Students Life Style In Tbilisi Part II

Hello guys! Hope you are all having a pleasant day out there. In my last post in the Experience section I just mentioned about finding a shelter once you arrive in Georgia for studies, how they look, what are all the pros and cons, etc. Now I will continue on with the same topic from the point where I left the other day.

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So coming to our topic: what would be the second most important thing for a foreign student in Tbilisi during his/her course of stay? I guess it will be the food because no one can keep eating foreign food in my case it will be Georgian food for a year continuously. When it comes to staying for a long time in another country food plays a prominent role.

In Tbilisi you may have to know a little of the Georgian language in order to purchase vegetables and other grocery items from the local shops. There are also plenty of supermarkets and few hypermarkets available in Tbilisi where you don't need that much control over the language because the food stuffs are clearly displayed in racks. I'm kind of not sure about other nations food requirements the following things I'm explaining about food stuffs is mainly concerned with Indian foods.

When I arrived in Tbilisi it was a bit hard for a first few weeks as there was no proper food to eat and my tongue was always missing the taste of homemade Indian food. Rice which is the major staple food of South Indians and Wheat the staple food of North Indians are not that much hard to find. They are available in a local name called "Brinji" and "Pkvili" in every ordinary store.

The strange thing to the local people here is that since India is a temperate zone unlike Georgia and have a high temperature people often tend to eat rice as the main course so when you purchase a large amount of rice from the shop the shopkeeper may give you a weird look.

That is not a big problem just bear with them and you will get used to it. There is also a vendor who sells all Indian food items that are required in Vukzal near to the metro station. This is a prominent small grocery shop where most of the Indians purchase their daily needs. The rice packs as in other parts of the world comes in small one kilogram packets and massive 25kilogram packets costing around 1. 40GEL and 36GEL respectively. Depending on your choice you may select anything and the big sacks of rice are mostly available at some rice depots in Vukzal for a cheaper price. No cooking gets completed without spices and that's particularly true for Indian foods, most of the students carry with them the spices that are required during their period of stay for cooking when they come from India as the spice are expensive here in Tbilisi.

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A popular hypermarket in the world has recently opened its branch in Tbilisi and in there are available a variety of spices used by different countries with markings clearly mentioning the country which they come from. The prices here are economical and you can find spices of any country over here. Bread can be considered the staple food of Georgian people and it is available in different forms and flavours. They generally cost only about 1GEL.

Apart from all these any kind of cooking whether it is Indian or not needs vegetables or meat. The costs of vegetable often fluctuate depending on the season like every place in the world and sometimes certain seasonal vegetables would be available only during the particular season. Certain vegetables when you buy in the off season it may cost you more than usual so beware of what you buy and when you buy. When it comes to meat Georgian people are more fond of pork as it contains a lot of fat content that is essential for keeping themselves warm as Georgia lies in the foothills of the Great Caucasus range.

Apart from that Chicken, Beef, Fishes and other sea products are available. Chicken costs around 4GEL in local stores where as the packed boneless chickens will cost you 9GEL per kilogram. Sea products are a bit expensive according to my view in Georgia where a live Lobster can cost you 125GEL, 200 or 300 grams of packed prawn costs you 15GEL and so on. There are also canned meat and fishes available in the market and you would also get all other daily needs for cooking such as oil, salt, etc, in the local grocery stores.

I think that's enough with food now lets discuss about the next thing that is very important for a student to spend his life in a new country. I guess it should be the transport which becomes an essential one as a student is supposed to go from his home to the university everyday and it is also really essential for every other stuff he/she wants to do in the city.

I guess the transportation facilities in Tbilisi are at its best for the city. The public transport is well organized covering every nuke and corner of the city.

There are a variety of public transportation facilities such as city buses, mini vans or mashruthka's and metro trains. The city buses are of two different sizes some are small vans and the others are big buses depending upon the density of people who travel and the importance of a place the kind of buses that goes to a particular place has been determined. All city buses can be easily recognized as they are painted in full yellow and each bus stop has a digital sign board that displays both in English and Georgian the buses that would arrive at the stop, their destinations, the Expected Time Of Arrival. The buses arrive at the exact time as displayed in the board and you can fully count on them. A single bus ticket will cost 0. 50GEL and this is a fixed amount for any bus. The tickets can be taken from an automated ticket vending machine hung near the bus doors. You can insert coins of 0. 10, 0. 20, or 0. 50 GEL coins in the allocated slot and you will get your ticket. If you want to take tickets for more than one person then you may adjust the number by touching a place on the top right side of the machine which will increase the number of tickets you want. After adjusting to the correct number of tickets you may insert the exact amount in coins. The machine doesn't gives you change. Transportation Cards can be bought from the metro stations at a cost of 2GEL and you can recharge the cards either in the metro station or in the automated pay boxes kept everywhere. You can use this card to get tickets instead of troubling yourself to find the exact change that you need to get your ticket.

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Once you have enrolled yourself into a university as a student then you may approach the bank with proper proof and check if your university has updated their students list. If its done then you can get a Student's transport card from the bank at a cost of 3GEL. This will fetch you bus and metro tickets at a reduced cost of 0. 20GEL per ticket. You can take one ticket only for yourself using this card unlike the other transport card that you bought from the metro station. If you use your students card 4 or 5 times the same day then from the 6th time you would get a free ticket which means a ticket for 0GEL. This will last for few hours and after that the offer reverts back to normal. In case of urgency if your student card runs out of balance or if you forgot to recharge your card with money don't panic. Just keep your card over the alloted place and you will hear beep sound displaying that there is no money. Take the card from the place and immediately insert a 0. 20GEL coin into the coin slot and you will get your ticket.

The next is about the mini vans or masruthkas which is the local name. Very recently all the mini vans were changed by the government into yellow coloured similar Ford vehicles. In the past it was self owned mini vans which were moving in the streets with route markers called as mashruhtkas. It will cost you 0. 80GEL per person in mashruthka for travelling from one place to another. You may pay in cash to the driver or even you can use the travel card that you have purchased for taking a ticket in mashrutkas.

The other means of public transport in Tbilisi is the Metro Train. There are two metro lines running through the city of Tbilisi. The first line extends from Vaza Pshavela to Vukzal and the second line is from Akhmeteli to Varkiteli. The metro stations can be easily identified from the roads with a big M sign and the name of the station written on it. To get into the platform you can use only the plastic cards it can be either your students card or the general plastic card and it costs the same as the bus 0. 50GEL for normal card and for students 0. 20 GEL! You can get down at Vukzal which is the interconnecting station between the two different metro lines. The metro trains are fast and quick means of transportation within the city and there is one metro train for every 10 minutes.

All the above mentioned public transport services are available only till 12 am at maximum. Apart from all these public means of transport there are also a lot of Taxi's available on the road with a prominent "Taxi" marker on the roof. The minimum fare is 2GEL and it increases according to the distance. There are no metres in Georgian Taxis like other countries and the drivers often calculate the distance and ask you a fare. You can even negotiate with the drivers if you think that the fare is too high. When you get well acquainted with the city you will get to know well about the fares in taxi for different places within the city. On a whole, I will say that the city of Tbilisi has good transportation facilities connecting the entire city.

According to my point of view these three can be said as the most essential things for a student when it comes to foreign life. Only these three things can't suffice a student he/she also needs some other stuffs to manage his living in the city and they include Clothing, Entertainment and Restaurants which can be said as accessory things for a better student life each of which I will discuss in brief here.

Although every student will pack up his baggage with lots of clothes just to wear for the university there will be some special occasions where purchasing some new clothes often becomes fundamental. In some cases students want to buy clothes because of the new designs, its look or they buy because they just want to. In this aspect although it is not of much importance lets discuss how good is the city of Tbilisi for shopping. There are two categories of shops in Tbilisi as far as I have explored. One are the branded ones which have their global trademark, the other kind are the local stores which often sell clothes for a more economical price. Most of the famous branded shops like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, United Colors Of Benetton, Debenhams, Lotto, New Yorker, etc., are found in Tbilisi which are ideal for some money packed shopping. I particularly like the shops such collezione, lotto, LCwalkiki as they have some good collection at a economical price. There are also a plenty of local shops in streets which sells new good clothes at a much economical rate. However the choice is up to you to decide which one to buy from.

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The other thing I before mentioned was Entertainment. Unfortunately you can't go out with your friends for a movie in theatres in Tbilisi as all the movies are dubbed in Georgian and released. The only way to go to a movie in theatre is when you know good Georgian or if you get some fun time like I have with my ESN friends as a movie night. Apart from that there are a lot of snooker, billiards and pool clubs found at different places in Tbilisi for which they ask 10GEL for an hour per table. There is a good place in the Tbilisi Central Railway Station Complex at Vukzali which has snooker, pool, billiards, bowling centre in it.

There are a number of clubs and pubs in Tbilisi if in case you are a party lover. The most prominent entertainment among the Georgian people as far as I know is gambling and betting. There are many casinos, slot clubs, poker tables, betting centres for sports, roulette centres scattered everywhere in Tbilisi. An amusement park is located in a hill which is called locally as the Mtasminda park, it has a limited number of rides including a big giant wheel on the top of a hill. The park is often closed during the winter seasons and open during the months of summer and spring.

A botanical garden located in Rustaveli is also a good place for a hike. The Narikala fortress is a fortress that is located on the top of a hill and there is a cable car facility that you can access with your plastic cards that you use for metro and buses. This will take you up to the hill where you can have some fun and return by the same way. Near to the cable car station is the bridge of peace also called as the glass bridge where is present a beautiful musical fountain. The bridge and the fountain are more beautiful during the night than the day time.

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Apart from all these there is a small zoo in Tbilisi which you can visit to have some fun seeing animals and there are even some small games such as electric cars, giant wheel etc. There is a classical opera hall in Tbilisi which you can buy tickets from internet or from the ticket counter. The Georgian Polyphonic Singing is one of its kind however its difficult to understand. The turtle lake or locally called Kustba is an ideal place to visit in summer as boating is available there.

These are some of the prominent places that I was able to think of as the major source of entertainment for foreign students in Tbilisi. However when you adapt yourself to Tbilisi life you will get to know more and more places like the way I got to know all these.

The last thing to consider on our list is Restaurants or some good places for dining. I will mention some good spots here and I would write a brief info about all the places in some forthcoming articles of mine. In Georgia you can try a variety of Caucasian food stuffs which major constituent is cheese. You will get food items like Khachapuri, Lobiani, Karthopili, Guruli, etc. If you want to have some nice pizza then you have three options you can go to Ronny's pizza which offers you delicious American pizza, Pizza De Roma and Pizza Fantastico that provides you with famous Italian Pizza. You also have some famous American diners such as McDonald's located in many places throughout the city, Elvis and Texas Chicken. Turkish food items are famous in Tbilisi and there are two shops named as Supra and Ankara both are situated one after the other in the main street of Marjanishvili. They offer you some delicious Turkish recepis. Lemon Grass is an another cool spot to dine with some taste Thai food. There is also a Chinese restaurant located in the Kazbegi street that brings you the real taste of Chinese. Little India and Maharaja are two famous Indian restaurants that can give you the real taste of India. The prices vary depending on the food items you prefer however the food will be worth the money you pay. I will try describing more about the restaurants in my upcoming articles in detail.

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As you start or before your start your students life in Tbilisi these are some of the important things you must understand and act accordingly. Whenever you are new to a country you can make unknowingly a plenty of mistakes and may even take some wrong decisions but don't panic as these are quite common in an entirely new community. Be strong and as life goes on you yourself will find a way to mingle with the community. If you have any further questions or clarifications to be made please comment below. Hope you liked my article and thanks for reading!

Till I write my next article thank you and cheers.