In this post I would like to share my emotions and thoughts about my adaptation period in Tbilisi. I have been to Georgia several times before and I thought nothing will surprise me here. But I was wrong! One person told me: “one thing is to visit Georgia and it’s totally another to live here”. And after a few weeks I start realizing it. So here are my top 5 things that I am getting used to in Tbilisi:
- Traffic and transport: Tbilisi feels like a much bigger city than Tallinn. However it is only a little bit over a million in population and is built along the river bank, so is quite stretched. Not to lie, the traffic and pollution rate in the city is pretty terrible. I started to feel and value fresh air a lot more here. The dense traffic can last sometimes from 17 o’clock until 20 o’clock or even more. My morning journey to the office takes usually 20-25 minutes, but some evenings it took me up to 1.5 hours to get back home. Often I give up on being cramped in a bus and choose to walk home (thankfully the weather is great and the walk is still interesting). My recent saviors are mini-buses (good old marshrutka’s) that somehow manage to beat traffic jams. I guess it will still take a while to figure out the most optimized rhythm to avoid traffic and being cramped in the buses.
- Weather: The whole November was a feeling of late summer back home. Choosing to walk in the morning to the office or back home, which takes around one and a half hours, would not be an option in November in Estonia. But here it is a pleasure. During office days it is common to grab a coffee and sit on the terrace or in the evening to sit outside and have dinner (under a heater, but still). I have doubts every morning since my brain is telling me to grab a winter coat but the sunlight coming from the window makes me take my light coat.
- Shopping: Georgian alphabet is a whole new level for me, so far only some letters make sense, so it is a continuous struggle to understand receipts in the café, price tags or product descriptions. Being used to big supermarkets that have everything in Tallinn it is interesting to discover small vegetable shops, spice corners; grandma’s selling homemade cheese and small supermarkets. After these weeks I have a better understanding of what, where and how to buy things in Tbilisi. Things I love is the very cheap and very good thin lavash that you can buy, fresh puri (bread), tasty tomatoes and lots of suluguni cheese. But what surprises me how expensive can European products be compared to local ones, so I think I will stick to Georgian bread, vegetables and cheese until August, which I don’t mind!
- Planning: It is just amazing from both perspectives how things are managed here. On one hand it grinds my gears to wait for buses, people, reschedule or postpone meetings, queue chaotically in the shops or wait for 10 minutes to be given a menu in a cafe. On the other hand I think it’s great how you can create last minute event on Facebook and a few hours later more people than ever expected turn up for it or how easily activities pop up as you are on your way home.
- Going out: Georgia is very social. People here meet up for lunch and dinner, go out for drinks, go clubbing, visit each other’s homes or just hang out a lot more than in Estonia. It is funny how sometimes I give the “antisocial” impression to people, when I feel that I socialize too much for a usual working day. One goal for the upcoming months to try to keep up with social life.
These are my top 5 things that I am getting used to in Tbilisi. Some of them are only positive, some are mixed but nonetheless it feels good to discover a new country and yourself from within.
