Long time coming...

This one is going to take a while to read. Be warned. 

After four lovely months in Georgia I made my way back home for winter break. I arrived on the 22^nd, which gave me just enough time to be mostly recovered in time for Christmas. I had a great week of on and off visiting with family. Then I made my way to south Florida to ring in the New Year with my friends. I had a wonderful time and the weather was absolutely perfect. I also volunteered to help out with the Orange Bowl coaches luncheon and halftime show again this year. It was fun as usual and hopefully this will be something I keep doing in the future.  I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I went home for another week and didn’t do too much before leaving on Saturday the 14^th. I was able to see my brother and his wife in the airport for a little bit. The baby is growing nice and strong and they will know gender sometime in February. I will be happy no matter what. My brother is joining the Coast Guard. He leaves for basic training on May 8^th. This is about a month before the baby is due and unfortunately he won’t be back until after the baby is born. So any and all positive thoughts and prayers that you can throw their way would be most appreciated. When I come back from Georgia I hope to be able to help out with the new little one.

As for my traveling, I left Orlando had a nice layover in Chicago and then flew to Warsaw, Poland. I spent four days in Poland and it was nice but I don’t think I’ll have to go back again. Kenneth and I met up in the Warsaw airport. He had to quickly change planes in New York and unfortunately his suitcase didn’t make it. So we left the airport without his suitcase. This was good and bad. Good because it meant we weren’t pulling two suitcases around and he could help me but bad because he wouldn’t have a change of clothes. We made it to our hostel, rested for a little bit then we headed out to the Old Town of Warsaw to see what we could see. It was snowing, which made everything really beautiful but it kept getting into my eyes and making it hard to see. Silly snow. I heard later that the day we arrived was only the second day of snow in Warsaw since winter started. We went to part of a mass in one of the many Catholic churches in the Old town. Probably the last time I’m going to church for a while just because churches aren’t easy to get to where I live.

In Castle Square, Warsaw Poland

Church in Warsaw

We wandered around for a bit before heading to castle square to meet up with a friend of a friend who is studying in Warsaw on a Fulbright. She took us to a great place to have some traditional pierogies. We then wandered around for a little bit more to enjoy the decorations that were still in the city. After a while we made our way back to the hostel for an early night for an even earlier morning. We got up around 5AM to catch the 6AM train to Krakow. It takes 3 hours from Warsaw by train. Once we got to Krakow we took another train to get to Auschwitz. That was another 2 hours journey. We made it to the museum and joined the 1:30PM guided tour. The tour starts at the infamous gates of Birkenau.

Gates of Birkenau

 We walked from the gates to the unloading and selection area of the camp. From there we walked all the way to the gas chamber and crematorium. It was a long cold walk and I cried thinking about how many people made that same journey only to never return again. Near the gas chambers and crematorium there is a memorial and on that memorial there is a plaque in 20 languages that says, “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe.” Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-1945

Holocaust memorial at Birkenau

 Just before liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps the Nazis destroyed the gas chambers and crematoriums so that there wouldn’t be much evidence of the horrible crimes they committed. The part that struck me most was the camp was liberated in January ’45 so the camp must have looked pretty similar to what I was seeing. Covered in snow, bitterly cold and eerie.

Shadows? Maybe. Ghosts... anything is possible.

Destroyed Crematorium and Gas chambers in the January snow

 After wandering from one end of Birkenau to the other we took the shuttle back to Auschwitz. This camp was mostly used for political prisoners and activists. We walked through the living areas, most of which have been converted into exhibits showing the different parts of life in camp. They also displayed the items that were taken from people on arrival at either Auschwitz or Birkenau. Piles of shoes, glasses and suitcases just sitting there on display waiting for someone to come claim them again. It was an exhausting day both emotionally and physically.

Kenneth and I joined up with some other people from our tour and caught a bus back to Krakow. We stayed at a hostel near the Old Town and went to sleep. The next day we got up walked around the old town some and then went on a free walking tour of the Jewish Quarter. Many of the locations we visited can also be seen in the movie Schindler’s list. I need to watch that movie again. We visited the old synagogue, the center of the Jewish Quarter, the former Jewish ghetto and Schindler’s factory. It was a great tour and I only wish we had time to do the walking tour of the old town as well. I ate the most delicious pizza like thing ever in the Jewish Quarter. They call it Zapikanka and I can only tell you that it was like the French bread pizza from the box but 10 times better. We did tour ourselves around the Old Town but we had to guess at what some of the things were. St. Mary’s Basilica was beautiful inside and out, very colorful.

St. Mary's Basilica Outside

Cathedral in Krakow

Inside St. Mary's Basilica

We left Krakow late in the evening to head back to Warsaw. We slept in a little bit and made a friend in the hostel who was also coming back from Christmas holidays to teach English in Warsaw. He took us around the old town a bit and told us some interesting facts. Finally we left our new friend behind and went to the airport to fly to Georgia late at night.

Part of leaving somewhere late at night is that you get into your next destination very early. We arrived in Georgia at 5AM and made our way to the Tbilisi hostel. It is one of those hostels that doesn’t sleep at night so it wasn’t any problem that we showed up at 6 in the morning. We slept until 11 and then went out into town to get some money form the bank, put some money on our phones and go shopping for Kenneth because he still didn’t have his suitcase. We found him a nice sweater and some sweat pants so that he could at least change out of the clothes he had been wearing. We came back to the hostel just before dinnertime and everyone was heading to the bar that the hostel owner part owns. We spent our night talking with anyone and everyone. I watched people play beer pong and we tossed matches around on the back of our hands. I’ve learned that matchboxes can be very entertaining. We stayed out very late, stopped by a supermarket on the way back to the hostel to grab some food and eventually went to sleep. It was an interesting experience but I’ve realized that if you stay at a hostel like that you aren’t very likely to see any of the sights that a city might have to offer.

Again we slept in a little bit. Kenneth and I woke up and met up with our French friend, Clement, for lunch. He also brought a friend with him who was visiting Georgia. His friend, Vincent, amazed me. When I told him I was from Florida his first question was, “Are you from Gainesville?” I was so shocked I could barely speak. He was also shocked when I told him that yes I am actually from Gainesville. He knows about Gainesville because of the band Against Me. I’m still surprised.

We went to a Turkish restaurant for lunch and it was really delicious. Fortunately for all of us Clement speaks Turkish because he spent some time there doing journalism things. I didn’t want to leave Tbilisi but we did have to get back to the village at some point. We caught a marshutka (small bus for those of you who haven’t been following me) back to the village around 2:30PM. It wasn’t snowing when we left Tbilisi but as we went along there was more and more snow. Rather than 5 hours from Tbilisi it took 6 because when we were what should have been 35 minutes away from Supsa(the town closest to the highway from where I live). It really started to snow so it took us at least an hour to go the same distance.

Kenneth’s host family’s cousin, or something like that, picked us up in his Honda SUV thing from Supsa. When we stepped out of the marshutka we sank into the snow to mid-shin. That was a shock to the system and something I’ve definitely never done before. We drove along the village road and we got to the bottom of the small road that leads to my driveway. The snow was so deep the car wasn’t going to make it so we got out and Kenneth and his host brother, Erekle, carried my suitcase up the hill to my driveway. Salome, my host sister, came out to meet us at the gate. We still had to walk up the driveway. Tromping through the snow we finally made it to the house. I was very thankful for the boys helping me. I could have done it on my own but it would have taken at least 5 times as long.

My driveway after the snow. Sorry it's sideways. I can't figure that part out.

  I sat around for a while talking with my family and then I finally retired for the day. The next day my host mother’s other daughter, Eka, and her family came to visit. The snow was amazing. We built a snowman, we had a snowball fight, and we fell down and had lots of fun. The sun was shining and I couldn’t have asked for a better day to experience being back in the village.

Awesome snowman!

Village after the snow. View from my house.

On Sunday, the 22^nd, I was supposed to go visit with Kenneth and his family because it was his host brother’s 14^th birthday. Well I did go visit but unfortunately early that morning his host father’s sister passed away. She had been living at their house for the past two months and was bed ridden. I still went and took my gift for his host brother but I knew that the day would be a far more solemn occasion than a birthday should be. They had the aunt upstairs and some of the family was up there sitting around her crying. I went up and paid my respects. Especially to the grandmother because not only had she lost a child but she had also been very sick recently. After about four in the afternoon the casket arrived and they took the aunt away to her son’s house in the next village over. We then had a small celebration with food and wine for Erekle’s birthday but nothing like it would have been. After a while Kenneth and Erekle walked me home. They sat down at my house for a bit and then went back home.

Monday was my first day back to school. The school looked very beautiful covered in snow. It was cold inside even with our little wood stoves in each classroom. They just aren’t enough for heat. I was happy to see that the kids hadn’t forgotten everything over the break. Some of the ones I was worried about did seemed to have done some serious studying over the break and they weren’t as far behind as they had been. Yay! They showed initiative! Yay! That’s a win in my book. I missed the kids but I didn’t miss my co-teacher’s methods of teaching. And by methods I mean translation. Gah. I still get to do it my way with 2^nd and 3^rd grade so I can deal. It was rainy on Monday. Lots of snow and rain do not mix. It just makes a big wet mess. Lucky for me I had new boots and they are waterproof so far. My new coat is also water resistant and wind resistant and warm. (Thanks mom for not listening to me and getting me a new coat). I’ve also decided that mittens with a removable top and fingerless gloves inside are the best invention ever.

Tuesday was another boring day. No lessons for me so I stayed home rather than going out in the bad weather. I worked on getting all of my photos transferred to my computer and I wrote most of this blog.

Wednesday was a typical school day. I went to Kenneth’s house briefly after school to help him get the Internet modem downloaded on his new computer. I learned that the aunt’s funeral will be on Thursday in the next village over, so Kenneth won’t be going to school that day. When I came home we had some people visiting and after my host mom finished her coffee this friend read the coffee grounds. I have heard of reading the tea leaves at the bottom of a cup but coffee grounds are a new one for me. According to her coffee everything will be good for a while. I’m still spending my evenings watching Spanish soap operas dubbed in Georgian. Still entertaining but I wish there were other things to do too.

Sorry for the novel but then again not really because it gave me something to do.