In Kutaisi, The Expert introduced me to the British comedy Withnail and I, as he thought it was a great depiction of what life in Kutaisi was like. The two of us living alone in the dormitory, supposedly teaching but really only working a few hours per week, with little to do, little pay, little…
I spent about ten days recently in Pristina, Kosovo, visiting one friend and making a few new ones. My first acquaintance was a stray puppy hanging out by the dumpsters. I whistled from afar, and the dog wagged its tail and followed along. She wanted to play! Everyone else out on the street was ready…
Last year, on the summer solstice, my parents flew home from Istanbul. On the day of the year with the most light. It had been a good trip for them. They were officially scouting out the itinerary and logistics for a study abroad program for the college my dad works for. He’d be leading students…
Sitting on a park bench in the shade near Tunel, in Istanbul, finishing Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence and visiting the site where it is still being finished, got me thinking more about objects and the way they function as portals into the realm of memory. (Which just reminds me of Proust, how the whole 3,000…
I’ve been thinking for a while about the age of facebook. The world of status updates, relationship statuses, of tagging photos, and the world of “bar photos.” It’s an aspect of the modern world that irritates me. And yet, I have a facebook account! So it’s an aspect of the modern world that irritates me,…
There was a gathering in Tbilisi a few days ago, as one of the volunteers had a birthday and his girlfriend wished to throw him a surprise dinner for Saturday night. After tossing the idea around for a bit, I figured since I wasn’t doing anything in Kutaisi, I might as well join everyone in…
It’s odd living in a place where extremely few people speak English. I’ve spent a lot of time in Eastern European countries, but there, many people speak English, and many are fluent. English is a fairly new addition to life in Georgia, so English speakers are few and far between, and of those who do…
There’s a building next to the school I work in that is, like many of the buildings here, just a skeleton. There are quite a few buildings around here that were clearly something before – old factories, old apartment buildings, etc. Some of them have shops on the ground floor, some have car repair places…
A few weeks ago, the Expert and I, tired of sitting in the dormitory all day, decided we’d head across the street to the khinkali restaurant, or as we’ve named it, the misery cafe, to eat some lobiani (beany bread), drink some beers, and play some chess. As we were heading out the door, the…
I’ve found that one of the most common things that people who travel a lot complain about (or share in laughter over the frustration) is experiences in the Post Office. Standing in lines, only to be yelled at by the staff, because you’re standing in the wrong line. Or that you need to fill in…