Georgia week 3: The mysterious ways of becoming a local

The week was full of trainings - we had morning class and evening class and during the day we would be preparing trainings as well. We got a new class of people to train and boy oh boy how active they were. They were from high school and the way the discussions were going on, you could have thought that somebody was insulting someone and a fight was about to break out. Of course, there were no fights. Sadly, they were speaking in Georgian which means I couldn't really understand what they were saying and yelling about. The weirdest thing was after they would scream at each other for five minutes, they would continue to talk normally and asked to continue like nothing happened.

We discussed with both groups (when we were discussing cross cultural communication) that Georgians might be close to Italians and Spanish people according to how they communicate with each other. I agree with them, they can be quite short tempered and when they speak, the whole room hears it.

At the end of the week we gave out certificates to the people who attended all of the trainings. We had a huge applause for the translators, because they did a huge job at helping us and our students understand each other. We even got surprise certificates for us as trainers!

Best students ever!

During this week I started feeling like a local - I stopped getting lost, I knew most of the streets (especially if they were in the center). I even got to find out some new streets, new places, saw the night Kutaisi, which sadly is very very quiet. But the lights at night still look beautiful. Now I even know how to get home if I'm at the other end of Kutaisi, but actually it's easy - just walk towards Bagrati. Or if you don't know the way, just ask the way to Bagrati.

To start feeling even more local, we started getting Georgian language classes. Let me tell you - their alphabet looks weeeeird and it's in a weird order. I wouldn't have a problem with it, but there are some sounds which are just not for my throat. I just can't pronounce them. Maybe at the end of the trip I will be able to but that's doubtful.

We also got a lesson in Arabic (since there's so many interns who speak it, why not?). The alphabet is also pretty weird and interesting - there's this thing where you have to remember where to put the dot on a letter. And the sounds are also not really adjustable to my throat. We will see how it goes.

This weekend we decided to go to Batumi - we had the need to dip our feet in the sea. So we packed our bags and went out. On the trip we regretted we didn't take the train, as the tracks go just by the sea, so we would have had a great view. 

Batumi is such a beautiful city - the architects and urban planners did a wonderful job there. We lived quite far from the center and at night we got soaked from the rain - we returned to the hostel (Anri) with no dry clothes. Of course, before returning, we had the obligatory 2am McDonalds snack. We went to the Delphinarium, saw a great show, went to swim in the sea (it was soooo salty and with so many rocks - I'm not used to it at aaaall. My feet were killing me). Oh and we just haaad to try the shooting range. I was a bit rusty, but it was good nonetheless.

Apparently the Ali and Nino sculpture moves!

The only thing we did not like from the tour is that we had to spend so much time in the bus. We decided to come back to Batumi again, but this time on our own and without a tour.