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Published: November 21st 2011
When we get to school on Thursday all the teachers are standing in an excited huddle in the corridor. After talking with them for a minute Eka tells me that the computer teacher is married. I ask if this was a secret. It turns out he got married the day before and nobody knew so it’s a surprise for everyone, which is kind of cool. Everyone seems really happy and excited so there’s a nice atmosphere.
After school I head into Zugdidi to catch a marshrutka to Tbilisi. I’m really excited about my long weekend! But I have to wait nearly an hour for a marshrutka that never shows. To make matters worse Maia and Eka, as usual, insist on waiting outside with me in the freezing cold which makes me feel terrible, especially since Eka’s cold is getting worse. Eventually someone Maia knows goes past and I get a lift with them. We try, mostly unsuccessfully, to make conversation in the car, which is always funny. I get to Zugdidi and find out I have just over an hour til the next marshrutka to Tbilisi so I walk into town, top up my phone and check in with everybody either in Tbilisi or going to Tbilisi and then finally, after weeks of searching, find the library. I’d seen the building before but, since it says ‘Public Prosecutor’s Office’ on the outside I had no reason to suspect it was the library. Well it’s just heaven. For a start, it’s really warm, which is always a bonus in this weather. It also has an ‘American Corner’ which I resent but at least it’s full of English books and DVDs. It also has computers connected to the web and has film afternoons on Saturdays. I can see myself spending some time there. I just have time to register (which costs 5 Lari and requires no ID) and find a book before heading back to the bus station in time to catch the bus. We stop, oddly enough, just outside Terjola, at the ‘services’ that I caught the bus back from after staying at Jane’s place. I’m sitting on a bench outside and the elderly gentleman sitting beside asks me if I want coffee. I say, ‘Me minda, madloba’ (I don’t want, thank you) but he says ‘Please’ and motions me to the café. I don’t want to appear rude, and this is the Georgian way, so I go with him. We sit outside and he brings out two Turkish coffees and a big bar of chocolate and then makes the international sign for ‘do you want a drink?’ Obviously I say yes so he disappears back inside and comes back with a little bottle of vodka and a couple of shot glasses. I try to make conversation but between my lack of Georgian and his lack of English it’s pretty stunted. Besides, he doesn’t seem that interested in talking so we sit there drinking mostly in silence until it’s time to get back on the marshrutka, at which point he wraps up the rest of the chocolate, gives it to me and reclaims his seat at the back of the bus. I chalk it up to another wonderful/crazy little snippet of life in Georgia and the rest of the journey is uneventful. However, when we arrive in Tbilisi the guy (who I’d put at around 65) asks for my phone number and I don’t want to offend so give it to him and then jump in a cab to Freedom Square to meet Ara. The cab driver doesn’t understand ‘Freedom Square’ and I don’t know the Georgian name for it so I mime a big column and then say ‘Saint Georgi’ and pop him on top which does the trick wonderfully. I meet Ara who’s managed to make friends with some American teachers from Abu Dhabi (not TGLers) who he met at the hostel. He tells me he’s been really bored so I ask him why he didn’t just stay at home until the weekend and he said that that would have been even more boring – I get the impression he’s seriously starting to dislike his home life. We head back to the hostel so I can dump my stuff and find a bed. The hostel’s great. Warm, comfortable, about 200 yards from Freedom Square and, best of all, 13 Lari a night. There are also loads of TLGers and travellers there, but we try not to let that put us off. Ara and I share a bottle of wine and I make friends with a really sweet, horrendously camp guy from Iraq, rather inconsiderately also called Ali. I then make the mistake of checking my email and find out my job interview for Korea was unsuccessful. Balls. Oh well, on to Plan B, just as soon as I’ve worked out what Plan B is. We head out of the hostel with a view to meeting up with Sandra and Caitlin, TLGers from training who actually live in the city, but not before a quick detour to a kebab place down the road. The kebabs are amazing and I proceed to get sauce all over me, to the extent that I actually have to wash my gloves in the sink later. We meet the girls at the Metro station on Rustaveli and go to the nearby ‘Irish Bar’. I am not in the slightest bit happy about this. I didn’t come all the way to Georgia to drink in an Irish pub. It’s full of drunken Westerners and the cheapest bottle of beer is 5 Lari (normally 1.5 Lari a pint). But, having said that, it’s warm and there’s live music and it’s hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere. The place is crowded with drunk people, including a Georgian guy who is drinking with us and is one of the most pissed people I’ve ever seen. I can’t seem to get in the mood though. Finally we leave and go to a place called Café Gallery (although I’ve now passed about eight places called Café Gallery in Tbilisi.) It was awful – there were about six people there and the music was shit but Ara liked it so I decided to leave him to it and head back to the hostel. To be honest, I don’t know if it was the news about Korea or something else but I just didn’t feel like being there.
I wake up pretty early the next morning but the beds at the hostel are so comfy and it’s just nice to know I don’t have to get up for anything. Even when we don’t have school the latest we’re up and about at home is 8am. Ara and I try to decide what to do with the weekend. There’s talk of heading to Borjomi but we’re waiting to see if Clare’s coming to join us. I speak to Ally who’s coming in with his host brother for the weekend. He’s not sure what they’re doing and won’t be in until around 5pm so we agree that if we’ve left by then we’ll catch up on Sunday. Basically I’m still thinking I might go back for the wedding on Sat so I need to find a dress. Ara and I meet Sandra for lunch which turns into a very long lunch. We’re at this restaurant in the old town. It has great views of the river and sells yummy food and cheap wine. Ara gets a call from Clare who tells us she isn’t coming. Apparently her family are worried about the roads (to be fair we’ve heard rumours they’re closed due to the weather but that doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone else; Ally is on his way as are the vegans who we haven’t seen for weeks.) As we’re sitting around aimlessly drinking wine after lunch Ara spies a wedding going past outside and goes out for a look. In the meantime a couple of complete strangers who, oddly enough aren’t Georgian, ask if they can take a photo of me and Sandra with their baby. I will never understand this. We eventually give up the warmth and comfort of the restaurant and attempt to go shopping. We catch the Metro (my first time – it beats the Underground hands down) to Station Square where there’s a big indoor market but there’s nothing there I would ever dream of wearing. Sandra says there are shops on the street where she lives so we make our way there. I can’t find anything around Sandra’s place either so we go back to hers so that Ara can use the toilet and I can play with her kitten. It’s absolutely tiny and, imaginatively, is called Tiny. So cute. She lives in this little studio flat in a nice area of Tbilisi. Being Sandra she moans about it endlessly but I would love to be in her situation (not that I don’t love my own, of course). In the end I borrow a dress from Sandra, which takes care of that problem (at this point I’m blocking out the fact I need shoes). Ara and I leave and say we’ll probably come back for drinks later before heading out properly tonight but we get majorly distracted on the way back to Freedom Square. Sandra tells us to get a marshrutka but we both want to walk. We’ve just asked someone for directions and are actually going to walk with him as he’s going the same way when we spot the zoo and can’t resist going in. Well, as far as zoos go it was really fucking depressing. Everything was run down, most of the cages were empty and those that weren’t were too small for the animals that inhabited them (the bear enclosures were horrible). Fortunately we were only there for about half an hour before it closed. We continue to wander in what we think is the right direction. I’m starting to realise just how bad Ara’s Georgian is because he’s so reliant on his Russian. He keeps having to ask me how to say ‘excuse me’ every time he wants to speak to anyone. As we’re walking along Ara spots some guys with cameras and immediately follows them into a building. He talks to them while I’m getting an update from Ally as to their whereabouts and, when he comes back, tells me they’re an Armenian rock band he recognised from a gig he went to in London. They’re playing a gig on Sat night so we make plans to go. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we’re not leaving Tbilisi. We continue to make our way back to Freedom Square where we’re due to meet Ally and his host brother, Zuka. We pass this ridiculously upmarket French café and Ara decides he wants a proper coffee and a croissant so we go in and indulge ourselves. It’s actually heavenly. We stop at the hostel as we haven’t actually got round to telling them we’re staying another night and then get to Freedom Square just in time to meet Ally and Zuka. It’s the first time I’ve met him and he’s really cool. Him and Ally get on really well and have this proper little sibling rivalry thing going on. I decide I want to go back to the restaurant where we had lunch and for once I get my way but first we have to go meet Zuka’s friend at the park next to the crazy bridge. He takes forever and we get told off by the security guards for doing several things you would never get old off for in other countries (or in other parts of Georgia for that matter – swinging on the swings, resting your bag somewhere you shouldn’t etc). Eventually Zuka’s friend turns up which takes a lot of pressure off Ally. As I said they get on great but it’s always easier when there’s someone around who can speak your language. We head to the restaurant where we’re joined by Sandra and an Australian couple from training as well as new Ali). Zuka misunderstands what Ally says when he tells him he wants five khinkali and orders 20 but funnily enough they don’t last that long. We drink lots of wine and Ally and I go for a walk by the river for old time’s sake – it’s a walk we all have fond memories of from training. We abandon the restaurant, leaving behind most of the group so it’s just me, Ara, Ally, Zuka and George. Ally and Ara want to go to the sulphur baths but Zuka and George want to go play pool and we figure they probably don’t get to Tbilisi that often so we should do what they want to do. They take us to this pool hall where we’re searched (well, everyone else is, I just get nodded through.) We have a few drinks, play some pool, dance to some cheesy music. The place was practically deserted so we were free to make fools of ourselves. It also boasted one of the more, shall we say, character filled Turkish toilets I’ve visited in Georgia. We then spent ten minutes taking out whatever frustrations each of us may have on one of those punching machines where I was, surprisingly enough, outpunched by all of them. George has left by this point and Ally, Zuka, Ara and I wander for a bit before Ally and Zuka decide to call it a night and head to Zuka’s dad’s place (although not before Zuka has sent Ara and I in completely the wrong direction back to Rustaveli. In the end we grab a cab back to where some of the others are in a ‘reggae’ bar near the Irish pub. Again I stay for about 45 seconds and decide to head back to the hostel. It’s a pretty long walk and I’m starving so I grab a sandwich and sit up talking to some of the guys staying at the hostel when Patrick and Rachel arrive at about 3.30am. It’s really good to see them but I’m on my arse so we have a brief catch up before I tell them I’ll see them in the morning and crash out.
I wake up fairly late the next morning, realise there’s no way I can be bothered to go shopping for shoes and consequently text Eka and tell her I won’t be able to make the wedding. It’s sad but I also haven’t seen my friends for two weeks and I want to spend some more time with them. Plus the beds at the hostel are ridiculously comfortable and impossible to get out of so there was no way I was going to make it up, packed, shop for shoes and to the marshrutka stop for 10am which is the only way I would have made it back in time for the wedding. Sandra asks if I want to meet for brunch but Ara and I decide to eat at the hostel so I go out for provisions and he whips us up an awesome omelette. The original plan for the day was to go to the ‘big church.’ One day one of us is going to have to find out what it’s really called cos everybody just calls it ‘the big church.’ It’s just about the one place in Tbilisi I really want to see but haven’t made it to yet but as we’re eating breakfast we hear that it’s closed for the day so we decide to strike out for the TV tower instead. I know it’s going to take Ara and the vegans an age to get ready to go, because it always does, so I head off to Rustaveli where I’d passed a piercing place the night before in search of a lip ring. Unfortunately it’s closed so I hike all the way back again in time to meet Sandra and, eventually, we all leave the hostel to head up the mountain. It’s a really long walk but we’re all feeling a little delicate after the previous night so the fresh air does us good. We make various stops along the way – to buy mandarins, at a pet shop to play with the puppies, at an art gallery. We’re in no rush and it’s nice to just wander round the city. There’s a beautiful church about half way up the mountain and we take our time looking around before climbing the rest of the way up to the top where we meet Ally and Zuka at the ‘theme park’. It is, and I can’t stress this enough, fucking freezing. My fingers were pretty much blue by the time we got to the top. Georgia is really cold now anyway (apparently we’re having an early winter) but we’re now at the top of, if not a mountain exactly, then at least a really big hill and my god it’s windy. Which is why the decision made by me, Ally, Zuka and the vegans to go on the ferris wheel is, in hindsight, all the more questionable. This was, genuinely, the most terrifying 20 minutes of my life. I’m not even kidding. It wasn’t even adrenaline pumping, extreme sports, good kind of scary it was genuine, I think we’re going to die, I can’t breathe properly, I’m going to throw up scary. I’m not even going to try to describe it except to say that it was very high, and very windy, and that there are five people in this world who will never go on it again under any circumstances. When we eventually got off the death trap, with a new found respect for life, we went to find Ara and Sandra (who had sensibly decided to forgo taking their lives in their hands) at a café in the park where we drank tea and ate khachapuri and more or less recovered. The vegans and Sandra decide to bus it back to town so the rest of us enjoy a leisurely stroll back down the mountain. Ara wants to take us on some ridiculously dangerous shortcut involving steep icy metal steps but I think the rest of us had had enough of terrifying near death experiences for one day. After much arguing we flip a coin and thankfully Ara loses so we take the scenic route, only marred slightly by Ally and Zuka getting into some sort of completion every 200 yards, not exclusively but on more than one occasion, involving mindless vandalism. I know the kid’s 16 but Ally’s half-hearted attempts to chastise him are frankly, well, half hearted. When we hit the bottom of the mountain Zuka suddenly seems to be gripped with a sense of urgency so we jump in a cab. None of the rest of us knows where we’re going but he certainly has a sense of purpose about him. We eventually manage to ascertain that we’re going to meet his friends and when we get to the Metro station on Rustaveli we find George along with an older guy called Georgi who turns out to be Zuka’s relation (one of their grandmothers is the sister of one of their grandfathers, whatever relation that makes them). Georgi can’t speak a word of English but he is hilarious. I ask if it’s ok to have another go at the piercing place so we head off towards it down Rustaveli. On the way we pass a church and everyone wants to go inside but I’m wearing trousers which is a no no for women in Georgian Orthodox churches but the guys say it might be ok because I’m a tourist and nobody says anything so we spend ten minutes listening to the service and the chanting which is always beautiful. You could genuinely listen to it all day. The piercing place is open but they have no lip rings. It looks like I’ll just have to wait ‘til my friend finally gets his arse in gear and sends me one from London (been waiting a while now and I know he hasn’t even posted it – if you’re reading this you know who you are!) Ally then decides he wants to go to the sulphur baths. I’m not overly keen simply because it’s men in one room and women in another which means I’d be all by myself. But no one else wants to go either, Ara because he’s already kind of ill and is scared of what coming out into the cold will do to him after being in a hot bath and the others I suspect because it’s really expensive but Ally wants to try one of those crazy massages where you get completely pummelled and the others are happy to take him so off we go, but not before the Georgian guys manage to mime ‘don’t drop the soap’ which is fucking hilarious. We try four separate places and all of them are fully booked for the next two days, which has now made me really want to try them cos they’re obviously popular. Despite this slight disappointment it was really nice to see the buildings. Defeated, we head back to what I now think of as our ‘usual’ restaurant where we stuff ourselves with more food and more cheap wine (although I’m taking it easy, conscious of the long, lonely marshrutka ride the next day). As I said before Georgi is hilarious and we have a lot of fun having miming conversations and getting by on our little Georgian. The guy actually has two university degrees and is a professional photographer. Now, I’m conscious of the fact that England are playing Spain and that kick off is 9.15pm local time so I beg the others to help me find somewhere to watch it. Georgi and George say their goodbyes (Georgi has to get back to his wife and cannot be persuaded to stay out with us) and we head to a rugby bar Ally knows of where we actually manage to persuade the staff to put it on in a side room. I’m thrilled to bits and purchase a relatively expensive bottle of wine to justify our stay. But Ally and Zuka are noticeably bored and Ara wants to get to the gig so I’m only allowed to stay for the first half. I’m happy to stay on my own but Zuka says it’s very bad for a woman to sit on her own in a bar in Georgia so I’m forced to leave at half time (turns out Lampard scored in the 49th minute making the final score 1-0 so now I hate them for making me leave.) The worst thing was that when we got to the gig we’d missed it anyway (where I come from if a poster says doors at 8pm the band doesn’t go on until 10pm.) I was sorry to have missed it but we got chatting to the band at it turns out the singer lives about a mile from my house in London, crazy fucking world sometimes. Anyway, after this Ally and Zuka decide to call it a night (they were supposed to be home for a party at 6pm – it’s now gone 10pm) so Ara makes some calls and it turns out some of the other TLGers are in the restaurant next to the hotel where we had our training so we jump in a cab and go join them. I’ve actually missed this place. We always had a lot of fun there. We drink wine and dance like morons and it’s just like old times. I’m shattered though and, despite Ara saying he’s happy to leave in half an hour, I no longer trust Ara time so I leave on my own at a reasonable hour and get a cab back to the hotel. It’s another one of those crazy cab journeys that’s inexplicably cheap and creepy. We stop at this weird petrol station type place but there are all these machines that aren’t for petrol, I think they may just be for air. Either way the driver tells me to get out of the car so I take the opportunity to call Ally. Or he called me. I’m pretty drunk so I don’t remember. From the sounds of it the supra is getting a little out of hand!
I wake up the next morning and decide to do the sensible thing and try to make it back to Zugdidi in time for the last marshrutka home. The long weekend has already cost me a fortune so I could do without an additional 20 Lari taxi fare. Plus, whilst I wouldn’t mind hanging round for a bit longer, I once again can’t be arsed to wait for Ara to get his arse in gear so I strike out on my own. I get a cab back to Station Square where most of the marshrutkas go from. I’m actually starting to haggle in cabs now that I know the numbers. I find a smile normally gets me the fare I want. And as usual the taxi driver asks where I’m going and is nice enough to locate the correct marshrutka for me. I’m only slightly hungover so the journey isn’t too bad and is mostly uneventful, although going over the mountain is pretty rough. The roads are pure sludge and we crawl along at a snail’s pace. I actually fall asleep and wake up to us nearly sliding into a wall. Still, it wouldn’t be a journey in Georgia without fearing for your life. A couple of guys try to talk to me but in my hungover state I’m not feeling too sociable so I bury myself in my book. It’s a five and a half hour journey from Tbilisi to Zugdidi and I set off at midday but due to the speed at which we were negotiating the mountain roads I’m concerned about making it into Zugdidi on time. But once we’ve made it down the mountain the driver seems determined to make up for lost time. I was still cutting it fine but managed to get the driver to take me all the way to the bus station out of town so I made it with a few minutes to spare. As always, it’s nice to be home. I’ve missed dinner but we soon settle down to the usual tea, bread and cheese. Gala is at work and it turns out Levani and his mum have gone to Tbilisi to visit Eka’s sister so the house is really quiet. Eka tells me all about the wedding and shows me some pictures and I was genuinely sorry to have missed it. I don’t know what happens while I’m away but it seems every time I disappear for the weekend the house is in some way improved when I get back. I take a shower in the evening and the water’s so hot it nearly takes my skin off. Sheer bliss. I help Mari with her homework and then spend a quiet evening in my usual spot, curled up next to the fire with my book. Home, sweet home.
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