I slept in today. It was fantastic. I had nowhere to be and nothing in particular to do, so I slept until 8:30. Then I lay in bed reading until 9:30, before going down to breakfast. After breakfast, I lounged around some more and then finally decided to shower. I had a luxuriously long, hot shower. Wasn’t worried about the power going out because it was daytime. When my shower was over, I returned to my room and lounged around in my robe, finishing my book (sadly, not a new book, but still an enjoyable one).
Apparently, I spent too much time in my room, because Bebia came up and yelled at me in Georgian for a bit. All I could make out was the word ‘yard’ and she was gesturing to outside. So, assuming she was telling me to go outside, I said ‘yes, yes’ and gestured to my robe and wet hair, indicating that I had to get ready first. This must have been ok, because she left me alone and I dressed and did my hair.
I went downstairs and watched the kids play outside. I’d decided that since the dog and I had made friends, I could probably get close enough to snap a picture of him. This was not the case. It seems that when he’s in his yard, he’d nobody’s friend, though I did manage a couple of really bad shots.
Having failed at my photography attempts, I decided to go online (while everyone else was busy outside). I grabbed the modem and came back to my room. I’d been on for a while (updating the blog and checking e-mail) when HM came to my door.
She had just received a call from the assistant director of my school, inviting me to a wedding. Today. It was 2:10 pm when HM came to talk to me, and I was supposed to be ready by 3. Luckily, I had already showered and thanks to a heads up from Keti yesterday, I’d already been thinking about what to wear.
I managed to dress, make-up and do my hair by 3. I just making my last stop at the bathroom when Bebia started hollering for me. She met me downstairs and walked me to the assistant director’s house, where we waited until 3:50 for the marshrutka to come. While we were waiting, a neighbour stopped by with her 11 year old granddaughter, to speak English with me. I didn’t mind in the least, since it helped pass the time and her English was pretty good.
Once we were on the marshrutka, we had to go up to the school to get the other teachers. The wedding we were going to was the school director’s nephew. Everyone was all dressed up and all wearing heels. Once I saw the others, I understood why Bebia was yelling at me for wearing flats. Luckily, I get away with a lot of things because I’m foreign.
We didn’t actually go to the ceremony part of the wedding, just the dinner. When we got to the restaurant, everyone was standing around outside. I wondered why we couldn’t go in until the bride and groom got there. I got my answer when we went inside. People sit down at tables and start eating right away. Even when the bride and groom entered the building, most people just kept eating.
A Georgian wedding reception isn’t all that different from a Canadian one. The wedding party sits at a highly decorated head table and the parents have a table to themselves. There are speeches and the wedding couple has their first dance. However, throughout all of this, the guests are eating dinner, but the wedding party just has sweets. The food is on the tables and stays on the tables for the entire shindig. And most people talk and eat through the toasts and speeches.
There were some traditions that are done differently than what I’m used to. When the wedding party entered, the mother of the groom threw wrapped chocolates on them and to the guests (like we would throw confetti) and if the young girls eat this chocolate, it means that they’ll be getting married soon.
There’s also a tradition called the Bride’s Dinner, where her family, brings 2 traditional kinds of cake in baskets and each basket had a flare on it. Since there were about 7 or 8 baskets, it was bright and smokey. One of the sweets is like baklava and the other is like a giant uncooked sugar cookie. I really liked it.
Once the traditional stuff was over, the reception turned into just another dance party. There was lots of traditional music and drunk people trying to show off their traditional dance moves. A few of my students were also there,and they asked me to dance with them, so Co-teach and I did. Then the teachers decided that I needed to dance a ‘slow dance’ with a boy so they grabbed one and made him ask me (it was so highschool). I got up and danced with him and he was perfectly nice, but I would’ve much rather been dancing with his hot friend. Co-teach took a million pictures of us dancing, including one where I’m giving her the I-can’t-believe-you-did-this-to-me look.
We left pretty early, which was fine by me. Once the novelty wears off, it’s hard to enjoy a party where you don’t know the people, music or language. One marshrutka ride back up the mountain and I was safe at home, where I learned that HM and HD were also at a wedding. Luckily, Bebia didn’t force me to eat, since she assumed I was full from the wedding, which I was. I retreated to my room to decompress and relax.
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