Drive, Discover, Adventure: A Road Trip Across Georgia

Happy new year !! and welcome back, it`s been a long time since the last time and so many things happened. We had holidays, we celebrated Christmas and New year here in Georgia!!

But one thing at a time, I won`t tell you everything from the beginning. If you want to know what happened in the first days of our holidays, have a look at Oubayda`s chapter.

I want to share our trip to Sighnaghi and our really really nice Christmas that we had.

So on Christmas we went to Sighanghi and it was one of my favorites. We wanted to visit the museum in Sighanghi but in the end we ended up completly somewhere else. We discovered a bit from the city but at one point we were hungry so we just ate in the first restaurant we could see, and it was a rooftop restaurant. That I didn`t expect, not at all! The food was stunning, and, in the end, we started the first conversation about Oubayda and his wish to be an immortal vampire, so it was how it was supposed to be. And when we wanted to pay this nice woman came to us and offered us a free wine tasting so we ended up in this old nice basement next to restaurant and got from the son, or whatever he was, a free wine tasting.

Sighnaghi :)

Enjoyed the time together !!

In the evening, I had to say goodbye to Eva, one of Vibeke`s best friends. That was also hard for me because we had so much fun the whole first days. And it was the first day just the three of us, which was a bit weird, but it was Christmas, so we searched for nice Christmas dishes. And we managed quite well. Oubayda was a perfect cook for the dessert. So, all in all, we had a great Christmas dinner.

Our nice Christmas dinner

The next day, Lia asked us if we wanted to visit Zalka and if yes then she will join us because she knows Zalka quite well. So in the end, all of us including Lia went to Zalka but it was not as chill as we expected. After a few hours of driving, singing songs and stopping for some snacks Oubayda just said: ``Hey guys; I think we don‘t have enough fuel anymore! ´´At first, I really thought he was joking but he wasn't, I realized that at some point. We drove to the Didgori Monument but were already starting to panic that we wouldn't make it that far. On the way to Zalka we kept hoping to find a gas station. And when we found one, we drove past it, but luck was on our side. Or maybe not, because the second gas station had run out of gas and when we drove back to the first gas station, we thought the day was saved, but again we had no luck because there happened to be no electricity. Thank goodness Lia was able to help us and brought us some diesel. In the end, we were finally able to drive to Zalka and visit the canyon and the diamond bridge.

Didgori battle memorial

Canyon in Tsalka

So after many eventful days, we are now back at the Scout Center and starting our own activities again .

If you want to know more about our time here in Georgia then stay tuned.

Comments

MOVING TO GEORGIA: MY FIRST EXPERIENCES!

Moving to Georgia: my first experiences! At the start of September I moved to Georgia to volunteer at the International Scout Center in Rustavi for 6 months. In this blog I will tell you more about why I decided to volunteer in Georgia, about how I prepared myself to move abroad, about my expectations and about my experiences of the first weeks. Who am I and why did I decide to volunteer abroad? Why did I decide to move to Georgia? I am Renée and I am 25 years old. I am from the Netherlands and there I lived in a small city called Leiden. The few past years I was studying Education and Child studies there. In my bachelors I did an exchange semester and lived for 6 months in the city Tartu in Estonia. This was a really nice experience and after I came back to the Netherlands I decided that at some point I wanted to live abroad again. So when I graduated university last year I knew what I did not want: a stressful job in the Netherlands. I explored different possibilities, for exam...

In the head of a volunteer - Arrival and first week

I can’t believe that it’s been two months since I set foot in Georgia for the first time. And yet it seems like a lifetime of experiences. Here is an assortment of my very first moments, hope you enjoy :) The arrival and discovery of Rustavi landscape When I arrived at Tbilisi Airport I was surprised to see it was not as big as I expected a capital airport to be. I waited alone for a few moments for Aleks to pick me up. During my wait I went to exchange money (by the way, if you come to Georgia, don’t do it at the airport, the exchange rates are far better in the city) and I realised that I really was far from home, I couldn’t understand any of the words people were saying to each other. When Aleks arrived I went in the car. I had a cold at the time, and I travelled at night, so I arrived in Georgia without any sleep. I felt really tired and I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t talk m...

WE ARRIVED!

Gamarjoba! Welcome to a new round of ISCR blogs. I am Vibeke, a new volunteer from the Netherlands. A month ago, I arrived at Tbilisi airport together with the other Dutch volunteer Renée, and since then three more volunteers arrived: Krista from Latvia and Charlotte and Anias from Germany. For the coming months, we will organise activities at the Scout Centre in Rustavi, try to understand something of the Georgian language and discover the beautiful country! 😀 With this blog, we’ll try to keep you updated. But how did I end up here? This summer, I applied for the volunteering program at ISCR with the European Solidarity Corps. I just finished high school and wanted to take a gap year before starting my studies. As I am always eager to explore new countries and cultures, I decided to apply for a long-term ESC program, in order to not only explore a country, but also contribute something to it. I started to search for countries that I knew nothing about. I wanted a country that will gi...

CHAPTER 1

Once upon a time there lived five gnomes. They each lived a different life in a different place for a different amount of time. However, the thing they had in common was an unexplainable urge to add a new plot to their autobiographies, to put their for-centuries-collected skills and knowledge to a good use and go to a land far far away. They packed their biggest tiny backpacks, said farewell to their gnome families and forest fairy friends, each jumped on the back of a seagull and flew into an unfamiliar direction. This is where their stories intertwine. Turns out all the seagulls were going the same way; they dropped all the gnomes at the same place – a magical castle surrounded by forests and hills. The castle was home for many, no matter big or small, young or old, beginner or advanced, from this planet or another. All the residents of the castle warmly welcomed the gnomes with open arms and open hearts. The castle was a place where a helpful hand was given first and questions ask...

In the head of a volunteer : What volunteering means to me

This article is more a train of thoughts about my volunteering experience and what it means to me than a story about reel experiences. I wanted to share it in the hope that other volunteers can relate. Those reflections started when I took over the instagram page. I am now in charge of posting about our workshops, keeping you updated about our activities and making weekly and monthly recaps. To give myself ideas, I went to see the archived posts and I got lost in what the previous teams of volunteers posted. I felt so strange. I realised that this place, where I work, eat and sleep everyday, was used by people in the same situation as me before. They walked in the same streets, shopped in the same grocery stores and discovered the same Rustavi as foreigners. Maybe the children I am meeting during my workshops knew those other volunteers, and it’s more than probable that they will me...

Search This Blog