These past few weeks have been an odd dichotomy of surprisingly enjoyable and mind-numbingly dull. School's end was anticlimactic, as expected. Students trickled out day by day, and the last actual day of school was nothing special. There really isn't a bad thing strong enough to kill the inherent joy of the End of School, but there is one to dull it a bit: exams. Students and teachers alike were freaking out about preparing for the exams, so this year wasn't as joyful as most. Ah, well.
Last week, I had the joy of hosting a wicked awesome Couch Surfer. I'm sure my host fam's had it with me having people spend the night, even though it's not like they really have to dig into my allowance to feed them once and wash their sheets. Whatever. He was a cool guy from Germany, just out of high school, who's been teaching German in Tbilisi for a year with the German equivalent of Peace Corps. We took a walk with Ana to Tsminda Giorgi church (my new running path every morning, btws) and I learned fun and interesting German words such as Schlagbaum and Glühwürmchen.
I went in to Tbilisi on Friday for some last few medical check ups. Apparently I didn't sit on enough concrete these past to years to make my ovaries fall out, because everything works just fine. I also introduced TaChalla to her newest craze.
Then, Saturday was the long-awaited (and multiple times delayed) Race for the Cure. SUPER PUMPED doesn't describe how I felt when my weeks of pointed preparation (on my new running path toward Tsminda Giorgi church, a good hour jaunt up and down the mountains) came to its culmination. I played Frogger with the less critically thinking Georgians who were walking in both directions during the race, I sprinted in attempt to return some dude's fallen number, and I had no idea how many laps we were supposed to actually run. Word on the street was 4; I was told to stop, but others with me were still running, so after a confused bout of walking, I ran and caught back up to Katrina. I had already expended most of my energy pushing it up the hill for what I thought was the final lap, so I was exhausted and dourly thought I'd never make it. Katrina (famous for her multiple broken feet/leg problems because she runs so much and lacks a proper diet here) picked my spirits off the pedestrian trodden, sweat laden ground with a "You're fine, you can finish." Without her, I don't think I would have as strongly as I did. (Which was not stellar, but still) <3
After Race for the Cure, we chilled in Tbilisi for the night. Mostly it involved me worrying (somewhat) unnecessarily about job stuff. At dinner I asked, halfheartedly, if anyone was planning on going to Svaneti, and, lo and behold, Lang was going to go with his family! Some other people were tagging along, too, so the next day we bought train tickets and Krisanne, TaChalla and I headed out to Kutaisi in search of dinosaur footprints.
We found much more. These are our stories.
Day 1: Nice place, people don't know directions worth a kopeki.
We arrived at about 3 PM. We took a cab up to our hostel because we had no idea where it was and didn't feel like walking aimlessly around the city-- er, big town-- with all our stuff. We then decided to try and make it to Sataplia, where these dinosaur footprints allegedly reside.
If you want to skip the following two paragraphs, here's a summary:
Total location changes before we got on the marsh to Sataplia: 6
The people at the hostel told us one place. We went there, asked a marsh driver, he told us another place, we went there, waited, went to the tourist info place across the street, who told us some other place (and TIMES). So, we went where the tourist people told us (which turned out to be around the corner from the first place). But we had about 40 minutes to kill, and TaChalla was in dire need of a beer. We thought we'd find a restaurant to go to after we got back from Sataplia, so we asked a random Georgian man sitting outside a beer bar (good idea, right?). He pointed to some restaurant which some English-speaking Georgian dude immediately condemned as awful.
"I know restaurants," he said. "What kind of restaurant you want? A good one?"
We looked at each other.
"Well, I don't want a bad one," TaChalla said.
But we didn't have time for his shenanigans, so we just went into the sketchiest nearby Ludis Bari (what most Georgian bars are named; "Beer Bar") and fueled up for the trip.
We sat down where the marsh should be, was told we were in the wrong spot by some girl, so went to another spot, where someone told us to go back to where the girl told us to go somewhere else.
Sataplia was actually pretty cool. The only thing it was missing was a clearly marked entrance to the building with the prints. Also the Jurassic Park theme song. We took a tour of the cave, guided (against our will... but we met Dennis. Long story.), and thus missed the last marshutka back to Kutaisi. TaChalla attempted to befriend some Israeli tourists while Krisanne and I got acquainted with a huge friggin' mountain bee-- imagine my thumb with wings and a deadly stinger. (Sataplia = "place of honey".. so there's mountain bees.) When the Israeli tourists refused us a ride, we began the 7 K walk back to Kutaisi. About halfway down, TaChalla persuaded some guy and his girlfriend to take us back to the city, and they invited us for dinner at a brewery. Much awkward conversation ensued, and we finally parted ways and walked around Kutaisi for a bit, marveling at the streets downtown that don't resemble a Georgian street in the slightest. Later, because all roads lead to McDonald's (signs throughout the city), we made a pilgrimage there for some McPlurries and McSheikis. We put up with some Georgian sass inside (GOD I miss LINES!) and out ("Hey, Blackie, are you a boy or a girl?"). Exhausted, we marshed it back and fell into our beds, not before acquainting ourselves with our Polish roommate.
Kutaisi's final grade today: C+
Day 2: HAPPY FREEDOM DAY!
Today we decided to go all touristy and visit a museum and some churches. The museum was probably the coolest museum I've seen in Georgia (not a very large comparison chart, here, though), though it was lacking some proper labels. Fair enough. Then we killed some time in a pretty chill park before catching our marsh to Gelati (a church), after which we planned to hike down to Motsameta (another church). We payed our respects to Georgian Historical Figure David the Builder (by NOT standing on his grave and taking pictures, like some Georgians there [edit: apparently, DtB wished that people would "stand on his heart" and wrote some poem about it. So that's all apparently cool with him.]) and asked some friendly priests where the legendary hiking trail down the mountain was located. "Don't try. You'll get lost. You need a guide to help you down it," they said. So we took our leave and searched on our own. We hiked for about an hour, and when we met up with some cows that didn't look too happy to see us, we decided to just go back up and catch the marshutka to Kutaisi proper.
After a small reprieve at the hostel, we decided to venture up the funicular to check out the Ferris wheel we saw from afar. We discovered not only a Ferris wheel, but a WHOLE (nearly) LEGIT THEMEPARK, complete with a "DROP ZONE" (!!!!!), over which Krisanne and I totally prevailed. Pictures to come.
We rounded out the day of celebrating America by going back to the brewery and having some Freedom Beer. (Yeah, yeah, I drank some beer. It was "black". Josh, you and I may be sharing some lagers when I get back.) And, finally, our day ended sweetly by munching on some cake at the hostel. Where did we get cake? We bought it at a place near the park. How did the cake get to the hostel? I carried it up the hill. In a box the size of a pizza box. Sans lid. Yeah, freedom ain't free, and neither is enjoying cake in celebration of it.
Kutaisi's final grade: B. Try to not be so racist next time, dudes.
