A Georgian Christmas Story

Preface: Most of this blog post is a story of my Christmas in Tbilisi. I got a little carried away and had fun writing it, so its a bit long. So apologies in advance for a drawn out story.

Without a doubt, the most challenging part of living in Georgia has been living with two old people who don't speak any English. Not only that, but all my neighbors and basically the entire town, speaks no English as well. It can be a very isolating feeling. Most of the time its not really a problem, we've got some sort of bizarre sign language mixed with my broken Georgian that I get by with, but every now and then it can be incredibly frustrating. I mean, for the first few weeks I couldn't even tell if my host father liked me. But I shaved my beard yesterday and that sure made him happy, so I'm pretty sure he's just one of those old men who basically never smiles. I mean, would you smile a lot if you didn't have teeth anymore? I suppose its understandable.

The other side of this, is that I feel really lucky to have met some really amazing people during the one week orientation. When living in a place where you can't communicate with anyone around you, meeting up or even talking on the phone with a native English speaker becomes such a stress reliever. I've always loved joking around, but I never realized that it was such an important part of how I get through the day until it was no longer an option. So getting together and just joking around with another English speaker has been a lifesaver here. Also, my fellow teaching friends are hilarious and a lot of fun, so I would get together to hang out with them even if I was surrounded by English speakers. It was also a bit of a guilty pleasure to have my friend Justin over and be able to make fun of my host family right in front of them and have them not understand a single thing. I know its terrible, but considering how many times my host father and his friends have looked over at me and laughed about something in Georgian I couldn't understand, I feel like we're just a little more even now...

Speaking of my English friends, the week at orientation was pretty ridiculous. We basically spent a week in the Sheraton which is one of the nicest hotels in Tbilisi, eating 3 course meals and a giant edible gingerbread house, laughing incessantly when we should have been paying attention, and basically not learning any real important skills for the jobs we would be leaving for in only a few days. I feel like I left after that week less prepared than when I came in, because I came into the week focused and left after a week of carefree joking, completely unfocused. I had learned a tiny bit of Georgian, which I promptly forgot when faced with any real life speaking situation, and I'd learned a few rather useless facts about the Georgian teaching system. But I mean... the orientation week was a blast, just not exactly useful for my job. More like a free week long stay in a really nice hotel with a bunch of friends and a whole new culture to make jokes about.

Alright, so onto more interesting things than my constant struggle with communication. Georgians take a huge amount of pride in their “Georgian Hospitality”. And with good reason. I have yet to see a Georgian table run out of either food or alcohol, and as I've already explained, they're always letting you know you should eat and drink more. However, the most ridiculous encounter with Georgian hospitality was not at a table.

This story begins in an Ice Cream shop.

But really, it begins before that, on Christmas Eve. Winter break had just begun, and a number of us teachers were gathering in Tbilisi at a lovely hostel to celebrate American Christmas. And more importantly, to be around a host of people who could speak English. Carlo, Justin, Kate and myself had arrived at the hostel and prepared to celebrate Christmas eve with our gifts from the president of Georgia: bottles of champagne and wine. As if our families would ever let us drink something that they hadn't made. The hostel workers took us out to their friends bar where I met up with my couchsurfing friend. We got a bit tipsy, I finished my first beer ever, we met a Canadian nuclear physicist who lived in Spain and we yelled a lot about Justin's small hands. Such. Small. Hands. Overall, it was a raucous good time. Unfortunately, when I got back to the hostel early in the morning, I couldn't sleep at all and ended up rising out of bed at about eight on Christmas morning exhausted, sleepless, grumpy, and slightly hungover. Merry Christmas.

I was surly all morning and afternoon. At some point in the early afternoon the four of us ventured out into Tbilisi in search of something edible and fairly cheap. What I found was a Hot Dot. Or maybe the Hot Dot found me and I was drawn into its lair like Hansel and Gretel to a gingerbread house. But Whats a Hot Dot? You might ask. Well, its like a hot dog, except inserted into a bun with a hole in it rather than placed between a sliced bun. Along with the hot dog, ketchup and mayonnaise have been inserted into the bun. Then, topping off this concoction, where the meaty sausage is poking out of the bun, they top it off with a big load of white, creamy, mayonnaise. It looked like one huge sexual innuendo. Like someone Freudian slipped all over my hot dog. As if the inventor thought that a hot dog just wasn't phallic enough, he had to cover that bun in creamy mayo. But anyway, I bit into that thing like it was the first time. After all, I was hungry and I'd paid for the damn thing. It tasted like sexual innuendo ought to taste: Heavy Mayo. Needless to say, this did not improve my mood. Merry Christmas.

After my three companions found some food themselves, we returned to the hostel where I attempted unsuccessfully to nap, my belly unfortunately full. At around five I got up to go meet up with someone from couchsurfing who said I should come over for a little supra they were having. I hadn't met her before, but she talked me through navigating Tbilisi's crazy public transit system, and I arrived unscathed, a little tired, but happy to be meeting friendly Georgians who spoke a little English and would feed me something that didn't make me think of Brokeback Mountain. Anyway, they were great. Fantastic really. Like Georgians, they had opened up their home and treated me, someone they'd never met, to a delicious feast and wine. Georgian Hospitality. Eka, the couchsurfer who invited me, helped translate so we could play a few fun little games I know, and they showed me some of theirs. We poked fun at Georgian's love of telemundo. Someone pulled out a guitar. It was the first time I'd really felt relaxed and at home when surrounded entirely by Georgians. It was great and was what changed my mood from the grumpy recipient of a dirty joke at my stomach's expense to someone happy to be enjoying Christmas in Tbilisi with friends. Eka gave me a ride back to the hostel and as I got out of the car she said goodbye with a friendly Merry Christmas.

So I hurried back into the Hostel to see what my teaching friends were up to. By now, more teachers had arrived and the room was filled with a bunch of slightly inebriated English teachers, a Canadian nuclear physicist, and two very strange Chinese people who were trying unsuccessfully to sleep. It was nice. There wasn't much wine left, but I had a couple glasses and eventually I suggested(what else would I ever suggest) that we go get some ice cream. So we slowly began to meander our way out of the hostel and across the river in that goofy way that drunk crowds move. Like a pack of uncoordinated, easily distracted school children. Amongst our small troop of teachers behaving like students were Carlo and Kate(Justin was not feeling well and stayed back in the hostel), Yiannis - a New Yorker of Greek descent, Cody and Stephanie who were married from Arkansas, myself, and a Canadian nuclear physicist living in Spain. The Canadian nuclear physicist and I talked about literature, philosophy and other such things. We talked about Kurt Vonnegut and free will. We talked about entanglement theory and the heisenberg uncertainty principle. We yelled about Justin's Small Hands, even though he wasn't there to raise them, full of futile anger, towards god in the sky. Such. Small. Hands. We were a little ridiculous, but the seven of us eventually arrived at this amazing little Ice Cream shop in Old Tbilisi. Merry Christmas.

This story begins in an Ice Cream shop. And so should any good story, or at least any good story that I can tell. Those of us who wanted Ice Cream bought some and began enjoying it in the small shop, still goofily intoxicated. I chose the wild card and went with strawberry, which was a delicious change of pace from my usual “something really damn chocolatey.” It was here that we were greeted with a chance encounter; a chance encounter or a moment of fate, which I do not know. But it was delivered in the form of a slightly rotund and exceedingly joyful Georgian man who spoke in broken English. He heard us speaking in English to each other, and he must have seen the silly drunk smiles on all our faces as we began enjoying our ice cream, when he proceeded to greet us with his choice English phrases. We were all a little confused at first, as he said hello and asked us if we were American, and more confused when he started to say “Come on guys!” excitedly. We looked at each other, wondering where this stranger wanted us to go, but he repeated again and again “Come on guys!” and began ushering us out the door. So erring on the side of a strangely eventful evening, we followed him out the door, Ice Cream cones in hand. As Kurt Vonnegut would say “Peculiar travel directions are dancing lessons from God.” He pointed across the street to a shop called “Vinoteca” and said “My friend's store! Come on guys!” As we made our way across the cobblestone street he said to us “Anything you want, not your problem! Is my problem! Anything you want! My friend, his store! I talk to him, not your problem, my problem!” As he opened the door and ushered us into the fancy wine shop, he said to us: Merry Christmas.

Bottles were opened, glasses were brought out, wine was poured and the store's workers joined us as the Georgian stranger began his toasts. He toasted to our families. He learned we were here teaching and he individually thanked all of us and toasted to the importance of Georgians learning English. Somebody broke a wine glass toasting so enthusiastically; nobody cared. The owner of the store called us over as he cracked open a bottle of thirty year old Cognac. My host father makes Cognac and its pretty good, but this was something else. Phenomenal is the word, I believe. And so here we all were, in an expensive wine store doing toasts with strangers with preposterously delicious alcohol. All this, and half of us still had Ice Cream cones in our hands. Strawberry Ice Cream in one hand, thirty year old Cognac in the other. Strawberry flavored thirty year old Cognac. Cognac flavored Strawberry Ice Cream. The Canadian Nuclear Physicist and I wondered briefly whether it wasn't all an elaborate sting, if when we went to leave they would stop us and give us a bill while the stranger darted sneakily through the door. But we figured we could outrun them and we were having a great time so it wasn't a pressing concern. In the middle of this the stranger did disappear for a second, and then returned with an espresso in each hand, saying “I go now, I go other country. Anything you want, not your problem! My problem!” Then he brought us in close with a serious look on his face and we all became quiet as we touched shoulders and held our drinks in the middle of our huddle. The rest of us, drunkenly silent, looked at him with rapt attention as he whispered to us, with true sincerity in his small English vocabulary, “Life Is Beautiful!” Then he told us to repeat, and we began to say it ourselves but he stopped us with his voice and his hands. He put his hand on his chest and said “No no, from here. From here. Life Is Beautiful!” So we repeated, this time from the heart, a band of drunken schoolteachers in a library whisper: “Life Is Beautiful!” And so we toasted to life, in all its beauty. To the chance encounter and to the fateful moment. To deciding to follow a strange man urging us to “Come on Guys!” To being in the Ice Cream shop at the right time. The stranger said once more to us and to his friend the owner that “Everything you want, its not your problem, its my problem!” Then he waved goodbye to us, off to some other country to spread the urgent news that Life Is Beautiful. As he left, espresso in hand and a smile on his face, we said to him: Merry Christmas.

We stayed there a while longer, enjoying the friendly company of the people working there, and of course the fine wine and thirty year old Cognac. The owner played some classic American hits and we all sang along. Once again, a raucous good time. We left when we thought we should, and gave hugs and kisses on the cheek, and true to the strangers word we didn't have to pay for anything. As we began the journey back to the hostel, once again in that careless meandering form of the happily drunk, the Canadian Nuclear Physicist and I resumed our conversation on similar lines as before. We talked about the combination of physics and philosophy; about the limits of conjoining the two. We talked about faith. We talked about fate and chance; about whether the two exist together simultaneously. And we yelled, once again, about Justin's Small Hands, because you can never just talk about his small hands; you have to yell: Such. Small. Hands. We got back to the hotel unscathed, and fairly quickly made our way to our beds. Laying in my bunk, I wondered for a few brief moments whether it was fate or chance that brought these events into place. But in the end, I don't think it matters. Because it doesn't change how the events fall into place. What matters is that these moments happen; that we received the stranger's message which was validated by his actions and the fate or chance that brought that message and moment into place. Exhausted and happy, I fell to sleep. Merry Christmas.

There you have it. My Christmas story of Georgian hospitality at its finest. It really was a pretty fantastic day. Which is strange, since I spent the first half of it grumpy and exhausted in the bad way. But I guess it was the change, that switch from exhausted in the bad way to exhausted in the good way that made it such a great day. But anyway, sorry for getting so carried away with that story. It was just a lot of fun to write down, so I went with it. And sorry for the philosophical musings in there, but I really was thinking about it that day and I had a Canadian nuclear physicist to talk about it with so there it is.

Much Love