On Friday, approximately 14 of us TLG 12ers met up in Tbilisi! It was awesome and definitely a much needed bit of freedom from village life. Plus, I cannot emphasize enough how great it is to be around people who understand what I'm saying after being around people who can't speak more than a "good morning" in English for the most part.
So we all checked into Tbilisi Hostel, which I thought was a great place. It was fun and I liked how it looked. The showers weren't exactly warm, but it's Georgia, and a hostel. It isn't surprising.
Summing up my weekend in keywords (I like to do this apparently): vodka, beer, rum, Buddha (but not spelled that way), smokers, food, sunlight, English, confused, street dog, pop music
Friday night we went to a place called buddha bar, but it wasn't buddha like buddha. i don't know how it was really spelled, someone just told me it wasn't spelled "buddha." We were taken to this place by a guy named Anik or something who we met in the hostel. He was in TLG group 2 or 3 or something. He seemed to feel very good about himself for being in TLG for so many more groups longer than us. Anyway, he took us to this place and it was small and full of smoke, but also full of English speakers! I was very excited by this. Half of the group left after like 2 min and went back to the hostel because it wasn't their scene I suppose. I still love you guys! Even if you didn't stick it out at the weird bar! :) The ones of us who stayed... had fun. I drank rum and coke because that's like the only thing they had. We danced a lot... to great music such as "Hit me baby one more time." There were a lot of trips outside to the alley next to the bar. The end of the night is kind of a blur. It took us a while to leave because everyone kept forgetting things inside of the bar. Then it took a while to round us up and get into a cab. Helene and I were distracted by a street dog, which we should not have been petting. But it was so adorable......!!!! I probably ended up asleep by 5am or so. This was after the other tlgers got mad at us for being too loud in the hostel when we came back. And apparently some random guy barfed in one of the hostel rooms, but not in mine, thank goodness.
The morning didn't feel so good... But a bit of asprin helped. We sent Andrea, Shannon and a few of the guys we met the night before out to buy us breakfast. They came back after a ridiculously long time with some kachapuri... Big surprise. But it was good and filled me up. I took a cold shower, and spent a lot of time basking in the sun in the porch of the hostel. It was the most beautiful day I had seen in a long time and I was very happy to be with my friends and to see the sun. We listened to some bad 90s music on my phone, along with some good 90s music. We went to a little tiny cafe with a really sweet owner. Wandered around a bit. Took the metro to the main part of Tbilisi where a cop got mad at me for taking photos of a building... apparently because the president's motorcade was about to come through, but I didn't know this. Afterward, a police stopped traffic so that four of us girls could safely cross the street. (We must have looked clueless). We wandered around more and ended up getting some delicious street food that was probably the closest thing I'll get to a burrito while I'm here, but was actually nothing like one really. Then we got some amazing ice cream and ran into Tony. The rest of the group was at the KGB restaurant so we went and said hello to them but then headed back to the hostel because Shay was feeling like she might barf. She didn't barf, and instead suppressed the nausea by... drinking vodka?
We met two Germans in the hostel and they hung out with us in our hostel room and we all drank vodka and or wine and listened to Daft Punk among other things until it was time for us to go out. We went to a bar that seemed pretty far away, and it seemed to be someone's birthday party when we got there. There were people wearing face paint and party hats all over. The toilet was up higher than the rest of the bathroom... like you had to climb up 4 stairs to get to it. We got ahold of some of the face paint and drew cat nose and whiskers on ourselves... well, Helene and Shay had someone GOOD do their face paint. Lydia, Anita, one of the German guys and I just had the crappy cat whiskers. Then we went to a restaurant and got way too much food (we kept ordering thinking we had eaten it all, but more was still on it's way). We also ran into some more TLG people, like one of the ones that came and spoke to us during orientation about their experiences. When we got back to the hostel, Helene asked if we wanted to hang out with her in the kitchen so Shay, Anita, cat whisker German and I went down and we all sat on the floor in there talking about gassy water and Helene's water bottle cow that the hostel owner was rocking like a baby talking about how he will be a good father someday. Then we went to our beds.
The next morning we had to wake up kind of early and get all our stuff together. We said goodbye to each other at the metro station and then got on our marshutkas to our various areas of Eastern Georgia. On the ride home I sat next to Cort and we listened to pop music on my ipod to try to drown out the bad music the bus driver was listening to... except for of course when "My heart will go on" came on in the marshutka and we had a sing along until the bus driver got annoyed and switched it off. The Georgian countryside is starting to look quite beautiful now that it isn't so snowy and foggy and I could actually see it. I felt very happy sitting there with Cort and looking out the window and listening to music. I think I even told him that I was very happy. I am lucky to have made such great friends over here! And to be in such a beautiful place where I am experiencing things I never would have expected to in my entire life. I am very happy to be alive.
So we all checked into Tbilisi Hostel, which I thought was a great place. It was fun and I liked how it looked. The showers weren't exactly warm, but it's Georgia, and a hostel. It isn't surprising.
Summing up my weekend in keywords (I like to do this apparently): vodka, beer, rum, Buddha (but not spelled that way), smokers, food, sunlight, English, confused, street dog, pop music
Friday night we went to a place called buddha bar, but it wasn't buddha like buddha. i don't know how it was really spelled, someone just told me it wasn't spelled "buddha." We were taken to this place by a guy named Anik or something who we met in the hostel. He was in TLG group 2 or 3 or something. He seemed to feel very good about himself for being in TLG for so many more groups longer than us. Anyway, he took us to this place and it was small and full of smoke, but also full of English speakers! I was very excited by this. Half of the group left after like 2 min and went back to the hostel because it wasn't their scene I suppose. I still love you guys! Even if you didn't stick it out at the weird bar! :) The ones of us who stayed... had fun. I drank rum and coke because that's like the only thing they had. We danced a lot... to great music such as "Hit me baby one more time." There were a lot of trips outside to the alley next to the bar. The end of the night is kind of a blur. It took us a while to leave because everyone kept forgetting things inside of the bar. Then it took a while to round us up and get into a cab. Helene and I were distracted by a street dog, which we should not have been petting. But it was so adorable......!!!! I probably ended up asleep by 5am or so. This was after the other tlgers got mad at us for being too loud in the hostel when we came back. And apparently some random guy barfed in one of the hostel rooms, but not in mine, thank goodness.
The morning didn't feel so good... But a bit of asprin helped. We sent Andrea, Shannon and a few of the guys we met the night before out to buy us breakfast. They came back after a ridiculously long time with some kachapuri... Big surprise. But it was good and filled me up. I took a cold shower, and spent a lot of time basking in the sun in the porch of the hostel. It was the most beautiful day I had seen in a long time and I was very happy to be with my friends and to see the sun. We listened to some bad 90s music on my phone, along with some good 90s music. We went to a little tiny cafe with a really sweet owner. Wandered around a bit. Took the metro to the main part of Tbilisi where a cop got mad at me for taking photos of a building... apparently because the president's motorcade was about to come through, but I didn't know this. Afterward, a police stopped traffic so that four of us girls could safely cross the street. (We must have looked clueless). We wandered around more and ended up getting some delicious street food that was probably the closest thing I'll get to a burrito while I'm here, but was actually nothing like one really. Then we got some amazing ice cream and ran into Tony. The rest of the group was at the KGB restaurant so we went and said hello to them but then headed back to the hostel because Shay was feeling like she might barf. She didn't barf, and instead suppressed the nausea by... drinking vodka?
We met two Germans in the hostel and they hung out with us in our hostel room and we all drank vodka and or wine and listened to Daft Punk among other things until it was time for us to go out. We went to a bar that seemed pretty far away, and it seemed to be someone's birthday party when we got there. There were people wearing face paint and party hats all over. The toilet was up higher than the rest of the bathroom... like you had to climb up 4 stairs to get to it. We got ahold of some of the face paint and drew cat nose and whiskers on ourselves... well, Helene and Shay had someone GOOD do their face paint. Lydia, Anita, one of the German guys and I just had the crappy cat whiskers. Then we went to a restaurant and got way too much food (we kept ordering thinking we had eaten it all, but more was still on it's way). We also ran into some more TLG people, like one of the ones that came and spoke to us during orientation about their experiences. When we got back to the hostel, Helene asked if we wanted to hang out with her in the kitchen so Shay, Anita, cat whisker German and I went down and we all sat on the floor in there talking about gassy water and Helene's water bottle cow that the hostel owner was rocking like a baby talking about how he will be a good father someday. Then we went to our beds.
The next morning we had to wake up kind of early and get all our stuff together. We said goodbye to each other at the metro station and then got on our marshutkas to our various areas of Eastern Georgia. On the ride home I sat next to Cort and we listened to pop music on my ipod to try to drown out the bad music the bus driver was listening to... except for of course when "My heart will go on" came on in the marshutka and we had a sing along until the bus driver got annoyed and switched it off. The Georgian countryside is starting to look quite beautiful now that it isn't so snowy and foggy and I could actually see it. I felt very happy sitting there with Cort and looking out the window and listening to music. I think I even told him that I was very happy. I am lucky to have made such great friends over here! And to be in such a beautiful place where I am experiencing things I never would have expected to in my entire life. I am very happy to be alive.
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