Georgia week 5: New people, new mountains

Going home from Tbilisi

The week started in Tbilisi. We had a beautiful breakfast in Entree cafe – you don‘t have these in Kutaisi. It reminded me of home, where we would stop in these kind of cafes for a quick snack or cofee.

The bus was very late to pick us up as there was an accident on the road. Since we got some more time, we decided to go to Subway to have lunch there. We met a few Americans there and had a nice chat. It was amazing to have a normal chat in English not trying to limit myself to the little words. Soon the bus came and our journey back started. And it was so looooong. Some of us were already tired and didn‘t want to visit any more churches and some of us were still energetic. I didn‘t understand why we stopped at some of them as all the churches look pretty much the same, but hey, when the majority decides, you gotta go.

Start of the new project

While we were in Tbilisi, some new interns came to Kutaisi, so it was nice to see some new faces. On Tuesday the big Campus Lions Club project started and we had all the interns together in one room where we presented what will happen all week. Now it‘s a bit chaotic as more than twenty people are working and walking around looking for empty sockets to plug in their computers and there are still trainings happening in the main room. But we manage it.

New people meant new trainings, so I had to prepare some PR and Effective communication trainings. Some people seemed bored during it (I mean it is pretty known stuff), but I got some comments that I did good, so hopefully all went well.

During the week we had a movie night where we watched Seven Psychopaths. Sadly, not everyone enjoyed the movie. We also had a barbecue – we gathered at other interns house and cooked some meat, potatoes and ate together. It was great as since we have different jobs, we don‘t see each other every night, plus everybody was getting tired of cafe food and wanted something cooked at home. The food was delicious and filling. It gave us the feeling of being a family again.

Barbecue night

Friday we sort of had a dancing party at the Campus Lions Club. Ok, not sort of, we danced our feet off – we even learned a bit of Georgian dances which are quite hard to remember. Hopefully, we will have more classes for them. We also had a very heated cultural discussion – apparently Georgians are very fast to marry and create families which for me was surprising to hear. We spent the whole evening discussing whether it‘s better to marry fast or later and about the personal choice of creating a family. And after a good discussion we danced again.

Svaneti

On the weekend we went to Svaneti. The trip started at 5 am which means we had to get up at 4am and that is quite hard to do when you went to sleep at 3:20 because of before mentioned dancing party. It was a long journey to Mestia, so we used the time to sleep. We had an option to take some horses, but it was too expensive, plus the horses didn‘t look healthy at all, so we declined and went to the funicular. It took us on top of a mountain and what a view we saw.

Chilling on top

We‘ve also visited the Svaneti museum (which wasn‘t that big) and later started searching for a place to eat and sleep. Finally we‘ve found a hostel and could relax. In there again I heard that I look like a Georgian and that I am a Georgian at heart. Well, maybe Lithuanians and Georgians are similar by their hotheadedness, but otherwise... I don‘t know.

Next day we went to Ushguli. The trip was veeeery hard as the roads were very bad and it took us 4 hours to get there. When we were there, the views were amaaaazing. Ushguli is a town between mountains, so it was very very beautiful (or dzalian lamazi as the locals say). But there was not a lot to do there (I did find a hostel with Lithuania‘s flag but apart this joy there was nothing much). After a few hours we started our way back. It took the whole day. We did see beautiful sights, but I can‘t say the trip was very interesting.

In Ushguli. Flower ring from Hanane.

Nonetheless, I was amazed by the mountains and now each hill seems so small after Svaneti‘s beauty.