I have it.
This awful, freezing winter weather is making me crazy. I made myself go for a long walk today and it helped my mood and general well-being considerably. Think maybe I should try to force myself to walk every day as long as weather permits, even if it is hovering around freezing. I walked all around my little Village on the Edge of the City, and found my way up a hill to a church I'd been eyeing in the distance since I got here. It is always hella complicated to get anywhere in Georgia (or Tbilisi), so my geographic win coupled with free entertainment for two hours really made my day. On our tiny little Main Street, I found a lot of really awesome fruit and produce sellers -- there even was a pineapple! One of the things I have learned to accept as a constant in Georgia is that I will be solely responsible for my own nutrition. My host family feeds me, of course, but fruit and veggies are usually conspiculously absent, especially in the winter. Fresh produce in Poti was harder to come by, but I have to wonder at my Tbilisi family's consistent omission when there really are perfectly acceptable choices nearby. But oh well. I bought two small apples and an orange. Maybe I'll bring home some carrots and squash next time as a present and see what they do. :)
One of the things I miss about Poti is the ability to walk everywhere. That sentence is important, because I do miss Poti, much more than I ever expected I would. I miss Mark and Julie quite a lot -- they filled the role of my travel companions and dinner buddies and general partners in crime for the entirety of my stay in Georgia, at least until I made the move to Tbilisi. I miss the rest of our small, pretty tight expat community as well, and I really miss being able to call one of those folks up at random during the course of an afternoon or an evening, and meet for a 1.20 lari beer an hour later.
Everything is more expensive in Tbilisi, everything takes (a lot) longer to get to, and our expat community is so big and so spread out compared to the nine of us in little Poti. All that wraps up to a package of "everything is just a little more difficult." I love this city and am incredibly happy to be here, but I do miss a certain simplicity and comfortableness. I miss daily exercise from walking or my bike. Come to that, I miss my bike, the mighty Bee. I miss the Black Sea. I've always hated being so far away from open water.
And I miss my host family. I knew that I would, and I do. I was so completely fortunate to be able to live with a family who took the time to include me in so many Georgian activities and traditions. Thanks to them I feel like I got a picture of Georgian life that I might not otherwise have had. Here in Tbilisi, things are just done a little differently. I like my new family and situation just fine, but I miss walking into my Poti family's large kitchen and finding a spontaneous supra about to begin. I miss watching them make churchkhela and pelamushi. I even miss feeding logs to their big wood-burning stove that provided all our heat once it started getting chilly. I miss my Nana's sharp deadpan wit, Eldari's very particular laugh, and the conversations I used to have with Nata.
I don't miss the Mexican soap operas dubbed in Georgian. Just sayin'. Also don't miss freezing my tuckus off in any part of the house that wasn't the kitchen, or sharing my bedroom with a mouse! But hey -- and I'm realizing the true extent of this now that I am in Tbilisi -- no one can say I didn't get the true Georgian experience while in Poti. And for that, I am grateful.
But -- here I am living the second half of my Georgian year exactly as I would have wanted it, with easy access to all of eastern Georgia, plus mayonnaise-free pizza. No regrets, then or now!
I do need to get out more. My cabin fever is calling up all sorts of former activities and making me itch to do them again. Yoga and pottery are both at the forefront of my mind for some reason these days. With all the expats in Tbilisi, there must be a yoga studio somwhere... but then of course here I am in middle-of-nowhere Vashlijvari. I must find out where bus 27 goes.
This awful, freezing winter weather is making me crazy. I made myself go for a long walk today and it helped my mood and general well-being considerably. Think maybe I should try to force myself to walk every day as long as weather permits, even if it is hovering around freezing. I walked all around my little Village on the Edge of the City, and found my way up a hill to a church I'd been eyeing in the distance since I got here. It is always hella complicated to get anywhere in Georgia (or Tbilisi), so my geographic win coupled with free entertainment for two hours really made my day. On our tiny little Main Street, I found a lot of really awesome fruit and produce sellers -- there even was a pineapple! One of the things I have learned to accept as a constant in Georgia is that I will be solely responsible for my own nutrition. My host family feeds me, of course, but fruit and veggies are usually conspiculously absent, especially in the winter. Fresh produce in Poti was harder to come by, but I have to wonder at my Tbilisi family's consistent omission when there really are perfectly acceptable choices nearby. But oh well. I bought two small apples and an orange. Maybe I'll bring home some carrots and squash next time as a present and see what they do. :)
One of the things I miss about Poti is the ability to walk everywhere. That sentence is important, because I do miss Poti, much more than I ever expected I would. I miss Mark and Julie quite a lot -- they filled the role of my travel companions and dinner buddies and general partners in crime for the entirety of my stay in Georgia, at least until I made the move to Tbilisi. I miss the rest of our small, pretty tight expat community as well, and I really miss being able to call one of those folks up at random during the course of an afternoon or an evening, and meet for a 1.20 lari beer an hour later.
Everything is more expensive in Tbilisi, everything takes (a lot) longer to get to, and our expat community is so big and so spread out compared to the nine of us in little Poti. All that wraps up to a package of "everything is just a little more difficult." I love this city and am incredibly happy to be here, but I do miss a certain simplicity and comfortableness. I miss daily exercise from walking or my bike. Come to that, I miss my bike, the mighty Bee. I miss the Black Sea. I've always hated being so far away from open water.
And I miss my host family. I knew that I would, and I do. I was so completely fortunate to be able to live with a family who took the time to include me in so many Georgian activities and traditions. Thanks to them I feel like I got a picture of Georgian life that I might not otherwise have had. Here in Tbilisi, things are just done a little differently. I like my new family and situation just fine, but I miss walking into my Poti family's large kitchen and finding a spontaneous supra about to begin. I miss watching them make churchkhela and pelamushi. I even miss feeding logs to their big wood-burning stove that provided all our heat once it started getting chilly. I miss my Nana's sharp deadpan wit, Eldari's very particular laugh, and the conversations I used to have with Nata.
I don't miss the Mexican soap operas dubbed in Georgian. Just sayin'. Also don't miss freezing my tuckus off in any part of the house that wasn't the kitchen, or sharing my bedroom with a mouse! But hey -- and I'm realizing the true extent of this now that I am in Tbilisi -- no one can say I didn't get the true Georgian experience while in Poti. And for that, I am grateful.
But -- here I am living the second half of my Georgian year exactly as I would have wanted it, with easy access to all of eastern Georgia, plus mayonnaise-free pizza. No regrets, then or now!
I do need to get out more. My cabin fever is calling up all sorts of former activities and making me itch to do them again. Yoga and pottery are both at the forefront of my mind for some reason these days. With all the expats in Tbilisi, there must be a yoga studio somwhere... but then of course here I am in middle-of-nowhere Vashlijvari. I must find out where bus 27 goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment