Simple Pleasures

Has this ever happened to you...

Your significant other returns from the grocery store and when you meet him outside to help unload the car he says,

"Guess what I found at the store today? Something we've been wishing we had for months."
"You didn't!"
"I did! Open the hatch and see for yourself."

I open the hatch to see the biggest, most beautiful kitchen garbage can I have seen since we left the States. I literally hugged my boyfriend in the garage while giggling like a kid who just got tickets to the circus.

If you haven't had the opportunity to live in a foreign country, you may not know the joy that a full sized garbage can will bring to your heart. Allow me to explain.

For the first 5 months of our life in Georgia we have been making due with a kitchen garbage can that had a flip top lid with foot pedal action. This would have been fine, except each time you put your foot on the pedal you push the can a little bit farther into the corner so that eventually the lid only flips up 1/3 of the way before the sides of the lid hit the wall.



This too would have been a minor issue if we could have simply reached out and lifted the lid by hand. Unfortunately the garbage can stands about 2 ft. off the ground so we were perpetually leaning over, one foot on the pedal, right elbow propping the lid up a little farther while trying to peel a carrot, cucumber or potato.

Even this would have been manageable if we could have found a garbage bag that would actually fit tightly around the lip of the can. Instead we had to settle for bags that we could only secure around half of the lip, leaving the back half of the can exposed and, invariably, this is where the carrot peel and cucumber guts would end up.

Unfortunately the line of sight to this can, with it's 1/3 open lid and 2 ft. off the ground height, was such that we couldn't actually see that the carrot peels and cucumber guts were missing the bag. It wasn't until a slight odor began to develop that we would realize our error in aim.

All of this would have been tolerable if the can could hold more than a gallon of garbage. As it is we were taking little bags of food waste down 4 flights of stairs to the garbage can outside every day.

Enter the new kitchen garbage can.



Last night, while preparing dinner, Seth walked over to the garbage can with a cutting board of pepper guts and onion peels, slid them easily (and accurately!) into the bag, closed the lid, looked at me from a standing position (instead of stooped over) and said,

"Man, this is nice."

If you find that you are taking the small conveniences of daily life for granted (like the perfect garbage can, light switches on the inside of the room and toilets that flush with a handle) consider an international move or simply a visit with us in Georgia.

Epilogue: The original garbage can has been relocated to the laundry room where it will continue to scoot its way into a corner and mock our attempts to collect drier lint.

The Rockets Red Glare...

Last night we found out exactly what Georgian's mean when they say that New Year's is their biggest holiday of the year. They don't celebrate Christmas on December 25 and the Orthodox Christmas on 7 January retains the religious celebration and avoids the commercialism that the US holiday has. So New Year's is the big one. Keep in mind that this is a society who's sober non-drinkers would give American alcoholics a run for their money.

So last night, Meg & I went to a friends house for a low key night in and to avoid the alleged celebratory gun fire that may be a risk downtown. What we got was quite a show. Tbilisi doesn't exactly have a municipal fireworks show, but the denizens put on a show that beats most fire departments. There were huge volumes of roman candles, bottle rockets, M-80s and all sorts of other stuff. The volume of explosive material going off almost made it sound like we were in a war zone.

We had people launching roman candles horizontally from their tenth story apartments at other buildings, neighbors throwing firecrackers into the backyard, and the sounds of AK47 and pistol fire going off throughout the area.

Also, as we write this, Meg finally realized that it's now 2008. It only took her 16 hours... she's a pretty smart kid. :)

Fresh, Cheap Powda

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

This past weekend, Meg & I headed up to Gudauri to get some skiing/snowboarding in and just to get away from the city for a few days. We stayed in a really nice hotel, that included two meals apiece for pretty cheap.

The lift was a 5 minute walk from the hotel and the powder was awesome. This was the first weekend Gudauri had been open and they had about 2-3 feet of powder that had generally been untouched except for a few "groomed" areas. Saturday was spent getting my board back under my feet and playing in the powder with a few USAID guys I bumped into on the mountain. Sunday I put on the new splitboard got a few turns in with that, then split it apart and hiked up a bit. It's reasonably easy to take the board apart and make it into skinable skis, and I'm sure with more practice I'll get faster.

Once I got accustomed to the new board, it proved its value. Despite the split down the middle, the board does its job and keeps me on top of the powder MUCH better than my shorter resort board. In bounds the board doesn't respond as well, but a good portion of that is probably due to the fact that it's longer and I've pushed my center of gravity way towards the back for the powder. Skinning isn't exactly as fun as riding down hill, but it's certainly easier than hiking and being able to access untouched powder in the future will be great. That said, on Sunday we didn't need the skins to get to the powder, as they opened up the high lift and the steep, deep untouched snow was awesome.

Meg rented a pair of skis (for 30 Lari! Less than $20!) and skied the easy slopes for a while and felt pretty good about it. This place is a little over 90 minutes from home and will be a great place for most of the winter.

Here's a shot of the high lift, there are more shots on flickr that you can find by clicking on the flickr badge to the right.

Phone tag in Georgia

I swear. Someone has seriously got to teach these people how to use the phone. When you dial the wrong number, hitting redial, will likely result in the same. Wrong. Number. Also when the person on the other end of the phone call does not speak your language, continuing to talk in aforeign language will not change his mind to actually speak your language. To help clarify, let me give you and example of a series of phone calls I received from my friend at (899)751-394. (For those of you not in Georgia, that's +995-99-751-394. Feel free to give my friend a call. I hear skype is cheap.)

First call:
Me: Hello?
Him: Hallo?
Me: Hello?
Him: Hallo?
Me: I only speak english. Can I help you?
Him: Garmarjobat, goopity goop goop lots of Georgian here...
Me: I'm sorry, I don't speak Georgian, just English. Try again.
Him: (Lots of Georgian)
Me: Sorry, wrong number. (I hang up.)

10 seconds later. Same number. (Note: I've played this game before, so I'm getting better at it.)

Me: Domino's Pizza can I take your order, please?
Him: Vova? (more Georgian follows)
Me: Let me get that straight, you want a Pepperoni pizza and two cokes, is that right?
Him: Click. (finally)

10 seconds later. (Seriously, you can't type the number in that fast.)
Me: (Like Friend's) How you doin'?
Him: (Click -- I think he saw that episode.)

10 seconds later. (What does this guys seriously expect?)
Me: I still don't know Georgian. Wrong Number.
Him: Rattles off a huge line of Georgian.
Me: (Click)

10 seconds later. (This is costing him money by the way. Costs me nothing.)
Me: Sir, this is not your lucky number. You did not win the lottery. Calling again will not increase your chances.
Him: Click.
(FINALLY!!!!)


This happens ALL the time. And not just to me. I can't tell you how often I talk to people at work who complain about the same thing. None of us can figure out any explanation for why this would ever occur. It must be a Georgian thing.

Snow in Georgia

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Originally uploaded by SethTri

This past weekend, after unpacking the household effects for a few days and celebrating Thanksgiving with some friends, Meg & I went for a 2 hr drive north up to Gadauri to check out the snow. It turns out we didn't have to go that far. When we woke up, there was snow on our roof top and the foothills around town had about 3-4 inches on 'em! We still went for the drive though. (Secretly, so I could check to see what the ski resort was like and if they were open yet.)

The ski resort isn't open yet, but a couple more decent sized dumps will probably do it. They already had about 2 feet of powder, and I saw the chair lift moving. The whole region was super gorgeous though. I'm starting to suspect this winter might be a lot of fun.

We both got a nice run in on Sunday through the snow. For the first time since I got here, I was able to run 90 minutes and felt strong enough to keep running. I'm suspecting the arrival of the camelback and some nutritional products helped. Awesome, beautiful run.

I'll have to get some photos up in flickr, but for now, this is what you get. A quiet town along side a river in the mountains of Georgia.

Tbilisi Protests get Teargassed

Just in case you guys are hearing about Georgian politics, I thought I'd make sure everyone knew that we're fine and haven't had any real impact by the local protests. For those that may not have heard, there has been some protests against the government by the opposition for the last 6 days now. For the first time today, they got dispersed with teargas and water canons. You can read some articles on the Guardian the Herald Tribune or at the BBC .

For us, all is fine, just avoiding the neighborhood around the protests. More later, if we get a chance.

Just a Regular Tuesday Night

Last night Seth and I went out to dinner. It was a spur of the moment decision made by people every day but it turned out to be a great night in Georgia.

We had intended to meet some of Seth's colleagues for dinner, but when they canceled he came to pick my up at work and take me home as it was a rainy, chilly night. On the way home we passed a restaurant, saw an available parking space and decided to give it a try.

The place was small, and sparsely furnished with wooden tables and chairs. After several awkward instances of lingering at the door of restaurants we have learned that in Georgia, you always seat yourself, so we walked to the back of the room and found a table.

The waitress came over, spoke English and handed us a menu in English, a much appreciated gesture to these 2 tired Americans. They had beer on tap and the table behind us was crowded by a group of men who would spontaneously break into traditional Georgian song. It is difficult to describe this style of singing, acapella with layers of harmony, hauntingly beautiful. After their songs those of us sitting near by applauded or raised a glass in a toast.

The food came and it was delicious, roast pork, meatloaf stuffed with herbs and cheese with an over-medium egg on top and French fries! We ate, we talked about our day and told each other stories like any other dinner out.

One of the men at the table behind us got up to leave, apparently having had a few too many glasses of wine. He took a few missteps dropping his coat in the process. When Seth got up to help him he shook our hands and said "Nakhvamdis!" ("Good bye") We exchanged laughs and smiles with his table of friends. A few moments later the waitress came over with 2 shot glasses of Georgian whiskey and said, "I'm sorry but these are from the table behind you." We toasted them thankfully and tossed back the shot. After the waitress convinced me to have one more beer, "A small one!" We packed ourselves up and headed home.

When we got in the car I looked at Seth and said, "We just had a completely unplanned and fantastic night. You can tell that we are beginning to feel more at home here because nothing about tonight felt unusual or out of the ordinary, but when was the last time in the States that you went out to dinner, had the table behind you break into beautiful song throughout the meal while we talked and then bought us a shot?"

This night was a perfect example of the "Georgian hospitality" everyone talks about. It can take you awhile to find it, but once you do, you will begin to notice it in the most unlikely places and it will endear this country to your heart.