Second half of Turkey

Wednesday We slept in a while since we had been up so late and finally started moving around 10 or so. While Joanne and I were primping in the bathroom, we met a nice girl from Canada. It is really funny how sometimes complete strangers can really make an impact on your life. Amelia overheard us talking and piped in and as we started talking we found out that she was traveling alone because he boyfriend abandoned her in three different countries. They kept making plans of him to come over and meet her and travel a while and three different times he told her last minute (after buying a plane ticket or getting to the country) that he wasn’t coming. She had broken up with him just a week prior to meeting us and Jo and I immediately went into girl mode bashing this total stranger and telling her she was so much better, etc etc. It was all true and after all was said and done, she said that was the best advice she had received from anyone! I felt that after a deep talk in the girls bathroom of a random hostel we were destined to be friends! We invited her to join us for the day and she accepted. So the 5 of us set off about an hour later to explore the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. When we got to the Blue Mosque, prayer was about to start so we were not allowed to go in. We strolled over to the Hagia Sofia and spent a long time exploring everything it had to offer. To say that it was beautiful or amazing is such an understatement! This and the Blue Mosque really do need to speak for themselves. I will put some pictures up, but if you can, google image these places. The Hagia Sofia was first a church and then later converted into a mosque. Ataturk decided that it would become a museum and should feature both the Christian and Islamic symbols that make it so special so he ordered for the plaster that was covering the Christian symbols to be chipped off. Now you can see large hangings featuring scripture of the Quran next to paintings of the Virgin Mary and her son. It was quite powerful and there was just so much to take in. I wish that it was free because I wanted to go back a second day. After a while I just got so overwhelmed by it all that I had to take a break and sit down. I don’t feel like I got to see everything completely and I want to go back again. After Hagia Sofia we took a nice long walk through a beautiful park as Amelia was leading us up to a café with a great view of the Bosphorus. I felt so bad for Raughley because he was limping the whole time and walking up and down the expansive rolling hills of the park proved especially difficult for him. We all took turns holding back and helping him along. In the park we found a man that had two rabbits and a chicken. On pieces of paper were written fortunes and he would hold a plate with slates in it up to a rabbit’s mouth and whichever paper it picked was your future! I think the initial price was 5 lira but we really didn’t have small change so Raughley offered him a US $1 bill. He took it and Raughley got his fortune (it came true too because he was offered a job he had applied for!) As we walked away I realized that I really wanted a fortune to because I am way to into that kind of stuff and even though I know it was super silly, I wanted to know what my future held. Between the five of us we scrounged up 3 lira and ran over to him and had his rabbit pick out my future! (It was pretty good too and I hope it comes true!) The man then insisted on taking pictures with all of us, shouting “Lady” at Jo and Amelia. When we made it up to the café that Amelia had told us about, we were overwhelmed with the view. It really was beautiful. Unfortunately, you had to pay for that view and Nescafe coffee (1 lari in Georgia) was 6 lira!! We passed, which forced Raughley to walk right back down the steep hills that he had just come up. Amelia wanted to go back to the spice market to buy a lamp and ship it home to Toronto, so we followed along. It was a decent walk but along the way we stopped in for a hot meal for Amelia and tea/beer for us. After our break we wound through the market to get to the light shop. It was incredible. All this multicolored glass strung together and hanging in all different orders and shapes. If it wasn’t so expensive or heavy/expensive to ship, I would have bought one on the spot. However, the man asked where I was from and happily informed me that they have a chain of the shop in Dallas! How crazy! He said that they make everything in Turkey and then send it over to his friend who runs the shop there. I am definitely going to fish out the card when I get back home this summer. We spent a good deal of time in the light shop and they brought out tea for us and we were just chatting. Jo bought a scarf for her host mom and after a while Amelia came down stairs and explained that she had to go to FedEx to haggle the price down for shipping (you can haggle EVERYTHING!) So we left and walked back to our hostel. We took a few little detours to try to find Raughley some loose fitting pants. His jeans were too tight and rubbed on his cut. We initially found a pair of granny Capri pants that were hilarious, but served the purpose. However, long pants were required for mosques and they capris were just hideous. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything suitable that fit and were a decent price. We also made plans to cut a kitty cat shaped patch to put over his torn pants but that never happened. We got back to the hostel and decided to go to the grocery store next door and pick up stuff for dinner. We got oven pizzas that we cooked in the microwave (terrible bologna like meat on them and sprinkled with corn…) and then we made sandwiches. We had all sorts of yummy fixins like pickled red peppers, mustard, fresh cheese, two kinds of pepperoni, mustard, and we put it all on the biggest treat of all-WHEAT BREAD!!! It was so oaty and delicious! The kitchen area was under strict restrictions since the hostel cooked meals for those who wanted it. There were no plates or utensils or anything like that so we had to cut a big 1.5 liter bottle of water in half and filled it with boiled hot water and instant coffee mix. Not the best idea as the bottle started to shrink, burned our hands when we tried to touch it and the coffee was crap, but it was still fun. That night we walked around the city so Pauli and Jo could take some night shots with their fancy cameras. It was super chilly and pretty soon I had wrapped my scarf around my head and neck to try to stay warm. My little Northface fleece is not as warm as I thought it was and the whipping wind was really getting to me. Once back at the hostel we fixed up Raughley’s knee again and then all quickly fell fast asleep. Thursday In the morning we went to the Blue Mosque which is still a functioning mosque so we had to get there early enough to have enough time to view it all. It was one of the most stunning sights I have ever seen. It was so powerful and I was literally on the verge of tears from the beauty. At one point I sat down and tried to meditate/soak it all in but there were too many people walking around and talking so I couldn’t calm down and focus. We walked around and looked at everything and even read a very helpful pamphlet on What Is Islam? That afternoon we walked to Topkapi palace, sat in the park and ate our sandwiches and fed the two big sweet kitties that were lounging in the sun. We wadded through the streams of children to look at all the precious jewels and other unique relics in the palace. There were some pretty amazing pieces of past sultan’s royal jewels and even some historical Christian and Islamic artifacts. As we were leaving the palace we ran into a whole mess of kids. This area of town, so rich in culture and history, attracts children’s groups like moths to a flame. We had been battling with these kids the whole time in the palace, but they quickly melted our hearts. We all voted that they were between the ages of 8 and 10 (the adorable age) and one kid could obviously tell that we were not Turkish (I wonder what gave it away-probably the kid’s Deutsch-dar went off for Pauli) and he said “Hello!” We responded with a nice “hello” as well. Pretty soon, the entire group of close to 50 students were shouting “Hello! How are you?! What is your name?!!!” We even had kids come up and shake our hands! The amazing thing is that when the kids at school do this, it is annoying because those are the only words in English they know (1st through 12th graders) but when strangers do it, it is the most precious sight to see! Their unabashed courage, innocence, and pride in themselves was obvious, and so heartwarming. When we had finished at Topkapi, we decided that we could splurge and went back to the expensive café with the great view that Amelia had shown us the day before. We would have sat there longer, but the sun was quickly being covered by clouds and it was chilly up on the hill. We made our way back to our hostel and grabbed all of our stuff. That evening we had to move to a different hostel as a group of Dutch students had booked up the whole hostel! We walked to the tram which took us to the ferry which would take us across the Dardenelle straights, where we thought we would have to get another bus to get across the Bosphorus to the Asian side of Istanbul. When we consulted our map, we realized that we were not staying on the Asian side, like we initially had thought. It was convenient for us, but a bit of a disappointment because we were looking forward to waking up and exploring all the goods of that side. After winding our way around a new part of the city, and asking for help a few times, we were pointed in the direction of a construction zone. Literally, there was red tape all around and you could hear jackhammers going off. We were quite confused but we looked around for the building number and sure enough found our hostel right next to the building under construction. We had to walk under the restriction tape to get to the hostel. Sign number 1 that it would be a bad experience. Number two was that the door was locked and when we rang the doorbell, a man stuck his head out the window and yelled us asking why we were ringing the bell. When he came down he seemed quite put out. We walked up the narrow winding stairs to what was our room. Sign number 3 He immediately asked us for the payment in full. We set down our bags, declined his offer to join him in the common room upstairs to chat and rushed out to get away. We ate at a nice little diner that we had seen on the way in. Although the menu offered a few different items, when we all ordered, we basically got the same thing. It was a lamb but in different forms. Mine was wrapped in a tortilla/pita thing, Raughley’s was the solo thing on his plate, and Pauli’s came minced on a piece of bread. Jo ordered soup and chicken. When the soup came out, the oos and ahhs coming from her were ridiculous! We all promptly tried her soup and simultaneously made the same sounds. It was delicious-hands down the best soup I have ever had in my life. It was lentil soup with a little drizzle of sauce and a lemon squeezed in. Raughley ordered a bowl, and I vacillated but decided against it since we had ordered a lot of food already. Once we had finished dinner, we strolled around our new area and then ended up back at our hostel to get a good night’s rest. Friday We woke up and got out of our hostel as quickly as possible. The weather was quite nasty, overcast and windy, but we wanted to check and see if there was still a possibility to take a hot air balloon ride, something we had all been looking forward to since we booked our plane tickets months before. Unfortunately, due to the weather, there was no way that we would be able to take the trip. Both Friday and Saturday were bound for bad weather. We turned back, disappointed. At this point, Pauli and Raughley went to find the ticket office for Pauli to find his bus ticket. Joanne and I stayed near the balloon/main part of town to find a bathroom and a hot coffee. Switching different countries, which includes new water and food was taking a toll on both of our digestive systems. No serious problems, just lost of inconveniences. We walked across the street and found a fancy looking little café. At this point we were willing to pay just about any price for a good, clean, western style bathroom. (I mean a room with a toilet you can sit on and not just a hole you squat over.) We were supposed to meet the boys in 30 minutes to go about the rest of the day. Well, we sat down and marveled at the extensive menu presented to us! They have everything you could imagine! Ok not really everything, but after bread and cheese in Georgia, and only allotting ourselves one hot meal a day for the past week, we were both salivating just reading the descriptions of the delicacies available at our fingertips. Jo settled on pasta, and I ordered a plate of assorted stuffed, dried vegetables, drizzled with olive oil. It tasted like pure heaven whenever I put that first bite into my mouth. I almost cried right then and there. I had not tasted something with so much flavor in months! Plus, it was actually a piece of food that had some nutritional value to it, unlike the loads of white bread, stripped of all fiber and helpful natural ingredients that I shovel into my body. We sat there reveling in our gorgeous meals. Once it had been the allotted 30 minutes, we took turns every 8 to 10 minutes running out to the meeting spot we were supposed to find the boys at. Well, it took them over an hour, which worked out for us too because it took a long time to get our food delivered to our table. The four of us met up and were soon in a search to find a hammam, or Turkish bath. Well, we saw a small shack that looked like something resembling a visitors’ center. We walked in and found out that they did not speak an English and it was actually, not a tourist center. However, once again, we were overwhelmed with hospitality. The woman working there grabbed her cell phone, spoke into it and then handed it over to Joanne (in Georgia, we would have been overlooked immediately and the phone would have been handed to Raughley, the male in the building. I just want to reiterate again the amazing differences I saw between the two neighboring countries of Georgia and Turkey). Joanne spoke into the phone, apparently to the woman’s niece, and explained that we were looking for a close hammam. The phone was passed back and the woman answered the question and gave the phone back to Joanne. The niece explained that we were just a few blocks from a hammam! What luck! We thanked the woman profusely, shouting a massacred version of “Tea sugar!” We went out to gather Pauli. The building was small so he had opted to wait outside. While he was outside, he was lured to a stand of woman who offered him food. They were petitioning for equality in the Turkish parliament. So the woman gave us all pins and stickers, shoved food into one hand and a pen to sign the petition in the other. We all happily signed and took a picture to prove that everyone, even westerns believe more women should be in parliament! We took our fresh baklava goodies and followed the directions to the hammam. We were in great luck and found it easily. Plus, it was cheap! 30 lira for all services. These include sitting in the steam room, a full scrub, and a massage. There were separate areas for men and women, including separate entrances from the street, so there could be no mingling between the sexes. As soon as we walked in, we could see why. It was full on female time. There were naked women just hanging out, joined by those half and fully clothed as well. An old Turkish woman met us, handed us “towels” that are made by large machines using both hand and foot pedals and feel more like a rough cotton shirt. They were large and are intended to wrap around you a few times. She also escorted us to a small area with a door. She motioned for us to leave our shoes and clothes there. It is funny that it is supposed to be the private area where you get undressed and yet there is a large window in the middle of the door, so anyone can see anything. I guess that is to slowly get you used to the whole naked in front of others part. Jo and I had both been to the baths in Tbilisi, but had gotten private rooms. We didn’t know if we were supposed to be totally naked or partially covered so we decided it was best to keep on our bathing suit bottoms. Well once we walked into the secluded area that proved to be a bit of a sauna, everyone was totally naked. We sat down next to one of the small semi circles of stone with two faucets hanging over the top. One of the scrubbers showed us that one was for scolding hot water and the other for freezing cold water. She made a nice concoction of both in the small bath and took one of the plastic bowls floating in it and tossed Joanne with water to demonstrate what we were supposed to do. We covered ourselves with the warm water and sat there adjusting to the heat. Also in the room was a young woman sitting by herself and looked like a foreigner, and an old Turkish woman with her daughter who was probably in her mid twenties and about the size of twig. Ok, so naked bodies are a bit like car wrecks. You know that it is inappropriate to look, but you just can’t help it. So initially, Jo and I were talking about how much we hated the gorgeous, young, so thin you could see all her ribs girl who was getting her massage when we walked in. However, soon after trash talking her, our conversation quickly changed into how beautiful bodies are and how they have inspired and torn down everything from men and art to empires. It was a really nice and comforting, honest talk. I also shared a lot from what I read in the book Captivating. If you haven’t read it, please do! It is a great book about how special girls are and how they are created in a unique way to reflect God’s image of beauty. We also struck up a conversation with the foreigner who turned out to be American sitting to our left. She was in Turkey to meet her husband who had been doing research in Africa for 2 months. We were just starting to get into talk about what he was researching when it was her turn to get a scrub and massage. So Jo and I alternated between chatting and just soaking in the silence and relaxation. Jo went first for her massage and then it was my turn. I laid face down on a big cold stone slab in the middle of the room. By this point, the bathing suit bottoms had come off, since we had seen the woman cleaned every part of the others so what was the use. Plus, who need modesty, when being naked is the norm in the room? So the woman threw some warm water over me and started to scrub my body with a rough rag/loofah thing covered in delicious smelling soap. To indicate me to flip over onto my back, she just gave me a little slap on the behind. I flipped and she continued the process on the front. None of it felt embarrassing or strange. She was efficient and just kept scrubbing. It was gross to see all the black thin peels of skin that were rolling off of my body. I know only shower a couple times a week, but I didn’t think I was THAT dirty. It felt so nice to wash off Georgia though. I joked with Joanne that they were scrubbing all the little kids grubby, grimy hands off of us. After an hour and half of relaxing, it was getting a little too hot for both of us. We rinsed off with cool water and then went to sit out in the common area with the naked Turkish women. We changed into our clothes and sat there drinking water and getting our body temperature back to normal. After our relaxing afternoon filled with estrogen, we met back up with the boys. We found out that we had been cheated! The boys got the royal treatment and had an extra massage in a special part of the hammam! We walked back to our hostel and just relaxed for a bit. Jo and I had to get up to get ready for our last night in Turkey, but it was so hard to drag our relaxed bodies up and get in the motions to get pretty. We finally did as the boys went out to get goodies for the night. They came back with wine and beer. We all chatted and drank up and pretty soon had to coach Pauli on how to say phrases with his German accent, which he has significantly lost. There was a nice long 5 minute period focused mainly on “Europe bitches” We left with a group of people from our hostel to go down to the main square which was crawling with people. We separated from the group when we found out they wanted to get a nice cup of tea and chat. The four of us were looking for a bit more adventure that night. We found a club called IQ and went on in. We got settled in and I shouted to Raughley to buy a round of beers on me as Jo and I plowed through people to the dance floor. Well, it ended up that 4 local beers cost about 50 lira!! So the round was on everyone as we had to split the cost. Jo and I were tearing it up on the dance floor and not even caring what we looked like. We were having a blast bouncing around from our table of “complimentary” popcorn, carrots, and celery, and expensive beers to the dance floor. Sometimes we were the only ones dancing, but we didn’t care one bit. It was so much fun! At one point Joanne made friends with the manager/owner or something of that caliber and asked for a bottle of vodka. I know that sounds extravagant, but in Georgia, it is really the way to go. It is much cheaper than beer and goes a lot further. Well, he informed us that they didn’t serve vodka but they would go to the store and get some especially for us! How generous! What we didn’t think about was going out and buying one ourselves instead of them marking it up. So the man came back with a bottle and poured us a bit and then added in water to our glasses. Well, we were all under the impression that it was vodka, and when we all started to take it down as so, we were taken by surprise. It was not vodka at all, but instead a bottle Raki. Raki is a local aniseed liquor that tastes like black liquorish. Well I HATE that taste. It was cloudy in the glass and cloudy in my tummy. Yuck yuck yuck. Unfortunately, we had already paid for it, and it was about 50 lira, so we couldn’t let it all go to waste. Gross!! We sucked it down as best as we could and probably went through 10 bowls of popcorn. Raughley and Pauli decided when it was time to leave, because if it was up to me and Jo, we would have stayed dancing the whole night away. We were walking home as it was raining. I wanted a sandwich, so we all went in, but Jo and Pauli quickly left since Jo really wanted to get back to the hostel. We joined not too long after, soaking wet. Saturday Ok, so preface-Friday was not one of my drunkest nights (sorry Mom and Granddad!) but Saturday was one of my WORST hangovers, EVER! I don’t know what was in that evil Raki, but it tore me up. I was sick all day long and Jo and I didn’t get out of bed until after 4. Pauli had to leave early in the morning to catch his bus back to Batumi, but we stayed in bed. We roused ourselves finally to get to the Grand Bazaar. In the guide book, it told us that we needed to give at least 4 hours, if not more than one day to walk through and see all the sights. Well, we had about an hour and a half. However, due to this pressure, we were extremely efficient. We each knew what the others wanted/needed in the way of gifts so we pushed on through the hoards of people shouting at us. At one point we just didn’t want to respond so we spoke to each other in Georgian, and a man made fun of us making monkey sounds and laughing. I guess he thought that we were making up jibberish words…..(funny, I have been here almost 9 months and Georgian still sounds like that to me too sometimes!) We finished at the bazaar, walked back to our hostel and packed up. We had to take a few different buses and what not to get to the airport, and we were running short on time. By the time we got to the big bus station, where we had been told we could pick up a bus that goes directly to the airport, it was getting late and the bus wasn’t coming. At one point, we started to make contingency plans if we missed our flight. Thank goodness the express bus showed up when it did, and instead of making a ton of stops and taking an hour and a half, we got to the airport in just about 45 minutes. This left us with plenty of time, even though I still was on edge until we actually got through security and had our tickets in our hands. Jo took a Zanax to prepare for the flight and went duty free shopping while Raughley and I ate the most expensive meals in Turkey. I had Burger King (which I don’t even like in America) and Raughley at Sbarro. My total was about 22 lira and his was about 30!!! How crazy is that!?!? We got settled into our seats and Raughley soothed Joanne’s flying worries with historical stories and backrubs. We landed safe and sound at about 2 in the morning Tbilisi time. It was quite disappointing, and oddly comforting to be back in the land of plastic bags, black on black on black, women wearing stripper heels to work, and more importantly where I have called home for the past 9 months of my life. This trip was the best I have ever been on. I had incredible experiences in Europe, both times, and made wonderful memories with great friends, but being able to be in charge of yourself is so nice. I didn’t have to report to anyone, and if we wanted to change our plans, we could! It was so freeing and relaxing! I had great company and was in a marvelous country. I wouldn’t change a bit of it for the world and I am so blessed for having the opportunity to travel and explore in a foreign land.

Down the Coast of Turkey!

Turkey!

WOW! Words really can’t describe the beauty, fun, laughter and overall experience that I had in this wonderful country. Even though we tried to keep a journal and a quote book throughout the trip, I know that I will not even come close to capturing everything. First off, I am going on the record to say that Turkey is my new favorite country. Italy has been number one since I visited it when I was 15, but Turkey took the cake on this trip. Part of it had to do with the fact that Turkey is scattered with KITTIES!! Cats roam the streets and are all so friendly and just want to love on you and get pet. Win-Win-Win! Also, the Turkish coast has some of the most breathtaking spots I have ever seen. Postcard sunsets falling down over crashing blue waves and dipping behind mountains covered in lush greenery, what more could you ask for? Also, the cities were so westernized, but are still able to hold onto their Ottoman and Byzantium empire roots. Some people might be turned off by how kitschy parts of Istanbul are, but I like it. It was quite a paradox to see a young woman with serious style strutting her stuff down the street next to her mom who was wearing a traditional Muslim head covering and dress. Sights like that show how a city can grow and evolve while still respecting where it came from and what is culturally important to its people, like traditional food, religion, etc.  I would definitely recommend you visit there! I know I will be back to Turkey sometime in my life.

Ok, let’s get started!

Saturday

We started off leaving Raughley’s apartment at 3:30 in the morning to catch a cab to take us to the airport, which is about 30-45 minutes away. We got to the airport fine, checked in and were just so pumped up to go that we stood around waiting for our flight. We hadn’t slept at all the night before at Raughley’s house, but we were just so wired (except Joanne who had to take a Xanex to get on the plane). At take off we were comforting Jo and then I attempted to read my new book of the week, The Feminine Mystique, but that required a much higher level of intelligence and concentration than I could muster at 6:00 a.m. after no sleep. We had an easy 2 hour flight to Istanbul, and due to the time difference in Turkey we landed at 6 also! We got off, found our one checked bag and headed to the car rental area to pick up our car. Raughley had done an online reservation for a car and they said that we could pick it up at the airport, which made us all assume that they had an office at the airport-wrong. We politely walked up to every booth and non of the workers there had ever even heard of this company. Bad omen number one. So we turned on my American phone and called the company (multiple times-sorry mom!) and no one answered any of the numbers. By this point it was 7:45 or so and finally someone picked up the emergency line. We explained that we were at the airport and wanted our car, since we had arranged a 7:30 pick up time. The man, who spoke decent English, told us to stay where we were and a car would be there in 10 minutes…..an hour and a half later and 6 more phone calls…..a nice Turkish man named Mario who spoke ZERO English showed up with our car and our keys. The normal hum drum that goes along with paperwork ensued for a while and we weren’t able to get onto the road until 9:15. Raughley navigated us out of the city driving while I sat in the back seat wishing I had Xanex to take because I thought I was going to have an anxiety attack on the roads. We didn’t know where we were going or how to get there and the only directions we got were hand signals from Mario at the airport. Awesome. Somehow we managed to find Pendick train station and as we parked and started walking to find Pauli (who had taken a bus across the country instead of flying) we literally ran into him on the street! It was a joyous reunion as we walked him to our new automobile! It was a Renault Symbol (a tiny eco friendly French car) but it worked. The four of us piled back into the car and set off. We drove westward (the land opportunity) around Istanbul to attempt to avoid some of the traffic and then set off for the coast. We were jamming to a badass Turkey Mix we made on the iTunes. I feel asleep within an hour or so (surprise surprise) and vaguely remember being woken up to watch as we made the cross from the European side of Turkey to the Asian side. I was just too tired to care. We stopped a few hours into the trip because I had to use the bathroom (another surprise there). We found a tiny little town on the sea and instead of just finding a gas station or running behind a tree, we decided to go pee in the sea, and splash around for a while (in different sections of course). Jo and I changed into our bathing suits in the car and then we all ran out to the beach. We had read in the guide book that bikinis were appropriate in areas of Turkey that got a lot of tourists, as they were used to the sight, but we should be careful about our attire in small towns and areas that are not regularly visited. I think we found the later. As soon as Jo and I took off our dress and started to walk toward that water, we had a good number of gawkers, half of which were women completely covered from head to toe in material, with only their faces showing. We quickly put our dress back on and just wadded out up to our knees. We played on the beach and took silly pictures (potentially the Roli Poli CD cover artwork) and had a jolly good time. Getting back in the car we drove to Gallipoli, a site of battle in WWI. In WWI the British tried to sail to Istanbul but got stuck in the Dardanelle Straits and landed all their troops on the Gallipoli peninsula where they were slaughtered over the course of 5 months by the Turks. There were a large number of Australian and New Zealand troops there and they make up the majority of the losses. There are many memorials there commemorating the struggle that took place on the grounds. There is a large cemetery with Believed to be buried here: Name Died: 6-9

It was so overwhelming and seeing all the names and ages really got to me. It hit home for me what so many comment on. There were boys younger than me, dying in a war thousands of miles from their homes. We did see that they were renovating some of the area and were trying to prepare for ANZAC day, in April.

Because we were up on a mountain we were able to catch our first beautiful Turkish sunset as it was setting over the hills.

We got into the car and drove to Cannakale (pronounced chan a call ee). We had to take a ferry ride over to the city and while we were waiting in line in our car to drive onto the boat, Raughley spotted that someone had graffiti the most precious word on the road barriers: TEXAS. I ran out and jumped up on the road blocks to take a picture and then had to rush back into the car so we could get on the boat. We took the ferry over and drove around until we could find the ANZAC hostel, where we had made reservations. It was super clean and the desk man was very helpful. He even introduced us to the first western thing we saw: Pizza Hut and Powerade!!! Just seeing them on his desk made me salivate. However, we didn’t go immediately for what we had been missing, but took his advice and went to his favorite doner. We had  a bit of difficulty explaining what we wanted, but we got basically what we ordered. I was shocked to see that the restaurant had a health certificate! Nothing like that EVER exists in Georgia, and I was just so blown away. Sign number 1 that we weren’t in Kansas anymore. After that we walked around the city for a while and saw the Trojan horse that was used in the movie. Another thing that we all found shocking was that there were people out and about. Shops were open and there were friends walking around and the entire atmosphere was alive. In Georgia everything shuts down by 8, except a few restaurants, but no one goes anywhere or does anything. You will see some people strolling, but nothing like what we experienced in Turkey (or in any other city in the western world). We went back to our hostel where we stayed up talking in our dorm room for 16 people that was only occupied by us until about 1 in the morning.

Sunday

We woke up an hour later than planned and got our stuff packed up and left for Troy. It was about an hour and a half drive to the grounds. We got there right at the same time as two busloads of tourists did, which was frustrating. Throughout our entire walk through Troy we were either listening in on their tours or trying to fight past the swarms. All in all, the sight was amazing. We got to climb into a replica of the Trojan horse and saw where all 9 Troys were built and how they were built on top of one another. You could see the different kinds of stone and mud and clay that were layered on top of each other. At Troy we also discovered a MEGARON! It is actually just a cover or awning but it was a badass name and we decided to try to find MEGARONs throughout the rest of the trip (things that fell into that category were a giant Ataturk face carved out of stone, a huge Fanta sign, and an oversized stuffed penguin. I also tried to list the Hagia Sofia in that category but Jo shot me down). Also at Troy we invented the Deutsch dar. It was a fun game to pick out all the German tourists. Pauli was the inventor and obviously the best since he is German, but we had a great time the rest of trip spotting them and going “beep beep beep” in a high pitched voice.

After Troy we drove down the coast some more and stopped to swim around Aykcay (ahk cha eye). The water was entirely too cold though, so it was another episode of splashing around in the sea.  I once again had to pee (thanks peanut sized bladder) and I didn’t angle myself well enough and ended up peeing all over my feet. I was trying to squeeze in between two big rocks to hide myself and in that I forgot about how liquid flows downhill and how I should stay uphill…oops. But I cleaned myself off in the sea…that’s what salt water is for, right? We spent a solid hour around on the beach and then walked into the town. We found a lovely little exercise park! None of us were in proper attire so instead of exercising we just joked around on all of the equipment. A little bit further into town we sat at an outdoor café and ordered Turkish tea. Also, we ordered a small pizza for a snack, but the man assumed that we all wanted one for each of us so our snack soon became our hot meal of the day. The owner of the restaurant who was hand making the pizzas and cooking them himself in a wood burning oven was so excited/surprised to have tourists at his establishment so he gave us a round of Turkish coffee for free! It was really nice! Also, Joanne commented on how the man wasn’t drunk! A first for us! It was about 3 in the afternoon or so, and in Georgia, most men would be wasted. It was a fun change of pace! Everything about Turkey was surprising us! We hit the road and sang away the time to the great mix of music we had made. Not too much later, I had the urge again…..So instead of finding a gas station, we found a nice field of soft grass. We each picked a different tree and did our business. Then we frolicked in the grass doing cartwheels and other acrobatics! We concluded with a heel clicking competition. The competition was really against the camera being able to capture the picture, not against each other. It was so much fun and we were all rolling laughing from the outcomes. Pauli, Joanne, and I also recreated a bit of the music video Life is Life by Laibach. (Another incredible song and innovative group. Look them up along with Boney M!!) By sunset we got to Izmir. We did not have a reservation anywhere so we drove through the myriad of one way streets to find a pensyion/otel/hostel. Since Turkish is not a language any of us have any experience Pauli and Raughley negotiated through pictures. Every place was more than what we wanted to pay. So we decided to drive away from the main area and drove up a hill into a residential area. Pretty soon we were just aimlessly driving around. We also had to go up some seriously steep hills, and once again I was panicking in the backseat. We parked and once again Raughley and Pauli ran through the streets looking for a place to stay. There was nothing around and we quickly figured out that we had parked right in front of a family’s house. The wife stuck her head out the window and was telling us we couldn’t park there and Jo and I desperately tried to explain that we were looking for a hotel and our friends would be back soon. Well the husband somehow understood what we wanted so we came out, and sat in our car. When the boys came back we realized that he knew where one was and his plan was to drive with us to show us! Turkish hospitality! Well we navigated our way down and back to the main road, all the while showering him with thank you’s in Turkish and English. (I don’t know how it is spelled but thank you in Turkish is pronounced te-sha-kur or tea sugar, which is how I pronounced it). The sweet man led us to a huge Best Western. It was of course out of our price range but he was so nice and helpful that we pulled into a parking spot and told him that it was perfect! We tried to take him back to his house but he insisted on walking. So as he got out he dropped some medicine and Pauli ran after him for a good long while trying to catch him. When they got up to each other, the man was so happy and grateful that he was hugging and kissing Pauli (on the cheeks). As soon as the man was out of sight we drove back to the very first place we found and negotiated the price down to a more acceptable price. Once we settled in and had our dinner of sandwiches, Jo and I changed and got ready to go out. We walked along the promenade and decided we didn’t want to dance or do anything crazy so we sat at an outdoor area and had some beers. Let me clarify this: we ordered a badass huge cylinder filled with beer that had a spout on the bottom of it! It was the size of Raughley’s forearm and gave us about 8 beers total. We had two. Apparently I was the only person who had never seen anything like it and I was amazed! The four of us had some great chats and Pauli introduced us to a personality test that has 4 outcomes, and we realized that each of us fit pretty well into a different one. (Joanne-creativity Raughley-harmony Pauli-orderly Me-authoritative)   Also special this bar was the entertainment. Jo and I saw a transvestite singing and dancing when we went in to use the bathroom, but we both thought that she was just a patron who was drunk and joining the band. We were wrong. She was the entertainment. When Raughley went in to use the bathroom, she was up on stage speaking to the crowd, and she stopped (what I am going to assume was midsentence), looked Raughley up and down and said into the microphone, “Harry Potter.” HILARIOUS.  When we left the bar and were walking back to our hotel, we had another tranny run in. She was sitting on the balcony of a second story apartment and shouted something down at Pauli and then threw a cigarette butt at his head. It was strange….

Monday

Drove in the morning to reach Ephesus, one of the most well preserved ancient cities of Rome. It was amazing. I was initially shocked at how expansive it was, and then was overwhelmed by the detail put into everything. After those two beautiful beginnings I realized that there were cats crawling all over the ruins!! What more could you ask for in an ancient city? Well preserved and kitties? We walked all over and were taking in the sun and great sites. This was another place that was overflowing with tourists and our Deutsch dar was put to good use. I will let the pictures really speak for themselves because I could not do justice to the beauty of it all. Part way through Ephesus, we realized that we were going to be really tight on time getting back to Istanbul. We had only rented the car through 8 p.m. that night, and we had a long drive ahead of us. I don’t remember who, but someone asked why we couldn’t just keep the car for another day and drive back on Tuesday. All of us looked at each other as this registered and then unanimously agreed. We called the car company and the man didn’t seem to care at all what we did, so our plans quickly changed! (That was what was great about my travel buddies-everyone was so flexible and creative that as soon as someone had a better idea, we all jumped on the bandwagon leading our trip to take on unexpected but glorious twists!) We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through Ephesus. After we left the ruins, we all split an Efes beer in Ephesus, where it is produced. When we had finished our refreshing drink (yes mom-1 beer for all 4 of us, so no worries about day drinking or drinking and driving!) we drove just a little ways to St. John’s Basilica. It was amazing and I felt a bit of peace about me. The church was built to commemorate St. John who spent the last years of his life with Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Ephesus. He sat on the mountain overlooking where the church is placed and wrote the book of Revelation. As we walked through the ruins, I was trying to imagine an apostle of Christ bumming around and writing the last book of the Bible. It was incredible. I also did my best to answer Joanne’s questions about the who, what, when, why and importance of everything there. I have to say I was a bit ashamed of myself because I could not appropriately or completely answer all her questions. Thankfully, there were some helpful posters throughout the grounds but they did not cover all the topics. You would think that those two historical places would be enough for one day, so how do you top off all that? Well, you visit one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world!!!! Yes, that’s right. (What a blessed life I lead!) The temple of Artemis was listed as one of the ancient wonders of the world, but now all that is left is one column that has been reconstructed from the pieces. To say that the column is huge is a huge understatement. It was so big that I really couldn’t imagine a building so large, with 40 plus more columns that size. A bird’s nest is on top of the column and when the birds migrate south the people of Ephesus care for the nest and keep it in tact. The nest is to symbolize how easily power can come and go.

After we had finished our fabulous day of ancient wonders, Jo and I fell asleep while Raughley started to drive back in the direction of Istanbul. We figured if we got about 3 hours closer than planned, it would make the next day’s drive much easier on everyone. Well, while Jo and I were sleeping, that left the boys independently in charge of deciding the location of where we would stay for the night. We ended up the “quaint” one horse town of Sadim Saclee (I honestly have no clue how to spell it, as there were no signs in the town). There really was absolutely nothing in the town, and I was taken aback at first, especially since there was a town not even 10 kilometers up the road. Anyways, we ended up at a beach front hotel as the only visitors, which allowed us to haggle the price down from 170 lira to 70 lira-total!! It was awesome! We walked around the town (which took about 10 minutes) and then went and sat on the beach. We spent the night looking up at the stars and talking about space and Pangaea. When you have great company, you don’t need any kind of distractions like loud music or the bar atmosphere.

Tuesday

When we woke up, we were driving out of the city and saw a great set of cliffs, so once again, our spontaneity took over and we decided to climb up the side of the cliff so we could take pictures from the top.  We were all playing around on the rocks and recreating more Laibach (again I highly encourage you to look up the Life is Life video-greatness) and taking more jumping pictures. Somewhere along this trip, my great friends introduced me to the man, the legend-Tom Jones. I had never heard his name, but I found out that I know most of his songs. I did not know, his greatest swingin 70’s hit Sexbomb. This song became a bit of an anthem for our trip. We also made up a dance to accompany it (don’t worry, it is all PG rated, well except for the song itself) and performed our dance for the sheep that were around. (Side note-we looked up tickets for upcoming Tom Jones concerts and found some in England that cost close to 900 pounds-over 1,000 bucks a pop!! That is about the amount of money I make in one semester teaching here in Georgia….and yet we still considered attending the concert….) Raughley and Pauli were trying to catch some action shots for an upcoming music video when disaster happened! Raughley, who is so committed to his craft, decided that for one leaping shot, he would not put his feet down but instead land on his stomach. This proved to be close to fatal (ok not really but it was pretty bad). Raughley landed on a huge rock that tore open his pants and gashed open his right knee. Blood was everywhere!! I think Raughly was in a bit of shock initially but we all set into action. We all formed a chain and slowly and cautiously climbed back down the side of the mountain. Once we got back to our car, I performed a field operation. Because of my degree in nutrition (and two semesters of anatomy) I was declared the most fit and more credible “doctor” on scene. Pauli, being the orderly one, had brought along a first aid kit that came complete with tweezers. We first poured water over the wound and used baby wipes to clean off the streams of blood trickling down Raughley’s leg. Next, I took my antibacterial hand gel and graciously poured it over the wound. It was the closest thing we had to iodine or any other cleaning solution. After the wound was semi cleaned, I covered the tweezers in antibacterial gel and then set out to digging out the rocks, dirt and pieces of grass that were deep inside the cut. I was surprised at my success, but in just a few minutes, the cut was about as clean and sanitized as it would get. The whole situation probably lasted 15 minutes, but it was quite intense. I also felt immense pressure and was really worried that I would seriously screw up and seriously mess up Raughley’s leg. We covered it in band aids and then situated Raughley in the front passenger seat with the seat leaned back as far as possible and his leg propped up on the dashboard. Joanne drove the rest of the day, right up until we got to the outside of Istanbul. While we were driving, the cops pulled us over. We are still unsure but Joanne was either going 12 kilometers or 2 kilometers over the speed limit. All the signs posted said 120 kilometers/hour was the speed limit, but the cops said that it was a big problem that we were going so fast. He spoke a little bit of English, but not enough to really make a difference. At first, they were telling us that it was going to cost 140 lira, and I assumed they were dirty cops just stopping tourists. The boys and I pooled our money and “could only come up with” about 45 lira. However, when the cop produced paper work and wrote down him and his partners name and badge numbers and told us to take care of everything through the rental car company, we realized that they were just doing their jobs. It didn’t make the situation any better, but it was slightly reassuring that they were not just running some scheme. We all split the ticket which made it more manageable, but it was still annoying. We got back to the airport about an hour after we were supposed to, but the company kept us waiting for another 2 hours so I didn’t feel bad about not being there right on time. We finally finished everything and paid the cost of the ticket and the extra day and caught a bus into town. Well, we got there too late to take the ferry, or any of the other busses onto the European side of town, where our hostel was located. We got caught another bus that took us part of the way where Pauli met a (surprise) German! Felix was working on his teaching degree and was coming back from east Turkey where he had spent 3 weeks teaching. He had spent extensive time in Istanbul and was invaluable as a guide and a translator as we spoke great Turkish. He found us a minibus, convinced some of the passengers to get off and let us all ride together and gave us advice about where to go and how much to pay for taxis. Well I won’t get into all the details, but the next three hours were spent us taking 2 taxis, walking around in circles, and getting advice from café owners that were trying to lure us into their restaurants late in the night. Finally, around 2:30, I was resolving to staying out all night long, and was looking for a nice bench so that Raughley could sit down and rest when the tourism police found us! They pulled up, let us all climb in and took us straight to our hostel. The driver spoke great English and told us all about his time in Santa Barbara. We were so grateful and he told us to come find him at the tourism office on Thursday, the next time he was working. We were welcomed to our hostel and were so relieved to find clean, comfortable beds just calling our names. Also, the hostel was stocked with Iodine, cotton balls, and bandages!! So I cleaned and cared for Raughley’s cut and then we all passed out!

March 18th Weekend

On Friday, I was pleasantly surprised at school for many reasons. On Thursday I found out that I had a new substitute teacher to replace the first substitute teacher to replace the original teacher I was supposed to teach with. I saw my director on Thursday and asked her how long this new teacher would be around/if and when the original teacher would be coming back. She told me that this sub would not be here for long and I didn’t have to attend her classes. That was a thrill to hear because she has some of the most rambunctious kids this rotation! So on Friday morning, that allowed me to skip first period (only one teacher has a class and it is 1^st grade and since I hate those demons I just don’t go) and second period (the sub teaches a terrible class of 7^th graders). I went in to third period to my good 8^th graders. Only half had done their homework, so I allowed the good half to watch music videos on my computer while the other half had to turn their desks to face the wall and write the essay that they had neglected to complete at home. Fourth period is with a good 7^th grade, and fifth period is with a good 5^th grade class. I have sixth period off because no English teacher on Fridays has a sixth lesson. However, I do have to come back to seventh period to teach a group of rowdy and rude 9^th graders. I sat down in the cafeteria during sixth period drinking tea and correcting an essay for one of my students. When the bell rang and I started to go up to the dreaded 9^th graders, my teacher stopped me to tell me that there would be no seventh period that day! I have no idea why that was, but I didn’t care! I hightailed it out of there!

I went to a restaurant that has Wifi (there are now 2 places in the town that offer it!) to drink lemonade and abuse their internet. I got to chat with Cristen about how Hong Kong is going and catch up on some information. Then I got a call from Joanne! She was in town! I was already planning on meeting her at 4 after I was scheduled to give a presentation (AS AN EXPERT!!) in nutrition and women’s health. After I got off the phone with Jo, I found out that my presentation was cancelled. Although I was bummed about that, I was so excited that I would get to just relax earlier. I wasn’t having a rough day but it is always nice to have a beer and a laugh at the end of the work week. I met up with Joanne and Qwenchia at City Bar. We sat and just talked and looked at old pictures of us on Facebook for a while. I decided I should probably go home and see my family for a bit since we had dinner plans at 8. I went home for about 2 hours, but only one of my brother’s was there so I ended up watching Sex and the City episodes for the whole time I was home. Right when I was getting ready to leave, the rest of my family came home! I was out the door and going to meet up with Raughley and his group 5 friend Angela (it was her first time in Zugdidi!) as well as Q, Jo, and some of the others. We went to a “Ukranian” restaurant. It was quite disappointing. It ended up being a Georgian restaurant that served terrible chicken Kiev, plus they only had 4 of them left and there nine of us that wanted them. Everyone else ordered a dish that was meat and potatoes. The food was dry and bland and not what I had expected, but it was fun to be with good company. At 11 we left the restaurant and I headed home for the night while everyone else went to Courtni and Q’s house to sleep. I got into bed and read for about an hour.

On Saturday I woke up around 8:30 to my family making way too much noise. I think they have made a deal with themselves to make as much noise and scream at each other as much as possible before 9 a.m. It is ridiculous! Anyways, so I woke up but stayed cuddled in my bed with the lights off watching Glee! After a while I wandered out of my room for tea. I was planning on going for a run (the second of the semester) but it was pouring rain outside! I crawled back into bed and read for a good long while. I had the highlight of the morning when I got to take a shower and fix my hair for the party. It later got ruined by the rain and ended up in a ponytail, but those are all semantics. I met up with Joanne, Raughley, Helen, Q, and Angela to download Irish music and buy ingredients for dinner around 1 p.m.

We had quite the adventure trying to buy meat and finally settled on the leg of a calf. The butcher was laughing at us and probably the disgusted looks on all our faces as he was handling the meat and talking to Raughley man to man. After a bit of haggling we got the price down and he agreed to take an ax and break the bone into smaller, more manageable pieces.  We found another woman a stand over to sell us the remaining desired items-carrots, potatoes (duh, we were making Irish stew), onions, and garlic.

So I do like living in Zugdidi. It is quaint, and nice and has everything you need to get by. The challenges come, when you are faced with the unexpected. Like the whole town losing power for a day (or your apartment losing power for days), or not having any running water, or if you do, it is not clean to drink or brush your teeth with. The worst is when both happen at the same time. Of course, when we were trying to prepare a meal for 10 plus people, the power and water went out. Plus, it was raining, so it was dark and cloudy outside. We got pretty creative and everything worked out, but we were doing stuff that only happens in cartoons. Our water source was the acidic rain that was falling from the sky. We stuck buckets outside, collected rain, and would bring it in and boil it on the gas stove and the wood burning stove. That allowed us to wash the meat, vegetables, some of our hands, and a few of the limited utensils, such as knives.

Joanne and Helen, the resident vegetarians in the group , ended up being the ones who had the job of slicing the meat off the bone and then passing it off to Raughley and me to cut into smaller cubes. The looks of horror on their faces were priceless. I know that is cruel, but you have to see the humor in it. So they spent the afternoon sawing meat from the bone and trying to trim the fat off of this calf leg with knives that could really only cut butter. It took a total of 5 hours and a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but we ended up with a very successful meal of delicious Irish stew and tasty creamy mashed potatoes. I haven’t eaten so well in Georgia, ever. Everything about the stew was wonderful. My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach and I was so full before I had eaten even half of a bowl. Everyone at the table had food babies and we had to sit and let our food digest before we could walk anywhere.

Once the food had settled into our tummies we all started to change and get ready for the main event of the weekend, the belated St. Paddy’s Day party!!Joanne, the resident Irish in our group organized a whole shindig. She brought in green balloons and even painted faces. (Well, she painted my face then Raughley took over the duties.) Jo had painted on a shamrock on my left cheek, and when Raughley took over, he added a dragon heating a potato with its fire breath on my right cheek. The face paint took a creative turn and before we knew it Courtni had a rainbow face. It all started when she wanted a pot of gold on her cheek. Well, that morphed into a rainbow that stretched across the bridge of her nose and onto both cheeks. On the right side was a pot of gold, while on the left was the cloud where the rainbow started.

At the party everyone was of course required to wear green, and there was a wide range of interpretations of what color green is. We had shades of teal and Kelly green, olive and even a little yellow-green. Joanne also had brought green food dye from Ireland and quickly, every beverage from water to beer to vodka was turned into a deep, lushious green. This left everyone with green stained teeth, lips, and gums. The party was a good time, but nothing too crazy. I am not just saying that to appease my mom who continuously warns me to be careful, but we were all just enjoying each other’s company. There was a fair amount of trash talking other countries and lots of patriotism flowing, which included taking pictures in front of Old Glory, and attempting to cut out and burn the maple leaf on the Canadian flag. (We did not deface the flag, don’t worry.) The curse of Liis almost crept up to us, even though she was not present. We ended up getting home at around 3:45.

Because I can’t sleep unless it is dark and I have my sound machine on (yep, I am a loser) I woke up with the sun shining in my face at 8:30 this morning. I tried to roll over, but it was useless and by 9:15 I was up. Thankfully, Joanne had given me a book that she had just finished reading. I crawled out onto a couch in the upstairs living room of Courtni’s house and read for about an hour before anyone else stirred. Once everyone was up, we decided to make breakfast. In my opinion, that is a daunting task to undertake-feed 10 people, but we split up the jobs and pretty soon we had a nice assortment of foods. Angela made French toast, Courtni was busy cooking up crepes, Raughley and I hit up the eggs and filled them with delicious goodies such as garlic, green onions, and tomatoes (now our specialty), while Helen tackled hash browns. Everyone had a job and the whole process took a while, but it was fun. I didn’t realize how long everything had taken to prepare until we sat down to eat breakfast and the clock read 1:30 in the afternoon. Pauli and his German friend Christine, who came to visit on holiday, joined us and Roli-Poli unveiled their newest music video. I had already seen the majority of it, since I had helped it along in the filming and the ever so slightest bit with post production. (Really I just gave Raughley a thumbs up or down for certain scenes.) Everyone was wowed about how great it really was! We all sat around until about 3:00 and then cleaned up by washing the dishes under a spicket in the yard. Once everything was taken care of, Angela, Raughley, Joanne, and me walked to get their marshutka tickets. We had about an hour until both of their buses were leaving so we walked around the botanical gardens, trying to give Angela the perfect view of the mountains. We also went on the bumper cars that are behind the park. I had passed the little carnival area many times, but they are not functioning from October until, well now. The four of us got to ride on these bumper cars, but these were nothing like what we had experienced at the zoo. These bumper cars were crazy fast and they had some serious power behind them when you crashed into each other. There were multiple times when I was forced out of my seat by the force of impact. We were all flying all over the place! It was so much fun though! And, the man working the ride let us go twice even though we each had only paid for one ticket!

Lately we have been having the most fun when we are just doing nothing. Bumper cars are so innocent, and yet have provided us with so many good times and memories; lunch in Chorotsku was incredible and all that happened was we had good food (free) and a favorite song of ours came on the radio. It really is more about who you are surrounded by then what objects are surrounding you.

 

EPIC WEEKEND

Ok, here is a little warning-this is the LONGEST blog entry known to man. It is 9 pages as a word document, so grab some popcorn and get ready to read-a lot!!! Love you all lots!

Thursday, the ride to Tbilisi was so nice.  Joanne and I left on a marshutka around 11 am from Zugdidi and got into Tbilisi close to 4:30. The bus had individual seats for everyone, so it wasn’t too cramped. The only problem is that I had to pee. I felt the urge first when we were driving through, Senaki, only about 45 minutes out of Zugdidi. I figured I could wait until our rest stop. Any time you drive across the country, the driver will stop for 30 minutes or so at a little restaurant/rest stop area to get some food and so everyone can stretch their legs. Sometimes people refrain from smoking on the bus and smoke at the rest stops only, and others smoke the whole way there in the bus with all the windows rolled up. Well, this particular driver didn’t stop halfway like normal. We passed a ton of places we could pull over and I was just getting enough courage to ask the driver to pull over on the side of the road when he finally stopped. We were about an hour outside of Tbilisi. So I had gone 3 ½ hours with the need to urinate. I guess the driver saw my face of worry and he pointed to the left. I took off running through the wet partially melted snow. The driver was trying to talk to me and ask me questions, but I was too busy bolting to the closest hole in the ground. When I was finished I came out and politely answered his questions. He was asking me if I spoke Russian, where I was from and what I was doing on my way to Tbilisi. I was really proud of myself because I was able to answer in Russian! The lessons with my family are paying off! I know very basic phrases but I was excited that I was able to effectively communicate a few lines all at once. We all loaded back in the marshutka and were in Tbilisi in no time. The sun was shining when we got into town and we decided to make a detour through the bazaar at Didube (the metro stop) to get to the elevated platform that the Didube metro is on. While walking through, we were asked if we were tourists and Jo and I replied almost in unison, “yes!” Sometimes we get a positive reaction when we say we are English teachers, sometimes we don’t and sometimes we have to sit and explain a lot about the program. In this instance, we both just wanted to move on so it was just easier to be tourists. Plus, it is fun to pretend you are something else for a while. As we were tourists walking through the bazaar, Jo bought a pair of sunglasses, and then we came to the potato section of the bazaar! Potato jokes are common since Joanne is from Ireland and we both fell over laughing when we saw so many potatoes! I got out my camera and as she posed next to maybe a thousand potatoes, the men in charge of the potatoes hopped into the picture. I knew from then on, the weekend would be awesome. We met Raughley at the metro stop and rode to a McDonalds. I do not eat McDonalds back home, but it is a nice treat when we go to Tbilisi every once in a while. The downside (other than consuming 1,000 calories in one meal) is that McDonalds is super expensive. You can get a sit down dinner for 5 lari in some places, but a meal at Mickey D’s is upwards of 10 lari!! When we had finished eating, Joanne and I went to get McFlurries inside and ran into some other volunteers from our group. We joined them for dessert and Raughley left us to go to his second job. After sitting and catching up with fellow Group 2ers, Joanne and I decided to walk to Yev’s apartment, where we were staying. Last semester, Yev lived with a host family in Zugdidi, but this semester he moved to Tbilisi and is living on his own. Jo and I had a 45 minute walk ahead of us, but we were taking it all in stride. We didn’t realize that there was an underground walk way, but instead rushed across a huge intersection where all these roads connect and turn and there are a ton of cars zooming past at one moment. We made it safely across and used our womanly instincts to figure out which way to Vake (Yev’s neighborhood). Joanne spotted a pretty wooden bridge and wanted to walk across it/take pictures. When we were up on the bridge we looked down and say two bears! We both were so surprised and then realized they were in a small fenced in area. It was starting to get dark and we couldn’t see very far, but not too far from the bears was a small cage of lions!! It was so shocking to see these animals in tiny areas in the middle of the city. We looked around and then I found a big rotunda with the words CIRCUS written in Russian and English. We got so excited that the circus was in town! I figured that this was the holding area for the animals when they were not performing, as there was no way that these animals could live in such small quarters all of the time. It was still mind blowing and we probably spent 15 minutes on the bridge trying to figure it all out. We had to get a move on though because it was quickly falling dark. The whole walk home, save a few minutes we spent worrying about the creepy man following us down a dark road, we were making plans for the circus and recalling childhood memories of the circus. I found out Joanne was afraid of clowns and I realized that I probably enjoy the circus way more than a normal 23 year old should. I just got so excited at the thought of cotton candy, horses, bear tricks, and elephants! It would also be a great entertainment and we wouldn’t have to worry about the language barrier as the circus is a universal language for FUN!

Somehow, we made it safely to Yev’s house just as it was falling completely dark. Yev had to finish some work so Joanne and I made ourselves at home and started to watch Dirty Dancing and fawn over Patrick Swayze. I also gave a nice educational session about how he is from Texas and learned to dance at his mom’s dance studio in Houston when he was growing up. (I believe a friend’s mother even went to high school with him!) Raughley showed up when we were halfway through the movie. At this point we all went about trying to find out details about the circus!! Also, I was able to Skype my lovely mother and she got to meet the three friends that were there. We also Skyped Joanne’s parents and it just so happened that they were cooking potatoes when we called! A small shock came to us when we viewed a new poll that our dear friend Ian, who lived in Martvili last semester, but has since moved to Krakow posted on Facebook. Ireland is in fact not the country with the largest consumption of potatoes, the prize goes to….Belarus!!!! We couldn’t believe that the title had been stolen from Joanne. Since Yev was born in Belarus, we immediately started calling him Mr. Potatohead and made references to it the rest of the weekend.

All within the hour of midnight, Tom moseyed in, Raughley left to go home, and Liis came over to party. Liis is our resident Estonian from Group 2 and lives in Tbilisi. I didn’t see her at all last semester, but have already hung out with her 5 or 6 times in the past two months that I have been back. The first night we were in Tbilisi and we stayed up until 5 a.m.!!  I call it the curse of Liis. Whenever she is around, everyone just has such a good time with each other that no one wants to leave or go to sleep. I had my fair share of good nights in college, but I very rarely saw the sun come up, but Liis makes it happen! I am not complaining because it is always super fun, but still. I think it is an Estonian thing, along with being beautiful, blonde, and 6 feet tall.

This curse did not bode too well for me when I woke up at 9 a.m. the next morning. That morning I cleaned Yev’s kitchen and did the dishes while everyone was sleeping. Joanne and I left the house around 10:30 to meet Raughley for a full day. We started with “breakfast” that consisted of katchepuri, cake and coffee. Next we went to buy Joanne a harddrive for all her newly acquired movies and pictures. We continued walking and made our way through another lovely Tbilisi park. We discovered that Georgians love their poets, and like to sculpt them with the wind blowing their hair, jackets, hats, all sorts of things. I don’t remember how this came up, but we also had a period of 30 minutes or so where the three of us were trying to do the jump where you click your heels together (I picture a little leprechaun doing it). Joanne was terrible at first, but she slowly tapped into her Irish roots and eventually learned how. It was so fun to just be silly and carefree. We were laughing non-stop and were constantly singing, especially the theme song to Happy Days. I know that sounds random, but it is a part of the next Roli-Poli production so get excited!!! After that we went for a walk through this incredible outdoor market Raughley and I discovered my last weekend in town before Christmas. The sidewalks are lined with everything you could imagine and so much more! Some of the stuff is useful, some interesting, and some is just crap that is still fun to gawk at. There is also a section filled with paintings hanging on wire, waiting to be bought. We strolled through that area and commented on the different kinds of art. We also went to say hi to our favorite street vendor, a sweet old Svani man (Svani means he is from Svaneti, the region in Georgia where I went hiking last semester and is isolated for a quarter of the year or more due to heavy snowfall.) When Raughley and I were buying Christmas presents he was super sweet and showed us who had the best items depending on what we wanted. The three of us had spent about 30 minutes chatting and as soon as we walked up to him again, months later, he recognized us. He has the kindest blue eyes and such a gentle demeanor. We told him we weren’t buying anything today, but he still stopped and spoke with us, asked us how our time in America was, how our families were and all that jazz. It was so nice! Prime example of Georgian hospitality right there!

Our next adventure led us to a nice Populi where Raughley popped in to get Coca Light and water. We also found a little donut stand. The donuts were not big and full donuts covered in glaze or topped with sprinkles, but instead small pieces of fried dough that tasted like funnel cake and topped with powdered sugar. I also found a little lady selling popcorn made in a novelty popcorn maker and bought a whole bag. As had been on the search for evening entertainment, we decided to see if anything was being featured that evening at the Tbilisi Philharmonia hall. Unfortunately, the doors were closed and locked and all the lights were. Since there was not a marquee boasting the latest show, we deduced that nothing was currently showing at the Philharhomia. It was a beautiful day and the central placement of the Philharmonia makes it an excellent spot for people watching so we plopped down and enjoyed our time in the sun with our snacks.

After our snacks were finished, we continued on our search for information on the circus. Raughley called 3 of our Georgian friends but no one could give us an answer. Finally, Angela, a group fiver, came to our rescue by sharing the earth shattering news that the owner of the circus had died the previous year and there was a big legal issue going on, so the circus was not performing. Koba, Raughley’s upstairs neighbor told us that we had probably found the zoo. We wanted to see it all up close and personal, so the three of us trapsed all the way across town. On the way we discovered the eternal flame, lit for soldiers who have past. It was guarded by two of the worst formal guards I have ever seen. One was so fidgety and the other had the shiftiest eyes and kept turning his head to watch us. After discovering the underground walkway that was so elusive to Joanne and I the night before, we made our way to entrance of the Zoo!!!

The front entrance should have given away how shotty the whole zoo was, but we pressed on with joy in our hearts! The entrance fee was only 50 tetri so we knew that we were in for a treat. We didn’t realize just how much fun we would have. The first thing that caught our eyes as soon as we entered was a cotton candy stand or “Condy Floss” as the sign boasted. I don’t know how many times last semester I would walk past a cotton candy stand in Zugdidi with Stepa and yearn for some of the fluffy delicious treat. There was always a reason to not try it, and I was disappointed when I left last semester without enjoying the whipped sugar. I felt like it was a sign of good things to come (and reminded me of great friendships and good times from last semester!!) so we stopped and bought two. One regular flavor and one banana flavor. I don’t know how it came about, but pretty soon, all three of us were modeling cotton candy mustaches! We were having such a good ol time. We strolled through the park grounds and quickly fell upon the cages of bears, lions, and tigers Joanne and I peered down into the night before. It was one of the saddest sights I have ever seen. These huge animals were trapped in cages that were barely big enough for them to move around in. Not nearly enough room for any of the animals to run or jump, play or hunt. The first bears we came upon had learned that people give food so one started to do little tricks. It would open its mouth and then it sat back on its haunches, and expected food. When that didn’t work for it, it stood up, again opening its mouth. Raising the arms above the head was the finale and when the bear decided we weren’t going to give it anything, it fell back down onto all fours and then laid down in the mud looking rejected.  Once we had seen the full array of animals the Tbilisi Zoo had to offer we wondered into the carnival section that was scattered with rides and games.  Raughley and I were a bit ambitious in our thrill seeking and decided to take our chances on a ride shaped like a boat. It is the same concept as the Conquistador at Six Flags in Arlington where the boat sings back and forth, each round going higher and higher until finally you are at a 90 degree angle with the ground. Great. Fun. All that Jazz. What I didn’t think about was that the rides at Six Flags were not built during the Soviet Union and have probably been kept up with, unlike all of the rides at this zoo. Also, there were no seat belts on this ride and only a bar at the front of the seat. Usually there is a technician that checks that all these bars are properly secured, but on this ride it was every man for himself. Let me mention also that the bar was maybe a foot in front of me when I sat back on the seat. As soon as the ride started, I freaked out. I like adventures and I enjoy roller coasters and all adrenaline rushes associated with them; but when I saw that the supporting beams holding the ride in place in the ground were creaking and moving with every rock of the boat, I started to get nervous. The boat was getting higher and higher and I swear I saw the beams moving more and more. It was at the point when we were furiously falling from a 75 degree angle that I thought I might die on this ride. I could either slip right out, or the whole machine itself would just fall apart. I don’t think I have felt this uneasy on a ride since junior year in college when Delta Gamma had a date party at the Austin Rodeo. My friends and I were riding on carnival rides before the rodeo started and in one ride I sat in a little basket that flipped and rotated constantly, I thought I was going to vomit and black out all at the same time. When Raughley and I finished the ride we were hanging onto our lives and our lunches by a string. It took a few moments to regain stability in my legs and my stomach. After we had settled down, we hit up the bumper cars!! I don’t remember the last time I rode bumper cars, and I had definitely forgotten how much fun they were! It was just the three of us on the cars and we went round and round. Joanne had never experienced them before so it was fun to share that experience with her as well. When we finished the bumper cars, we were all on such a high we did not think that the day could get any better. And then, we discovered the cosmos! We saw a broken down shack of a building with a 4 or 5 Georgian teens streaming out of it. All we asked them was if it was cool and when they replied with energy that yes! Indeed it was. We made friends with the Georgian carney running the ride and he ended up letting us go two rounds for the price of one! (Each of these rides-boat, bumper cars, cosmos cost a lari a per person per ride) We sat down and saw the gate go up and door close, but all of our hopes were still high. Then the excitement began. We were in a small box of a room with two benches. Around us, a larger room/box rotated vertically, giving the appearance that we were turning upside down. The walls were painted psychedelically, thus adding to the intense motion sickness. We tried to be silly and started standing up and switching seats with each other. Then we were seeing who could stand up the longest before either falling over or falling ill to a quesy stomach. It was so ridiculous and so bad-it was hilarious! The man asked us how we liked it and when we replied that it really was just like going to the Cosmos he beamed with pride! He was trying to coerce us into having a third go, but all three of us were in pretty bad shape and I don’t think could have survived another round in outer space. Next to the Cosmos was a cheap trick game where you had to knock down all the cans. It was not rigged in any way, just old coffee cans stacked on top of each other, but it did provide the unfortunate event of a split with the last two cans. As we were leaving the park we found dinosaur rides. They were the kind that sit out side of grocery stores and when you put in a quarter they rock back and forth. Raughley hopped on the T Rex and I jumped on the triceratops (Sarah from The Land Before Time) but before we could really enjoy them or take a good photo the carney in charge came and started shouting at us.

The three of us left with uplifted spirits and smiles on our faces! We huffed it over the Ministry to pick up some books by 5. Someone suggested that we try a khinkali restaurant nearby that served up mollusk khinkali. I was not excited by that, but Joanne and Raughley were, so we found ourselves at a nice place just around the corner. Angela, Raughley’s group 5 friend who had given us the disheartening information about the circus joined us at dinner too. We proceeded to eat way too many khinkali (mine were stuffed with meat and greens and potoatoes) and laugh and talk about Cher and laugh and laugh.

The next 12 hours were filled with more drinking, dancing, laughing and friends. Friday was a great day!!!

 

 

SATURDAY!!We made our way out into the Vake area and Raughley introduced us to an amazing western style restaurant called Batonebi (translating to gentlemen). It served all the things that I didn’t think existed in Georgia! It was pricey, but well worth it! I ordered a Southern Style Fried Chicken sandwich that came complete with NON GEORGIAN cheese, bacon and mayonnaise!!! I know it sounds totally disgusting and like a heart attack waiting to happen, but besides the mayo, nothing even remotely close to the ingredients in the sandwich are readily available, at least not in Zugdidi. It also came with a side salad in vinaigrette! There was a time where I didn’t think lettuce existed in this country. My family didn’t know what it was and there wasn’t a word that it translated into in Georgian. The closes thing we could figure out was cabbage or mustard greens, so the fact that there was REAL lettuce was overwhelming. I almost started to cry I was so happy!!

After lunch, we were picked up by David, our friend who had volunteered to take us skiing. Raughley now has a second job, teaching accountants twice a week in the evenings. One of his students had invited him to go skiing, but we were coming into town, so Jo and I were invited to come along. He picked us up and we went around Tbilisi trying to find ski boots and skis that fit our feet. We also shopped around for some ski clothes. We hit the jackpot at the second hand shops. I got a ski bib, a turtleneck sweater, and a ski jacket for a grand total of 19 lari! That is about 11 USD!! HOW CRAZY IS THAT!? Sometimes I really love Georgia! That evening, Joanne, Raughley, Yev and I were on the panel for the newest group to arrive in Georgia (Group 13! Just for a reference, I am in Group 2!) Starting with Group 3, TLG has asked teachers who have been in the program for a while to come and talk to the new group and answer questions the newbies have. I was the only person on this panel who had not paneled at least once before. It was a good time. It was also funny for us to laugh at their questions and try to remember back to what we were like when we first got here. It also made me feel really old and experienced. It was strange for me to say that I had been living here for 7 months already! That night, after the panel, Joanne and I slept at Raughley’s house instead of Yev’s because we needed to get some rest and all had to be at a metro stop that is closer to Raughley’s at 8 a.m. in the morning.

 

 

Sunday

We woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to ski!! We all donned our ridiculous mis-matching, ill-fitting ski attire and hopped on the metro to met David. He said that we had to be driving away at 8 a.m. since Gudauri is a two hour drive from Tbilisi and we wanted a full day of skiing after we took care of our equipment rental. Let me remind you again that Georgians are very rarely on time. We have a little joke if someone says, “I’ll be there in 5 minutes.” We have to ask if it is 5 minutes, or a Georgian 5 minutes (which is really closer to 20 minutes.) We got to the Didube metro stop with enough time to duck in and grab some bottles of water. At 8:20 Raughley called David to see where he was and to double check if we were in the right place, he said he was on the way and would be there in 10 minutes. Well, of course, he didn’t get to us until 9. We weren’t surprised at all, but I just hoped that it wouldn’t affect anything at the ski shop since we were relying on them to have all of our sizes. During this waiting time, somehow we started talking about penguins and Joanne decided that they barked. This joke has continued to provide us with many smiles so in my opinion, it was time well wasted.

We got picked up and we were in the car and heading out of Tbilisi by 9:15. David had brought along his new stepdaughter also, so I had to sit in the middle seat in the back. It was no problem, and there was plenty of space in the car, but there was no middle seat belt, so I kept sliding back and forth across the backseat and ramming into the sleeping little girl. Joanne eventually had to lock her arm around mine and tried to serve as my anchor. It took just over an hour and a half to get to Guduari and before we even got to the city, we were overwhelmed with the beautiful scenery. Mountains sprung up and were surrounding us. They were covered with snow, and reached high above the clouds. We started snapping pictures furiously and pretty soon my camera was filled with postcard worthy pictures.

Once we got into the city we had to park and rent our equipment. Thankfully, David had called ahead and our sizes were saved for us. It took us a while, and a lot of pushing and heaving to get our boots strapped onto our feet. Finally we were all set and ready to go! Once we got outside, Joanne started to put all of our advice to use and tried to ski a little to the lift area. Unfortunately, she wasn’t quite a natural, so while Raughley had to get new skis that fit his boots David helped Jo find a ski instructor. It was only 30 lari for an hour, and we all agreed that it would be the best thing. It was only a small problem that they didn’t speak the same language and could only communicate through body language. Finally, Raughley, David, and me headed to the ski lift. Ok, so in Georgia, they don’t believe in standing in line for anything. I was a little worried about this, but I figured that with skis and snowboards and little gates separating the area, the crowd would be contained and controlled. I could not have been more wrong! It was a typical Georgian crowd, with people pushing and trying to get past but with everyone wearing long skis! I was furious and almost fell over a few times. It was such an event just to get through the gate and get to the lift, I was exhausted before we even started skiing! It was a challenge we hit every time we wanted to get on the ski lift.

David suggested that we get off at the first stop and ski down as a starter and introduction back into skiing. Neither Raughley nor I had skied in over 7 years so we told David to go ahead and ski as fast as he wanted since we would take our time. It took us so long to get down the mountain because we were A)going super slow and had a constant pizza wedge to slow down B)stopping every few feet to regain our confidence and chat about the upcoming area

I honestly can’t remember how many times I fell, but I know half were natural causes and the other half were me getting scared of going too fast and choosing to fall over. One of the natural causes was Raughley and slamming into each other. We had been skiing serpentine and weaving in and out of each other’s path, until we lost our mojo. I thought that he was going to cut in quickly to make a sharp turn and so I figured I would go around him. Well he didn’t cut, and I didn’t turn and I literally skied right into him. We hit each other and both went tumbling down the mountain. It looked like a cartoon and when we stopped rolling I realized that my knee was throbbing in pain. I thought I had heard a snap and I freaked out thinking that I had torn my ACL or something equally horrible. It took about 5 minutes before I was comfortable enough to try to stand but once I was up, everything was ok. It was achy for the rest of the day, but I was able to ski down the mountain and do another two runs after that. (Courtni looked at it and thinks I had a grade 1 tear of my MCL, nothing serious, and I think it has already started to heal itself.) After Raughley had rushed to my aid, he had the hardest time getting his skis back on. I think it took 15 minutes for him to finally kick his boot into place on his ski.

We skied down and met Joanne for a lunch of “hamburgers” and beer and heard her misadventures of having a private lesson. The instructor kept getting his snowboard too close to her skies and causing Jo to lose her balance on multiple occasions.

After lunch the three of us went to the top of the mountain and wanted to show Joanne a really fun and great run. It slowly sloped down the back of the mountain allowing for Raughley and I to go fast on straightaways and pretend that we were in a James Bond movie. After a great afternoon of skiing and me getting back into the groove of things (but still realizing that I am not cut out for skiing and one day is just enough for me) we met up with Joanne at the first lift and skied down as a trio! Joanne was a successful skier and I even have pictures showing off her victory!

The day was topped off by us being the LAST people on the mountain and then going to dinner at a great restaurant where we had our own little room full with a roaring fire!

Once we got back to Tbilisi, Jo and I had to wait for Yev and friends to make it back to his apartment so we helped Raughley grade a stack of 7^th grade tests. Even that was a blast! Usually grading is annoying and it is just dumb the mistakes kids make, but with great friends, grading is an enjoyable experience that provided us with a lot of reasons to laugh. Werbs. Wowels. And Wallyball. (Ok I know that is really mean to make fun of, but it is next to impossible for Georgians to make a V sound so it always comes out w. Some of the kids even wrote w were it should be a v, and we laughed at them. Yes, we are terrible teachers and terrible people, but we laughed at 12 year old’s mistakes and it was awesome.)

The entire weekend was summed up in one word: EPIC!!!!!!!!!

Go out and find your adventure today!

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