Fog, Frets, and Finding Coffee in This Damp Corner of the World
the strings on my guitar are damp. like, actually damp. i woke up this morning and strummed a G chord only to hear this weird muted thud instead of the bright ring i was hoping for. turns out, the humidity here is sitting pretty at 93% and the whole damn town feels like it’s breathing fog. i just checked and it’s 10.9°C right now-steady, gray, the kind of weather that makes your bones ache if you're not careful. there right now, hope you like that kind of thing.
i’m not even sure why i stopped here. really. it was one of those 'gotta get off the bus' type decisions. the kind you make when you've been living out of a duffel bag for six weeks and your brain starts to feel like wet cotton. the hostel reviews on TripAdvisor made it sound charming. "quaint," "cozy," "rickety stairs." they weren’t lying about that last one. i nearly twisted my ankle dragging my guitar case up to the third floor. but hey, it’s cheap, and the coffee situation looks promising if Yelp reviews are anything to go by. which they’re not always. but more on that later.
the woman across the hall keeps humming opera under her breath while boiling what sounds like soup. she does it at the same time every morning at 7:15 a.m. sharp. part of me wants to ask her to play a duet, see if she’s got a mic and piano tucked somewhere in that room. but then i remember i’m here to rest my voice, not ruin it on a duet with a stranger in a hostel hallway.
anyway. foggy morning light filtering through these warped windows isn’t doing me any favors as a singer with a touring schedule. i was hoping to film a quick acoustic clip for the gram, but the lighting’s all wrong. This lighting guide from Shoot Your Best says i should wait for golden hour, but honestly, i don’t know if there is a golden hour here. it just sort of... stays gray.
if you get antsy, Kutaisi is supposedly just a short bus ride away. someone told me that the best khachapuri is found there, and that there’s a decent open mic night at this artsy little joint called Kavkasia. i heard that through the hostel grapevine, so who knows. but i packed my backup strings, so i might make the trip.
check out the map below. it’s not much, but you can see the hostel tucked between a laundromat and what looks like a closed pharmacy.
for now, i’m gonna wrap myself in my thrifted coat, ramble down to that coffee shop i saw last night, and try not to slip on the mossy pavement. you’d think i’d be used to this kind of weather by now. but no. i’m still the kind of touring musician who forgets that damp air and wet guitar strings don’t mix.
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