Rainy Weekend

It was raining Saturday, but we have walked up to the movie theater near the philharmonic to see another TIFF movie, "Girl with the Pearl Earring"; an American film from 2003 and we didn't need to try to keep up by reading the subtitles!   It is interesting that they were even been able to get the director of the film to Tbilisi for the showing.  That was a little bit of surprise to us. Another film being shown is "A Most Wanted Man" that we'll skip, but one of our friends will see it.

We did manage to get tickets because we came up early enough before they were sold out.  Friday night we were not so lucky and so just went to dinner with our friend Debbie Dunn who is volunteering here and rents our flat.  

Saturday's extra time before the movie gave us the opportunity to go have coffee and a snack at the Elvis Cafe that we discovered last year. It has a large non smoking section and is a pretty nice spot to grab a snack or quick meal.

Elvis Cafe

As you can see, the decor is all Elvis!  The music is from Elvis' era and we heard a whole album of Tina Turner while we had coffee and the great dessert snack you see below.  They do care about presentation which is really nice.

A little cake at the cafe

Although drizzling outside, we went to the annual sale of a group of artists at La Masion Bleue after the film ended. We were able to do some holiday shopping with these folks, whom we've known over a decade.  It is always nice to support local artists.  Below are a few shots from the studio.  They work in silk and do batik or painting as well as quilting the designs.

The wall hanging with the lovely red poppies is Marty's favorite.  

The horizontal cityscape is a really lovely piece as well.  This would look good in many a US home!

An observation, the lari has lost in value quite significantly since we arrived.  Being ignorant of such things, we're not really sure what is driving this.  When we arrived it was at 1.82 GEL to the USD. Sunday it is 2.00 quite a change!  Since Georgia imports much in the way of consumer goods (including food), this means that prices will go up. According to some of our friends, they will stay up even if the lari gains in value against other currencies.  Sad but true. 

Hanging the lighting over Rustaveli

On our way to the theater to see the Indian movie we saw that the city crews were hanging the holiday lights over Rustaveli Avenue.  When we walked out after the movie, the lights were on!

Looking down Rustaveli toward Freedom Square

The former Parliament building, just across from the movie theater

Sunday being a drizzly day, we put off going out until mid-afternoon when we were tired of being housebound and decided to catch the "My Name is Salt" movie.  When we arrived at the theater ten minutes in advance, there was only one ticket window open for four screens! We were standing in line there and suddenly that window was closed, so we all rushed across the lobby to use an alternate window. Unfortunately that line was super slow, full of line-jumpers and folks with problems.  So we waited and waited and the line got longer and longer and folks were not happy.  At 4:45 ish the 10-12 people ahead of us had been serviced along with some line jumpers and we got our tickets!  Rather amazing.

Although we missed the first part of the movie, it was very interesting.  Imagine 40,000 families who harvest salt in India, camping and working on the salt flats for nearly eight months each year until the monsoons come and force them back into town.  All the work is manual except for pumps that are driven by ancient one-lunger gas engines (fuel for these constitute their major expense).  Except for babies, everyone in the family pitches in on the labor: such a hard life!  The director was a woman educated in India and the US (for her MFA in cinematography).

Tuesday we will take the train to Batumi.  Most likely there will be no blogging and we will pick up again after we return, but maybe while we are in Batumi.  We have been told that the Georgian railway uses really nice rolling stock in the summer but returns to the older cars when the tourists leave!  We shall see! We are traveling first class (25 GEL each way per person).  That's a whopping $25 round trip.