tbilisi trip…from hell (kinda, sorta)

this past weekend went by super fast and, of course, i was completely lazy through the entire 2 days. ha! i was supposed to go swimming in the river with my neighbor and her friends on sunday, but a torrential downpour on saturday and some rain sunday morning squashed those plans. apparently the river was too high and too fast. bah! i did, however, get my first taste of the georgian train system. i had to be in tbilisi by 11 am on monday to be taken over to georgian customs to pick up a package (yes mom and dad. your package came). apparently there is no early morning marshutka from my area to tbilisi (the earliest leaves at 10 am) so my host parents suggested i take the overnight train from ozurgeti. despite its incredibly s…l…o…w speed, the trip wasn’t too bad. i left at 9:30 sunday night and arrived in tbilisi at 6:30 am…yes, 9 hours on a train. i was in a sleeping compartment with 3 other individuals and we were given linens for the little beds. not too shabby. however, about when i was trying to get to sleep around midnight, some women let out a blood-curdling scream and continued to yell at a number of people for at least an hour. now my georgian is not THAT great at the moment so i’m not 100% positive for her obnoxious behavior, but i want to say it may have had something to do with her child being left behind at  some station. again, my georigan isn’t great and this women was pretty incomprehensible, but i’m going with the train left without the shvili. big oops.

i did get to meet one of my elusive host brothers. this particular one, irakli, works for british-american tobacco in tbilisi and hasn’t been home since i arrived. he picked my up at 7 (it would have been earlier but he talks fast on the phone and i had no idea what he was saying until he mentioned the word for red and i clued in that he was talking about his red shirt) and we headed into tbilisi in his bmw (ballin’). since we had 2 hours to spare until the peace corps office opened, he took my up the mountain above tbilisi and we walked around this creepy amusement park (after sneaking past the guard who was fast asleep) and saw the tbilisi tv tower super up close. apparently the view from up where we were is spectacular at night. on the way down, perhaps to impress the american, he took 60 degree turns at 80 kph. i know peace corps officials skimming this blog, reckless behavior. afterwards, we drove aimlessly around a surprisingly uncrowded tbilisi and had some hachipuri (georgian cheese bread) and cokes…the breakfast of champions, clearly. or, at least, the breakfast of 20-somethings.

i was prepared to wait a while at customs, thanks to some insight from fellow pcv krisanne, but i wasn’t prepared for the unorganized bureaucracy. there were 5 of us that needed to pick up boxes and, thankfully, a member of the peace corps office staff went with us. [side note, the customs offices used to be at the airport until a couple of months ago. now they are somewhere in the middle of the city. to add to that, the customs staff tends to not stick around for a long period of time and people are often being replaced, so it's been difficult for peace corps-georgia to maintain relationships with customs.] the 5 of us took our numbers (68-72) and proceeded to wait patiently. when we walked in the number was still on 38. a couple of us went to get some kebabs (and beer) for lunch. we played games on our cell phones. those of us who brought books tried to read them while sitting on the floor (this WAS NOT the dmv. no sitting areas on sight). finally peace corps staff member david escorted us through the “red tape” and we got our packages…after 3 hours. moral of this story: if you send me anything, make sure that you (a) send me stuff worth less than $150 or (b) send me stuff worth more than $150 and just lie about it on the form.

i also learned this weekend that it is rather difficult for me to get back home from the city, especially in the early afternoon. i hopped in a marshutka heading to batumi (the general direction i needed to go) but the driver dropped me off in khashuri because he was going a different way and not past my neck of the woods. thank you high priestess of all things lucky that i was able to catch a marshutka heading to ozurgeti from the road (because i had no idea how i would get home)…across from the mcdonalds…without being able to grab food at the mcdonalds. boo! i only wish i had known that this marshutka ride was going to be as unpleasant as it turned out to be. so i’m pretty used to the “do you want a husband”, “why don’t you have a husband”, “take me to america” questions/statements, but i got the feeling that most of the people on this marshutka were intoxicated significantly because the questions would not cease. even the driver had had something to drink judging by the way we were taking the turns up and down the mountain…in the dark. we would take periodical cigarette breaks and, the icing on the cake, was the pulling over onto the side of the road, all the men exiting the vehicle to harass and yell at another one. there was some pushing, some punching and some girlfriends crying. i just wanted to get home. i did get home in one piece, albeit much later than anticipated. my host parents were not upset, thank god.

even though this weekend was not stress-free, this week certainly will be. nothing really planned except for some meetings with my director and counterparts. i think i’ve found a georgian tutor and it’s really, ungodly hot. but other than that, i’m healthy and happy. i didn’t get a chance to write on here yesterday, so to make up for that i will write this now: happy anniversary mom & dad! love you both :]