Tbilisi is a funny town. If shops bothered to put more signs in English, I am sure they would entice more foreigners to visit. After all, it’s an ancient city full of historical landmarks any European would love. Of course, note the fact that I wrote European, not American. There are, of course, adventurous types but most visit Italy. But the food here is delicious, people are, for most, helpful and it’s not expensive.
But since no much in Tbilisi makes sense, I can see why it is not on the route of the popular cruise ship liners. Well, I am pushing it a little since the nearest body of water is far away.
One of the things in Tbilisi that makes no sense is driving. Anyone who has been to a Central Asian country would agree with me. Although drivers somewhat obey light signals, any other driving rules are thrown out the window. As my landlord pointed out, it’s not about obeying traffic laws - it’s about guessing which driving rule the other driver will break. Last time I checked, if you approach a round-about, cars that are already driving around the round-about have the right of turn. Not here; you just drive and hope to God no one hits you. There is a whole lot of honking and break screeching. Instead of a two lane streets, they become three or four lane streets with white marking on the street lose all meaning. Repeatedly drivers run through the red light. Now, taking all this into an account, imagine what it feels like to cross the street when a car is barreling towards you at 40mph and honking. And I am talking about crossing the street at a designated pedestrian area with the green light for the pedestrian. Needless to say, at the end of 2 months here, I am sure I will be the queen of underground passages. Which are intermittent so you have to plan ahead of time to use the underground passages, otherwise you are stuck walking for an extra couple of blocks to cross the street. Or take you chances while dodging cars.
The other downside of Tbilisi is that there isn’t a very good public transportation system. Occasionally, I see a bus or a trolly but most people take privately run mini-vans that sort of function like buses. Except that their routes are written in Georgian and for a tourist, it’s hard to figure out which one will take you to the area where you want to get. My friend here told me not to take them anyways because apparently, in the summer time, “there are really bad smells.” Taxis are apparently cheap and there is a Metro that I think I may use. But for now, I am dodging cars as I cross the street and keep a mental map of underground passages.
Speaking of taking the Metro, there are a lot of power outages. In fact, as I write this, there is a power outage. During my three days here, this is the second one that I noticed because I was home during its occurrence. And since the Metro is run on electricity, I am not quite sure if taking it is more advantageous than putting up with the bad smells of the mini-van. I read somewhere that in a case of a power outage, one could sit in a tunnel for hours. And it’s been about couple of hours since the lights went off in the apartment.
On a more positive side, the food here is really good. The cucumbers taste like cucumbers; tomatoes are deep red and taste delicious! It seems that a lot of Georgian dishes also use cheese which is ready available. I am still on the look out for my beloved watermelon, right now, there are only raspberries and strawberries sold by old ladies on the street sides.
Speaking about old ladies, yesterday, I stopped by this little veggie stand that is run by an old Georgian lady right next to my apartment. My landlord told me that she is a neighbor so I figured she would be nice. When one buys groceries here, you must specify amounts in kilos or grams. It’s a little confusing since I wanted 2 cucumbers, 4 tomatoes, a handful of potatoes and some dill and I have no clue how many grams each item would weigh. Earlier I bought some cheese and the store lady asked me how much I wanted and since I had no clue, I showed her with my hands the width of the cheese wedge that I desired. It turned out to be 400 grams. But back to the cucumbers and tomatoes. As we measured the weight and calculated, I could have sworn she said 1 Lari and 80 Tetri. Well, actually, she didn’t say Lari, she said: “odin rublj i vosemdesjet” which in English is translated as “one ruble and eighty.” Oh, since I don’t speak Georgian, I’ve been speaking in Russian. Listening to a Latvian/American speaking in Russian with a Georgian is fairly comical since no one seems to know Russian that well and everyone has a funky accent. Anyways, so since I only had 20 Lari, the lady asked me to get smaller bills because she didn’t have change. I wondered around the neighborhood, trying to get change at a hair salon, then at a pharmacy, finally, I bought some yogurt at another market where the sales lady barked at me. Well, not literal bark but customer service here is something left desired. But I didn’t care about her barking, I was dodging cars on the street, trying to make it back to the vegetable stand, all happy with change in my hand. Upon my arrival, I gave the lady 1 Lari 80 to which she asked me why I was giving her the money. I reminder her about my vegetables and she screamed back, saying that I wasn’t giving her enough money and started saying something in an aggravated tone to the Georgian woman who was standing next to me. Then she told me that I owed her 3 Lari 85. I asked how that could be and she replied back by pointing at my vegetables and yelling how I had bought a lot of vegetables. At that point, I didn’t really care and gave her the requested amount so that I can get my vegetables and move on with my life. After all, instead of paying $1, I paid $2, which in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge amount and I am sure God will reward me one day for being such a benevolent human being. Of course, I will never go back to that vegetable stand since there are about 5 other vegetable stands near my apartment. All of which require dodging cars.
And there is still no electricity in the apartment. It’s been three hours. Not that it’s a big deal but I need to heat cold water to take a shower. Oh, never mind, it just came back on! Yey!
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