Church and New Friends

 A bolt to Tbisli International Church, which happened to be way across town which meant more crazy driving and more traffic. The driver was speeding over cobblestone, which is always great for someone who is very cautious with their back issues. 

When I arrived, the church was setup with worship music sermon and prayer.  A man with a fellowship spoke about his trip to Savaneti in the mountains to build an educational center for the villagers (great project). I was hoping to get involved, but it had already finished for the season and the new project would be more long term. 
There was quite a diverse group: Indian medical students, Canadian, European, Latin, South african, and local Georgian's as well. They all seemed like a closeknit community and I appreciated Grace who warmly introduced herself. She was a math teacher for an intenational school and her husband worked for a large company. She was from Masachusetts moved to Moscow with her husband and then left when the war started and moved to Tblisi.  We literally spoke about everything from cooking to Georgian’s interesting behaviors and some of her own personal culture shock moments.
We took a Bolt back to the center of town and we just had such similar humor and quick- witted behavior.
Its always fascinating how you can meet someone and instantly click with them.
It was such a great church meeting on a very divine Sunday.
And the day continues where I am suppose to have dinner with my host and I am running behind schedule. I cancel dinner stop at the hypermarket and stock up on various traditional salads and hot food items like chicken with walnuts, beef stew, spinach souffle, a potato dish made with maiz, eggplant and pumpkin cous cous- the list goes on and on. 

The Georgian food and wine is spectacular- what is a better food combo. A Chinese girl asks me what to order and I show her my favorites. We both walk out with 5 small containers each and we continue onto the petite desert cakes. It is very hard to leave a hypermarket in Georgia as I just want to taste everything, stare at it, try it, buy it. etc.  The older Georgian lady was not so ammused with us as we were ordering everything in English and she did not want to speak English. The pointing usually works, but not with her lol 

I caught the bus and brought all my food purchases back to the house. We shared wine and great conversation- a darker amber white that has a slight smell of Whiskey not my favorite but paired nicely with Georgian cheese and pickles.
Hes latvian and I call him my friend, Mr. Latvia.  We immediately have such great laughs with each other- the sarcasm and the dry humor-it just works and right on the same page with our jokes. 

With traveling solo on the rise, people are becoming more understanding of true cultural exchange- not romance or feeling unsafe, but genuine culture exchange.

It is the best experience to be in someone's home and get to know who they are as a person. He said that Georgians have big family meals and drink a lot of wine- a lot of wine! Bottles and bottles and they take wine shots- they usually have one person called a Troubador to organize the excessive drinking i.e. they make a new toast every five minutes encouraging people to keep  drinking until all the wine is gone or until they go down to their cellar and get more wine lol. 

He has a son who is 15 years old and he takes a lot of trips with him. Mr. Latvia travels in Europe frequently, but just got back from a trip to Calfornia where he visited for Burning man and loved it. I was just leaving Calfiornia and he was saying how great he thought it was to live....we agreed to disagree on many things, but overall a great new friend for sure! Good night