Batumi and Turkey

So much has happened since I last wrote. I went to Batumi for an overnight, I had no school for two days because the government declared snow days, I went to Trabzon, Turkey and I helped fix the water pipes that bring water to our house.

On Saturday the 4^th, I woke up early to catch the marshutka to Batumi. At that time I didn’t know if I would be coming home that night or not. It depended what I found to do in Batumi. It was a quick one-hour ride. The weather was cold but sunny and that made all the difference. I had been to Batumi briefly on an excursion with other English Teachers but it didn’t leave much time to see anything. So here I was again in Batumi and determined to see what I could. While Kenneth and I were walking around we stumbled upon the tourist info box. They gave us a map and circled all the things we must see. They were extremely helpful. We walked next to the beach that was covered in snow. We wandered through the city and saw the churches, the mosque, the statue of Medea holding the Golden Fleece, the new Piazza that is modeled after an Italian square, we went to the “Zoo”, we ate at the Chinese restaurant next to the fountain show, we walked, a lot. It was eventually too late to take the marshutka directly back to our village so we found a place to stay and haggled the price down from 70GEL to 50GEL. I was quite proud of that, and I did it in Georgian.

Beach in Batumi

Roman Columns

Colorful Batumi

Medea holding the Golden Fleece

Piazza tower

Eagle at the Zoo

Guinea pigs in a Zoo(who would have thought)

Lemur!

Chinese Restaurant

Art on the boardwalk at Sunset

The next morning we got up and made our way to Gonio Fortress. It was founded in the 3^rd Century BC and the Byzantines and the Ottomans used the current fort. St. Matthias is also buried there(or so they say). He was in Georgia around the time he died so it is possible. The Fort was pretty cool, very old but I could definitely see how it would be much nicer looking in the summer when everything is in full bloom. A little bit of history and some cool artifacts were in the museum part of the fort. It made for a nice trip. From there we went back to Batumi, wandered around a bit, ate some delicious food at a random restaurant that we found and then went to the bus station to head home. It had been a nice weekend trip but it was good to be going home. We also started looking at possibly going to Turkey in the near future but didn’t know if it would be a viable option or not.

St. Matthias's Grave

Walls of the fortress

 Monday was just a normal funday Monday. School, kids and cool weather. After school I went to English club at Kenneth’s school and the idea was to teach them the cha cha slide. We taught them all of the vocabulary for the song but when it came down to it we had some technical difficulties, so we couldn’t play the song. We promised the kids we would do it next week. On Tuesday I did nothing except laundry. The weather was pretty windy and I knew we could expect some bad weather the next day or so. Wednesday was the day that changed my weekend. I was at school just getting started with second period and the bell rang. I thought that was weird but it had rung randomly earlier in the day so I ignored it. A few minutes later the Russian teacher comes in and says that school has been cancelled for today and we don’t have to come back to school until Monday. It had started to snow outside but I hadn’t given it much thought, as it didn’t seem too different from usual. I called Kenneth and we talked about the fact that we should leave for Turkey right now. I really want to visit Cappodocia and we had talked about it but were going to wait to do it until later when we had a long weekend. Well here was our long weekend but we were not ready to go. After much deliberation we decided not to go to Cappodocia. But we still wanted to get out of the village. So instead we decided that if the weather looked fair on Thursday morning we would go to Trabzon, Turkey. Kenneth looked online and saw that there would be a soccer match, and there was a cool monastery nearby that was built into the cliffs. Something cultural and something historical, sounds like a plan to me.  We made it to Batumi right at 11AM, caught a bus to Trabzon and headed on our way. The border crossing was pretty chill and we still had valid visas from when we made our little trip into Istanbul from the airport there. Unfortunately it seemed that we were on the slowest bus ever. From the border it is only supposed to take three hours. It took 6 for us. We stopped at every small town along the way and drove really slowly. It was frustrating because I was getting hungry but we never stopped long enough to get any food just long enough to load or unload passengers. I had a few snacks but those didn’t last very long on the trip. We finally made it to Trabzon and got dropped off near the main square. I had the address of the Tourist info office written down so that was going to be our first stop. We did make it the office but it was closed. We went into the hotel next door and asked if they knew when it would open. They said the manager of the Tourist Office had died and everyone was at the funeral, it might open later today but definitely tomorrow. Great, I thought. Here we are in a new city with no idea on where we actually are or where anything else is.

From there we walked to a kebab place that we had seen. It was really good but maybe just because I was really hungry at that point. While sitting in the place I saw a sign that pointed to a church. I thought it was weird that there was a church in Turkey (for those who don’t know Turkey is a Muslim country) so I suggested we make that out next stop. We walked down the road and rang the bell to get into the church. It was really beautiful. Capuchin monks who had been forced out of Russia and Georgia built this church, and several others in Turkey but only a few of them are currently still used as churches. Many are mosques or museums.

Entrance to the church

Inside the church

 

Baptism Font

We wandered around some more and then headed back to the main square to start looking for accommodation. We figured it would be more expensive right on the square so we walked down one of the side streets to inquire about prices. We arrived at Otel Evim and the owner/receptionist gave us a slight discount for two nights. He also knew a bit of English and could answer our questions about the town. He also told us that he would try to find us tickets to the soccer match the next night and we could go with him. He suggested we walk down on of the main streets just off of the square for something to do. We wandered around, had some tea (one of those must do things in Turkey) stumbled across the bazaar that was closing down and eventually called it a night. There is a two hour time difference between Georgia and Turkey so even though going to bed at 8:30 PM sounds ridiculous it had already been a long day and our sleep was well earned.

Atatürk in Atatürk Square

Symbol for Trabzon Spor FC(Soccer Team)

The Black Sea. She was a bit feisty today.

Aya Sofia

Friday’s plan was to get up early and take a bus to the monastery about 30KM from Trabzon. We talked to the owner’s dad who takes the late night early morning shift at the front desk and he called a company to see if anyone would be going. Unfortunately there had been big snow in that area and no one was going anywhere. We even walked to different bus companies to ask just to make sure that it wasn’t just the one company not going. Nope. No one was going. Just one more thing to add to the list of things that weren’t going according to plan. After that we went to the Tourist Office, which was open today, and got our map and some suggestions of things to see in the city. Good thing too because otherwise we would have just been wandering around. After realizing that we weren’t going to the Monastery we decided to go to Aya Sofia. It was a church turned monastery, later turned into a museum. The art on the walls was mostly gone but in certain places the frescoes were still very visible. In other places it looked like the pictures had been scratched away, which is possible. I imagine it must have been beautiful in it’s heyday. 

Inside Aya Sofia Museum

From the Aya Sofia we walked back to the main square. We passed the soccer stadium, several mosques, several statues of Atatürk and lots of little shops selling anything and everything you can imagine. It was quite a hike but the weather was nice and we could do what we wanted. We grabbed some food and then headed out on our next adventure to Boztepe. This is the overview point of the city. There was snow up there, it was cold and windy but the view was pretty, really worth the trip up there. While we were there we also sat and had some tea (yep more tea). Turkish style tea is served in glass cups and you put a sugar cube into about 6 oz of tea. So it ends up very sweet. It’s all part of the experience.

View from Boztepe

 

 We spent some time just sitting and enjoying the view and getting warmed up before heading back out again. We decided we would walk down because again the weather was nice and why waste the money on a ride. We found a set of stairs and wandered through some neighborhoods on our way down. The path was fairly steep in some places and I couldn’t imagine having to walk that everyday. We were a bit turned around once we got back down but we eventually got our bearings to head back to the hotel to change, charge my camera batteries and our batteries for a bit then head out with the owner from the hotel to the Soccer match.

This was an experience. We took a bus to the stadium and thousands of people were milling about. We were waiting for his friends who had the tickets for us. It was only going to cost us 10 lira to go to the game. It would have been 50 if we got them from the ticket booth. After going through two security check points we made it into the stadium and found our seats. We couldn’t have asked for anything better. We were in the middle of the fan zone. As Kenneth pointed out later this town is a crazy about their soccer as most universities in the south are about their football. And as I learned at the game you never can get away from home. Just before the teams came out of the tunnel they played the Car Chant. You heard me correctly; the song that makes an FSU sporting event was played in Trabzon, Turkey. They didn’t do the chop but they did raise their arms up and down so it looked a bit like the chop. Our host, Ali(we finally learned his name just before going into the stadium) was so surprised that we knew the song. We had to explain that is was from our university. Us chopping along with the rest of the fans became part of the story he continued to repeat through the night. 

They sang different songs and chanted the whole game. They jumped up and down, they swayed back and forth and it was amazing. I have also learned that The Wave is for the weak. True fans start a chant in one section and send it around the stadium with each section filling in a different part. One interesting thing about the game was that the crowd was probably divided 20/80 women and men. However most of those women sat in the covered section of the stadium, so when the chant made it to their area the tone was much higher. It was really interesting. That game was probably the most fun I’ve had in a long time at a sporting event. Best 3 dollars I’ve ever spent. Trabzon Spor won the match 4-1. 

Cheer leaders of a different sort(It was below freezing)

 After the game we went with Ali to his friend’s house and we watched the replay, talked about the game. I already love soccer but being able to talk about something even with a language barrier makes me love it even more. Another friend, Salim, who spoke much more English than Ali, showed up a little bit later so the conversations were a bit more fluid. We ate some delicious food that his friend said would make us want to eat our fingers. Evidently eating fingers is the Turkish equivalent of something being finger-licking good. We got nice long laugh out of that one for quite a while.

From Left to right: Ali, Salim, Kenneth, Me and Ali's Friend

 We eventually left his friend’s place and went back to the hotel. Ali and Salim were going to go to their other friend’s bar and asked if we were tired or wanted to come too. We went. The bar had a great view of the city and the sea, which I think must be even better in the daylight. The owner was very funny. There were a few other people there as well. One of them was a girl who had spent a year on a study abroad in Lafayette, Louisiana. After a long day and night we went said goodbye to our new friends and went back to the hotel to sleep.

Saturday we tried to go to the monastery again, but the roads were still impassable because of the snow. It looks like we will have to come back when it is warmer if we want to go there. Instead we wandered towards the old city, walked through the bazaar when it was working in full force. We did some small shopping. While Kenneth was in one shop trying on jeans the shop owner insisted on getting me tea. I don’t know exactly where the tea comes from but you can see men walking around with tea on trays and delivering it to different shops. It was very nice to sit there and sip on tea. Almost nobody in the bazaar speaks English but they don’t seem to care that you don’t speak Turkish; they will just keep talking like you understand. We killed a lot of time and we went to the shopping mall too and finally took a 9PM bus to Batumi. We arrived in Batumi around 3AM Georgia time. We got some food at a 24 hour restaurant then went to the bus station. The first marshutka showed up around 6 but wasn’t going to leave until 7. We got in, slept a little bit until he left. From Supsa we walked back to our houses. I slept for a while and then got up to eat some food. I also went to bed early that night because I had school the next day. It was an amazing weekend. Nothing went the way we thought it should but everything turned out perfectly.

Monday was again pretty average. I can’t say much about school. Four lessons and done. Went to Kenneth’s school and taught English Club the Cha-Cha Slide. We got our technical issues figured out and I think the kids really enjoyed it. Some of them were a bit embarrassed about dancing in front of each other but that’s part of being 15 and 16 years old. I love doing that to them.

Today was good. I woke up late, I did laundry, I cleaned my room, and I wrote, I read a book outside in the sunshine and I drew pictures. It was a great day to be home and outside. The weather was practically perfect. After Aniko came home we went on another small excursion. This time just to the backyard to readjust some pipes that had moved during the last snow and freeze. It wasn’t too exciting and I spent most of my time standing next to the house and turning the pump on and off a lot of times until the water started to flow. But good news is the water is fully working again. Yay. Let’s just hope we don’t have to fix it again any time soon.

Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you all and thank you for your support and prayers during this journey.

One more week gone by

Things are staying pretty much normal here in the village. Not too many exciting things happen very often. I either go to school and teach then come home and do nothing or do nothing at all on the days I don’t have school. Generally those are Tuesdays and Thursdays. This past Thursday wasn’t any different. Salome and my host mom left to go to Kutaisi for something. This left me at home to do nothing. So I sat around and watched TV in English. I read my book. I did laundry. I played games on my computer. These are all very exciting things for me. When my host sister is visiting at home I rarely get time to myself so I have to take advantage of it when I can.  It was a nice day.

On Friday I want to school as usual. The kids seem to have forgotten some of the things we learned in the fall but I expected as much. Not to mention my co-teacher seems intent on getting them through things as fast as possible without waiting to see if the kids know the material and then blaming the kids when they don’t know it. Yeah, really effective teaching that is. It’s also great when she doesn’t wait until all of the students have finished one task before starting the next one. Then we just have to repeat ourselves a lot. Superb. I really just want to teach on my own but that will have to wait.

After school I went home but then Kenneth called to say that he was going to church with his host brother and sister and wanted to know if I wanted to come to. I wasn’t too keen on the idea but it gave me something to do. It was a lesser feast day, Ninoba (St. Nino’s Day). We walked to church, stayed for about an hour, lit some candles and then walked back home. The weather was extremely windy and while we were in church the power went out but then came back on again. I was happy that it wasn’t raining yet because last time I went to church it was windy and rainy and I fell and skinned my knee. No injuries to report this time.

On Saturday the plan was to go to Ozurgeti to visit with one of my teacher friends. The weather wasn’t great. It was still windy and slightly rainy but we went anyways. My host mother was going to Poti to baby-sit while my host sister went with her niece and sister to a dance competition in Zugdidi. They would be gone all day and be back later than I would. My host mother was worried about me but I told her I would be okay. Kenneth and I took a bus to Ozurgeti and met up with our friend, Harriet, in a café. We drank hot cocoa, ate pizza and just sat around and talked for a long time while enjoying being out of the weather. There is a new teacher in Oz so Harriet called him to meet up with us too. After enjoying our lunch we headed out to the Bazaar in search for some rain boots. It became very apparent that even though I have nice leather boots I could wear that are waterproof that just isn’t going to be enough when the snow melts. Everything gets very muddy and slippery and wet. I found a nice pair for about $15 dollars. Just a side note in Georgia they call rain boots welingtonies. I couldn’t believe it when I first heard it but hey it works for me and makes it easy to remember. After successfully finding rain boots for Kenneth and myself our group headed to the local supermarket, The Modern as we call it. As we got closer we noticed lots of people standing in the street staring at the Modern and lo and behold it was on fire. So much for more shopping. We stopped and just watched for a really long time. We were all amazed at how antique the fire trucks were and how ill equipped the firemen seemed to be. They extended a ladder and the first man to climb up didn’t have anything more than normal clothes on. The next man had what appeared to be a fireman’s pants and jacket but who knows.

Check out high tech firetruck on the left

Yes let's climb on top of a burning building...

It was interesting to watch to say the least. After a while we were all pretty chilly from just standing out in the weather so we headed to another café for tea and coffee. Eventually it was time for Kenneth and I to head back to the village on our bus so we said goodbye to our friends and walked to the bus station. I got home just before dark and there was no electricity. I lit the stove, ate my dinner and sat around with my book and a flashlight until Aniko and Salome got home. It was pretty late when they got back and of course the power came back on within minutes of their arrival.

Sunday was another typical day at home. I woke up late. I had brunch. I sat around and watched TV. My host mom wanted to rearrange some bookcases so she asked me to call Kenneth to come help because he is tall. The rest of us are pretty short around here. We talked, we moved furniture, we ate food and eventually Kenneth went home. I didn’t do much the rest of the day.

Monday was Monday. School was school. After school I went to Kenneth’s school for our first English club of the New Year. We had about 15 kids show up. It was fun and at the end of it we made them all sing head, shoulders, knees and toes. It was great watching 15-17 year olds do it. They are all at the age where they are too cool for that kind of stuff but we weren’t going to let them leave until everyone did. Power of being a teacher or at least a tutor of sorts.

Tuesday was yet again a boring day. I woke up late, sat around watching TV with my host sister, I peeled some kiwi fruit, she made plavi( a rice dish with fruit bits and lots of sugar). I read some more of my book. That night we had grits for dinner. Served a bit differently than they are at home but still tasty. It was served along with cauliflower that had been cooked and then soaked in a garlic, hazelnut, and something else sauce. Very interesting way to eat cauliflower. When I told them that I like to eat cauliflower straight (either without cooking or just after being steamed) they looked at me like I was crazy. I made them try it steamed though and they said it wasn’t bad but they preferred it in the sauce. They like their food heavily flavored. Salty, peppery, spicy, sweet but nothing is ever bland.

Now Wednesday started out as a normal boring kind of day. I am now very familiar with the term wintry mix. It snows one minute and then it is raining the next. It did that all day but it was mostly snowy but it was too warm for it to stick so it just made giant puddles all over the place. The kids love snow. If it was acceptable for me to run around in it just because it’s there I probably would too but I have to save my running around in the snow time for after school, not between lessons. Wednesdays are my favorite lesson days because when teaching 3^rd and 4^th grade I don’t have to compete with the 1^st or 2^nd graders in the same room. The younger ones get taken out into a different classroom because they only get two English lessons per week. I’ll complain about that some other day. I’ve also come to the conclusion that my 5^th graders are just never going to do their homework. Whenever we assign it we almost always spend the next lesson having them do it in class because they didn’t do it at home. We might as well not assign anything. After school I went to the kindergarten where my host mother works and she fed me a bean soup and then sent me home. I was just sitting at home reading my guidebook when she came home and asked me if I wanted to go somewhere and mentioned something about pigs. She was talking quickly so I didn’t catch all of it but I agreed anyways. I knew that one of her pigs had been missing for a day or two so I figured someone had spotted it and we were going to get it. Well I was right about that part. Before we left she had me put on tall rain boots and an old coat and then she gave me a laundry basket with some old clothes in the bottom and a little bucket of corn. When I saw the basket I thought about the fact that we might be going to rescue piglets and their mother. One of our neighbors had found the pig so he was showing us the way. He also brought a small axe with him. Aniko said it was in case we came around a wolf. I’d rather not think about that part.

Little did I know that going to get this pig would mean us crossing a stream six different times and walking up the side of a hill where there was a “road” that had now turned to mud. My boot got stuck in the mud at least five times and on the last time I almost had to have Aniko pull me out. We get to the top of the hill her pig had buried herself under some bushed and when we got her out there were indeed little piglets, five of them in total. After they got the momma pig out and distracted I was in charge of picking up the little guys and putting them in the basket. Whoa did they squeal. Momma also wasn’t too happy with that but the neighbor was keeping her away from me. I didn’t think about it when I grabbed the piglets but I imagine that mother pigs could get pretty aggressive. We got the piglets in the basket and got momma pig to follow us by dropping corn kernels and occasionally picking up a little one so they would make some noise. It was an exciting adventure walking back because the snow really started to pick and the wind started to blow. It was getting cold fast and the snow was finally sticking. We made it back to the house with everyone in one piece. I do have to say that piglets sound a lot like ducks. If I hadn’t personally put the piggies in the basket I wouldn’t have believed it by hearing the noise they were making. Bizarre little creatures. This was a great experience of village life in Georgia and it beats my corn adventures by a long shot. I really did enjoy our little excursion to go rescue pigs but next time she asks me to go somewhere I will definitely get more details before agreeing.

Weather just after pig rescue

Snow covering the next morning.

When I woke up on Thursday there was about four inches of snow on the ground. Everything was very beautiful all covered in white. It was also pretty cold. Getting out of a nice warm bed to brave the cold of the house is never a pleasant experience but it certainly wakes you up quickly. My normal routine it to get out of bed, find my clothes for the day, stick them in my bed that is still warm, go downstairs, have breakfast, wash my face, brush my teeth and then go back upstairs, pull my slightly warm clothes out of my bed and get dressed. I had no lessons, which was a good thing because I heard from one of my colleagues that there were only six kids at school. It seems the parents just decide that it will be a snow day and so they don’t send their kids to school. I did walk to Kenneth’s school for an event that was described to Kenneth as an international symposium. Really it was just the tenth graders asking questions to teachers who were originally from somewhere else, i.e. the Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and USA. We were asked about becoming a citizen, civil rights and other things like that but there wasn’t anyone there who could truly translate what we said. They asked me to try but I’m severally lacking political vocabulary in Georgian. It’s also very hard to dumb down the English for that particular topic. But they didn’t seem to mind and were happy to have us talk, well Kenneth talk. I didn’t say much. Today was also Groundhog Day and I thought about trying to explain that to someone but decided it would just make Americans sounds crazy. Relying on a rodent to predict the weather… yeah sounds like a great idea. However, it’s still one of my favorite minor holidays. I walked back to Kenneth’s house and spent some time there before going back home.

On another note I’m currently working on a 30-Day Drawing Challenge. I will post my pictures at the end of my 30 days, today marks day 12 so you still have some time to wait before you get to see it. Some of the pictures are good, some of them not so much. But it is a way to pass the time in the evenings and mark the passage of time so I don’t completely lose track of what day it is. I like the idea of doing something for 30 days. If you have any suggestions for what I should do next feel free to let me know. I’d really appreciate some ideas.

 Oh and Will and Tracy are going to have a girl! Just found out yesterday. Yay!

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.

Birthday week

 This past week had been pretty good. Went to Kutaisi on Sunday for my “sister’s” birthday. It was a pretty calm party. Not too much drinking but still lots of toasts. I don’t know how that happened. I think I just wasn’t drinking on every toast. That probably explains it. Nothing really happened on Monday. I went to Chochkhati School after my school to do English club but that was about it. On Tuesday I slept in late  (I don’t have lessons on Tuesdays) and when I finally got up to go to school it was thundering, and lightning and hailing. I tried to wait it out but I waited for almost 2 hours and then I just braved it. I don’t think I’ve ever walked so fast. I was so scared and I ended up pretty wet from the rain and hail. I eventually made it to school and taught time at English club. I think they get it. But I don’t know.

On Tuesday evening Aniko and I were sitting around and I mentioned that my birthday was the next day and she looked at me and said, “I thought your birthday was the 31st of November?” (In Georgian of course). I looked back and her and asked how many days are in November? She counted on her knuckles, I don’t know if you know that trick but I can explain it if you ask me, and then looked at me and just laughed. This wasn’t the first time that someone has thought my birthday was on the 31^st of November. Yes my birthday is the last day of November but there are not thirty-one days. I laughed for a good half hour about it this time. She made a bundt cake for my birthday. It was tasty.

Wednesday was a great day. I woke up to warm katchapuri and hot tea. I got my ride to school and lots of good wishes once I got to school. All of my students somehow found out it was my birthday. After second period the 8th and 9th grade girls ambushed me, and they sung happy birthday to me and gave me a present. They gave me candy and perfume. I opened the perfume when I got home and I have to say that I don’t think I will ever be wearing it. It smells super cheap but if I ever smell really bad it would cover it up. Ha-ha. Also the Education Minister Dimitri Sachsomethingsomething called me to wish me a happy birthday and to thank me for coming to Georgia to teach English. I felt super special. All of the teachers were impressed too. After school we had a supra and of course Badri (my school director) was the tamada (toast master). By the end of the afternoon he was quite drunk and was talking about everything. It took forever to get the final toast out. Rather than wine though I was drinking champagne or as it said on the bottle fizzy wine. It was almost 5 when I left school and I made it home for a quiet evening with my host mom. We ate some "sauce". It was a beef stew of sorts. Very tasty. As for the rest of my night it was pretty typical. Watched the Spanish soap operas waited up for the weather to come on and then I went to bed. 

Thursday was less than exciting. It has been raining for almost a full week and I am sick of it. I just want some sunshine. I also don’t have lessons on Thursdays but I go to Chochkhati school to teach the teachers English. The sun did come out for a little bit while I was walking to Chochkhati so that was nice but then the rain started again as soon as I was inside the school. I left my umbrella at home that morning but it was just my luck that someone offered to give me a ride home. Didn’t have to deal with the weather after all.

 On Friday morning I was leaving the house and there was frost everywhere. I was walking down the driveway and well I fell I busted my butt. Evidently when it rains a lot the driveway gets wet. And then if there is a hard freeze said driveway gets a nice thin
layer of ice on it. And even if you are careful you will still fall and bust your butt. I only fell once but then I got to the gate and it wouldn’t open because it was frozen shut. I had to open the big gate (normally reserved for cars) to get out of the yard. It was so cold but everything covered in a layer of frost it so pretty. I imagine snow is equally as pretty. I do and don’t want snow at the same time. It will be interesting when it finally snows.

While I was at school the phone my program gave to me decided to die. I did everything I could to make it come back on but I think it really is dead. I must go get a new one. But in the meantime I’m using my American phone. I unlocked it so it can work on any carrier now. Let’s just hope this one keeps working until I can make my way to the Nokia service center.

Finally on Saturday the weather cleared up. We still have overnight freezes but the sun was out and it was at least 60 outside. Because of the nice weather we did what I would call spring-cleaning. Sheets were washed, floors were swept and mopped and everything was just generally clean. It makes for a nice house. We went to see our neighbors and while we were there I got to eat pecans! I was so excited. Then we went to the store to pick up my mail. We weren’t at home when it was delivered so it was delivered to the store. I received three birthday cards. They were in Georgia on time but village mail delivery doesn’t happen that often so I got them a few days late. But no worries and thank you Aunt Kathryn, Gramma and Papa and Alyssa for the birthday wishes.

Sunday was more of the same. I didn’t do much. I enjoyed the weather. I bummed around the house and I did some exercises. The best part of my night was talking to people back home. I called gramma and Aunt Kathryn and family and I called my friend Charlsye. I tried calling my parents but they didn’t answer any of their phones. Silly parents. It was nice getting to talk to everyone else though. I’m going to have so much to talk about when I get home. Even though I write this blog I feel like I’m leaving things out. Ugh. Problem.

Monday I went to school and then after school I went to go visit the English teacher at Guliani’s School. Guliani is the next village over from Chochkhati. It’s probably a good 5k from my house. I was visiting to meet his new wife and look at some of their wedding pictures. I was supposed to go to their wedding but I never got the details on how I should get there or whom I would stay with. The wedding was in Batumi. I felt bad about not being able to go to the wedding but last night I stayed at their house. I ate dinner with them and hung out with them. It was mostly nice but what was not nice was the outhouse. It is cold and dark outside at night. Flashlights for light and old books for toilet paper. I have never felt more grateful for a real toilet and toilet paper in my life than when I got home on Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday morning I left directly for Lanchkhuti. There was a package waiting for me at the post office and I had to go pick it up. It takes almost an hour to get there. I wandered around Lanchkuti for a while. I found a bench in the park where I could use free wi-fi and kill some time. Then I went to the post office and got my package. I then went back home. I was back home by noon. My mom sent me granola bars, Swiss Miss, Little Debbie brownies and some leftover Halloween candy. I’m definielty having some hot cocoa tonight.

At the request of my host mother I am posting pictures of my house and school. She pointed out that I have pictures of all the places I visit but not the placesI am at most of the time. So here you have it. 

My school

Rainbow on my way home from school

 

My house and driveway(yep the icy one)

My house!

Corn Crib. Do you see the corn in it? I did most of that.

Living room

Other half of living room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Stairs to my room

My landing

Upstairs formal dining room that we never use

My bedroom

Bedroom

Downstairs formal dining area that we don't use

Toilet and tub (without shower curtain)

Water spitting dolphin sink

 And there ends the tour of my house. I hope you enjoyed it. Take care everyone.

Giorgoba and Thanksgiving

So it hasn’t been that long since I last wrote. Which is good for you and me. It means I don’t have nearly as long of a novel to write and that I probably won’t forget anything. Tuesday was pretty uneventful. I went to school so that I could stay warm and not be lonely at home.  I don’t have any lessons during the school day but I do have English club after school. I don’t (AKA I’m not allowed to) teach grades 7-9 at my school so this is how I am making sure they are given some basic English skills. Even if they can only say hello, my name is and goodbye I think it is well worth my time. I teach them a little bit of everything. Some basic conversation and some basic vocabulary so they can talk about things they like and don’t like. I really enjoy it because although it takes place at school I give the students a little bit of freedom to be silly and loud. My favorite lesson was last week when we covered animals and I made them make the noise of the animal that I said. They were nervous and embarrassed but when they realized that everyone would have to do it they dropped the “I’m too cool for this” attitude and had some fun with it. I did have to go home eventually and of course there was some corn just waiting for me to throw it into the corncrib. I was tired and sore but I figured the only way to overcome sore muscles would be to use them. It was a pretty good idea if I do say so myself. I slept like a rock that night.

The next day was Giorgoba or St. George’s Day. There was no school and I probably wasn’t going to do anything productive so I decided to go to church. Most churches in Georgia are Georgian Orthodox. There is the occasional Catholic Church but those wouldn’t be in the village.  One of the 8^th graders at my school walked with me. I would have gotten lost if she hadn’t. The church is in a separate village about 3km away. The weather was uncooperative and the road was slippery. On the way to church I almost ate it several times but somehow I managed to keep my balance. The church is on top of a hill (like most churches in Georgia) and it is small. This particular church is also very new and this coming Sunday will be the first Sunday worship service. The service is almost entirely chanted or sung with minor parts being spoken. I would understand the occasional word but for the most part I stood there for three hours just listening. Sometimes the singing would put me on the edge of tears because there is something awe inspiring about the way they sing. Traditional Georgian music has seven voices. You know the usual soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Well somehow they come up with an extra three voices. It sounds really amazing. Anyways back to church. They said a lot of prayers. Some people came up for a blessing. This was interesting too because the priest lifted his stole and put the person’s head underneath it. He mumbled something and them tapped the sign of the cross on the back of their head several times (probably three). After that they said some more prayers, sang some more and people started to come up for communion. The children went first. Before taking part in the bread and wine, which was taken at the side of the church, they walked up to the priest and took a spoonful of something out of a gold cup. The acolytes made sure that none of this stuff spilled onto the floor and once everyone was done the priest licked the spoon clean. I still don’t know what it was. I will look it up eventually. After a short sermon about St. George we were dismissed. 

Upon leaving the church it started to rain. It was already cold and the rain wasn’t helping. The roads were already wet and muddy and became more wet and muddy. About half way home I slipped on some muddy rocks in the road and my knee hit the ground. I got lots of mud on me and I didn’t realize it until I got home but I also put a large hole in my tights and skinned my knee pretty badly. Good thing I hadn’t done that on the way to church or I would have been a real sight to see. I already stick out because everyone knows that I'm the foreigner, now lets just think about the foreigner with the rip in her tights and blood running down her leg...yeah I'm really happy that didn't happen before church.  I got home cleaned my leg and went back to chucking corn. Yep there was still more to go. I even had to climb up into the corncrib to move it around so that when I threw it in there it wouldn’t come tumbling back out at me. After all of that I still had English tutoring. The most memorable part about that had to be sending my tutee into a giggle fit over dog noises. I still haven’t quite figured out what was so funny but it made lessons interesting. We were discussing the word bark so I explained that in English a dog goes woof woof, in Spanish they go jau jau (pronounced waow waow) and in Georgian they go something like omf omf. I personally think the Georgian one sounds the most ridiculous and giggle worthy.

Thursday was a bittersweet day for me. It was Thanksgiving back home and I knew I could look forward to talking to my family later that day but I couldn’t look forward to a delicious meal of turkey and sweet potatoes and stuffing and cornbread and all of the other goodies I would be missing out on. In the past few months I’ve come to be thankful for many things and a lot of them are just simple modern day conveniences, like shower curtains. But many other things like the wonderful family and friends that I have are definitely not so simple. They are all very special to me and I know that I wouldn’t be where I am right now if it wasn’t for them. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Friday was fairly boring. I went to school, I came home briefly and then walked over to Kenneth’s family’s house with my computer in hand. I was going there so that they could talk to him on the phone and see how he was doing. I tried the previous day but their Internet wasn’t working so well and we couldn’t connect. We ended up waking him up but I know that his family over here was happy to talk to him so I’m sure it was worth it. I came home to a slow and boring night at home. I finished my second book for the week last night. I sometimes forget how much I enjoy reading a good book. That’s probably why I end up reading them so quickly. I try to put it down so that I have something to do the next day but that never works. Oops. This is why I’ve been downloading new books onto my ipod whenever I find some free Wi-Fi.

Today (Saturday) has been pretty boring. I slept in late. I was supposed to go to a wedding in Batumi but I could never get any clear directions on how I was supposed to get there or whom I would go with so I didn’t go. Instead I stayed at home and cracked (and ate) hazelnuts and watched television and wrote this lovely blog. The weather is cold and gloomy. I’m not saying it was good I didn’t go outside but it was nicer to stay inside and do practically nothing.

Tomorrow I’m going to Kutaisi with my host mom. I think it must be someone’s birthday because she made a bundt cake. On a side note, teaching her to say bundt reminded me a lot of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I don’t really know what’s going on. I have a feeling I will definitely find out tomorrow when we arrive in Kutaisi.