In my brain, with Justin Bieber

Every night since I've gotten here I've had strange dreams. Like even stranger than normal.
I may have mentioned that I've had Justin Bieber stuck in my head since Saturday... And once I think it's out is not. I'm walking around with my brain just saying "baby, baby, baby, ooh" over and over and over again. It's enough to drive a person insane. It probably already has. Anyway. Last night I finally had it out of my head (it was replaced by Katy Perry, another singer who is constantly stuck in my head), but I woke up this morning after just having a dream that Cort was in a classroom carving "baby, baby, baby" into a desk with one of his students. And now the song is in my head again.
Today after school my co-teacher, Nona, took me into Telavi with my laptop to bring it somewhere to have it fixed. This somewhere ended up being at a random man's house where he asked me if I am a beginner at computers and then started criticizes how my anti-virus is out of date and then looked at my iphone at scoffed at how I never update my applications (but seriously, I never even have wifi and my ATT is turned off). So anyway, I left my computer there and he is going to delete everything off (he seemed surprised that I only had him save one 5gb file of photos and nothing else), and then reinstall everything. Hopefully it works! Oh, he also was dissin' me for not remembering my itunes password. Turns out I do remember my itunes password and I just forgot that I knew it. I'm not a complete failure!
After this, Nona and the other teacher who came with us (she doesn't speak English) went to a cafe where they bought me coke and french fries and cake. All of which I ate. And it was a massive plate of fries, and a massive piece of cake. I am seriously stupid.

Sakartvelo! Sakartvelo!

My computer broke and I'm on the family computer. So I'll make this snappy.
Yesterday I returned to Vardi after a weekend in Tbilisi. We stayed at a new hostel called Boombully which was in a great location and really awesome and fun. The guys who work there/own it are really awesome and with the exception of a couple people, the rest of the place was booked to TLG people for the weekend.
On Friday night we got a bottle of cheap vodka (and wow.... it was cheap--tasting). I drank a lot of it and stayed up late. We didn't even leave the hostel. We played Kings Cup for a while and then did who knows what else. I guess a lot of sitting around and talking. And throwing pretzels out of the third floor window for a stray cat. And I forgot to bring clothes to sleep in so I had to sleep topless. Luckily I was just in a room with Lydia, Cort and Helene so it didn't really matter. Except for that every time I needed to leave the room I had to put on a different shirt. I'm pretty sure I ended up in the kitchen wearing Lydia's sweater and then 4 minutes later wearing Cort's sweater. I don't know where my own sweater was.
I woke up at 8:30 on Saturday morning, which is what happens when I am a bit hungover... and by I bit I mean incredibly. Like I said, the vodka was BAD. So I climbed into Cort's bed and made sure he was awake for reals (misery loves company) and we slowly all got it together and left. We wandered around the city and went to the big ferris wheel on a hill that was at the WEIRDEST theme park place I eve ever witnessed. The ferris wheel was super slow moving and basically just there for the purpose of getting a good view of Tbilisi. We ate sushi for dinner. Then we had to get back because we had tickets to the big Georgia vs Croatia soccer game at the stadium.
The stadium was HUGE. It was more people than I have ever seen in my life. And it was all so confusing and exciting. Everyone was chanting and yelling and we couldn't figure out how to get in because there were so many people and mobs and nothing in Georgia is organized. We ended up getting in through a part that was just a bunch of security guards who I think only let us in because we were foreigners. Then we found our seats and it was great except for when the girl next to me (another TLG girl) asked for my drink (a juice and vodka mix) and I gave it to her and she apparently gave it to a little kid (like 5 yrs old!) because she thought it was just juice and he was thirsty. I felt guilty about that. And then i had to pee SO BADLY i thought i was going to die. And it was close to the end of the game so I was trying to hold it but I nearly panicked and felt like I might cry so I just made Cort go with me and we got back right in time to see Georgia score like 2 min before the end of the game. And Georgia won! So everyone was SO EXCITED. The city was crazy with guys cheering and screaming and hanging out of car windows/sunroofs/on top of their cars waving flags and singing. It was great!!!!
Then at the hostel we all hung out and drank and cheered to Sakartvelo (that's Georgia in Georgian) and the hostel and then we went out and stayed out until 5am.
Yesterday we took the marshrutka back to Telavi and then I came home to find that my computer doesn't want to start at all, and when it does it just keeps saying "not responding" when I try to open anything. It's lame and depressing.
Today was a bad day, which is a mix of being incredibly tired, stressful situations at work and the feeling I get after having a nice weekend and then having to go back to "normal." I'm feeling better though this evening, so I don't want to think about it anymore. Tomorrow will be better! :)

Viva Forever

I just thought I'd mention that one time I got into the car and my host-father was blasting this

"wasting words on lower cases and capitals"

I woke up in the middle of the night last night because everything sounded weird. Turns out, it was raining heavily, but it didn't sound like rain for some reason. I don't know if it's what the building is made out of or the roof or what, but it doesn't sound like how rain normally sounds in the middle of the night. This morning, shortly after I woke up, it started snowing. The biggest snowflakes I have ever seen! (not that that is saying much at all). So I had to walk to school with the giant snowflakes sticking all over me like bird poop but not nearly as gross.
Have I mentioned the dead dog between my school and home? I don't think I have. There is a little dead dog on the "sidewalk" (there aren't any sidewalks). It took me a while to establish that it was actually a dog because of it's size and it was weirdly dried out. And it had no legs. And it's mouth was open in a weird grimace. I don't know why I'm oddly fascinated by roadkill. And now I have an excellent specimen to check out twice a day. Anyway, today was the most depressing it has looked because of the snow and rain. It didn't look so dried out anymore and it was laying there pathetically with snow on it. I don't know why I'm describing a dead thing.
Today has been a kind of crappy day. It must be the weather. And there has been a bit of drama with my school director. She seems to not want me to go to Armenia over break for no apparent reason. And my co-teachers are saying I need to go anyway (as if I wouldn't!). And then today one of my co-teachers was telling me the director thinks I can speak Georgian! Which also means she must think I'm lying when I say I can't! Ridiculous! My other co-teacher had to leave school early today because she was really sick, so I ended up doing  our 10th grade lesson alone. I guess it went OK. I just had the read a passage in their textbook and answer a couple questions about it. Then we just sat around and talked for most of the time. They said it was a good lesson and told me that it helps the a lot more to talk like we did than it does for the to do work from the textbook only. Which I agree completely. I also feel like the fact that I can't speak Georgian probably motivates them more to try with their English instead of resorting to Georgian only.
After school I felt like I was on the verge of yelling at my host sister. Sometimes she just won't leave me alone and it drives be completely insane. There is no good way of explaining to her that I just need silence for a while or that I'm busy doing something because she doesn't speak English well enough. So she just says "why" over and over and I say "because!" and it's awful. I felt like I was getting very short with her and I felt a little bad, but then again, how else am I supposed to express anything when language fails?

Only Girl in the World

Today I had my first village experience outside of Vardisubani. After a trip to Telavi yesterday (we visited the castle), I went with my fellow TLG friend, Shannon, to her village Saniore.  Her village life seemed a lot more like how I imagined it would. They had chickens, a sheep and lamb, cows, a dog with puppies and cats. And there kept being horse drawn wagons going through the cow-poop covered streets. And the view of the mountains was awesome. Shannon's host sister, Salome, is 16 and seems pretty rebellious as far as Georgian teenage girls go. She likes to drink and smoke in the shadows at night (not kidding). Her English is also really great. Shannon and I bought a bottle of vodka and some orange soda in Telavi and snuck it into her bedroom. There is a lot of sneaking around involved in drinking apparently. It's like being in high school again. Except I'm 22 and Shannon is 25. Which makes it just seem really surreal.
At twilight, we headed out to an old playground with Salome and a couple guys she knew, where Shannon and I drank our water bottles filled with vodka/soda mixture and Salome and her friends had cups of beer. This experience felt so strange, like being in a weird alternate universe version of Chico when I was 16 years old drinking vodka in playgrounds with Tyler and Brian. After this, we ended up at Salome's half brother's house where I had my first experience using a true outhouse with a hole in the ground. Then we had to leave quickly and go back to the house because host mother was wanting to know where we were. We ate dinner and drank some wine and then retreated upstairs to drink the rest of our vodka. It was a good night just hanging out and talking and listening to Britney Spears and Queen.
Today we slept in and took a walk to the next village over, where one of my co-teachers, Darejani, happens to live (which I didn't know). Salome's cousin gets private English lessons from her, and we ran into him so he told us to come with him over there. Darejani was pretty surprised to see us and she gave us chocolate and coffee. She kept asking if I would stay there for the night and go to school with her in the morning, which was really sweet but I declined because I didn't have any clothes to wear or anything. It was strange to see her in her natural habitat and in normal clothes besides her school clothes.
We wandered around a bit and then went back to Saniore. I wanted to catch the 4 o'clock marshrutka back to Telavi, but for some reason it didn't seem to come. So Salome put me into a random car and said he would take me to Vardisubani. It was a very strange experience that is difficult to describe. But apparently it was an unmarked taxi, and this taxi would take multiple people to different destinations. We started going to random places in the nearby village and more and more people were piling in. It ended up being me, a woman and her two little children, and two teenage boys stuffed in the backseat of this car with another woman sitting in front. And the driver just kept putting Rhianna's "Only girl in the world" on over and over again. Everyone else got dropped off in Telavi, and then he took me to my village. The best part is that it only cost 3 lari! It made all the weirdness totally worth it.
Now I have another week at school, and then on Friday we go to Tbilisi. Hurray!

Club Day and Nazi

It's Friday, which means I don't have to be at school until 1:45 to do my "club." Fridays are awesome because I get to sleep in and then only be at school for 30-45 minutes doing whatever I want. And best of all, THE ELECTRICITY IS ON RIGHT NOW! When I wake up and the electricity is on, it makes me instantly in a better mood. It's funny, because back home I never had to wake up and lay in bed trying to decide if I should even check the lightswitch and be disappointed when it isn't on, or just assume it is off and go about my day. Anyway, it is on and I am happy.
I woke up at 10:20 this morning to a knock on my door. Host mother had to leave and was bringing me breakfast. She had a good laugh when it was VERY apparent that I had just woken up and hopped out of bed to let her in. I couldn't even open my eyes because the sunlight was so bright. And when I looked in the mirror... my hair was ridiculous. That's because I actually got to take a shower last night and slept with wet hair. Oh well!
And now, the real meat of this post:
A couple of days ago I started getting texts from a random number saying it was someone named Nazi who is 12 years old and lives in Vardisubani. Of course, I thought this was Lydia or Cort messing with me because they had just the day before been joking around about kids named Swastika and Nazi in their classes. So, I ignored the texts. I was pretty impressed by Lydia/Cort's ability to recreate terrible vocabulary use and sentence structure like a true English Language Learner.
Yesterday, however, I was walking out of the school to go home after the 7th grade lesson, when a group of four comes up behind me. One girl said "my gift for you" and handed me a pink card she had made. It said "I <3 You" on the front. I smiled and said thank you and she kept following me. I opened up the card.
Inside it read "HII.. My names is Nazi. I am 12 yeard old. I'm dancer. I love dance this is hobby. I am Georgian, my teleph number is _______! I love you very much. What your names? Where are you from? What your telephon number? Can you was my friend? What your hobby? you are very good girl. I love you BaBy"
So, as it turns out, Nazi is real. I'm not quite sure why she doesn't know my name... unless she just thinks that is how you start talking to someone. Later in the evening, I received more texts from Nazi. Because I'm incredibly curious, I responded and thanked her for the card and asked how she got my number. Apparently Tiko gave it to her. Now I am left wondering who else in the school has my phone number. Also, Nazi is relentless with the texts. I get about 3 in a row every time she sends one. She always calls me "bay-bay." Where do they come up with this stuff?

 Not to be outdone, after seeing the card Nazi gave me, Tiko made me a card as well.

I'm glad it's just about the weekend. Tomorrow Shay is coming from her village to Telavi, and the usual Telavi area gang (Shannon, Cort, Phil, Andrea and I) are going to meet up with her. We are going to try to visit the castle in the day andShay and I are planning to either stay the night in Shannon's village or in a hotel in Telavi. Should be excellent. Then next weeken-- Tbilisi trip and possible football (soccer) game at the stadium. Hooray!

Emotional chronology of the unbathed

In my house, we have the unfortunate problem that somehow the water in the bathroom is connected to electricity. This is unfortunate because we don't seem to have regular electricity. And by "not having regular electricity" I mean that since I have been here, the power seems to have been going out every other day until approximately 6pm. Except for the last three days, when I woke up without power and it did not come on until 7pm. And on a weekend! Yuck! So... not only am I incredibly bored and likely sitting in the living room being badgered by a four year old and a ten year old who also have nothing to do, I can't even flush the toilet or brush my teeth! Although I have been brushing my teeth, in my bedroom with a pitcher of water and spitting into a cup. Awesome. I also pee without flushing. But at least I don't have an outhouse, right? The real problem here, is that I haven't been able to take a shower. You are thinking "but the power comes on in the evening, right!?" Right, but that doesn't mean fate wants me to be clean. Everyone else wants showers too, and the hot water lasts about 10 minutes before starting to get cold. Also, everyone has laundry that needs to be done. See the problem?
So, this is a bit reminiscent of a post my friend Bruna (also living in Georgia) put on her blog the other day (http://brunafications.blogspot.com), but it's relevant to many of us living here...
Daily thoughts on showering.
Monday Shower-- Excellent, but I did not shave my legs, oh well! I will next time.
Tuesday-- No shower. That's okay though, my  hair is still clean and I look great!
Wednesday-- No shower. My hair is looking a little weird, oh well, I'll just put it up. Good to go! I'm looking pretty good today!
Thursday-- I want to take a shower, oh well I guess I will wait until the morning, no biggie my hair is still lookin' alright in this pony-tail.
Friday-- Power is out! Damn it!!! My hair is looking like a freakin' grease ball! And I may or may not smell really odd. Thank God for baby wipes!
Saturday-- OH MY GOD IT'S BEEN FIVE DAYS I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M GOING OUT IN PUBLIC, MY HAIR ISN'T EVEN THE RIGHT COLOR ANYMORE. At least it's really amusing when I tell people how long it's been. We can have a good laugh.
Sunday- Day 6. This isn't even funny anymore. This is almost a week. If I don't take a shower tonight I'm going to kill someone or myself. I can't even function. All I think about is how gross my hair feels on my head. I want to shave it off. Please power, turn back on, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.
AND THEN I HAD THE LONG AWAITED SHOWER! Just now. About 20 minutes ago. And it was amazing. I washed my hair THREE times. Needless to say, I didn't shave my legs. Oh well, I couldn't care less about the status of my leg hair at the moment. It's too cold to wear pants anyway. But I feel great!!!!! I can now take over the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So that's my brain.
Other thoughts lately include: I haven't really been completely naked except for when I shower, because my curtains are pretty see-through and I'm paranoid that my students will walk by and somehow see me naked (notice a recurring theme about being afraid of my students?). Also, it's cold. And, I never really know if Tiko is going to walk in without knocking. So anyway, I know I've been gaining weight but luckily never have to see myself naked. Except yesterday I was changing my shirt and I was trying to decide if I just had a food-baby from eating too much for dinner, or if that is just how my stomach looks now. Today, after my shower, I think I have established that this is just how my stomach looks now. I'm kind of traumatized about it because I have never ever had to worry about getting fat, until now. I mean, it makes sense that I'm gaining weight when I think about the giant meals I eat here and the fact that they consist mostly of bread and cheese, and everything else drenched in grease or chunks of butter. And then there is the candy..... and the fact that I have a stash of Nutella in my bedroom to eat late at night and between meals. The funny thing is though, I know I'm not going to stop eating! I have terrible self control! At dinner tonight I ate until I was dying of stuffed-ness, and then I ate a pastry! And now... I'm in my bed eating a nut/grape juice on a string thing. I need to do something.... I think I'm going to start doing sit ups. But I've been saying that for a few days now and haven't even attempted to do any. I can't wait until I get back to the US and get back to my normal eating habits (not to mention being a vegetarian again!), and hopefully stop having to think about it.

Down by the banks...

Today I took a marshrutka for the first time by myself  (well... sort of) to Telavi. I can tell my host fam is phasing out the whole "we will give you rides whenever you want" thing, which is fine, but I have no idea how to catch a marshrutka. Today, my host mother caught one for me and started yelling for me to hurry up and come downstairs because it was waiting for me. So, I still have no idea how to do it myself, but at least I know it's possible! In Telavi, I met up with Cort, Phil and Andrea, as well as four girls from the 11th TLG group (I am in group 12). It was a good time, basically consisting of going from the first cafe (we call Pizza Cafe, because the only two words on the sign that are in English are "cafe" and "pizza") to a second cafe (we call Disco Cafe because of the really.... unique decor). I was pretty much intending on avoiding Disco Cafe for a while because I know that's where my student hangs out, but Phil wanted to know what this weird cafe was and Cort wanted pizza. So I braved the storm and we had a great time. I think the three decent sized beers I had aided my venture. Especially when my student put Hanson on the stereo. And then when his two friends were begging us to dance. I said "no" but probably wouldn't have denied it if my student hadn't been around. I like to dance like a dummy, but you know, not with my student. After stuffing ourselves with pizza and khachapuri, we went to the market and looked around. I bought cottage cheese and it really seems more like sour cream. Then, Cort and I bought cake for some stupid reason. Like I really need to eat so much crap. I'm already gaining weight like no other.
Then I came home, and this is when I realized I must have been moderately drunk, because Tiko was asking me to draw the Eiffel Tower and a turtle and they are quite possibly the worst drawings I have ever done... and I was TRYING to make them look good. Then my host family insisted on feeding me more. And served CAKE! So I ate two pieces of cake today. I don't know why I'm incapable of saying no. But... it's cake! Who denies cake!?!?!? Not Gina. No matter how tight her pants are getting!
So then my host fam disappeared like they seem to do being a lot in the evenings. This left me alone with Tiko again. And boy, that girl is crazy. I guess I don't have a lot of experience with 10 year olds. Are they all insane? I love her a lot and she's my best friend in Vardisubani (I'm obviously very social here), but she is a handful. Last night (we were alone together for about 4 hours), she was making me look at like 30 pictures of my 16 year old student who she calls her "boyfriend" and was saying he was beautiful and was wanting me to agree with her. Then she kept telling me not to tell her mom about him. By the way, this is the same 16 year old that told me he didn't like America except for American weapons. So, I'm a little confused and although I'm quite sure he wouldn't be dating a 10 year old, I can't seem to figure out if he actually is her boyfriend or if she just has a giant crush on him. I think she just has a crazy little kid crush. Tonight with Tiko, I taught her the "Down by the banks of the hankey pankey..." hand-clap game. I also tried to teach her "Miss Mary Mack" but that was sort of a failure because I couldn't remember how to do it and I'm incredibly uncoordinated. I guess the best part about teaching her the hand-clap games though, was now that I'm in my bedroom, I can hear her downstairs with her grandmother trying to teach her grandmother how to do it. They are both laughing hysterically and seeming to have a great time, so I feel like I've done a good deed.
In other news: my laundry is in the washing machine right now. THANK GOODNESS. I haven't done it in weeks.

To calm myself down after a weird day.
I suppose I feel a bit homesick for the first time in a while. I've already been here longer than I have ever been away from home. The first couple days at my new "home" were rough and I felt pretty homesick, like all I wanted was my mom and my dog but I got over it pretty quickly (not that I don't really miss them, because I do!). I just feel okay in general. But today was weird and I felt so frustrated and confused for a while at school I felt like I could cry. It all turned out fine, like I knew it would, but I just felt so angry and incompetent and like all I wanted in the world was just to be able to ask a question and get a straight answer.
Basically, what happened was it was a normal day at the school, and I was in the teacher's room after 4th period, waiting for Shorena to come in so we could go to 5th period.  My other co-teacher, Nona, asked me if I had a lesson and I told her "yes, with Shorena" and she said "you were just there." And I was like "no..." because I have two lessons with Shorena on Wednesdays, 5th and 6th grades. I pulled out my schedule which is written on a piece of paper and handed it to Nona and she pointed at it and said I was just there. Then I realized that I had just come from 5th grade class during 4th period, and 5th grade class is usually during 5th period. So I was just like.... Ok..... maybe I was confusing about what period it is right now and maybe I'm supposed to go to 10th grade with Darejani (which was supposed to be 6th period). And Nona said, Oh yes, you go with Darejani. But then Darejani never showed up, and neither did Shorena, so I was just sitting there in the teacher's room very confused for like an hour! And then 5th period hour was over and all the teachers came back in and Nona said to me "you don't have a lesson." And I showed her my schedule again and she said "I don't think you have a lesson." Then a few minutes later she indicated that lessons were over because the teachers were having a party, but no one had told me about this ahead of time and I didn't even know if I was supposed to be involved in the party somehow. So I was trying to ask her if I was supposed to go home or be at the party, but she just kept telling me to ask Shorena (and I had no idea where Shorena was and hadn't seen her for over an hour). So I went into the Director's office, where everyone just made me sit on a chair and couldn't tell me what was going on because no one speaks English. But then I just kept getting people saying the word "concert" and "party" and "home" so I still had no idea if I was supposed to go home, or if they were saying I was going to a concert or if they were saying I go home and Shorena was at a concert. It was just very stressful. Then, to make matters worse, an old man who works at the school came in the room and said my name and started gesturing wildly towards the left (which was a direction that was both down a hallway and if outside, toward my house!).
Then Nona came in and said "come with me" and took me into a room down the hall that was FULL of students and teachers! And there was a stage and piano! And there wasn't nearly enough chairs for everyone so everyone was sharing the uncomfortable chairs, which wasn't all that bad, just strange. So the singing was pretty good. All I could get out of it was "deda" and "sakartvelo" which means they were singing about mothers and Georgia. Also, there were a bunch of students reading/reciting long things in Georgian, and then a couple of teachers had long things written to the teacher who was retiring (Did I mention that this event was for Women's Day and also for a lady's retirement?), and one of the teachers started crying as she read what she had written for her retiring friend. I wonder what it said. So this went on for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes.
After that, I thought we were going home, but Shorena told me to stay with her and she took me into the 9th grade classroom--completely decked out with food! There was khinkali, khachapuri, sodas, and cake! A ton of it. So this was great. Except no one could speak English except Shorena, who was not sitting near me. I sat between the Director, Shorena's sister and the three oldest women including the retiring woman (who had worked at the school for 50 years! So when I say old... she was old). And then the retiring woman was going on and on about me in Georgian (I'd never even met her before) but Shorena said she was telling me I was nice and a fine girl and cute and she likes me. How people decide this when I'm sitting silently and stuffing my face, I don't know. So I just stuffed my face and ate cake and drank mineral water. It occurred to me that even though I did hate mineral water 3 weeks ago, I don't anymore. It tastes normal.  This also happened with cottage cheese. I used to hate it before I came here, and now I enjoy it WAY too much. Like I think about throughout the day.
Ok, well, that was my weird day. I don't know why the first part was just so stressful and all I wanted for a few minutes was to be home where things made sense. But part of me, although I love it, never wants to go back to Chico. It's funny because I know that Chico will be exactly the same as always when I come back and that is very comforting but also very stressful at the same time. So I'm trying not to think about it.
Lately, Cort and I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out where we should go when we get done teaching and before we head back to the US. It's difficult because I'm poor but this is a really good time to go places since I'm already over here.

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!