Oh, You Dark, Dark Night

Let me start off by saying that I grew up in Chicago, I went to school in Montana, and I studied abroad in Russia. Winters do not scare me. However, I had never before been more nervous about an upcoming winter than I was about this one despite living in a supposed subtropical region. All throughout autumn, the weather was beautiful, sunny, and warm. I kept thinking to myself, "I am going to pay for this, I just know it."

And I was right.

The snow started falling on the 8th of December as I was making the trek back to Keda from Kutaisi. It was wet, heavy, thick and as I crawled further and further into the mountains of Adjara, its intensity increased. By the time I reached the doorstep of my host family's house, my fall boots were soaked and toes cold - I made haste to change into some dry clothes and plopped down by the wood burning stove. I have become quite a fixture there, a stalwart figure, as sure to see as long as a fire roared inside. At that moment, I was not too worried, the lights blazed and I was cozy, not to mention that the previous weather forecast calling for a foot of snow had been horrendously wrong. It might be fair to say that this weather forecast was also horrendously inaccurate - it had called for eight inches of snow to a foot and by the time the storm cleared out on Friday, we had over three feet of fresh powder. At eleven in the evening, the power went out, but I was not terribly concerned, this kind of stuff happens regularly in rural Georgia, so I packed it up and went to bed.

Monday morning, my host mom burst into my bedroom to declare: "Грета, идёт большой снег! У нас нет светa и нет школы/Greta, idyot bol'shoi sneg! U nas nyet sveta i net shkoly!" (Greta, it is snowing hard [direct translation big]! We have no power and no school!" I repeated what she said just to make sure I had heard her correctly and promptly snuggled back into my mummy sleeping bag, closing my eyes.

That first day, I visited some neighbors with my host mother, went on a walk up the mountain beyond my house, and read. The first day, I found it all exciting, if not mildly horrified and in denial that the power could be out for at least ten days according to two of my Peace Corps friends. I spent that first day reading about a topic that I love, religion and politics, in a place that I love, Georgia. That first day, all was well if not a little cold.

The trees above my house.

My house.

I had not even bothered setting my alarm for Tuesday as I knew there would be no school. A call from the Embassy woke me up. Day two was spent much like day one with the added activities of solitaire on my iPod and snowman/snowball fights with Giorgi. Sunshine made a tease of an appearance in the morning until giving way to more snow by the afternoon.

As night set in, I started growing anxious. My host family had nothing but a couple of lonely candles to light the living room (the only room in the house to have heat, thanks to a wood burning stove). Darkness and cold seeped in through the walls, creeping through the room and around my body like tentacles. Luckily, I had brought a flashlight and headlamp with me and that made trips to the bathroom and getting ready for bed all the more easier.  I went to bed early, as there was little to do once it grew dark except to read, which was fine, but I had to conserve energy on my Kindle. This was the time I broke out my guide to English grammar.

The lonely candle

Wednesday morning came and the snow was falling down hard. By this time, at least three feet of snow had fallen with no end in sight. I walked into town and watched marshrutka drivers chaining up their vehicles as well as numerous awkward standoffs on the Batumi-Akhaltsikhe highway as the road had been narrowed to barely one lane.

By Thursday, my patience was starting to wear thin. I did Thursday what I had done the days before. That night, it was our neighbors' turn to schlep to our house (we had been swapping) for Turkish coffee and mandarins. I entertained everyone by dancing with Giorgi and by singing silly kid songs in English. It passed the time as did a shower by candlelight.

A very stranded marshrutka

The Batumi-Akhaltsikhe Highway

Friday, day five of no power and no heat in my bedroom, and I had pretty much snapped. The only good thing to happen was it finally stopped snowing and the sun had come out. I tried to keep my spirits up by going on a walk and playing a word game with Giorgi, but I could hardly focus. I tried reading, but a low battery message kept flashing on the screen of my Kindle. Of course, I also read actual books, which I do prefer, but there was nothing in that form I could use to escape reality. My day was spent either staring at the wall or biting my lip to hold back tears. I had contacted the Embassy the day before to ask the local power company on my behalf about when the power would come back.  The response had been: "We have no idea." My host mom remarked that it could be a month for the surrounding villages but then proceeded to unsuccessfully assure me that Keda would have power by Sunday.

It did not matter. I had had enough. You can take the girl out of America but you cannot take America out of the girl. Say what you want about my generation's dependency on technology, but my computer is a lifeline, especially living in a foreign country. I use it to communicate with friends and family; I use it as a window to the world. Living in a foreign country in a town surrounded by mountains, I felt sort of trapped. My host family is great and I have great conversations with them, but I had no idea what was going on at that time which made the situation all the more frustrating. Without my computer, I was stranded and in distress.

Keda Public School (where I work)

Saturday, I left Keda and made the long trek into Batumi where there was power and heat. Normally, the marshrutka ride takes about forty minutes, but Saturday it took about two hours. I checked into a hotel and had a conversation with the Embassy about the situation and my frame of mind. It was agreed that I should stay in the city, at least temporarily, until the power came back on and or school reopened.

Part of the delay in the restoration of power is due to the fact that the winter storm caused a significant amount of damage to the power plant and power lines in Adjara. For the first couple of days, the entire region was without electricity. Essential services ground to a halt and Batumi had to buy its power from Turkey to get those services up and running again. Much of the mountainous inland was rendered accessible only via helicopter due to all the snow and cold, making it very difficult to repair the extensive damage.

So, there you have it, the story in grisly detail. A cousin said that these were pioneer days, something I found to be fairly apt. Or, maybe, a little bit more developing world than I bargained for. It is day eighteen and as far as I know, there is still no power.

Kutaisi and Cathedrals

Last weekend I went to Kutaisi for the umpteenth time...actually, it was just my third, but the first with the intentions of seeing the local cultural sites.

Friday morning, after my first class, I departed Keda. On travel days, I have to give myself a lot of room because getting out of Keda is a bit of a hassle. As I expected, I arrived in Batumi and sat waiting in the Kutaisi/Tbilisi marshrutka for well over an hour while the driver and his friends tried hawking more passengers.  No dice, for them, and we left (after much urging from Georgian women) less than half full. This driver went particularly fast, but that is not terribly unusual...I just clutched the seat in front of me several times to keep from flying into the aisle.

I made it to Kutaisi in time for the Friday night expat "Happy Hour" where all four of us ETAs, Chase, and several other Americans and Georgians splurged on an excellent meal at Zedazeni Restaurant. After that, we all went to a club where a Georgian musician was making a music video and wanted us all to be in it dancing. The ETAs were not terribly impressed and we moved to a billiards establishment. I did not partake since, like with most sports involving the use of a ball, I am terrible, but I observed and had a nice conversation with a young Georgian woman.

Saturday morning, after sleeping in, the four of us ETA's met up with TLGer (Teach and Learn with Georgia) Melissia, and headed to Bagrati Cathedral. Shawn told us that Bagrati had been on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list but was recently downgraded after being renovated to its previous splendor. They used stones from the ancient structure, new stones made from the same material, and steel to represent the threats the Georgian Orthodox Church has faced over the centuries and how it has endured them. It was first built in the 11th Century and was devastated by an explosion from Ottoman Troops in the 17th Century. The renovation was completed in 2012.

Bagrati Cathedral (it is officially known as Cathedral of the Dormition)

The five us explored some of the ancient walls/fortress that surrounded the cathedral. We had beautiful views of Kutaisi and the surrounding mountains.  The trademark slogan of this came from Shawn proclaiming something along the lines of: "I have cathedral/castle dust in my beard."

View of Kutaisi and the surrounding mountains.

Shawn and Kenny exploring the ancient ruins. This particular section was a bit of a climb.

Afterwards, we bought shwarma. Shwarma is an Arabic meat wrap of sorts that uses a variety of different meats (just not pork) and roasts them on a rotating spit. Once in the wrap, vegetables are included. I was not particularly impressed, but I was told by the other ETA's and the TLGer that they all had had better. Maybe I will try it again sometime.

We then caught a marshrutka up to Gelati Monastery which is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) outside Kutaisi. It contains three churches, one from the 12th Century called Church of the Virgin founded by King David the Builder and the second and third, the churches of Saint Georgie and Saint Nicholas from the 13th Century. At one time Gelati was considered one of the primary cultural and intellectual centers of Georgia celebrating world renowned scientists, theologians, and philosophers. It is one of the few churches in Georgia to retain original frescoes and buried there is one of Georgia's greatest kings, David the Builder.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The five of us did not spend much time there, though, only about half an hour.

Gelati Monastery

Gelati Monastery

The frescoes inside one of the churches.

Kenny was determined to walk back to Kutaisi and none of us objected. However, he did not want to get back to Kutaisi on the main road and instead wanted to follow an obscure sign that would lead to a "monument to architecture." A Georgian woman begging for money by the monastery gates told us pretty resoundingly that there was nothing that way, but Kenny was sure and it was Kenny that we followed. We started off on a "road" but this "road" was so badly pockmarked and rocky that Melissa and I both assessed that it had been quite a while since anyone had driven on this road. The "road" totally disintegrated and pretty soon we were just hiking through the forest, fending off bare branches and thorny bushes at almost every turn! The only sign of civilization came from the sound of chainsaws, to which Destinee remarked: "This is how a horror film begins..." After finding what must have been a muddy cow path, we followed that for a short distance before we hit a fork in the road. The best way, Kenny and Shawn decided, was to head to the top of a mountain/hill where there was a road that looked like it had been used recently. Somewhere along the line, that road also disintegrated and we came into rolling open meadows that overlooked patchy villages. In the distance, there was an actual road that looked like it would lead to Kutaisi. We followed this road for quite awhile, singing Christmas carols and making up our own Georgian rendition of "12 Days of Christmas". It was quite fun and amusing...and drew quite a bit of stares from Georgian villagers. I would stare too if I saw some random foreigners emerge from a forest in rural America singing songs.  Eventually, while slogging up a hill, two older Georgian men were kind enough to give Destinee, Melissa, and I a lift (Shawn and Kenny refused) and dropped us off at the edge of Kutaisi. During the short ride, the drivers offered their sons to us for marriage.  All in all, it was about a six or seven mile hike! We never did find that monument to architecture...

Hiking through the meadows.

For the entire journey from Gelati Monastery to Kutaisi, we had a dog follow us. He looked like a brown labrador mix and had a docked tail. He hiked with us for the entire journey, following the boys into the city and then proceeding to wait for us outside the Mirzani Restaurant for about forty-five minutes before finally disappearing. He was given three hotdogs and Khinkali nubs for his efforts.

Kenny dubbed him "William J. Dog" after William J. Fulbright,
the US Senator who founded the Fulbright Program.

After a conveniently beautiful day Saturday, the weather turned on Sunday and that will bring me to my next adventure...

Castles and Cave Monasteries

I awoke this Saturday morning cozy under my covers, all too aware of how cold it was in my bedroom despite a (lousy) electric heater standing in the center of it. After finally gaining the courage to get up and get dressed, I slipped on my glasses and walked to the window.  It was snowing! No wonder why it was so cold. My host brother promises me that if we get enough snow, he will engage me in a snowball fight whether I like it or not.

A snowy Keda!

Last week, the Fulbright ETA's were called to meet with the State Department's regional education director (of Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) visiting from Kiev who oversees the Fulbright program and all other government sponsored education programs in the small city of Akhaltsikhe. It just so happens that one of the Fulbright ETA's, Kenny, lives in Akhaltsikhe and so we all decided that this meeting would provide the perfect excuse for a mini-vacation!

On Wednesday, I set off from Keda on the real circuitous route to get to Akhaltsikhe by going via Batumi and Kutaisi. There is a road that goes from Batumi directly to Akhaltsikhe, for Keda is situated along this road, but past the village of Khulo thirty miles east of me, the road disintegrates and becomes one of the most dangerous in Georgia. What Google Maps says would only take three hours is really at least a nine hour mountain pass trek at best with a jeep. I was not about to do that at this stage of November.  So, six hours, three marshrutkas, and a taxi later, I arrived in Akhaltsikhe.

A picture of myself at Rabati Castle.

Thursday was gray, gloomy, and cold - the perfect day for a meeting! First, though, the four of us taught Kenny's 8th grade class with such activities as "two truths and a lie" and "I have never" (much like "never have I ever" just more appropriate). With four teachers plus Kenny's counterpart - class went swimmingly! If only all our classes were that easy. After class, the four of us headed to Akhaltsikhe's American Corner (a small library of English-language materials and the like that are situated in many foreign cities) for the meeting. There was nothing too exciting to report there...the usual things were discussed. I did learn that the Foreign Service Officers Test might be offered in Tbilisi in February, so that is something in which I may take part, after all, I like having a plan and it has been a lifelong dream to be in the Foreign Service. Why not?

Friday morning started off foggy and cold but would later turn sunny and warm. After Destinee and I grabbed breakfast at Smarty's, a grocery store chain that is the finest in all of Georgia and most reminiscent of any I have seen in America, we met up with Shawn. The three of us headed to Rabati Castle, which had recently been renovated with shops and a spa in the center, losing its ancient splendor. Nonetheless, it was still beautiful and fun to explore. Destinee and I gushed over some of the Middle Eastern architecture there and over the prospect of visiting Turkey (and maybe Jordan) over winter break. Afterwards, we met up with Kenny and climbed to the top of a hill just as the sun was beginning to set.  The views were stunning!

In the evening, the four of us went to the Rabati spa in the castle for two hours. We experienced several different steam rooms of varying temperature, a pebble foot bath, a lukewarm jacuzzi, and much more! It was equally gratifying and delightful to feel so warm and so clean. It was also a blessing because when I got back to the hotel, I decided to wash my hair.  That shower ended up being one of the worst I have ever taken...no water pressure, the temperature was either scalding or freezing, and the spout would not stay on the wall. Needless to say, the shower was quick and filled with periodic expletives.

I think this may have been a mosque at one time. Inside Rabati Castle in Akhaltsikhe.

Inside the mosque.

The Georgian flag.

Beautiful Middle Eastern architecture.

The castle really does look like the Western concept of a castle.

Rabati Castle

View of the surrounding mountains in Akhaltsikhe.

Saturday was much like Friday, warm and sunny, perfect for visiting Vardzia Cave Monastery! I have now been to three of Georgia's top cave-city attractions (the others being Davit Gareja and Uplistsikhe in 2012) and while all beautiful and special in their own right, Vardzia was by far the most elaborate. Vardzia was built into the cliff face/slopes of Erusheti Mountain along the Mtkvari River (which also runs through Tbilisi) in south central Georgia about an hour outside of Akhaltsikhe. The Church of the Dormition, built in the center of this grand structure, is still active and just as with Davit Gareja, there are still monks who reside in the caves.  The sections where they lived were roped off from tourists.  Soviet-era excavations and research determined that people had been living in Vardzia since the Bronze Age (somewhere between 3600 - 12OO BC) and records state that it was largely abandoned during the Ottoman takeover in the Sixteenth Century. Today, the Georgian government is working hard to try and have Vardzia declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site.  As for Kenny, Destinee, Shawn, and I - we had a grand old time exploring the various rooms and caves and tunnels that made up the site.

Vardzia!

Frescoes at the Church of the Dormition

Vardzia featured some of the most questionable stairs I have seen
in Georgia. They were uneven and weaved haphazardly through
dark tunnels with no lights!

Stairway from heaven to earth!

Sunday it was time to head back to Keda. There is nothing too interesting to report here except for that when I arrived in Batumi, a middle-aged taxi driver followed me for a good ten minutes shouting in Russian: "You and me drink wine! I live alone! No wife!" I swear, I am not good at keeping away the creepers.

This past week, I again started feeling pangs of homesickness. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and this will be my first time I will spend Christmas without my parents.  Thanksgiving here in Georgia was very low-key, I ended up having my students draw "hand turkeys" and write about what they were thankful for. I also explained to them what Thanksgiving was. I shared with them the unfortunate "tradition" of Black Friday and said, much to their amusement, "Only in America could you be thankful one day for all that you have and then the next rush out to buy even more stuff."

That is all I have for now! I am just wrapping up grad school applications and considering where to go for winter break.

Between Kutaisi and Batumi

As usual, I have not updated for awhile and feel as though it is time I should. Life has been busy. There have been classes to teach, lessons to plan, tests to grade, people to visit, sights to see, and graduate school applications to write.

Where to begin? Halloween fell on a Thursday this year and nobody in my school did anything to celebrate because they all thought the holiday fell on the 30th despite me telling them otherwise. They didn't do anything on the 30th either, that I could tell. However, on Thursday, we had debate club where talented students (and lovers of English) from Keda and surrounding villages come to practice their spoken English - which is actually pretty good. Afterwards, I met up with a couple Peace Corps Volunteers and headed to Keda's only cafe for our weekly rendezvous. I am pretty sure the three of us are what keeps that cafe going; we have never seen anyone else there.

Friday, I headed to Kutaisi for the second weekend in a row to attend a Halloween party that was being thrown by some Peace Corps volunteers.  I ended up crashing Chase's place (he is a BOREN Fellow), and we were both sleeping in Saturday morning after having been out late the night before. What finally got both us on the move, or at least me, was Destinee showing up unexpectedly Saturday morning (needless to say, Chase and I both kind of startled her because she didn't know I was going to be there and Chase was supposed to be in Tbilisi). The two of us met up with Shawn and we went to a Chinese lunch at some sketchy compound in a hotel that had no guests. This was all designed by the same Peace Corps Volunteers who designed a giant game of Assassin, which I did not really participate in, and the party to come that evening. After lunch, several of us strolled the city, had dinner, and then went to the party. What can be said about the party other than it was like a typical college/undergrad party where there was drinking and dancing and drinking and dancing.  Sunday, I slept in for far longer than I normally do but I will not apologize for it.

Kutaisi Theater

Here I am striking a pose in Lover's Park in Kutaisi.

Central Kutaisi.

Last week, on Wednesday, Keda had Kedaloba, a festival celebrating the local traditions and foods of the region. There was plenty of food, wine, dancing, and singing! It was a gorgeous November day in the upper 60s/low 70s, sunny, and pleasant. The weather has been so nice lately and I will take whatever I can get for as long as I can, because come winter, I suspect a perpetual chill will set in. I am a northern girl, I should be used to it. While at the festival, I ran into two volunteers from the Teach and Learn with Georgia program and after the festival, we decided we would have a late lunch at the cafe. Before we could get out of the park, however, we were stopped by a host of Georgian men who immediately gave us their phone numbers, told us we should be guests in their homes, and that they would give us tours of various sights in Adjara. This kind of thing seems to happen a lot. They were happy I was able to speak Russian with them and strangely hounded one of the TLGer's for not knowing Russian (his Georgian is better than mine, though)! Anyway, one of the men kept speaking to me in a blend of Russian and French despite me telling him at least five times that I do not speak French. An interesting side note is that I have been living in Georgia now for about two months and still barely know a lick of the language (I have mastered the alphabet), but the sounds and the looks of it have become less foreign to me. I more or less "recognize" it now, kind of like Spanish, I suppose...there is a certain familiarity that I have with it.

I was going to post a video, but it isn't working...technology is killing me today. Here are pictures instead. You will be able to watch the video if you follow this link: Kedaloba 2013

Wonderful fruit.

Traditional Georgian dancing.

Terrific spreads.

I've been told to include more pictures of myself on this blog so here I am at Kedaloba!

This past weekend I, along with my host mother and brother, journeyed to Batumi. The intention of their visit, I am really not quite sure, but we stayed at my host uncle's apartment. Saturday morning I spent Skyping with a friend whom I had not spoken to in awhile. In the afternoon, after my host mother returned from an appointment (she had insisted I wait for her), she told me she had no time to show me around Batumi so I ventured out by myself.  Camera in hand, I took pictures, of course. I spent much of that outing exploring the giant waterfront park that is one of Batumi's claims to fame. I caught a whiff of the Black Sea, bought a shirt with Russian cupolas and martroshka dolls on it (because I am not obsessed), and looked out at the sea.  It was interesting - the Black Sea was always this place I had heard about and to finally see it was and is special. Despite the weather being warm, it was slightly overcast and there was a certain strange air to Batumi, as if the city's energy had been drawn into a pair of lungs, waiting to be expelled.

Batumi

Central Batumi. Classical architecture meets Soviet meets modern!

The Black Sea.

The Black Sea and the mountains of Adjara.

Now it is Thursday and I just finished up debate club and the expat get-together. So there you have it - short and sweet.

Note these Georgian men in traditional costume!

Adventure and Misadventure

For whatever reason, the post I had previously written detailing the events of this past weekend as well as the last two weeks mysteriously disappeared. So, here I am rewriting it with the hopes to salvage from my memory what I had written for better or for worse. I think that I am going to have to save these on Microsoft Word from here on out.

At some juncture, I will share with you what it is like teaching, but for right now I will refrain. It deserves its own post. However, here are some anecdotes of life in Keda from the past two weeks:

• Seeing your entire host family and numerous friends break out dancing to "Gangnum Style" in the living room? Priceless.
• My window was left open in my bedroom and an infestation of lady bugs ensued. I am not really a bug person, but I surprisingly kept my cool. My host mom came in and started thwacking a broom against the ceiling and wall, saying: "I will find you and I will kill you all." Then, a curtain rod fell down and knocked me in the shoulder. I wasn't hurt. There is still a lady bug problem despite my windows being kept closed.
• I saw a shirt being worn by one of the students at my school that had the American flag emblazoned across the chest and listed several states below it. Montana was among them. Yay! But I seriously doubt this shirt came from America (not that much clothing does...) or was written by a native English speaker. Texas was Teksas.
• I am pretty sure I saw a spatter and pool of fresh blood on the street on my way to school today...
• Wandering with camera in tow around town only to see what I thought was a "strange looking Georgian" little knowing at the time that this individual was thinking the same thing about me. It turns out we are both native English speakers living two towns apart. 
• I have thoroughly entertained my host family and Georgian friends in Keda by saying "Here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty..." real fast.  I don't know why, but they think it is hysterical.
• I quite possibly had the most delicious pomegranate that I have ever eaten. A sweet treat from Azerbaijan. Adding to this, I had wonderful homemade grape juice. It has been awhile since having grape juice, but I am sure it does not taste the same in America. 
• The word "wine" is said to have Georgian roots...which would make sense. Georgians were some of the first to cultivate wine some eight thousand years ago.
• I have begun to spend a fair amount of time with one of my co-teachers. Her name is Natia and I think it is safe to say that we are becoming friends.
• My host mother took me to the village of Makhuntseti just down the road from Keda to meet a friend of hers. I also happened to meet her two daughters, both of whom spoke English very well, and was shown the village's two claims to fame: a waterfall and a thousand-year-old bridge.

Last weekend I stuck around Keda and did a whole lot of nothing. For two days straight, and of course it would be Saturday and Sunday, we experienced torrential rains that ended up flooding Batumi to the west and bringing snow to the mountain town of Khulo to the east. The rain did not stop my host mother from bringing me along with her to a friend's home where we drank Turkish coffee and gorged ourselves through an entire large bowl of chestnuts. I happily ate them until I discovered a live worm in one of the chestnuts I cracked open. I yelped and everyone laughed at me.  Fair enough, I suppose. One  Georgian girl who is learning English at a university and was present at this visit asked me why I was so quiet. Everyone else suddenly was very interested in this. Aside from the fact that I am naturally a quiet person, I don't speak much Georgian aside from "what time is it" and 'I speak a little Georgian." I explained this to them, in Russian, and that because of this, there is not much I could contribute in the way of conversation. Other than that visit, I watched movies, read, joyfully slept in, and made tests. It was a much needed weekend of relaxation. 

This past weekend, however, was filled with both adventure and misadventure. Hence the title of this post. I will start by saying that this "misadventure" was not bad so much as it was disappointing and all things aside, I had a very enjoyable weekend. Friday, I ventured out of Keda and arrived in Georgia's second largest city, Kutaisi, where I would be spending the night. I met up with fellow Fulbrighters Destinee and Shawn, and Boren Fellow Chase, whose place I would be staying at. After taking a fairly sketchy gondola up to an amusement park of sorts, I was introduced to the expat community living in Kutaisi and we all went for a "happy hour" dinner. Afterwards, we schlepped over to a wonderful tea bar, drank tea (who would have guessed), and smoked hookah. The tea bar had a very Persian 1940s feel that I found to be very atmospheric. After Chase, Destinee, and I returned to his host family's apartment, I met the host father Gia, who I am told lives and breathes alcohol. After meeting him, I do not doubt it. Gia insisted we try his version of Georgian champaign...vodka topped with beer. I declined. Chase told me and Destinee that after we left the following morning for our excursion, Gia came in at 8:30 in the morning and asked Chase if he could borrow his alcohol. Several hours later, when Chase had gotten up, he found Gia wasted and that his host mother had hidden all the alcohol in the house...

Kutaisi at dusk.

Saturday morning, both Destinee and I got up early to catch a marshrutka with Shawn to Borjomi. About three hours later, we arrived and met up with Fulbrighter Kenny and his expat friends, and the six of us headed to the ski resort town of Bakuriani to ride horses. Except there were no horses because it was off-season. Aside from pretty views, there was hardly a soul in sight. We ended up walking around for forty minutes before catching a marshrutka back to Borjomi.  With it being too late to do anything else, we ate dinner and parted ways, with Kenny and his friends going back to Akhaltsikhe and us returning to Kutaisi. Despite our intended activity falling flat on its face and traveling some six hours total for a failed excursion, I was still able to see a part of the country I had not yet seen and saw it in autumn glory. 

Autumn glory as seen from a marshrutka on the way to
Borjomi/Bakuriani.

A dilapidated ski lift at Bakuriani.

Borjomi

Borjomi

Much to my relief, Saturday night was spent at Chase's apartment without his host father bothering us. Destinee, Chase, and I and a fellow expat named Tom ended up playing a pretty intense game of Risk. Risk is a board game that I find to be just as complicated as monopoly. It is a war game whose goal (at least this version) was to achieve world domination. Chase absolutely decimated us by conquering every single region on the board except Afghanistan, which was held valiantly by Destinee. It is ironic that the only region not to fall would be Afghanistan, no? By three in the morning, we finished, and I hurried to bed to rest my mind which had stopped thinking straight somewhere around one o'clock. 

Sunday, the three of us most graciously slept in and then lazed about before Destinee and I had to leave. It was also election day in Georgia and Giorgi Margvelashvili from Georgian Dream won the presidency.  Here are a couple articles on the subject: 

• Link
• Link 

So there you have it, a blog post retold. Let's hope I don't have to do it yet again...but I am good, I saved it on my computer this time.  Until next time!