dating, sex, blah blah blah

And now, since it's a hot topic in the blog-world, I'll write about dating, sex, tlg, blah blah blah in Georgia. My entry isn't the most serious of blog entries, but I'm not the most serious person. Just thought I'd give a different perspective on a topic that seems to be debated sometimes. I mean, doesn't EVERYONE considering coming to Georgia worry about getting laid alllll the time? Ha.

Here are some things I have heard about sex/gender/dating/etc.:
*Georgian guys are sleazy

This can be true. But saying every Georgian guy is sleazy is stupid. I mean, we all get annoyed when guys hit on us like crazy, but this happens in the US or Canada or England or where-ever else as well. Georgian guys can be forward. Sometimes they will ask for you number a million times and will not accept "no" for an answer. Sometimes you will give a normal-seeming guy your number and he will call you eight times in a row from multiple phone numbers when you don't answer. But really, have you never been to a bar and gotten a creeper bothering you? If you haven't, you don't go out enough. In a way, I think the persistence of a Georgian man almost deserves some respect. He sees something he likes and he goes for it. Better than some wimpy whiny kid who will write a song about never being able to be with you after seeing you on a subway once (p.s. you'll probably get hit on while riding the metro).

--prime example--

There are a million normal Georgian guys. My friend C gets guys driving her home all the time. I don't particularly recommend getting in a car with a strange man who pulls over next to you and says "I see you walking a lot. I want to meet you," but if you are daring, may as well try it. C has made some pretty nice friends this way! And gotten free rides! And so far they haven't done anything creepier than this. Well, one of them professed his lover for her and bought her roses, but he took it like a man when she explained that she had a boyfriend back home. They are still friends. Not sleazy. And definitely not a date-rapist.

Of course, I say all this, but there are some sleazy guys here. I have had one bad experience so far, but the guy was actually from Azerbaijan. He got me on a balcony and was trying to kiss me and wouldn't let go. It was scary but I escaped. Take note, though, this could happen anywhere. I have friends in my hometown that have been assaulted and/or raped, and we live in a relatively safe place. Be careful girls, no matter where in the world you are.

*Georgian guys suck in bed

This is something I have no personal experience with. Sorry, I haven't slept with a Georgian, or really anyone  here for that matter. I have made out with one Georgian guy. It wasn't the worst thing in the world; it wasn't the best thing in the world. I have friends who have slept with Georgian guys. I know people who have Georgian boyfriends. If the sex was THAT terrible, I doubt they would stay together too long. Maybe that's shallow of me to say, but... if you're only in the country for a short period of time, wouldn't you want a boyfriend who at least was good in bed? Good reasoning, right? As for the one night stands I've heard about, seems like they haven't been the best. But then again, it's drunk random one-time sex, if the guy isn't paying all that much attention to what the girl wants he could just be being selfish--after all, he'll probably never see her again; who cares what she wants? I mean, that's rude of the guy. Guys should always care about what the girl wants! But you know, some times a girl doesn't want to give a guy a blow job either! It's your prerogative  And keep in mind, if you suck too bad--word will get out and you may never get sex again! That's my advice to guys who don't try to make the girl happy while they are hooking up. Guys around the world!!! Not only Georgians. 

*Georgian girls won't have sex with you

Even if they won't have sex with you, I won't either, and I'm an American.
But yeah, because girls are a bit more repressed in society here than they are in more Westernized countries, it's generally frowned upon for girls to be sexually active before marriage. I don't think this means every girl is necessarily against hooking up with someone they are into, but don't expect it to be like going to Sweden or something where sex is pretty acceptable. If you do date a girl, if she isn't into having sex with you, don't push the idea. There's nothing worse than a douche who tries to persuade you to do him when you just don't want to! Deal breaker for sure! But I see so many girls and guys making out in parks that I can tell there's some action to be had at least, maybe not "home run" status, but it's something, if you're really worried about it. And if you are REALLY worried about it, get a prostitute (see following bullet points). It's less effort and might even be cheaper in the long run-- no wining and dining. 

*Georgian girls suck in bed
If two people both suck in bed and don't know it, do they still think the other person sucks in bed? If all Georgian guys suck in bed, and all Georgian girls suck in bed, then wouldn't it not even matter? Until they try to get with a person who claims to not suck in bed. And what if you suck in bed and just don't know it?
Anyway, I've never had sex with a Georgian girl, so who knows. But I'm sure there is not an entire country full of people (of any gender) that just innately sucks at having sex. Maybe they don't get as much practice as some people in more promiscuous countries, but I'm sure 16 year olds who are having sex in the US aren't very good in bed either. If you want to have sex with a Georgian girl, from what I've heard, it's probably going to take a bit of wooing on your part anyway, so if you're willing to put in the effort to get that far into the relationship, you should probably be nice enough to not judge her abilities in bed anyway, unless you're an asshole... which maybe you are if you are dating someone JUST because you want to have sex with them.

*All Georgian men sleep with hookers

During orientation we were told that Georgian men all sleep with prostitutes because the Georgian girls were expected to be virgins until marriage. And after marriage it is still acceptable for the men to sleep with other women besides their wives. I really am not sure if this is true. I haven't asked enough men to know and in this case I think I might be better off not knowing. I did have one friend, though whose host-brother took him to a brothel somewhere in Tbilisi and the whole experience seemed incredibly awkward. This is reasoning enough to know that some Georgians go to hookers, but I can't really believe that everyone of them does. As for hookers, I heard a rumor that a lot of them are Ukrainian or Russian. But then again... (see next bullet)

*Some TLGs sleep with hookers

The same friend who went to the brothel with his host-brother slept with a Georgian girl. Of course, he told me that he "met a Georgian girl" and slept with her. We were a little surprised because from everything we've heard, Georgian girls don't usually sleep with guys they just met. Come to find out (through the grapevine), he indeed picked a prostitute from the brothel and slept with her. I have also heard (through more grapevines) about other guys who like to sleep with prostitutes every so often in Georgia. It doesn't seem totally outlandish. My advice--if you're going to do it, don't tell anyone, because everyone in TLG will find out. Unless of course you are proud of the fact that you have to pay for sex. Then by all means, tell people. As a side-note, this "grapevine" analogy makes perfect sense to me today for the first time. After a trip to Kakheti to pick grapes, I see how easy it could be to whisper interesting tid-bits through the vines to people also picking grapes on the other side!

*Guys and girls can't be friends with each other
Maybe a guy wants more from a girl, but if she friend-zones him, what can you do? And the other way around. One of my Georgian friends told me once (while he was wasted, after threatening to bride-nap me to Batumi) that you can't be friends with the opposite gender unless you want to do them, at least a little bit. I have other (American, girl) friends who have many Georgian male-friends. The guys basically are in love with her, but she's made it clear it's just not gonna happen, and they are still friends. Maybe they will every once in a while send some awkward texts about how she's so amazing, but that's flattering and easy to ignore for the sake of keeping someone as a friend. I'm still friends with the dude who threatened to bride-nap me, and I don't want to kiss him these days (it was a long time ago!), but we're still on good terms. He helped me find my apartment. I ran into him the other day at the store and we had a nice chat. Then he sent me an awkward text about how gorgeous I looked, but it was flattering. Still friends. I'll just ignore the weird parts. I have friends like that at home too. My last boyfriend was always saying he thought most of my male friends wanted to hook up with me secretly; I don't believe it, but you never know I guess. I mean, I have male friends who I secretly think are hot too. But we are just friends, and neither one of us care enough to do anything about it, so we can just be friends. That's how it works.

*In TLG everyone hooks up with each other

TLG is so incestuous it's disgusting. You are in a random country with a lot of people who speak minimal amounts of English. When you get with others who speak English fluently, who understand weird slang and innuendo, it feels like complete freedom! And of course, our get-togethers usually involve alcohol. Things happen. People you may never have spoken to while at home are suddenly your best friends. You rely on these people a lot. When you have a bad day, you call them. When you get lost, you call them. When you are annoyed at a particular student, you call them. When you miss home, you call them. You get close quickly. And in the same way you become friends, it's easy for other things to happen. You're annoyed at a Georgian guy who called you 8 times in one day? You drink some vodka and kiss a TLG boy instead. You are feeling repressed by the village gossip? You go to Tbilisi where no-one knows you and drink some vodka and kiss a TLG boy. Yeah, it happens. Sometimes people make out on the dance floor. Sometimes people go hook-up in parks or unfortunately in the hostel dorm-room you are trying to sleep in.  Sometimes people fall in love. In my group last semester, a guy from England and a girl from Oklahoma met during orientation and we all watched and waited as the two love-birds slowly started a relationship (we could all see from a mile away), and it was adorable. Still it's pretty adorable, if you like that nauseating boyfriend/girlfriend stuff! Of course, that doesn't happen quite as often as the random encounters.

*Everyone hooks up in parks

The young'ns seem to like this tactic. Parents don't like their kids to do things under their roof. I don't think parents particularly like that anywhere. It must be traumatic for a parent to walk in on their teenage kids doing inappropriate things. In Georgia, the young people go make-out in parks. Chances are, if you go to a park, you'll see some very interesting happenings. It's sort of like watching a car-wreck. You just can't look away. Yesterday there were a couple teenagers making out on top of a big rock in a park in central Tbilisi. And by making out on a rock I mean the girl was on top of the guy and his back was arched in a very uncomfortable looking way over the rock. And then the policeman patrolling the park got mad at my friend for having his shoe on the bench, but said nothing about the make-out kids. I guess he must remember what it was like when he was a Georgian 16 year olds trying to get his kicks somewhere.
As for TLGs, I have also heard of people making out in parks. Most TLGs live with host families, which I suppose makes having sex awkward. I can't imagine anything weirder than trying to bring home a guy/girl while living a room away from a family you don't know very well and maybe don't even speak the same language as. So, TLGs get creative. Sometimes it just ends up that they go to a hostel for a night, which sucks, because usually there are other people in the hostel room and it sucks for those people who are sleeping innocently and wake up to see someone's naked butt and awkward sound affects from the next bunk over (I know this sucks because I've been the sleeping person woken up by not-so-quiet couples multiple times). Other times, they go to parks. Or make out on balconies. Or benches. Or bathrooms. Pretty much anywhere except at home. But watch-out. I heard a rumor that one person was doing some inappropriate things where there were biting ants around and she had an allergic reaction to them and had to go to the hospital. Pretty gnarly. 

*You will be bride napped

You will not be bride napped.

pretentious DBs

It annoys me how many times people who are new to things they are greeted first by the pretentious douche bags of the world, because those are the people who feel they are God's-gift-to-Earth and in fact, though living through the same experiences as everyone else, somehow have gleaned more knowledge and understanding of said situations. So they write ten-page long blog entries about how correct they have been in every situation, when everyone else was just so wrong. They go on to list of every possible qualification they may possess that can sort-of back up their reasoning, because you know, one linguistics class and an intro to psychology class makes you both a linguist and psychologist! And therefore if you don't like someone's particular use or disuse of an oxford comma, it's totally legitimate for you to diss the person publicly because, damn you're a grammar genius!
I don't even know where I'm going with this. Just annoyed by some people and how they pretend to know everything, and how sometimes, people fall for it because they don't understand yet. But I think, after a while, the truth comes out anyway.

Batumi night

On Saturday evening, TLG called all of us teachers in Tbilisi and in villages/towns in the west saying that we were invited by the president to attend a performance of "Qeto and Kote" in Batumi the next day. Lydia and I said yes immediately; how could we deny a free trip to Batumi? So, on Sunday morning we woke up early and headed down to the Radisson on Rustaveli where everyone was meeting. In typical Georgian fashion, we didn't leave until about an hour after we were told we would be leaving.
The bus ride was kind of like torture. Lydia and I played "would you rather" for so long, which is something we do all the time. It usually ends up with things like "would you rather have 10000 spoons or 10000 knives?" and "would you rather only listen to Justin Bieber's 'Baby' or Miley Cyrus' 'Party in the USA' forever?" Then we had duets of both of those songs, among others. We stopped in Kutaisi and there was a massive feast set up for us. We went back on the bus and it took about three more hours to get to Batumi.

Our schedule said we would have about an hour and a half to check into the hotel and get ready to go to the opera house, but we were running late and so was the hotel which resulted in us having to get ready in a rush in a hotel spa locker room. No one looked nearly as good as they were hoping to, I'm sure. And actually, a lot of us didn't even have anything particularly nice to wear anyway. 12hrs notice to go to an opera is pretty short! Especially since we're living out of on suitcase's worth of clothing! 

We all got ready super fast, but ended up having to stand there waiting to leave for about 45 more minutes. 

The opera house is new and pretty nice but also not quite finished on upper floors. The third level had a balcony and a glass floor which was cool, I guess, but also seemed awkward for people wearing dresses because the guests below could probably see up them. 

We waited in our seats for a while before the play started. I assume this was because we were all waiting on the president. It's pretty cool that we got to watch a play with Saakashvili in attendance, but what I think is cooler is that the Prince of Monaco was also there. They sat a few rows back on the floor level and everyone was standing and clapping as they walked in.

The play itself was one of the weirdest things I've seen. It was all in Georgian but they attempted to help out by putting subtitles in English projected above the screen. This was helpful sometimes but when the lights on stage got bright we couldn't see the words and sometimes whoever was in charge of the powerpoint would forget to click next and it would get really behind. Plus, who wants to read while trying to watch a play? I just mostly wanted to watch the dancing, which was pretty cool! The story of the play was described to us as a "Georgian version of Romeo and Juliet but with a happy ending :)" I guess this was somewhat true. It was about a high class rich girl, Qeto, who was matched up to marry a man named Prince Levani who I think was running out of money. Qeto had already fallen in love with another prince, Keto, somehow (I think they saw each other in a theater?) and was pissed off that she had to marry Levan. The story itself is pretty generic, but the performance was so...... I don't even know. Weird. I don't even know if it was supposed to be as hilarious as I found it to be. The costumes were crazy. It looked like Lady Gaga threw up her closet everywhere.

There were random dancing bits intersperced between the story line.

There were two characters which were I think supposed to be Qeto's assistants or something and seemed to be gay. There was a scene where Qeto flew in on a helicopter (this "scene" was a video with really bad graphics, including a helicopter with a huge Louis Vuitton logo painted on the side, and the room somehow seemed to vibrate like a helicopter was really coming in) then the "helicopter" landed and out walks Qeto with a bunch of assistants carrying fake Louis Vuitton suitcases and the song "Vogue"

by Madonna playing. As if that wasn't odd enough, Qeto is wearing a crazy outfit that made her look like a sexy Smurf or something.

Anyway. The entire thing was just strange beyond explanation. But I guess dear ol' Misha (the president) liked it, because he's seen it before and wanted all of us TLGers to see it too. And it wasn't really bad, just really weird. The singers all had nice voices and the dancing was really cool. Just strange.
In case you are curious, here is a news story that has some clips of the play in it, so you can sort of see what it was like and also can see what the Batumi opera house looks like. 

After the play we went back to the hotel. I guess I didn't mention how ridiculously nice the hotel was. It was the Radisson Blu, which just opened a couple of months ago. I have never stayed anywhere so good before, and it was completely free for us! I think the sad part, though, was the realization that staying there for one night costs almost as much as my apartment with Lydia costs for an entire month. Sort of makes you wonder what exactly the Georgian government is doing with their money... but I'm not complaining. I had the best shower I've had in a long time AND the bathroom floors were heated! Badass! Also, all the actors in the play were staying there too. So we were just lounging around in the lobby and got to see all the actors drinking and stuff. Most memorable (besides crazy looking Levan) was when the Qeto got out of a car while a group of us were standing outside, and she started singing loudly in English, like a true diva most likely just so we would all look at her and notice that she's "famous" and get "excited." But we just thought it seemed like a weird thing to do. Maybe that's because we are just jaded westerners. I mean... I've met Hanson in person, how does Qeto from the weirdest play ever compare????? ha ha. I'm kidding. It was cool to see the actors milling about, but her behavior was a little over the top!
We didn't get dinner until about midnight. We heard a rumor that it took so long because Misha decided to take the prince to eat at the restaurant our group (of nearly 200 people) had a reservation at, so we were no longer allowed to go there. Most of us were getting pretty grumpy at this point because we were so hungry and hadn't eaten in almost 11 hours, and also, we only had one night in Batumi and we were hoping to make the most of it... meaning, going out all night and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. This also lead to the speculation that maybe TLG actually had planned to make dinner so late so we would all be to dead and tired and hungry to want to go out after finally getting food. If that was a plan, it worked for a lot of people. We ended up not wanting to do anything afterwards because we were so tired. We got a bit of beer and drank back in N and A's room, which by some stroke of luck (or as they claim, Saakashvili is in love with them) they got a business class room that had a living room in it. We hung out watching Russian music videos and Fashion TV and then went back to our own rooms. Got a couple hours of sleep, and then went down for breakfast (which was amaaaaazing) in the hotel lobby.
Then another 8hr bus ride back. Complete with "would you rather" games. 

Today was my first "day" of school. Meaning I was there for less than an hour, while they made my schedule. Tomorrow I should be starting for reals. I only teach grades 1-5 this semester, which is a bit of a disappointment because I like older kids (high school) better, but I will adapt. My co-teachers seem nice and the school is huge. About 1000 students, which makes Vardi seem so tiny. Not to mention the overall condition of the school is a VAST improvement to the village. It's going to be so interesting to see how the students compare.

updates

In Georgia this time around things are already completely different. I can't emphasize enough how different it is (already) living in Tbilisi than it was in a Kakhetian village. Not only is it because we aren't living in a host family, but also because there are just so many more options on what we can do on a day-to-day basis.

We moved into our apartment two days ago, after a few days of complete torture not knowing if we were ever going to find a place to live or if we may have to resort to living with a host family again. We had TLG call SO many places for us and we had one place lined up but the owners backed out and decided not to rent it out last minute. At that point we really thought we were screwed. But then my friend D from the hostel said we should get a newspaper, so we did and he called a few places for us. After less than an hour we were at an apartment talking with a landlord (with D translating) and the next day we were moving in. Our landlord is the coolest landlord ever. We've already had to knock on her door (she lives next door) to ask stupid things like how the hell do we turn on the hot water? and the stove? And she's so happy to see us and even know she knows barely any English she tries to hard to talk to us and we do a lot of weird pantomiming but everything works out. Today when we went over to get help with our stove, she invited us in and gave us coffee and cake and tried to tell us all about Tibetan medicine (I guess that's her job), and it made some sense but not much. She also has two sons, the younger of which is really good looking and seems pretty sweet but he doesn't know any  English.
Today we dyed my hair with Russian box hair dye again. It's not dry yet but it seems better than last time and luckily the water did not turn off before I could rinse it out like it did last time. But the water pressure in the shower is really low so it took forever to rinse it out. I was pretty scared actually after last time, but my roots were looking so terrible I felt like I had to take the risk, for vanity's sake.

We've made a few new friends since we've been back. We met a Canadian guy who is just traveling for a couple weeks, but we went for a night to Borjomi with him. In typical Georgia fashion, we met some nice people are the marshrutka who brought us to their friend's guesthouse. Then the man decided to be our Borjomi tour guide and took us all around and made us drink Borjomi water which I still find to be absolutely disgusting. Back in Tbilisi we've been hanging out with Nick who is from New Zealand who we met once last time we were in Georgia because he lived in Rustavi where Anita lived. We went to a beer garden with him and  a girl named Callie, also in TLG, a few nights ago and again last night.
School officially starts today but we were not allowed to go to the first day because we haven't met with co-teachers and directors yet. Tomorrow we have a meeting with them and then I guess will start going to classes on Monday. I'm looking forward to it and kind of dreading it at the same time. But at least we will have something to do and be less bored/spending money all the time. Especially since we haven't been paid yet and I'm so broke after having to pay first/last months rent at our apartment.

BFF

--

I'm tired of how I am expected to fawn over every baby I see on the street and say 'what a lovely baby!' even if it isn't all that cute, and how they seem to think it's rude if I make no comment at all. I really don't care about a random baby in a pharmacy or mini-market! I live with a four year old and ten year old and I'm pretty sure just being in their presence has made my uterus shrivel up and die because it is terrified of the prospect of ever procreating.

In other news:
Last night I didn't drink and everyone else did, yet I still found myself in the midst of a supra table sing-along of the US national anthem and America the Beautiful.
Turkish marshmallows are nasty.
In four days I will be in Kiev, Ukraine.
I still haven't gotten my flight home yet. I just want to know so badly so I can start counting the days, hours, minutes until I get a damn burrito. Burritos are haunting my thoughts. It's almost like my brain can't function for more than 1 minute without a little flash of Mexican food like a subliminal message image in a movie.
Yesterday I signed my contract to come back in the fall. So now it's official. Tbilisi, here I come. After two months in Chico with no money. I hope I can find people to hang out with there; all my friends are gone.

Turn out

Sometimes I try to formulate in my head what I am going to write before I start writing it, but then I just feel like writing is work. Like school or something. And also, I guess if I think too much before I go for it it won't sound normal. My blog is usually just random firings from my brain typed into a white text box, and although I basically come off as a spaz (most likely because I AM a spaz), I think that's probably what makes my blog "mine." So, I'm not going to try to make it sound good. I'm just going to write exactly what I'm thinking. Like, right now I'm thinking about how I always feel so dead and depressed on Sundays when I return to the village after a fun weekend with my friends. And normally it's just the dread associated with another long week of boredom, but this time it's because this last weekend was basically THE LAST WEEKEND with all of my friends.... most likely forever. And I start to feel all nostalgic and wonder how time goes by so quickly (because it's been almost 4 months since we got here, and I don't know how that possibly happened). So I try to imagine what it will be like in the fall when I come back here and no one is left except a couple friends and it's so depressing. And I think about if I will ever see them again, and I'd like to think that eventually in my life we will all see each other again, but who really knows? Is that pessimism? The world is just so big... 
But, it was a good last weekend.
We went to Tbilisi and stayed at our usual hostel and stayed up late and woke up fairly early. Of course with a large group of people, everyone sort of splits up, but we all converge at the hostel again and then the groups change up a little bit, and we all go to dinner together.....
I guess I don't have much to say.
On Friday we drank in the hostel. D was there and when I wouldn't agree to go to Batumi with him, he threatened to kidnap me Georgian style by putting a black thing over my head. Then he continued to beg me to go with him and said he would even put on a leotard and try to dance ballet if it meant I would go with him. I still refused.
Last night we ate dinner at a Thai restaurant. The waiter remembered my name (it was the same restaurant where I met the LyingAboutHisAgeGuy a while back). The power went out so we were in a restaurant lit only by candles until it went back on. We made cookies in the hostel and they were amazingly delicious. I made a new friend who is from a city only a couple hours away from my hometown. We went dancing. When we got back to the hostel the power was out so we hung out in the dark kitchen for a while and then went to sleep.
Today we ate McDonalds. I bought a ring from a man selling things on the street. We hung out in a park. We said our goodbyes to our friends who we won't see again before going home.
Now I'm home. And it's weird that in two weeks this won't be "home" anymore.

Winding down

We have approximately four weeks left of school.
I feel as though this means it's basically over already, and I'm fairly sure all the students feel the same way. Everything feels like it is moving by at an incredibly rapid pace, mostly due to the fact that I know I am running out of time. And when I say that, I know I am not running out of time with Georgia (because I am returning in September), but I am running out of time with all of the wonderful friends I've made in TLG 12 who aren't coming back in the fall.
It is going to be so weird without them.
It's funny to think that just over three months ago we were all strangers and now we are all sharing food, beds, health problem TMI, etc., as if we have known each other forever. I have developed a pretty good support system with them.
Only three people from group 12 (aside from myself) have decided to come back in the fall. I guess when I consider my return here, I don't feel at all nervous about where I will be placed or the new host family or school, just that most of friends won't be here anymore!

Sanatorium

On Thursday I ended up on a surprise trip to Davit Gareji Monastery with my host family. They have never really taken me anywhere so I was pretty surprised on Thursday morning (it was a holiday and we didn't have school) when my host mother asked me if I wanted to go with them somewhere (I wasn't clear on exactly where we were going, to be honest) and I said ok. Two and a half hours later, we were there. It was a really beautiful place. Basically it's a cave monastery, so all the parts of the monastery are built into caves. There were sheep all over the countryside we drove through. More sheep that I've ever seen in my life. After we were finished at the monastery we pulled over into a random field and the men made mtsvadi (bbq pork) and we had a big picnic. It was really nice. Except for the part where I was trying to show Tiko how to do a "bridge" and I bulled a muscle in my back so badly I thought I was never going to be able to get up off of the ground. I felt like a 60 year old man who threw his back out. And Tiko really didn't understand that I had hurt myself and kept trying to sit on me as I laid on the ground in the dirt and grass. It's pretty funny to think about now, but at the time it really sucked!
On Friday, it was my friend Kristen's birthday, so she invited a few of us to her village for a little supra. Basically we ate a ton of mtsvadi (this is like my new staple food apparently) and drank a TON of wine. We all made toasts to Kristen, mine went something like "it was great to meet you here, blah blah blah, I hope you find a Georgian husband and have a bunch of Georgian babies and live in Georgia forever!" And then later I made more toasts (apparently a little wine in me gets me wanting to start toasting to anything), one of which was to my brother and another one was about Phil (our British friend) moving to Nebraska. By the end of the evening, we were all quite ridiculous (because you have to drink every time someone makes a toast). Phil was stuck talking in a terrible Australian accent for long periods of time, the Georgian men kept asking us to dance with them (and we did), Phil got a bit sick (everywhere!), and all of us girls were just up late being giggly and having conversations that seemed really important at the time but I can't really remember any of now.
Yesterday after leaving Kristen's, Shannon Shay and I took a marshrutka to Tbilisi and met up with a few of our other friends and we all caught a marshrutka (after fighting off scary gypsy children and scary relentless taxi drivers) to Borjomi. Borjomi is a little town where there is natural mineral water. This water is really gross in my opinion. It tastes like bubbly salt water and Shannon described it as tasting the way your mouth tastes after barfing. But yeah, some people really like it! So anyway, Helene had met a Georgian guy who lives there and he took us all over the town buying things like pork and bread and vodka. He also took us to a hotel where we could stay, which ended up being a massive old place built in the 18th century and had been a sanatorium in the past. This place was creeeeepppppy. And it only had turkish toilets and the water that came out of the tap was brown. Excellent. But anyway, we got in our swim suits and we went to have a picnic/bbq in the woods where there is a natural hot spring pool. Turns out it was over 3km to get there. Poor Shay didn't even have a jacket and we were both wearing flats and it was quite a muddy trek and on the verge of raining. It was very beautiful though and definitely an interesting experience. Especially the part where we had to cross the river on a bridge that was made of a log with planks across it and a wire to hold onto. Once we were there, there were some other TLG people and the Georgian guy was making mstvadi (like I said, I've been eating a ton of this stuff). Then we broke out the vodka and people went into the pool (I didn't). I did pee outside like three times, which now that I've used so many squat toilets and outhouses I don't even really care about peeing outside anymore. Funny how normal things start to become after a while... So we hung out there for a while and I had some embarrassingly long conversations about Hanson and other things that no one even cares about but me.
Then we walked back to the hotel and it was raining and even more muddy and I had to walk through small creeks with bare feet (rather than getting my shoes wet), and we crossed the scary bridge again and the walk seemed a lot shorter on the way back than it had on the way there. In the hotel while everyone else was drinking more, my new friend Cody (also in TLG) and I decided it was the perfect time to investigate the creepy old building. Basically we went through the entire place and tried to open every door. We found some interesting things like a big empty room with an old stage and old piano behind the curtain, and an old library with strange old books written in Russian and old magazine pictures (some of which had Xs drawn threw the women's faces). We also found a room labeled "Laboratory" and we tried to pick the lock to get inside, but gave up when I got scared and kept thinking I heard footsteps. I ended up going to sleep fairly early because I was tired and everyone else was in the living room area watching TV on a tiny black and white TV.
Today we had to get back to our villages so we took a marshrutka back to Tbilisi and then Shannon and I got on one to Telavi. Of course, for some reason we were the only ones going all the way to Telavi and the driver didn't want to go just for us, so he pulled over in Vachnadiani and flagged down a random car and asked them to take us to Telavi. There were two men with bad teeth in the front seat, and a woman sitting next to me in the back. The men kept asking us questions and talking to us in Georgian and we didn't really know what they were saying, but they ended up buying us ice cream randomly (awesome!) and took us all the way back to our villages (my village is like 30 min from Shannon's village, so it was pretty cool). It was pretty random though.... of course, I'm kind of getting used to things like that.....

Too much

Too much has happened without much of anything happening at all. I'm tired and I feel like I haven't written in a long time, which makes the idea of writing at all kind of stressful.
I went to Armenia for a few days during our Spring Break. It was a nice country and very beautiful, but the weather was bad for most of the time and we didn't get to see many of the things we would have liked to see outside of Yerevan. Yerevan was very different than Tbilisi. The traffic was better behaved and I didn't feel like I was going to get killed every time I crossed a street. The streets were wider and there were less people walked around it seemed like. It was a beautiful city, really, but I prefer Tbilisi even though I think most of my friends didn't feel the same way. In Yerevan, we ate way more food than we should have and a ton of ice cream. The hostel we stayed at was brand new and run by a couple who had two small children. On Easter they had a traditional Armenian Easter dinner for us complete with hard boiled eggs and wine.
This weekend I went to Saniore to stay with my friend Shannon again. We had a nice time even though the weather was awful and we mostly sat around her house. We did attempt making chocolate chip cookies which turned out pretty delicious, though they didn't taste "right" because not only is there no brown sugar in Georgia, no one seems to even know what molasses is.
Yesterday many of us TLGers got the day off of school to go to Kvareli Lake where TLG was hosting an event for us. Only 70 or so people could come and I, along with many of my friends, were able to sign up in time and go. It was a lot of fun and we got to go on paddle boats and some people rode bikes and there were swings. Then we were taken to a vineyard and had a feast with tons of wine and chacha. Most of us drank quite a lot of the wine and chacha.... Including our marshrutka driver.... but we survived.
I guess I will also mention that my life is incredibly random and I suppose the country is small. I don't know if any of you read the post where I mentioned giving my phone number to the random Georgian guy who sat next to me on a marshrutka... but yesterday while my friends and I were standing on the side of the road next to Gurjaani, guess who pulls up? Yeah, marshrutka guy. He got out and kissed me cheek and started asking me where I was going. I gave him a vague answer like 'some lake, I don't know what it's called, I have to go our marshrutka is here." It was incredibly awkward but I thought I had escaped unscathed until he called me a total of NINE TIMES from two different phone numbers. Lesson learned: don't give your number to random guys on marshrutkas.

Weekend in Tbilisi

On Friday, approximately 14 of us TLG 12ers met up in Tbilisi! It was awesome and definitely a much needed bit of freedom from village life. Plus, I cannot emphasize enough how great it is to be around people who understand what I'm saying after being around people who can't speak more than a "good morning" in English for the most part.
So we all checked into Tbilisi Hostel, which I thought was a great place. It was fun and I liked how it looked. The showers weren't exactly warm, but it's Georgia, and a hostel. It isn't surprising.
Summing up  my weekend in keywords (I like to do this apparently): vodka, beer, rum, Buddha (but not spelled that way), smokers, food, sunlight, English, confused, street dog, pop music
Friday night we went to a place called buddha bar, but it wasn't buddha like buddha. i don't know how it was really spelled, someone just told me it wasn't spelled "buddha." We were taken to this place by a guy named Anik or something who we met in the hostel. He was in TLG group 2 or 3 or something. He seemed to feel very good about himself for being in TLG for so many more groups longer than us. Anyway, he took us to this place and it was small and full of smoke, but also full of English speakers! I was very excited by this. Half of the group left after like 2 min and went back to the hostel because it wasn't their scene I suppose. I still love you guys! Even if you didn't stick it out at the weird bar! :) The ones of us who stayed... had fun. I drank rum and coke because that's like the only thing they had. We danced a lot... to great music such as "Hit me baby one more time." There were a lot of trips outside to the alley next to the bar. The end of the night is kind of a blur. It took us a while to leave because everyone kept forgetting things inside of the bar. Then it took a while to round us up and get into a cab. Helene and I were distracted by a street dog, which we should not have been petting. But it was so adorable......!!!! I probably ended up asleep by 5am or so. This was after the other tlgers got mad at us for being too loud in the hostel when we came back. And apparently some random guy barfed in one of the hostel rooms, but not in mine, thank goodness.
The morning didn't feel so good...  But a bit of asprin helped. We sent Andrea, Shannon and a few of the guys we met the night before out to buy us breakfast. They came back after a ridiculously long time with some kachapuri... Big surprise. But it was good and filled me up. I took a cold shower, and spent a lot of time basking in the sun in the porch of the hostel. It was the most beautiful day I had seen in a long time and I was very happy to be with my friends and to see the sun. We listened to some bad 90s music on my phone, along with some good 90s music. We went to a little tiny cafe with a really sweet owner. Wandered around a bit. Took the metro to the main part of Tbilisi where a cop got mad at me for taking photos of a building... apparently because the president's motorcade was about to come through, but I didn't know this. Afterward, a police stopped traffic so that four of us girls could safely cross the street. (We must have looked clueless). We wandered around more and ended up getting some delicious street food that was probably the closest thing I'll get to a burrito while I'm here, but was actually nothing like one really. Then we got some amazing ice cream and ran into Tony. The rest of the group was at the KGB restaurant so we went and said hello to them but then headed back to the hostel because Shay was feeling like she might barf. She didn't barf, and instead suppressed the nausea by... drinking vodka?
We met two Germans in the hostel and they hung out with us in our hostel room and we all drank vodka and or wine and listened to Daft Punk among other things until it was time for us to go out. We went to a bar that seemed pretty far away, and it seemed to be someone's birthday party when we got there. There were people wearing face paint and party hats all over. The toilet was up higher than the rest of the bathroom... like you had to climb up 4 stairs to get to it. We got ahold of some of the face paint and drew cat nose and whiskers on ourselves... well, Helene and Shay had someone GOOD do their face paint. Lydia, Anita, one of the German guys and I just had the crappy cat whiskers. Then we went to a restaurant and got way too much food (we kept ordering thinking we had eaten it all, but more was still on it's way). We also ran into some more TLG people, like one of the ones that came and spoke to us during orientation about their experiences. When we got back to the hostel, Helene asked if we wanted to hang out with her in the kitchen so Shay, Anita, cat whisker German and I went down and we all sat on the floor in there talking about gassy water and Helene's water bottle cow that the hostel owner was rocking like a baby talking about how he will be a good father someday. Then we went to our beds.
The next morning we had to wake up kind of early and get all our stuff together. We said goodbye to each other at the metro station and then got on our marshutkas to our various areas of Eastern Georgia. On the ride home I sat next to Cort and we listened to pop music on my ipod to try to drown out the bad music the bus driver was listening to... except for of course when "My heart will go on" came on in the  marshutka and we had a sing along until the bus driver got annoyed and switched it off. The Georgian countryside is starting to look quite beautiful now that it isn't so snowy and foggy and I could actually see it. I felt very happy sitting there with Cort and looking out the window and listening to music. I think I even told him that I was very happy. I am lucky to have made such great friends over here! And to be in such a beautiful place where I am experiencing things I never would have expected to in my entire life. I am very happy to be alive.

Different planet

Every once in a while, I feel really weird. Not really depressed or anything. It just kind of hits me like "you are really far away from home and nothing makes sense." Mostly, it happens when I'm sitting in the living room looking at the unknown food in front of me and thinking "well, might as well try it!" and then it ends up being something like a massive hot dog that isn't shaped like a hot dog. And I really hate hot dogs. Actually, I think this was the most nauseating thing I've eaten since I've been here! Even grosser than the raw fish with it's head on the plate in front of me! But, now I've learned my lesson and will not eat it in the future.
And then other times I wish I was at home:
the middle of the night (or like midnight) when I'm really craving something I could easily get at Safeway but don't even know if they would sell in this country,
when I don't know where I would buy a certain thing (most things),
when I can't go anywhere without getting a ride (am I 15 again??),
when there is snow everywhere and I'm freezing,
when I want Taco Bell (frequently),
when I can't understand a word anyone is saying and cannot even express to anyone how I feel or even communicate a simple sentence like "Temuri is really funny, what is he trying to say to me?"
So, sometimes it basically feels like I'm on a different planet. I guess I've never been away from everyone I know for so long or really at all. But, I can call all my other TLG friends for free and it helps a lot because man, sometimes you just need to speak in English and be able to use slang or even regular terms that are beyond seventh grade vocab.

So now that I've complained a bit about everything being weird and different. I will list some good things.
Today:
I got off work ridiculously early, at like 12:45 and came home and had the house to myself. But I basically just hung out in my bedroom... the power was off all day too, so I couldn't even take a shower or go on my computer. But it was still nice to relax.
I was in my room at dinner time and Shorena sent me a text from the living room saying "please come to the supper" which made me laugh.
Talked on the phone with Cort and got a lot of hilarious texts from him.
Was entertained by Temuri (the 4 yr old) after "supper," he likes to mimic English words like "OK" every time I say them, in fact he is just very interested in me in general. He talks to me for long periods of time in Georgian even though I have no idea what he's saying. He also likes to sing and dance around the living room and acts shy when I look at him doing it. He's really adorable.

Ok. Well I'm done for  now. Tomorrow we have the day off for Mother's Day, so I am planning to go into Telavi and meet up with Cort and Ryan. Then on Friday night, we are going to Tbilisi for the weekend! Hurray!

After a night at the London Bari (real name, unknown)

I have been in Tbilisi for about 3 days. The first day seems like multiple days because we arrived to the hotel at approximately 6am, before daylight, got a few hours of sleep and then woke up again in time to shower, eat lunch and go on a three hour walking tour of the city. We climbed up a massive hill to a fortress/castle with a great view which made the hike worth it. There were four awesome dogs that walked with us most of the way, which if you know me is great since I love dogs infinitely. We were told not to touch the street dogs because they carry diseases (this is after I had already pet one of them, whoops) and might randomly want to bite you (which I don't know if I quite believe since I think I have a decent understanding of dog behavior and queues). Anyway, I guess I will avoid petting them in the future even though I really do have the urge to collect them all and take them to get shots and loving homes. This has nothing to do with Georgia and only to do with my dog rescue mindset....
The past two days have been about 12 hours of orientation. Including 3 hours every day of Georgian language lessons and yesterday 4 hours of methodology and tomorrow and following days of Intercultural lessons. It's exhausting. I can't tell if it's lack of sleep, jet lag, overeating, or sitting down for hours at a time that is making it so difficult. Of course, the language is really hard and we go through so much in such a short amount of time I feel like I might not ever pick it up... but I guess I know a couple of words.
The food at the hotel is good and never ending. At home I never eat breakfast, usually eat a decent sized lunch, and a dinner of some sort and that's about all. At the hotel we get free breakfast, lunch, dinner and two coffee breaks complete with little pastries or brownie things. Since I love free food, this is all becoming a problem. I don't think I've been truly hungry this entire time because I just keep eating every time food is available. I'm not complaining because I love food, but I'm wondering what all this food and sitting in class is going to do to my body. I guess it's good that in a few days we will be leaving the hotel and entering the real world.

Tonight was the only night we have where we finished "early" with orientation. Early means before 9pm. Pretty much all of us TGLers went out to a bar in the main part of Tbilisi. It was a bar themed with the Beatles, which is amusing since I don't even really like the Beatles. The cab ride was pretty frightening which was to be expected since the drivers here are crazy. Then we had some fun and drank a couple Georgian beers and danced a bit to American music and "Hey Jude" which isn't even a typical dancing song. We were in the last group of 6 people to return to the hotel (we have to back at midnight), so we all had to cram into a cab which was difficult and I ended up laying on top of four people seated in the back. We survived this trip as well, and even though I am starving and craving chips, no where is open at this hour so I am instead writing in my blog.

I suppose I will now go to sleep because I have an early day full of Georgian lessons and intercultural learning tomorrow. At leas I know breakfast will be waiting for me at 8am.