I realize it's been a while. In my defense, I spent a month in Canada on vacation, and there is nothing less motivating than being on vacation. My greatest source of stress was fighting with my brother over who got to borrow my mom's car. That, and failing to knock off my entire vacation To Do list (I never do - but then again, perhaps "Watch the entirety of The West Wing" was a little ambitious).
What went undocumented on this blog were the two weeks prior to my vacation, a whirlwind of exams, marking, parties, goodbyes, and setting up my next term. If I recall correctly, this was also the time of the Tbilisi International Film Festival, where I saw an excellent German film with a cop-out ending (The Day I Was Not Born), a Georgian documentary that failed to live up to its potential (Generation of Tomorrow), and Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre (FASSBENDER!). That fortnight also saw my installation as the new copy editor of The Messenger, Tbilisi's only English-language daily. I start on Sunday, and with any luck jet lag won't impair my mental faculties. Speaking of jet lag, I can't remember half of the interesting stuff I intended to write about. So here's some filler:
Things that have changed in Tbilisi in the month I was away:
- McDonald's Value Menu items now cost 1.90GEL, up from 1.80GEL
- The 105 marshutka has been upgraded to yellow vans with Metromoney card readers. I almost missed it yesterday because I was looking for an old, beat-up, white Mercedes. One of my friends theorized that this slow roll-out of upgrades is heralding the ultimate piece of marshutka technology - a goddamn route map. I'd call that naive, but hey, Google Maps came to Georgia last fall so clearly anything is possible
- There are new signs in some Metro stations, with bus routes and notable nearby sights. One of them listed a "trade centre" near Station Square. It took me nearly ten seconds to realize this was Georgian-to-English translation for "shopping mall". A month in Canada has made my mind slow; next thing I know I'll be saying things like, "Well, it's reasonable to assume..." (Reason and assumptions are not to be relied upon in Georgia)
Things I forgot about:
- Smoking indoors
- The absurd speed of drivers here (see also, their ability to chat up a girl on their cell phone, while using the other hand to steer, honk, signal, switch gears and adjust the radio. True story).
- A lack of personal bubbles in public
- What it's like to be stared at unashamedly
- The way people go out of their way to help you (a special thanks to the teenage boy who carried my luggage up two flights to my apartment without my asking; also, the taxi driver who hailed me a new taxi when he realized he didn't actually know where he was going, then didn't ask me for any extra money)
- Enrique Iglesias
