My friend Mary-Kate wanted to come visit my village and when I hadn't heard from her all week I assumed it was all hot air; not the first time a friend coming to my village had failed to occur. When I called her the day before she was still keen. She lives in Zugdidi, a city close to the (new) Russian border. Sadly enough for me the halfway point to meet up is Batumi; you wouldn't think so by looking at the map, but that's mountain roads for you. The plan was simple, meet in Batumi, go to my village, entertain the locals and return to Batumi so she can go home.

Saturday comes and once again I take the early marshutka. I like the early one because I feel I get more value out of my day. I know my Mum just re read that last bit. With early return times there is a huge difference between arriving at 9am and arriving at 11am. On the way in my marshutka needs to pull over and the driver quickly has us back on the road; making that my first breakdown. I arrive in Batumi at 9am and Mary Kate is set to depart around then. She calls me and tells me that the drivers late. Eventually late becomes not at all and she's set to take the noon marshutka. Thankfully we're both pretty relaxed people and have accepted (but not necessarily like) certain aspects of Georgia that this isn't a huge drama.

So instead of arriving at 11am she is scheduled for 2pm. At this point I'm glad I didn't pre purchase tickets home for around 1pm. She rings me again. It turns out that she has discovered the first Georgian chain smoker who doesn't smoke in his marshutka; unfortunatly this means frequent stops. All the while she's enduring that I'm hanging out in the default meet up point of Batumi: The café with wireless. It also features a signs I can read in English and Georgian; that is to say it uses a combination of letters in the Georgian alphabet that I know.

3pm comes and goes and soon Mary-Kate arrives and we go and get pizza. It's nice to catch up, it feels like forever but times is skewed here. We eat, pay and start making our way back slowly to the marshutka station for the 4:30 marshutka. We have enough time so I try and look in the stores on the way back for a short extension cord. As it turns out Georgia, as far as I can tell, does not have them; they have the power bank/strips (whatever you call them where you're from) which really don't suit my purpose. I know they could, but I don't want to daisy chain them; I'm already scared of the washing machine after it's bitten me twice.

We seem to have lost track of time and make it to the marshutka stand at 4:32pm and have missed the marshutka…by 30 minutes. What the fuck? I don't get why they keep changing the times on me. It's the last marshutka of the day and I decide we should just take the one heading to Keda. I text my host Mum and tell her we missed the Merisi marshutka and are taking the one to Keda; mostly as a hint that we'd like a ride from Keda. I get another text asking where I am and explain I'm on the way to Keda. And just as I get into Keda I get a text saying "Kris last marshutka is in merisi. Where are you?" Sigh. And just to remind people that this is the second best source of English after me in the village.

We decide to hoof it up the mountain and we barely leave the town and get onto the dirt road before a car comes by with tinted windows and offers us a ride. We take it and are grateful. When we get out at the village Mary-Kate asks if I know them and I tell her I've never seen them before. I guess it surprises her that she just unwittingly hitch-hiked in the mountains, but I've done it a few times now. I don't know if I'd do it any where other than between Keda and Merisi as I'm often left with one unfortunate option of walking. With light fading I show her the school, the "stadium" and with the 'centre of town' having been shown as that's where we got off we made our way back to the house.

I didn't realise how much of a big deal it was me bring a guest was until I saw dinner. Stuffed peppers, chips that weren't cold (to be fair I had some that weren't cold earlier in the week but then I was wondering what the occasion was) I then ask Marika if she wants to play cards and immediately she just becomes Mary-Kate's new BFF. I felt a little sold out, but the two of them connected really well. To start off with I dominated almost every game of cards we played. Then towards the end of the session my dominance faded. It was quite funny watching Marika react to coming last place for a while.

I actually got booted for winning too much.

A car arrives and we hear a loud bang. I assume it's just the car back firing and sure enough out comes Temori with his friend, which happens to be the guy who picked us up. Quickly the table is moved and wine is produced. These people are like the F1 pit crews of drinking sessions; they can have a meal and a wine in front of you quicker than a tyre change. We drink for a while and my host Dad is like a ninja at keeping my glass refilled; I swear I'm looking at the glass and suddenly it's refilled. I think the previous drinks might have played a part in it. I make sure I drink slowly and with less enthusiasm as my first weekend here. Eventually people end up outside and as I go out I hear a loud bang. It turns it isn't backfire it's a shotgun. Cards, alcohol, firearms and wrestling make an interesting evening. I have a small cut on my forehead is my short bout with Temori. It was even for a while, but I ended up down in a headlock. I guess taking on a Georgian at one of their national past times was ambitious.

The third hand shows I wasn't being reckless

The night was cold, but not as cold as last weekend, just cold enough to give Mary-Kate a proper taste of the potential of how cold it can get. We decided on either the 8 o'clock or 9:30 marshutka. It's funny I'd never heard of the 8am option and I was under the assumption the 9:30 was actually at 9. Mary-Kate talked of wanting to see the village in the light to take proper photos. I was reserved on the issue: a morning after drinking, it's cold and did I mention early? It turns out photos from my balcony are good enough - and they truly are; you're closer to the edge of the valley and really what else is there to photograph here other than dirt roads and three shops?

We say our goodbyes and manage to get seats on the marshutka, which surprised me as the Saturday one at that time is normally crammed like the Exodus. We arrive in Batumi at around bang on 11am and decide against the planned trip to Turkey that was made in the café with other TLGers. It was influenced by our lateness getting in and one girls lack of a passport, plus I assume they were probably hung over.

The rest of the day was really just spent doing mass downloading and enjoying simple pleasures of sitting in a café with unrestricted access to the Internet, unlike at school:

There is gambling and then there is Portuguese gambling.

On the way home on the marshutka we broke down. I couldn't work out the problem until after a while someone jumped in the drivers seat and started to pump the breaks. After a while they took off with what I guess were spongy breaks. Kind of a scary ride home as cows often sit on the road and don't flinch.

So yeah the snow is retreating, the electricity is being friendly and I'm one week from fitting my remaining time in Outlook without scrolling. I've got a four day weekend coming up, at the expense of a Saturday. I even got another shower tonight. Look at me with two showers in four days