Donations to kittens, odd taxi drivers, and coffee

In what is probably the busiest day I've had in a long time, it has been one of running through the city and also finding a few things to enjoy. Today is the day I move out of the apartment I've been dreading for quite a while now, very excited to be out of it due to the poor design, location, and the constant problems with the landlady and the apartment itself. The first thing was pulling out everything from the apartment early on in the morning, realising so many things wouldn't fit in the many bags we already had. The duvet for the bed was something that wasn't able to come with given the size of it, as well as a towel that we had the intentions of throwing out. But when I was making my trips up and down the stairway of the building with various bags to throw out, I had the little realisation: this building has a stray cat in it, and that stray cat recently became a mother. Two little kittens have been running around the building over the past week. There was no need to throw such things out, and instead I went down into the basement and placed the towel and duvet down for them. They immediately accepted them.

Here's the kitten sitting right in the middle of the clean duvet in the messy, unkept commie block basement. It was a nice way to say goodbye to the cat and its kittens, giving them a little something to make their lives more comfortable. That tiny little face looking up in the comfort of the duvet was such a nice thing to see, rather than having thrown the duvet into a bin outside.

Though the next problem was getting all of our bags across the city. A taxi was the best option, and things seemed fine despite the large amount of luggage. Throughout the week things had been sent to Russia and Armenia, but we still had so much to deal with. This wasn't so much of a problem for us, until the weird taxi driver mid-journey started to demand that we tip him for the fact that we had luggage. That wasn't happening. It seemed best to just pretend to agree and then not do it, to get him to calm down and stop his weird acts while we were stuck in the traffic on what is suddenly the hottest day of spring in Tbilisi so far. Of course, the one day in which there's plenty of running around to do! After arriving and dropping off some of our things at a cafe, I alone had to run all the way back to the other side of the city to meet the landlady's daughter to hand over the keys to the apartment. Having already delayed that meeting due to the taxi incident, I now relied on the incredibly busy metro to get there.

It felt like I was back home in London, where the underground is a nightmare in which people pack themselves into the trains. One person was jammed between doors insisting he got in rather than wait for the next, the doors opening and closing on most of his body which was still outside of the train. He didn't seem to care about the dangers. I decided to wait for the next two trains until there was some space, but I was really feeling the warmth of that underground. A sea of people, heads moving like waves in front of me as they walked through the station.

I do somewhat dread the upcoming second trip with the luggage later on, though once we are at the place we need to be, there's nothing else to be done aside from board and wait until we reach Armenia.

The coffee wasn't the best, but the first of the day and felt like a great hit of caffeine that I needed after running around the city, back and forth with the metro, handling the final few obligations of the day before leaving. Next time I post, I'll be back in Armenia, and ready to start anew. I'm really looking forward to it, though there are a few things of Tbilisi that I will miss, especially those little kittens running around the building's stairway! The cafe is big, but located in the incredibly old district and side of Tbilisi. A mixture of Soviet and pre-Soviet architecture, this is the view from the cafe. Another thing I will miss is definitely the large amount of trees the city has. All the little birch and pines that tower above most of the buildings around.

And despite the coffee of today, a desperate packing in the early hours of the morning ensured I found some Clipper and Twinings tea from England. A little bit of a preparation for the fact that Armenia doesn't yet (or ever will) import these brands I enjoy. Over all a tiresome day, but that's how it is with travel and moving.