What a Weekend

"Oh what's that, you had a quiet week? Well, let's change that this weekend!" - The World to: My Life

Honestly, it felt a little like the world decided to give me a crazy weekend since I'd had such a quiet week.

It all started Friday night. My host family has internet finally and officially....it just requires hooking up manually rather than through wireless. So after school my host sister was playing around some, and then she let me use the internet while she helped her cousin with English. I ate three times that afternoon, the first some soup when I got home. Then later some corn on the cob, with a totally different kind of corn. The kernels are larger, so there's less worry about getting all that silk and stuff caught in your teeth. And then again, when the mother of Natia's cousin came over and brought some warm bread treats, one with a bean paste inside of it. We were eating these sweets when the phone rang and Natia, my host sister, is talking on it, making a few calls and then "Go Kutaisi?" (Kutaisi is the largest city in the Imereti region.) It turns out their relatives in Kutaisi had just had a baby, and so we all crowded into the truck and took off. The mother must've just gotten home from the hospital recently because she was exhausted, and didn't look too well. We didn't stay long, but oohed and aahed over the baby before leaving. It wasn't a very long event but it was exciting.

Friday night while I was out, the other English teacher, Natalie, who is from England, texted and called wanting to know if I wanted to go to Kutaisi on Saturday. I did, and that ended up being an adventure to get started. In the typical Georgian way of I have no clue what is going on, Natalie's neighbor was going to come and get someone to drive us, but she disappeared on Natalie, so it turned into a rush out the door to catch the Marshut'ka to meet Natalie in Samtredia to go to Kutaisi. That went smoothly, we didn't have to wait long to leave at all because we were right on time.

We both thought we were going to get to go sightseeing. Natalie had been in the hospital, and had made friends with one of her nurses who was going to meet us in Kutaisi. The meeting up plan worked pretty easily. However, Natalie's friend, Ana, and her plan involved going back to her house and hanging out. It was quite fun in its own way. Compared to my host family, Ana's was wealthy, they had their own house which was three stories, and they had a flat screen tv and a nice computer and sound system. They fed us some snacks and we danced some. We also went over to the neighbor's and had some warm pumpkin type food. I gained a newfound respect for translators there. My brain has been kind of language haywire since coming to Georgia. When someone tries to talk to me, my first instinct is to reply in what little Georgian I do know, and then to fill in the answer with German, rather than English. So when the neighbor knew German and was talking to me in German, my brain went "oh dear". It ended well and I understood because it was a pretty simple conversation, but switching languages takes a minute, my brain just isn't prepared for the new gear.

Anyways, after we hung out with the neighbors it was time to head home. The marshut'ka to and in Samtredia stop running after 6, so it doesn't leave all that much time. We had been snacking so I was starving when I got home, luckily my host family is always ready to feed me once I get back from being out anywhere. They had guests over, I'm not sure who, family, I've met them before but can't remember all their names. I'm not quite sure why, but there was  big feast later after I'd eaten. Hinkali (Georgian dumplings), bread and cheese were what I ate. They also have this delicious ketchup not ketchup type sauce that I would eat all the time if it were our ketchup. It's tomato based, but with herbs, like onion and ginger and I'm not sure what else. It's very mildly spicy, you need to eat a lot of it to notice, but it is goooood. After that I spent about an hour trying to get Natia's new webcam's mic to work. She's as happy to have internet as I am, she's on all the time in the evening! (Skype is her favorite).

Sunday was an early day for me. Natalie and her neighbor were going on a walk in the hills, and I was invited. I just had to get up early. It was a gorgeous day, blue skies and sun. We ran into a couple other TLG teachers taking the Marshut'ka to Batumi when we got on. We weren't going all the way to Batumi, but it was interesting. It was a long walk we took, Natalie's neighbor estimated it at about 6 kilometers, but it was gorgeous. Not the mountains, but we got to go up into the hills and walk along them. We had a great view of the area and Samtredia and the mountains across from us. Although it was a little misty which made the visibility a little off. It was just nice to get out away from the cities and go on a walk. We ended up at her neighbor's friend's house in the country, completely isolated. The road was all dirt and gravel and quite a bit of mud. Again we were fed and given wine. Luckily we were able to get a ride back to Samtredia. Walking back would just have been not fun. :( After that it was back to a quiet evening and a quiet day today, but for once, a lot to talk about and in only three days!