Good weather?

A long time coming

So, it's been way too long since I last updated this post and for that i'm sorry but honestly, this is my blog so just back off ok!  

the view from a hike above the city

 Our October was pretty full of stuff to see and do around our temporary home and we got to see a lot of the central and eastern part of this country.  It is NOT like Slovenia though where you can drive across the country in 2 hours and I think that people believe that it's small only because its beside monstrous countries like Russia and Turkey.  I can tell you though, that this country is deceptively large.  We have started to look at some locations in the western half of the country and realize that the drives to some of these locations will definitely necessitate overnight stays at the very least.  I guess this is one of those things that we just didn't really think about beforehand as we assumed that travel would be much quicker than it is, especially with Georgian drivers believing that they are in an Formula 1 race at all times.  

 

Rae and I in front of Gergeti Trinity church in Stepantsminda

As full as our October was though, our November was the exact opposite.  We were very quiet in November, only making small excursions around the city and enjoying the beautiful fall weather here.  Speaking of the weather, there are definitely things about the weather here that we haven't been enjoying.  For one thing, the WIND!  It is unlike anything we've experienced before and I imagine it's like living in Lethbridge but much worse (as bad as living in Lethbridge already is).  On the days that its windy, it is relentless.  It seems that it comes and goes for now but when its windy, it can easily sustain 70km/h for days at a time and it definitely takes our enjoyment of the country down a few notches.  On one of the days that it was so windy I was talking with our neighbour who mentioned that this was nothing yet and to wait for February and March where it's worse...so I guess we have something to look forward to!?!?

Our meal on one of those windy days.  You can see the cucumber and tomato salad with walnut sauce on the right along with a dish with the spoon thats called Ghomi.  A cheese dish with chicken. 

On one of those windy days we decided to spend the day inside at a museum suggested to us by a friend.  

    

  

Traditional Georgian swords and a royal garment (recreation from a movie)

Mtatsminda Park

While in Tbilisi, you can look up at any point in the city pretty much and see a large ferris wheel and tv tower.  This is Mtatsminda Park, a popular location for people in Tbilisi to spend the day.  There are loads of restaurants and rides for families and just a nice park to chill out in and spend a day.  The park is accessed by a funicular, bus, or hiking.  We had kept on saying that we were going to go and check it out but had still not made it up until late November.  So, on November 20th with a beautiful 20 degree day, we decided to finally head up to Mtatsminda park and see what the fuss was all about.  It was nice to chill out in the sun in a fall that was warmer than normal.  It was definitely a plus to be able to see that we had escaped a terrible start to a canadian winter with all the pictures we had been seeing of the snow that western canada had already been hit with.  

The ferris wheel in Mtatsminda park

Monthly breakdowns: 

I promised with my last update that I would post our tracked expenses per month.  It's been a while since I wrote that but I now have data from two months and they couldn't be more different from month to month.  October was the month that we moved into our apartment though and so there were a lot of costs of buying things for the apartment to make it feel more comfortable; better cooking utensils or things that were missing, better bedding, water filter, etc.  We also did a lot of traveling around in October which adds to the monthly costs.  I think it is a good look at what it costs to move to a country with a cheaper cost of living then Canada and can show how accessible it is to move somewhere else if you have the ability to make a bit of cash while traveling. 

I've broken it down into multiple categories based on the type of purchase.  

Housing - includes rent, cell bills, all related bills for the apartment (gas, electric, internet) and supplies that we purchase for the house.  

 

Food - This may have some overlap with housing as sometimes we purchased items for the house along with our groceries but they weren't edible but we tried our best to keep it separate.  This also includes nights out for drinks with friends.  

 

Personal Care - Medical, hair, clothing, skin care, or other personal costs. 

 

Transportation - Includes metro, airline fees if we had any, private drivers, and car rentals (uber/bolt/yandex)

 

Entertainment -  Includes trips, movies, live theater, and other types of things.  

NOTE: All prices are in Georgian Lari but the conversion is around 2gel for 1cad. 

Here's the breakdown for October: 

Housing - 2050.79

Food - 1864.25

Personal Care - 167.20

Transportation - 427.40

Entertainment - 890

This is a total of 5399.64GEL which translates to 2648.52CAD at the current exchange rate.  

We spent a bit too much on food as we were eating out a lot at first and we spent a lot on housing as we bought the things needed for day to day life but as you can see, it still is less than you would spend monthly in Canada. 

Here's the breakdown for November: 

Housing - 1576.25

Food - 1019.33

Personal care - 95.77

Transportation - 69.10

Entertainment - 10

This is a total cost of 2770.45GEL which translates to 1358.91CAD.  You can see that November we slowed down a LOT.  We got COVID and that put us on our butts for 2 weeks and the days where it was very windy or colder we didn't do a whole lot.  

And that's it for this time!