Language skills

This week I've had several opportunities to be thankful for my seemingly effortless command of the English language and my severely stunted Georgian.

I was pretty proud of myself when I managed to score tickets to another performance of Giselle. It entailed burning up all the talk time on my mobile phone (with Larisa doing the talking, because although their website is in English, nobody at the theater actually speaks it), two trips to the ticket office and a grand total of 28 lari, or about $16 (for four tickets--to see one of the most famous ballerinas in the entire world).

During my second trip to the theater, the crazy-eyed Russian lady made me come in to the ticket booth and sit with her by the space heater while we waited for the other lady to arrive, who at least spoke five words of English. Telling them "thank you" and "goodbye" in Georgian was enough to get a huge laugh (as usual).

After my ticket victory, I still had to make my way to work. I tried to get marshutka-route advice from a friend who used to work in my office, but my message wouldn't go through because 1. I was completely out of talk time and 2. I was SMS-ing his office landline. Ahem.

Instead of risking a minibus ride to god only knows where, I ended up walking halfway across Tbilisi. Ah well. At least I got the tickets.