No, there is too much let me sum up.

Okay. I really wanted to make long daily posts but there is way too much for that so you will have to take the condensed version. I arrived in Shromisubani late at night and ate a bunch of food. The next day I went to school for some more food and to meet some of the other teachers. Then we go back home and do a lot of nothing. Thursday is spent lounging around the house. We watch an unhealthy amount of Spanish soap operas that have been dubbed in Georgian, we eat, we sit outside, we talk. Kenneth came over with his host sibling and we ate some more. On Friday I went to a TLG meeting in the town of Ureki. It was a pretty pointless meeting. I don't even know why I had to go. I did learn on thing though. My school only has 96 students.yeah.

From the meeting we had some ice cream and then my host family and I headed up to Poti to go visit some family. Another sister, her husband and two kids. After a short discussion it was decided that I would be staying with my host sister in Poti for the weekend. I was not prepared for that. Things happen on a very short notice here. So the fact that I did not have a change of clothes or a toothbrush was not important. I was given clothes from the other sister that I could wear. Poti is a city right on the Black Sea. The father of the family we were visiting works as a pollution inspector of the Black Sea. He goes around picking up illegal fishing nets too. Poti was interesting but not to much there. It has a giant church but it is being remodeled like everything else in Georgia so I couldn't go in.

After a weekend of Poti we came back home and did some more nothing. On Monday I went to the neighbor's house to help set up for an Orthodox memorial service. The husband had died 40 days prior and according to Orthodox tradition you gather as a family after a period of 40 days and then you eat a lot of food and talk a lot. My family isn't related to them so that is why we went over there to help set the table and prepare the food. I even got to try to make kachapuri. It is a cheese bread of sorts. Slightly difficult to master the correct way to do it. I wish my camera wasn't broken so that I could take pictures of what happened but I cannot. However we set tables to feed about 60 people. The food was on plates and those plates were stacked on top of each other because there was not enough room on the table for all of the food. It was like Thanksgiving times 1,000. In total I think there was something like 80 people in and around the house. We all got fed and there were still leftovers. I don't know how it works. It is crazy.

After the gathering my family and I headed home and in that time a cousin had arrived and is now staying with us for the next couple of days. He really wants to practice his English and  he also wants to marry me but I think I've finally got it through his head that I'm not interested. 1st marriage proposal down, who knows how many to go. One of the things they told us in training was that we should expect attention from everyone even if we don't want it. A former TLG volunteer said the best way to keep the Georgian men from asking to date you is to set the standard that you want a man who can cook and clean. Those don't exist here. They are like unicorns. You might hear about them but you'll never actually find one.

Now to yesterday the 13th. We traveled to Kutaisi for a birthday party. Sister #3(my host mother has 4 daughters and likes to refer to me as #5) lives there and it was her daughter's 13th birthday. We arrived and then just as quickly we left and my host sister took me for a tour around the city. We spent about 2 hours shopping at a bazaar and it was so overwhelming. Things everywhere. People everywhere. She kept grabbing my hand and just pulling me through crowds of people to get to the next area. I imagine this crowd was because of back to school shopping but I cannot say that for sure. It might always be like that. We then took a bus to the old part of the city and walked past the theater, parliament, the opera house, the main public school in the city. We also met up with one of Salome(my host sister's friends). We then all walked up a lot of stairs(about 200) to an old church that was being remodeled and it was also next to an old small castle. I cannot remember the name but the view from up there was spectacular. Up close Kutaisi is not the most beautiful city but from up there I could not have known that. We returned to the house just in time to eat cake and drink wine. We has a Supra(toasting ceremony) for the birthday girl. We toasted to everything and everyone. I even made a toast. It was a lot of fun. The best part is they don't force you to finish your glass except on certain toasts. So if I only wanted to take a small sip that was okay. After concluding our toasts we headed home and I went to bed almost immediately. It was a very long day.

So far today I haven't done much except walk to school on my own. I was of course told about 100 times to not get lost but it would be nearly impossible to get lost in this village. There is only one main road. All of the possible side roads are driveways. Overall things are going pretty well for me. School starts tomorrow. I don't know what time. I don't know how many students and I don't think we have our textbooks yet. My co-teacher is in Poti today doing school shopping with her children so I can't even meet with her. Oh well. Such is life. I will know what I need to know when I need to know it. I hope things are going well for everyone at home.