Thursday after school I pretty much flew home to pack for
the upcoming weekend. Long weekend
timeeeeeeee. As I got home, Xaatia my
host sister asked if she could come to Tbilisi with me and hang out with some
of her friends but of course I am the alibi as she is 15. Being half stupid and not getting what the
implications of me agreeing would be—I said sure no problem. So as I’m getting ready my brain kicks
(thanks for the bathroom break! Damn brain messing up at the worst times) I
realize that for my host sister to leave with me I would have to also RETURN
with her. I confided in another member
of the family and she just told me to stop worrying so much and that everyone
knew that she wasn’t really going with me. Then why all the pretending?!
Thursday night Eva and I busted out stories from our high
school glory days— cue image of two 43 year old balding men with beer bellies,
stained white t-shirts reliving that one touchdown that won the game except we
were in a hostel, drinking wine, eating bread like it aint no thang on bean bag
chairs. We then went to the classiest
hooka bar in town with Siri and Michelle. No that was a lie. It’s not very
classy, but it is nice and I sure do love our sexy stick man tattoo
waiter. He loves me; he just doesn’t know it yet. That was also a
lie. He does know it. Duncan and his baby boo Marci ended up
joining us. Duncan is a new friend I
made in Rustavi—he is doing a great job at keeping me somewhat sane and reminds
me of home without making me miss home. I don’t even know if that makes any
sense. In other words, his presence is
helping me cope with the lack of personalities around me on a daily basis. We
finish off the night at 5am back at the hostel with 2 more bottles of wine, sitting
on the street side of the windowsill like a pack of suicidal maniacs.
Friday morning at 7 I wake up to my phone ringing and my
brain wanting to escape through my ears. UPDATE. My ear is finally back to full
hearing potential. I am very excited
about this friends—for a while I kid you not, I was worried about going half
ear deaf. Anyway, Erica and Clare were
calling me to let me know that they have arrived in Tbilisi! I wasn’t as
excited about it then as I am now writing about it so I tell them that we are
at Big Star Hostel and to find it—then I hung up because we all know what a
little ray of sunshine I am in the morning, let alone when I am being woken
up. The girls get to the hostel, take a
short nap and we all wake up around 10:30.
We realize we are hungry like a pack of wolves and that we should really
get some food before we start to gnaw off a piece of drywall. We hop on the subway and decide to just
explore and get off at any random stop and figure it out from there. We ended up, god knows where, and after 20
minutes of walking the hunger rage started overcoming me so we went to a
restaurant, got some food and decided to walk BACK to the hostel. So that seemed like a good idea at the time. Everything seems like a good idea at the time
doesn’t it? We found an awesome bazaar
where I bought a pair of hot red stilettos—I am pretty sure they were the only
NON BLACK shoes in all of Georgia. We
did a little shopping, with money we really didn’t have to spend and continued
our Lord of the Rings journey back to the hostel.
That night we decided to play it by ear while we are eating
at the best place in Tbilisi because it is cheap, delicious and they’ve got an
English menu. We call our girlfriend
Kiki and she tells us to join her and some friends at Sky Bar. We get there and a chick is standing at the
door with a clip board—okay, let’s stop for a minute. This alone should have raised money warning
flags but it really didn’t occur to any of us. So we tell her that we are “on the list” and
we are then escorted 3 at a time up an elevator to the lounge. The place had an amazing view of Tbilisi!!
There was a live band that then turned into a DJ after midnight. The five of us ordered a bottle of wine and
danced the night away to such Top 40 hits as “Getting Jiggy with It” “Black and
White” and “Praise You”.
(If that's not passion for Gettin' Jiggy... I don't know what is)
We then ask for the bill as it is getting late and we had an
early start the next day. *long pause*
It turns out the bill is 280 GEL… that is over half my salary for a month
friends. The reserving of the table
alone was 140 GEL and everything else was based on consumption. I almost had a hernia at the table—it meant
that our 15 GEL bottle of wine now cost us 40 GEL each. Thank the lord that there was a sane guy with
the girls we went to see, as he saw our reactions and agreed that we should not
have to pay that much as we didn’t know about being charged for the table. That was a super awkward situation
folks. Never again.
(not impressed with bill situation)
On Saturday, Eva and I brought Clare and Erica to Rustavi so
they can get a feel for where we live and what our lives are like. It happened to be Rustavoba so we checked out
the festivities for a while and then headed back to Tbilisi to meet up with
Riley (aka Rosey—HAHAHA people can’t pronounce his name so they just call him
Rosey, I am actually in hysterics writing this as it is the funniest name fuck
ever). 6 of us then pile into a Jetta (5
of us in the back, Rosey up front and the driver) and off we go to a Rugby game
stock piled with beer and vodka.
(Erica, Eva, Hertz, Beth featuring Clare as our seat belt)
I still really have no clue what is going on in a Rugby game
other then the fact that you can’t throw the ball forward and people are
slamming into other people—correction… tanks who are pretending to be human are
crushing into other tanks. Saturday
night was for sure fun, as it started off playing “Never Have I Ever” with a
group of Georgians. ‘Never have they
ever ‘a lot of things friends—but being with a hooker was not one of them. The gender relations here actually boggle the
mind; as does the whole concept of being married. Why any woman would allow her husband to be
out and about at all times of the night with his “guy friends” confuses me… is
there just a quota of ignorance that women need to fulfil here? There is no
reason why anyone with a wife should be out past 2 in the morning without her…
EVERY WEEKEND. We ended up in Lobby Bar
again, this is the third week in a row that I’ve been there—I’m starting to
become a regular which is something that I never want happening in any
country. I need to stop going there
*watch me end up there this weekend*.
Drama. Drama. Drama. Lord knows I
love the theatre but I don’t deal thewith drama. People crying and storming
off. Babies daddies being exposed… I
might as well have had sat at home watching Maury. All the while, I’m just
getting ma drank on. Long story short,
too much booze is not helping me waking up in the morning to go to Signaghi in
the morning.
Sunday was a long, lazy, rainy day. I get back to Rustavi around 9, get off the
marshutka and I hear Mambo No. 5 blaring for speakers and I look up and see LOU
BEGA live in Rustavi. *long pause* You know your career has gone nowhere when
your agent has gotten you a gig in Rustavi-- granted Mambo Number 5 is still in
the Top 40 over here. I happened to
catch the last song he was performing and then a fireworks show started. It really made me miss home. I wasn’t home this year for Canada Day or
Labour Day so the fireworks got me reminiscing. I met up with Xaatia and we went to see the
party in the city square. We run into
Duncan and his host fam—drank some beer in a park, caught up on the happenings
of the weekend and ended the night in a dance party in the streets. The Rustavi Rave scene is clearly alive.
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