Tag: friends

Learning to snowboard and New Year’s Eve in Gudauri, Georgia (January 2024)

After Christmas, Whoopy had to leave with the Marshrutka and leave her camper van next to our cars because it was stuck in knee-deep snow.

She had left her snowboard and equipment and so I was able to make my first snowboard experiences.

I talked a little about how to start snowboarding with Racki and Whoopy and had watched some YouTube videos. I felt good about it, walked up a little slope to check if I felt that I would survive going down the whole mountain, bought a season ticket (for about 260€), and took the gondola up.

The beginning was tough and it took me about 45 minutes to “ride” down for the first time. So the first day, I did three descents and felt done.

It was super interesting to learn this new sport from zero. And it was awesome when I managed to turn and ride slalom down the mountain. It felt like freedom and a totally new world to me.

I did not push myself hard in the learning process and mostly just let it flow. It felt more and more natural to me and I had so much fun conquering more and more of the mountain.

Whoopy came back on the mountain for New Year’s Eve and to get her car and so we could do some snowboarding together.

Racki had to work during the day but of course we all went together to a New Year’s Eve party. It was hilarious! We danced for hours to electronic music and then rock music and had a lot of glint wine.

Arriving on the winter mountain, Christmas, work and Whoop, whoop (December 2023)

We arrived in Gudauri, the biggest ski resort in Georgia. Racki had found a job for the winter season there and so we decided to stay all winter season on 2200 meters.

When we arrived, it was mostly around -15 degrees Celsius and I was pretty sick. My stomach hurt a lot and I felt very weak and low. We had to keep Rosinante’s roof closed so that the heater was able to keep it warm. So this start was pretty intense.

Racki’s first job was good and she had nice colleagues. The payment was not comparable to the salaries in Germany but that we knew this before. The hotel Racki was working at was far from ready for the season and so there was a whole lot to do.

It was snowing a lot and I had to clean the snow from our cars every day because otherwise they just would have been buried completely.

Whoopy came visiting us for Christmas and we had a lot of fun. My stomach got better and that helped me a lot to get used to our new, freezing living environment. Sometimes I was missing just going out and hanging around like we were used to in summer.

When we were hanging around together, another Georgian contacted Racki for a different job. She was offering a lot more salary and after Racki and she had met on the 24th, Racki quit her first job and got a new one with a better salary and more interesting working topics. It was crazy how this was turning out.

Wonderful friends and creating together at Hof Marani in Georgia (December 2023)

We met again with Isarna, Adela, Alvaro, Roxane, Vincent, Regina and Gerold at the unique and wonderful Hof Marani.

It was so awesome to meet everybody again and spend time together! We had a lot of fun building a mosaic, a light for the entrance sign, making wine and Chacha, cooking, eating, drinking and just being together!

But at the same time it was our last time together in this group because afterwards we would go for a border run to Turkey, the french and Isarne would go west, the spanish east and Regina and Gerold would stay at their Hof Marani.

If you ever have the chance, go and visit the Hof Marani. It’s such a wonderful, creative and mind changing place. They built unique things like a house out of glass bottles, a house decorated with cans and bottle caps and everything is different. And they have a whole gang of animals. Chuchuna, the horse, sometimes even breaks into the kitchen to steal some food!