Georgia's Independence Day

This past Saturday (May 26th) was Georgia’s Independence Day. I was in Tbilisi for the weekend, surprise, surprise right? That morning I woke up really early around 7:30 and sat in bed being productive and downloading all the TV shows from the past week that I hadn’t seen and taking a shower. I packed all my stuff and got moved from the hostel that I normally stay at, to across the hall to an apartment that an exceptionally nice older lady lives in and rents out a mini flat to guests. (Massive bedroom, balcony, and bathroom.) I was stoked about this as it reminded me of flats that I had been in, in Lviv, Ukraine and it was all mine for a night, lumpy bed and all!

My Bathroom 

View of Tbilisi from my Balcony

I dropped my bag and went off to get coffee and write a letter to a friend in a cafe. I sat there for a few hours doing that, waiting for one of my friends to get into the city. After I left I walked to McDonlds so I could use the bathroom and get some more coffee, I was feeling exceptionally tired that day and I wanted an excuse to sit on the patio outside and watch a stage that was being put up in the Marjanishvili Square. I sat and took a few pictures and looked at the sky praying that it would not rain yet again. I could not take another wet weekend. (Someone send me a raincoat!) I got a call from my friend saying that he had just gotten into town and that it was hailing where he was. I cursed we made a plan to find our friend, who was phone less, because he was leaving that weekend to go back home and Teach and Learn with Georgia wanted the phone that they had given him back.

I headed to go check the bookstore that he is at a lot and found Rustaveli to be swamped with people as a street carnival was going on. I pushed my way to the bookstore and he was not there so I called my friend and told him to locate him and call me when he did so, until then I would be up here taking pictures. I made my way down the street past booths advertising all sorts of Georgian products, toilet paper, washing powder, amazing strength glass, and water heaters. It was almost like a home show but there was also Borjomi water, Natakhtari beer, and face painting!

Street Vender 

Street Vender

Street Vender 

Georgian Performers

Street Vender

I walked towards the Radisson Blu and there was a bunch of military equipment that children could get their picture taken with. I cannot began to tell you what the names of everything were. A tank, an airplane maybe? I found it a little odd that children could pose next to rocket launchers and there was a massive display of guns in glass cases, but I am sure somewhere in America does the same thing and if Tbilisi was going to be invaded on that day I think I would have been safe. I also enjoyed looking at the fit military men and then groups of over weight police officers, standing together smoking cigarettes. It was easy to pick which men in uniform I liked better. 

There was a small classical Georgian music concert being played and I stopped to listen and talk pictures, until my friend called to say that he had located the other friend. (He was at the hostel.) The afternoon was spent eating lobiani, sitting around drinking Georgian wine and enjoying each other’s company, until it was time to meet up with some other people for dinner.

The Conductor 

Since it was the end of the month, meaning we still hadn’t been paid, and our friend was leaving Georgia, and because of the holiday we decided that Georgian food would be the most appropriate for the occasion and the cheapest. We sat talking about future plans, for those of us who this was our last semester here and reminisced over times spent here. 

After dinner, the rest of the group wanted to go for beers and I made a lame accuse that I didn’t feel well and wanted to go home. I really just wanted more Emily time. I walked down Marjanshvili and stopped at a store to get an ice cream and some water. I made my way eating my ice cream and suddenly realized in my wine haze that a massive concert was going on. It was around 11pm and I was sure it would be over by now. I was wrong. I stood and watched some Georgian dancing for a bit and made my way through the masses. 

I got back to my apartment and was greeted by the pleasant woman asking if I had seen the concert, which blared from her TV and could heard from an open window and I explained to her that I just came from there. She asked if I would like any coffee or tea and I told her no thank you. I got my PJ’s on and opened a window and laid down on my lumpy bed. I was awoken around midnight (15 minuets later or so) to the sound of fireworks. I went to my balcony and stood watching. I couldn’t remember the last time I watched them. I oohed and aahed over it, enjoying my privet moment alone soaking up the experience of the end of my first Georgian Independence Day, glade that I hadn’t stayed with my friends, drinking and missing out on this.

Because This Problem Is Going To Last More Than The Weekend: Part One

Last week was a slightly rough week for me and some of my friends might have even used the word “raging” to describe me. A friend and I were on the phone talking about our weekend plans, he was undecided and I declared that I was going to Tbilisi and I was going alone. If he happened to show up, then awesome, but I did not want to hangout with him or anyone from our group of friends because they were all morons. (I told you I might have been raging.) I then stopped and looked at a calendar to see when exactly had been my last village weekend (when you stay in your village all weekend, normally because you are poor and have no money) and to my shock it was the weekend of March 30th. I had spent 6 weekends in a row, with other people, doing what they wanted to do. They weren’t bad weekends really, one was spent traveling going to a metal concert in Tallinn and then traveling to Riga. Another was spent getting drunk with three British guys in Vilnius who told me that they were all twenty-three, but I know they were nineteen and three Tbilisi weekends. I needed a break and some Emily time.

Friday afternoon I headed into Tbilisi alone, which was a little odd because my friend who lives close to me in my region normally takes the same marshookah in with me, oh every weekend. The ride in was horrible. I had a seat by the door and it started down pouring and the door wasn’t sealed tight so massive water drops started to hit and soak me. I inched as far away as I could from the dripping water, half off the seat, muttering Georgian and English swear words. We came to a stop in a town, shortly after this and a few guys who were sitting in the back were getting out and I had to move for them to do this. The thing is, the person who sits in the seat I was sitting in normally just gets out of the marshookah, let’s the people get off and then gets back in and at this very moment it was raining. The men, being good Georgian men, tried to maneuver me so I would be able to stay inside the dry (HA!) marshookah. I took one look at the space they were trying to get me to go into and one look at my ass and thighs and jumped out of the vehicle. (I really jumped, I am not justing using that word to class up my writing.) Everyone looked a little stunned that the American, with just a dress on, no rain coat (it’s back in Maine) would stand in rain that was coming down so hard someone might as well have pointed a fire hose at me. They got out and I went back in and  moved into the back row of seats, where I could dry off, but the bouncing on those dirt roads, had me almost vomiting everywhere.  By the time we got to Tbilisi I started to wonder if coming this weekend had really been such a good idea.

Friday night I set off to the Tbilisi Concert Hall, which happened to be where I was going to see a Georgian dance performance. I had scored a ticket from another Teach and Learn with Georgia volunteer off of Facebook. I had never met her, or anyone else in the group of about ten who showed up, but it proved to be most enjoyable as we waited for the performance to start we talked about the basics and what everyone was doing when the semester ends in five weeks, it’s all any of us talk about now.

I am going to assume that most of you reading this have never seen Georgian dancing, but let me tell you it is amazing. I can’t describe it so I’ve included a video of one of the dances I saw them do. (You can skip to 5:00 in, if you don’t want to watch it all. It gets really good there.) I sat for most of the performance with a massive grin on my face and the two hours of it flew by. The best part was I only spent about $6.15 on the ticket, very much well worth it. After the show some of us went to Elvis Cafe to get something to eat or drink. We again talked about thing such amazing people like us talk about, like lack of water, or illness. We called it a night around 23:30 and I walked myself back to my hostel.

On Saturday I woke up and had a nice hot shower and went out to buy strawberries. Right now they are selling small ones that taste amazing, not like the genetically modified monsters you get in the States. I also may have gotten some lobiani. I went back to the hostel and consumed all of the strawberries in one go, with a cup of crap coffee that I drank half of and then threw out. (Georgia needs Starbucks.)

I got everything together and set off around 11am for a day of Emily adventures. First on my list was to find the post office. I used the maps app on my iPod to find where it was and it told me that it was only a few blocks away. I set out on foot, sweating not even have walked a block. I got to were the post office was suppose to be and there was a bank. Now I know sometimes in Georgia, not everything is as it seems, but this seemed a little silly, a bank? Really? I double checked my Apple product and the address on the website. Apple had sent me to #144, even though I had put in #44. I kept positive and turned and walked the way I had come. I found number #44 and the post office easily after that.

I went inside and handed my envelope to the clerk and said that I needed to mail my letter. She asked what was inside. I looked at her and said, “a letter. Paper with writing on it?” Would you like me to open it so you can read it? She looked at it, checking my return address. I was just waiting for her to say I didn’t write a street or a house number on it. I’m sorry I live in a village where we don’t have fancy things like proper addresses, not Tbilisi. She saw that the letter was going to Ukraine and then started to speak Russian to me. Dear god woman, I was just talking to you in my crap Georgian and my exceptional American English, why ruin a good thing? I handed her my 4.90GEL to mail it and I am just assuming my letter will get there, but if it doesn’t I’ll only have myself to blame because I didn’t get it insured.

Before the weekend started I asked myself what was missing from my life and might put me in a better mood. My answer was street photography. If there is one thing I love it is capturing people when they don’t know I am there. This was number two on my task of Emily adventures. I just strolled to a park taking photos along the way. 

I was on a mission to find a skate park from a Georgian movie I had seen back in March. When I got there it was full of children on skateboards, bikes and rollerblades, not university students like I had hoped for, but they proved to be worthy subject matter.

In the park there also was a demonstration against cutting down some trees there. The workers were just sitting around waiting to use their chain saws and the people who were saving the lives of these poor defenseless trees stood around. I took my pictures, shrugged my shoulders and walked away.

I made my way to the Doll and Puppet Museum, which was Emily adventure number three for the day. I walked in the open door and the man at the ticket counter told me they were closed. I walked out and didn’t even ask for an explanation. It’s Georgia. I called my friend who had come into Tbilisi, the one who I said I didn’t care if he came or not, and told him I was done with my adventures for the day. He asked how the Puppet Museum was (he detests the idea of it, probably scared by them,) and I told him it was closed. He asked why and I said, “immatom” which mean ‘because’ in Georgian. He wanted an explanation but when you say immatom, we all know it really means ‘because it is Georgia and that is just the way things are so stop asking.’ At that point I had forgotten why I had called him in the first place, remembered that he was in fact a moron, and realized that I wanted icecream, so I hung up on him.

I felt like I should also share the song that this post title comes from.

I Told You No Gifts!

On Ukrainian Christmas Eve morning I was impatiently waiting for my roommate to get back home from going out to get a gift bag for our host’s gift for the holiday. He had been gone for close the thirty minuets and I was starting to get really pissed. We were going to be be late and miss our bus if he didn’t come soon. I called to ask where he was and he said he would be back really, really soon. I had everything packed and I was just waiting on him. When he came home he yelled Merry Christmas with a huge shit eating grin on his face and thrust a Pull and Bear bag at me. I was shocked for a few seconds, as I had kind of forgotten what the day was, then I started stomping my feet and mutter about how I had said no Christmas presents for me. I sat down on my bed and pulled out a box wrapped in brown paper bags mixed with gift wrap and my friend apologized for it not looking pretty, but all the shops had been closed. I told him it was fine and in the States I wrap gifts with news paper. I was more concerned with the amount of what looked like packing tape that had been used and how I was going to open it. When I tore off the first piece of paper and saw a box for a new Cannon 75-300mm zoom lens. I might have started crying a bit, yeah I did, and I was over joyed to say the least. I also got a new 8GB memory card, which was a huge improvement over my 1GB.

(My arms are folded to show that I am mad for the gift giving, but seriously look at that face. Not mad one bit)

I thanked him and complained that it was too much, but he said no it wasn’t because I need it and deserve it. The whole walk to the bus stop I am pretty sure I was glowing I was so happy. He turned around and asked if everything was ok and my smart ass reply was something along the lines of “I’m horrible. I don’t know how I could possibly be happy right now. It’s not like I just got the most awesome Christmas present ever or anything.” The shit eating grin had now been transferred to me. The more I thought about it, the more impressed I became of how well thought out this gift was. It was probably the most perfect thing I could have ever been given and I didn’t even know that I had wanted it until I had gotten it. 

I have only been using my new lens for about a week now, as Ukrainian Christmas is on January 7th, but already I am ecstatic about my new toy. I have been going around Lviv using it to stalk people and photograph them. I feel like I am paparazzi or something. It is truly amazing the freedom I have been feeling with it. I feel like the possibilities are endless right now. I also truly do thank my friend, even though it was too much. I wonder what he will get from my birthday...