Nosy Neighbors

We don't have a mailbox. I have heard there is a post office somewhere in the city....but I have no idea where. When you get a bill, it mysteriously appears on the ledge near the elevator. They don't bother with envelopes, so if you ever wondered how much your neighbor's gas bill is...you can just peek!

My Lane is Your Lane.

There are many things that don't make much sense around here. For instance, there really aren't many rules of the road. There are white lines to delineate lanes, but no one uses them. Cars just drive where they please and honk their horns when they get too close to another car. You can imagine the symphony of horns that fills the air on any given day.

However, they do have one really good feature on the roads in Tbilisi. At most lights, there is a "countdown" so you know exactly how long you have until the light changes color. If you are smart, you can calculate how long you have to put on your make up, text a friend, or read the newspaper while you wait for the light to change. When the light is red, it counts down from 60 and then when the light turns yellow, it counts down from 3 (although most cars begin to drive when the light turns yellow). When the light is green it also has a countdown.

No more second guessing if you should speed up, slow down, or slam on your brakes....you know exactly how long you have until the light changes color! Brilliant.

Finding Family in a Far Away Land

One of the hard things about moving overseas is leaving family and friends behind. However, as with anything there are always trade offs. Living in Georgia we can live a lifestyle we could not otherwise afford in Virginia. We live in "the city" and have a full-time nanny/housekeeper, Tamriko. The title of nanny/housekeeper does not seem to do justice for Tamriko. She has so quickly become part of our family and has adopted us into hers! Besides the fact that she does everything to make our lives better (clean our house, do all of our wash, make us dinner each night....all while taking our kids on hikes in the mountains when they are home from school), she is a genuinely kind and loving person. She loves AL and affectionately calls them, "her angels" or "little hooligans".

Did I mention that Tamriko also cuts hair?

The third day we were in Georgia, with my head still spinning, Tamriko whisked in with her two children (Giorgi, age 19 and Anna, age 21) and took AL to the zoo. I never thought that I would have felt comfortable enough to send my kids with three strangers on an afternoon outing after being in a country for three days...but I did. 'Nuf said?

Her kids are amazing also. Giorgi drives us places when we need a ride (and he happily learned how to use the car seats!). He also will accompany us into stores and help us translate or search for items we must have at that moment (and never makes fun of us). Anna will come over just to spend time with AL and keep her mom company while she works.

One day a few weeks ago, Giorgi and Anna took AL and I to Mtsminda Park. Although the power went out at the park and we couldn't go on any rides, we had a great time.

Aidan and Lucas love rough housing with Giorgi.

This is Anna with AL

Who needs rides when you have a water fountain?

After leaving the park, a bit disappointed, we went on a small city tour. Anna has a job as a tour guide, so she had a lot of information to share!

This is the Holy Trinity Cathedral (also known as Sameba--which is Georgian for Trinity). This is the main Georgian Orthodox Christian cathedral and it was only built a few years ago (between 1995-2004). It is the largest religious building in all of Georgia.

Inside the church, people light candles and say prayers

Sitting under an olive tree with Anna outside of the church...

Freecycling Bread

In Georgia, the bread is very inexpensive. A loaf costs about 70 Tetri - 1 Lari (about $0.38 - $.055). I think the reason it is so cheap is because they don't add any preservatives or artificial junk. This also means that it lasts only a few days before getting moldy. But since it is so inexpensive, I am OK if we aren't able to eat a whole loaf in two days...we can buy another one!

However, in Georgia people believe that if you throw out your old bread, God will never provide you with bread in the future (or the ability to buy it). So people put their old bread in plastic bags and hang them on the sides of the trash cans. The bread on the trash cans is free game...farmers take it to use with their chickens, people less fortunate use it to feed their families, etc...

On any given day, you can see bread hanging from the trash cans.

And You Thought Walking Home Wasn't Exercise....

"They" are in the process of digging up every inch of the sidewalks near our house. It is a bit of a challenge to walk to and from our apartment. Will there be huge holes? Exposed wires? Long cables? Piles of gravel? You never know what you will find. If I am by myself, I just walk in the narrow street and hope the cars whizzing by have good enough drivers that they won't hit me. The trouble is, I am rarely alone. Walking with AL is a little trickier. They seem to love walking this path...but I do worry they may fall in a hole, etc...

Well, they'll be finished digging soon, right? Right...

Here are some pictures of our street.

Did I mention the picture above is our bus stop?

The House with 24 Chairs

Tbilisi is a big city that is separated into "neighborhoods"--we live in Vake, which is kind of like the Manhattan of NYC (without the good bagels and pizza).

Our apartment is great (except for the fact that we don't have a dryer, dishwasher, or garbage disposal...minor details)! I think it might be bigger than our townhouse in Fairfax.

We live on the 6th floor. There is only one other apartment on our floor. When you first walk into our place, this is the hallway--it is huge. Often, it turns into a raceway for matchbox cars. If you turn left, there is the kitchen. If you turn right, you can go into the bedrooms. If you go straight through the double doors, you will be in our living room.

Here is our kitchen. The whole wall is windows and doors. Fantastic sunlight--which is very rare in Georgian apartments, so we are lucky!

While eating at the table, this is my view. I love looking out at the mountain!

When you round the corner of the kitchen, this is our formal dining room. The door slides open to close off the living room...but we never use it. You can also see AL's "teaching area" with their couch, big books, book bins, and alphabet charts.

A view of our living room from the dining room.

I am standing in the living room taking a shot of our computer area and a distant view of our dining room.

This is the hallway bathroom, better known as The Man Throne. Emet named it the first day we moved in and AL really think that is what it is called.

Hallway to the bedrooms:

Here is AL's room:

This is the bathroom in the master bedroom:

This is the master bedroom. I was going to make some funny comment about what goes on in here, but then remembered my mom reads this blog.

Here is the guest room. Look how empty and lonely it looks....COME VISIT!

Every bedroom has a balcony. We really only use it to dry our laundry though.

The guest bathroom/AL and Emet's bathroom:

One of the first mornings we were in our new apartment, I woke up and shuffled to the bathroom and was thrown back by the stench that came from somewhere within. It was beyond awful! It was a cross between rotten eggs and a large sewer plant. We called our landlord and quickly learned all about sewer gas and the piping system in Georgian apartments. There are drains on the floor of every bathroom. Some people close them off because the smell is so bad. We were told to add water to the drain every day. If we forget for one day, we are back to the cocktail of rotten eggs and sewer plants.

Stuff Happens.

We went out to breakfast last weekend at this little bakery called Entree. The best part of the whole meal was when we went downstairs to use the restroom. We came upon this door...

For some reason, I found it so funny. Stuff Only. What else would you put in the closet? I am appreciative that so many places try and incorporate English on their signs, menus, etc...but I always get a chuckle when they spell things incorrectly. It is always funny though when they make a word they were never intending to use. I wonder if the workers at Entree think they are called Stuff Members?

On the way back, we saw this neat little garage!

How Time Flies...

Did I ever mention that Lucas weighed 6 lbs. 3 oz when he was born? Did you know that Aidan weighed 5 lbs. 13 oz when he entered the world?

And now....weighing a few more pounds, my little tiny babies are in Kindergarten!

The first few days, we took a taxi to and from school because the school didn't have the buses sorted out yet.

Here is the entrance to New School. It is an international school with most of the students being instructed in Georgian and about 100 students taught in English. Although Aidan and Lucas are part of the English side, I think they are the only students who only speak English. All of the other students speak at least 2-3 languages ...if not more!

This is the building that houses the Kindergarten classroom. In this building, you will find the English and Georgian Kindergarten, the English 1st grade, and the English Preschool.

Here is their classroom!

Aidan and Lucas with Ms. Christine, their teacher

Where Do We Buy Our Groceries, You Ask?

Many of you have asked where we buy our groceries. Here is the scoop:

If we need something quick and just want to run out and go around the corner, we go to Populi (pronounced Po-Puh-Lee). This is kind of like a 7-11. Things are a bit more expensive, but the convenience is sometimes worth it.

To buy any of our fruits or veggies, we buy at the local stands. I use the term stands lightly, but we get amazing stuff and for really cheap! The tomatoes here are the most delicious I have EVER eaten. I literally eat tomatoes for lunch and dinner every day. Here is an example of one of the many vendors in the city. On any city block, we can find at least 3-4 fruit/veggie sellers. It took me a few weeks to get over the food being in bins on the sidewalk and the condition of the buildings they were attached to....but I am over it now.

Here are some fruits and veggies I bought the other day. I bought all of this for about 11 Lari (which is about $6)

Now to do our BIG shopping trip, we go to a place called Good Will (ha!). This is like a regular supermarket. They have a deli counter (even though I can't tell you what half of the stuff is behind the glass) and aisles and aisles of food. Many of the items they sell are German, which usually means they are much more expensive than the Georgian alternative.

I also have been going to the Bazroba on the weekends to buy our rice, oatmeal and pasta. The Bazroba is an open air market with shops and vendors winding in and out of every crevasse in this one area of town. I can get 1 kilogram of rice, oatmeal or pasta for 1 Lari and 80 Tetri (this is about $1). In Good Will, 500 grams of rice (1/2 a kilo) cost anywhere from 8 - 12 Lari ($4.40-$6.60). So look at the savings! And really it is a fun place to go and people watch. I will have to take my camera next time and snap a few photos.

The last thing that is important to know about shopping in Tbilisi is VAT (value added tax). They add VAT to anything you buy--like sales tax. However, VAT in Tbilisi is 18%. Luckily, we each have a diplomat card that exempts us from paying VAT. We can use the card in grocery stores, restaurants, etc....The bad news is that we can't use it with the fruit and veggie guy down the street or at the Bazroba. Bummer. The good news is that Aidan and Lucas each have their own card, so they can go on shopping sprees and never have to pay VAT. Thank goodness.

A Good Samaritan

Being a good samaritan isn't all it's cracked up to be.

We met this nice woman and her two girls on our flight back from Italy. We chatted with them for a while and the kids compared stories about starting Kindergarten. When we were in the airport, Emet took AL to the bathroom and I waited by the escalator with our luggage. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that one of the little girls we were just talking to was reaching in between the two escalator's handrails (there was an up escalator on the right and a down escalator on the left--see photo below).

It was obvious that she was frustrated. I walked over to see if I could help. Her stickers had fallen in between the two escalators (where the two sets of handles came together). Ok, easy enough. I mean, they were her stickers...I couldn't leave them there! I reached in between the handrails and that is when hell broke loose. I quickly realized that I was actually moving up the escalator on the handrail with one side of my body. Yet, the other side of my body was being pushed down by the handrail of the down escalator. I remember some man yelling, "OH MY GOD!" as he tried to grab my leg and pull me off this insane ride I was on. Somehow I threw my body over the edge of the up escalator onto the down escalator, loosing a shoe in the process.

Good news: I got the stickers.

Moral of the story: Stickers are not important...leave them if they fall between escalator handrails.

Here is what a being a good samaritan looks like about 2 hours after you do your good deed.