn out. One guy did come up and try to chat me up, however he may have been trying to tell me that I had chocolate on my face from the icecream. I will never know as I put my headphones in and ignored him.
While sitting there one of the most magnificent men I had ever seen came up and stood next to me. He had a great mustache with black Ray Ban glasses on and smoking his cigarette with a holder. There is nothing I love more then a ginger man (yea, I’m currently in therapy for that) or a hipster, and this good sir was a true hipster. He had that swag, that he didn’t care if anyone thought he was cool, he was going to be his own spectacular self.
Stacy showed up right as I was still admiring the man and we set off on a walk to look at souvenirs. I found a pair of metallic earrings that I liked and bought them. She had only been here since the end of February and didn’t know as much of the city as me so I took her on a little tour. On the way we stopped in a store to buy water and made a pit stop at a McDonlds so I could go to the bathroom. We commented on how the place was a zoo, filled with mostly children and there parents and how the prices were too expensive for us poor volunteer teachers to spend on food like that. (Really almost $5 for a Big and Tasty. No thanks!)
We ended up in a park snagging a bench in the shade. She had packets of Crystal Light that she had brought from America and shared one with me after I asked her a few times if she was sure she wanted to give it up as there aren’t things like this in Georgia. We talked of our lives before Georgia and she is one of those awesome people who can admit that it’s not her cup of tea living here, but she still appreciates the experience for what it is and enjoy her time spent here without being bitter, unlike some people feel the need to trash this place every chance they can just because they don’t like it.
We soon got a call from my moron friend Jamie, (who I had hung up on in part 1) calling to ask if we would like to meet at a cafe with him and our friend George. We agreed and made our way there. I ordered a small Americano and we sat and chit chatted about how we all knew each other and our past lives for about an hour or so while I Facebooked on my iPod and George downloaded things and read the news on his MacBook.
It was then decided that we would go eat at a German restaurant brewhouse near Old Town. It was a big dimly lit place were you could see the beer being made behind glass. For the four of us they brought out one menu. The place at this time was empty and I just sat there muttering that there had to be more then one menu in English. We all ended up ordering a liter of beer, that’s right a liter, each that cost about $3.55. (I really should have taken a picture but I didn’t want my parental units back in the States to think that I need to go to rehab for an alcohol addiction. I was just being economical like you guys taught me!) We debated over what to order and George and I went with the burger. Jamie went with some BBQ chicken thing. Stacy wanted Georgian food and decided to hold off until after this to get her fix. We looked through the starters and settled on getting garlic bread.
During the time that we placed our order and got it, a volunteer who was from Vermont showed up. It was nice to be able to talk about some places in Maine with someone, but I was still in a bad mood and after being over seas for so long, it seemed pointless to talk about a place I hadn’t been in almost half a year and wasn’t going to see anytime soon. When our garlic bread came we just started laughing. It was literally chopped garlic on bread. We could have made it better at one of our hostels, but we didn’t so we would just pay a lot for it instead!
Our meals came out and I remembering looking over at Jamie’s chicken portion and thinking it was a little on the small side, all he wants to do is eat meat because his host family never feeds it to him, or maybe he had just already inhaled it. My burger came with fries and some kind of cole slaw type salad. The burger had a massive skewer in the middle of it, that I wanted it to stay there, because I was starting to feel the liter of beer kick in and I am a messy eater to began with. Jamie started making fun of me for it and pulled it out when I went to take a bite. I got upset that my burger, the closest thing to one I would have back in America in ages, was going to fall completely apart on my plate, because of him. If the beer tears were to come it would have been his fault.
Stacy decided that she wanted some fries and placed an order for them. When they came there was no ketchup and when she requested some, she was asked if she would like sweet or spice. She then asked if the waitress could bring a little of both so we could try them and see which was the best. This amused everyone in our group, but she did have a point, if we were going to pay for it, we might as well get the one we like. (You normally have to pay for condiments here.) I don’t remember which one she went with, the beer was really starting to kick in at that point and I was just happy to have ketchup.
After the beerhall, the Vermonter parted ways with us and we set off to find Stacy’s Georgian food restaurant in Old Town. I was delighted when we got to it and I released that I had been there in December with two of my friends. The four of us sat down and order some mushroom khinkali for Stacy and I and Jamie got the meat one. George was full from his burger and declined. The boys got beer and Stacy and I decided to split a liter and a half pitcher of white wine. (It works out that we each paid about $1.80) There was no wireless here so I was forced to talk to the people I was with. It wasn’t so bad, but I know the word moron kept popping into my head when I would look at Jamie, so I kept drinking more wine to keep my mouth busy from actually saying it. I don’t remember what we talked about, but it was probably a really ridiculous, uncensored, horrible un-politicly correct, drunk mess, but who am I kidding we are too lame to do anything like that. We were coming up with a plan to end world hunger through singing, holding hands and planting flowers and there was no alcohol drank all night.
Our food came and my mushroom khinkali, was a bit too oily for my liking and I thought Jamie may not have been as big of a moron, because he went with the meat. We sat and talked some more and to my shock the waitress came with the bill, that never happens in Georgia, unless, wait...they are trying to close and are kicking you out, and we were being kicked out. I was not done with my wine and wanted to stay and chat more, but that is just the way of the world sometimes.
We reluctantly got up and went to the door. The rain that had been sprinkling when we came in had turned into almost an outright monsoon. All of a sudden I didn’t feel so drunk and I did not want to go out into the freezing cold downpour. Jamie called me a sad sack for deciding to call it quits with Stacy and go back to our respective hostels, but this storm was too much to go traipsing around Tbilisi in. The boys stood with us and waited as we got a cab. When we got in the guy was blasting the heat and I thought I would melt in the back seat. Stacy tried telling him where she was going, but he didn’t seem to understand. I, however finally understood why Jamie makes fun of me for having an American accent, because Stacy had one too. My drunk Georgian kicked in and along with it a slightly better accent and I wasn’t afraid to sound like an ass using what ever Georgian I could to get me home as fast as he could drive. I just wanted to sleep. We dropped Stacy off and he drove me to my hostel. I asked him how much it was and he told me 10 lair. My mad Georgian kicked in and he told me it was because of the rain. (It should have been 5 at most.) I used a few choice words and gave him his money.
When I got out of the taxi the street was flooded a few inches of water and again I cursed. The door to the entry was open, but there was no light on. I found my cell phone and turned on handy flash light and climbed the two flights of stairs up. (I always stay at the same hostel in Tbilisi run by a nice family, in a nice safe building. The stairwell is not some creepy crumbling ruin that I was going to get killed or kidnapped on, mom.) I stood at the door soaking wet and rang the doorbell. The song didn’t play when I pushed the button so I tried again, still no song. Drunk Emily started thinking, hey I’m in Georgia, there is a massive storm, maybe, just maybe the power is out. I located hall light switch on the wall and tested my theory and I was right. I started knocking loudly on the door and gotten let in a little after that.
I went into my dorm room, which I was the only one staying in and held my cellphone flashlight in my mouth to find my sleeping cloths fast, so I could get my wet ones off. I changed in the bathroom and then came back into my room and drunkly stared out the window, where I could see most of the city, which a lot of the buildings and streets were oddly dark, except for the lightning that lit up the sky every few seconds and constant thunder. I pulled back the curtains so I could watch from my bed. It looked like Tbilisi was under attack. I sent a text to the moron that I had made it back to the hostel safely. I fell asleep fast, not able to believe that he was out drinking in a storm like this. Moron.
*Later on we found out that the power had been cut to a lot of the city on purpose, so if there was a downed wire and it fell on one of the flooded streets it wouldn’t electrocute anyone. Five people also died in Tbilisi due to flooding that night.
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