I had a bit of a fright when I was checking the next part of my trip. I had booked the wrong dates. The hotel in Georgia wasnt booked for the first night. I tried to change the dates, but there was no availability. I think that was an error because I ended up just booking another night and emailed them to ask them to merge the 2 bookings. They responded straight away saying that was fine, then called me to offer a bunch of other services. It wasn't a big deal but I'm glad I caught it when I did.
I met with my old language student, Martin. To be honest I had forgotten most things about him but when we caught up we had a blast. He had just returned from a year in Denmark. He went to Denmark because his long term girlfriend split up with him out of the blue, and he saw somewhere that Denmark was number 1 on the happiness index, so he went to be happy again. It didn't work.
He told me one story about making friends at a club in Denmark, but he called them "guys" and one of the guys, who appeared to be a guy, was in fact not a guy. Martin said he was referring to himself as an it, which I think may have been a translation error. Martin was really sorry though and said, "oh, sorry bro" and the it got really angry that he said bro and screamed at him and he said "whoa, relax man". He wasn't trying to but he kept saying these male pronouns, purely by accident because he was talking to someone that looked like he had a willie. The group started abusing him, and others joined in, calling him transphobic and telling him he hated minorities. He took it for a while then told them "well I'm the minority now" and left.
Yesterday, I went to Romana's language meet up. She used to run them years ago but stopped since she had a baby. This was only the second one since she started them up again. The first one had only 4 people but she had 13 or 14 at this one.
There was an older American guy who I was having a great chat to, but then he disappeared and came back with a scooter to show me, like little kids ride. I couldn't care less about his scooter but he really wanted my approval, so I had to pretend it was a wonderful scooter, just like I would with a little kid, and he went over the features and history. Then he said he has to be careful because he hurt his wrist inline skating and at that point I was pretty much done with that conversation.
I think they are planning to do talks, or presentations at these meet ups, as is the Czech way. I was asked a lot about kangaroos, spiders and snakes, so I thought maybe when I am back in Australia I could do a presentation for them.
We went out after to a couple of smaller bars, where I had some tvarusky. It is a dreadful smelling cheese (think vomit in a dirty shoe) that is absolutely delicious. I had also had kofula the day before, and slivovice tonight, so I think I have covered my only in Czech delicacies. I also had a sampling of Czech beers, which I still think are the best beers in the world. On the way to the final bar I saw an old colleague from the language school I worked at. Andy, who I was with, knows her too so we went to say hello. I hadn't noticed, but my old boss was actually sitting across from her. I didn't know the boss quite as well because she was usually at home counting her money. She said hello but didn't seem so happy to see me. I'm not sure why.
Today I barely went out except to get food and was shocked to see the town so empty. It was like a ghost town except for a few homeless people eying me off. It was quite cold and miserable so I guess they were all at home.
This afternoon I met with Romana and George at a Cafe. Georges real name is Jiri, pronounced Yiji (or close to that, they have a sound we don't have in English that is in his name), but we call him Heisel (which is spelled hyzl here), which is Czech for bastard. I don't actually know why they call him a bastard. While we were in the Cafe, Milan walked in. Romana and George had barely seen Milan since 2017. He travelled with them and Maja to Malaysia, but they didn't actually know him, they just did that weird Czech thing of meeting with strangers from facebook and making these grand plans with them. They regretted it because he turned out to be a bit of a weirdo. But he recognised me and we all got a photo together to send to Maja, who was also in the Malaysia trip but couldn't make it to the Cafe.
George is married now and told me how he met his wife. He was in New Zealand and in their community of Czech people his now wife was the most beautiful woman, and everyone was trying to get her. He said he bought a book on how to get women and followed the steps. He said the other men would buy her food and drinks, but he would eat her food and drinks instead, and they would pay her attention so he would ignore her. Eventually they went on a trip together and she was stuck in a canyon and he saved her, which I would think is probably what would've done it rather than eating her food and ignoring her. He did also mention that "she is beautiful, but I am beautiful also".
He is looking to maybe move, so I spent a lot of the evening convincing him to move to Australia. I think I made a pretty good case. He's an electrician so he should do pretty well.
I'm now back at my apartment for the last night in Czech. Tomorrow I go to Prague and fly to Tbilisi. Romana's husband very kindly booked all the seats around me on the train to Prague, so I don't have people near me. I assume he then cancels them just before departure for a refund.
I have been checking the news on Georgia fairly often and the protests seem to still be peaceful. I would like them to maybe start shooting fireworks and water cannons again, but really don't want them to start with the guns, so a peaceful protest will be excitement enough.
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