Weekend in Tbilisi.

This past weekend I went to Tbilisi for a GLOW meeting. I arrived in Tbilisi on Friday though to meet up with my friends, Laura and Hannah. Hannah’s brother was just in town and was nice enough to bring a small package from my parents with him. I had called an expat, Carol, on Wednesday to find out if we could stay with her for the weekend. All volunteers were sent a list a couple of months ago of expats who are willing to host volunteers in their homes. This is a double bonus for us as it is a free place to stay with running hot water and warm, comfortable beds. This is the third time that I have stayed with expats and each time has been fantastic. The three of us met up and went over to Carol’s house. She was at work, but her housekeeper, Helen, was there and let us in. Carol had asked Helen to make pizza and brownies for us. Amazing. The three of us gladly chowed down on the treats. We did not have specific plans so we decided to take advantage of the washer and dryer that were available to us. I have not seen a dryer outside of Tbilisi, that is more of an American, or at least Western, luxury. Later on we ran some errands on the main drag and bought hair dye as well as scissors. Laura wanted to highlight her hair to make it a bit blonder and we both wanted a hair cut. Hannah offered to cut our hair a bit, so my hair is a bit shorter and a whole lot healthier. Yes, Laura and I each paid a lari for that, approximately $.55, half the cost of the scissors. Gotta love the Peace Corps.

The GLOW meeting was Saturday morning. I may not have informed everyone, but I am co-chair of the fundraising committee which means that along with G4 Maggie, I will be working on funding the camp. Since the goal of the camp, in terms of sustainability, is to be funded by Georgian businesses and possibly the government, the task of fundraising becomes a bit more difficult. The camp is not quite ready to operate solely on national funding so there is still a look toward international funding. Needless to say, we have a lot of work to do in the coming months.

The rest of the day was pretty mundane. We hung with volunteers at the Nika, which is the hostel that volunteers generally stay at in Tbilisi as it is conveniently located near the office. Sunday, Hannah left early, but Laura and I had the whole day to relax. Carol offered to call her driver and take us around town to see some of the sights, which was cool because neither one of us had yet to do that. Unfortunately, Carol was tired from a long weekend of working because the Embassy was moving buildings. She said that we were more than welcome to go around town with her driver as he had done it before and it was no problem. That’s right, Laura and I had a driver for the afternoon. Our first stop was the office to drop off some papers. We ran into a bunch of vols and ended up kidnapping one of them, Andy. The three of us then proceeded to go see a brand new church that has an amazing view of the city, an area called dry bridge (no water under it), and going on a chibureki (tasty Georgian treat) run. Star Wars III was playing in town, but I decided not to stay because of money and because I am supposed to be at work on Monday. It was a bummer though.

Well that was my weekend. I hope that everyone had a great weekend. I had a great time, in fact, it was one of my top five experiences in Georgia thus far. Take care.

Sara