Supraze, Part 2

I'm always afraid my internet is going to go out, so I broke up the supra post into to to avoid losing everything if the internet goes.
So basically supra = eating eating eating, toasting, drinking, talking, and a general good time. It's a really wonderful atmosphere and one thing I really do love about Georgia. They value their friends immensely and you can really feel it at a supra. Fun times indeed.

So then after the eating and the drinking and so on, a traditional Georgian band played some different types of Georgian music, corresponding with the different types of Georgian dance (haha wow this post is just filled with fun cultural facts!). Each region in Georgia has its own distinct type of dance, depending on its history and geographic location, etc. For example, the mountain region dances are much more manly and intense than the more mild terrain-ed regions. Georgians LOVE to dance too, so when the band started playing it's not like in America where everyone just kind of stares at the dance floor longingly for a while until some brave soul is the first one to dance. No. The music starts and everyone just goes for it and has a good time.
Svanuri
Acharuli
You can see a good example of Svanuri from the Svaneti Region and hear some pretty legit singing. A note about the different dances- pretty much all Georgians just know all the different types and can whip them out at a moments notice. Now obviously the whole restaurant isn't all dancing choreographed like the video, but they all know the styles and steps and just sort of ad-lib it according to the steps that are a part of each type of dance. IT. IS. AWESOME.
If you skip to about the 1 minute mark in the Acharuli one, you can see a good example of the way women dance in that particular dance. It comes from the Achara region. Haha surprise surprise.

Here's a picture of the teachers getting their Georgian dance on.

Then, my favorite part of the night I think (or at least most fun for me haha). The teachers requested a song for us all to dance to, they called it "rock-and-rolli". Luckily, the Georgian band did not play this on their traditional instruments haha. Rather, it was this crazy mix of old music, starting with In the Mood. You can imagine my excitement when In the Mood started playing and everyone was dancing. I could have died. Haha. And it went from there... apparently Georgians love old sock hop style dancing (Elvis, swing, the works) and we did that for quite some time. It was REALLY fun. And that, in a not very small nutshell, was St. George's Day.

SUPRAZE

(At the supra!)
So this post is a little late coming... I've been busy wasting time on the internet instead. Haha, but seriously, I've been crazy listening to Christmas music and working : )
So, I would like to write a post on the concept of the Georgian "Supra". It is VERY important to Georgian culture and it's how they celebrate major events. Births, deaths, marriages, holidays, birthdays, etc. November 23rd was St. George's Day, who, as you could have guessed, is the patron saint of Georgia. Shocker, I know. So to celebrate this auspicious of days, we had a supra with some of the teachers at my school. They invited me out and I was more than eager to attend, mainly because most of the teachers at my school are nothing short of awesome. I was hesitant at first (and I'm pretty positive they were too) but I am now 100% positive that I'm a huge fan of my fellow teachers. SO, the supra. The supra is basically a feast. I kid you not, our waitress was bringing us food for a good 2 hours. They started with cold salads and basically go from there. At a supra you eat as much as you possibly can, which I have a theory is because you need something to soak up the massive amount of alcohol you consume. Here is a picture of part of the table for an illustration.

You can see how the plates are stacked on top of each other because there's no room. Haha. By the time they got to the cake, there was just no room. So drinking at a supra actually isn't just one big everybody drinks as much as they want type deal. There is a method to the madness. At a supra, arguably the most important person is who's called the "tamada". The tamada is always a man, and is responsible for making the toasts. He makes toasts to several required things- health, family, friends, and at this particular supra there was even a toast made to me. Haha. You wonder what you did right in life when grown women raise their glasses and say "Lindsay, I very like you!" on a very important day : ) Georgians toasts are no joke too... they are LONG. According to wikipedia, the tamada must have great rhetorical skill and be able to consume a large amount of alcohol. Haha, which I would fully agree with. In Georgia, it is tradition to drink your WHOLE GLASS of wine at every toast. Men are expected to do this more than women, haha so if you hold out a little bit, no one's gonna make a fuss. However, when you DO drink your whole glass you are a hero. I personally save drinking the whole glass until someone calls me out for not "dalie"ing enough (drinking). Then I get to be the cool foreigner who's super Georgian because everyone is looking at me when I drink my whole glass. Haha. You gotta know how to do these things right ; )

My 3 glasses. One contains homemade wine, one contains pear soda (YUM, by the way), and one contains homemade cognac. Haha, guess which one is which?

The life.

So here are some pictures of pretty much what my life in Georgia has consisted of. This first is a picture (excuse the bad quality... the guy we were with who took the picture didn't understand you have to hold the camera STILL for a second while the photo takes) of me, my host sister Khatia, and my neighbor Maia. My host sister is to the left. We basically sit and chit chat while huddled around the heater. I complain about the lack of heating in the houses, but it sure as heck forces you to be in close quarters with your family/friends. : ) We usually have good times talking about boys and complaining about work. People REALLY are not the different everywhere. Haha. Mondays are universally hated and hot chocolate and cookies when it's cold are universally loved. Boys are ALWAYS the cause of major concern and talking to friends about it always makes it better. In this particular picture we were getting coffee and desserts and such while listening to the winner of "Geostar" (the Georgian version of American Idol) sing some pretty amazing jazz, if I do say so myself. 

And this is my neighborhood. It's called microlocation #15. HAHA, thank you Soviet Russia. You can't see my building from here, but it looks exactly like all the others, except that there's a pretty distinct blue door on one side. Anyway, I'm standing almost exactly at the spot I hail my marshutka (a blog post will be dedicated solely to marshutkas in the future) every morning, so I walk the path you're looking at twice a day. And after I took this picture I checked... haha, the trees actually do all lean like that. I never noticed it before I took the picture, and I have no idea why they do.

Rustavi Mesame Sajaro Skola

(Rustavi Public School #3) 

This, ladies and gentleman, is my school. It is located in "Old Rustavi" which is about a 15 minute marshutka ride away from my apartment. It was finnnnallly sunny the other day, so I took a few pictures on my walk to the marshutka stop and near my house. First I would like to comment on the Georgian (or at least in my school... haha I shouldn't say Georgian) way of learning/attending school. The concept of sitting still for the whole class period and paying attention the whole time only exists for MAYBE 1-3 students in your class. And I'm not talking 1-3 students are stellar, I'm talking 1-3 students have ANY idea of what's going on. Haha. There's actually a word in Georgian to describe the fact that you didn't do your work because you were too lazy, and students genuinely respond with that when the teacher asks them why they didn't do their homework. HA! At least they're honest?? One of the teachers asked me what this word was in English and I told her it didn't exist, to which she responded, "Well then how do the students tell the teacher they didn't do their homework because they're too lazy?" And of course I told her no good American student would EVER come to school without some horribly lame excuse for why they didn't do their homework. Haha. Even the worst students wouldn't flat out admit their laziness. So that always makes me laugh. The other crazy thing I can't get over is the fact that EVERYONE wants to be called on... no matter if they know the answer or not. When I was in elementary school I distinctly remember ONLY wanting to be called upon if I knew the answer, and I'm pretty positive every other student shared my sentiment. Yes, this was 10+ years ago, HOWEVER, I am fairly certain I was not as eager as these kids to get in front of the class and go "uhh...." and stare at the book as if I was reading some ancient text in a language no one has spoken for millennia.  I actually had a problem with a student today who kept interrupting my explanation of the comparative going "MOJHA MOJHA" (can I? can I?) over and over because she wanted to be called on. Keep in mind I literally had no text for her to read, no question for her to answer, and was legitimately having trouble explaining how to compare the size of 2 things because she kept trying to get me to call on her! Haha oh the perils of teaching children.

Annndd the obligatory picture.

I went to visit another friend from TLG this weekend in his village for his birthday, and here's a picture or two of how beautiful the countryside is here! (I know, I know... no pictures of where I live yet! They're coming, I promise!)

These are the village of Tetriskharo.

And this is my friend Ryan, with some of the famed Georgian hospitality haha. His host mother, aunt, and sister, spent 2 hours making that AMAZING cake. His host mother is in the red vest, and his host sister is standing behind him. His host aunt is pouring homemade wine for everyone from that glass carafe. Haha the table had so much food on it they had to put the wine carafe on the floor! Haha. YUM YUM.

So now that stolen internet seems to be somewhat reliable...

...I think I'll write a blog. SO I've been absent from blogging because I've been busy figuring out Georgian life. Now that I've been here long enough to be able to communicate with strangers semi-effectively and long enough to want to complain about things, I feel like I can accurately portray things.

So first, school. It was SUPER overwhelming at first, but I've gotten into the groove of things and know I'm definitely a teacher because little kids shout "HELLO! HOW OLD ARE YOU!?" at me while I walk down the street. Hahaha. Most of them call me Linds too, which is kind of nice. Feels like home. There's a funny reason for that though. In Georgian, if you refer to a person, you add "i" to the end of their name. Justini Bieberi, for example. So I think when the teacher said, "this is Lindsay" they assumed it was "Lindsi" and if you're speaking to someone directly, you drop the i. Haha so for example, "Justin Bieber, how are you today?". So when they speak TO me, they just drop the "i" at the end of my name. Hahaha. I kind of like it. I was a little wary of one of the teachers at first, but she has since told me she would really like me to help her improve on her teaching and she looks forward to being more effective co-teachers. THAT was a huge surprise and I like her exponentially more now. She's actually helping me teach some of the other TEACHERS English. We've started a kind of teacher's English club, where some interested teachers (6 or 7 of them) meet and we practice their English. I'm REALLY excited about it. We met for the first time today and they were SUPER psyched to start speaking better English. Hahaha best students I've had so far! AND THEN (today was a good day for teaching haha) I've even managed to get the other English teachers to agree to put on a Christmas program for the parents and other students!! They were so excited about the idea they were getting giddy by the end of our conversation. They want sing alongs, poetry, skits, the whole 9 yards. If it works out like they want it to, it's going to be a LOT of fun. I haven't told them yet, but I'd like to make some cookies and stuff to bring to provide for the students and parents : )

Second, friends. I've been hanging out with my house sister Khatia and our neighbor Maia and I really enjoy hanging out with both of them. Khatia is a little (well, lot... by American standards haha) immature I would say for being a 20 year old. But it works out just find because we end up just goofing around. For example, last night we went to Maia's and her guy friend drove his marshutka up her to apartment and called her on her cell phone... what followed was ridiculous laughter and Khatia and Maia flirting with her friend. Hahaha. It was pretty hilarious if you ask me. It was dark outside so you couldn't see inside the marshutka and it felt like a disney movie where the marshutka actually came to visit, not some real person inside it. Which brings me to my third topic, transportation.

I haven't written too much about cars and transportation in Georgia, but I have had some seriously ridiculous adventures already, one of which involved me actually thinking I was going to accidentally end up in Azerbaijan because I started seeing signs for the border. HA! Since my Georgian is so bad, if I don't know where I'm going, I usually just walk around and hand the phone to some able-bodied looking Georgian guy, he talks to my host sister, and then he directs me to where I need to go using hand motions and Russian. Hahaha. It's worked out pretty well thus far! If you're willing to take marshutkas everywhere, you can travel REALLY cheaply. They just don't have any ACTUAL stops, so you have to know when to tell your marshutka driver when to stop or he just won't. It's a pretty fun adventure every time you step in one of those things. That and gross. Usually pretty gross too. Marshutkas are old and the driver is usually smoking haha.

Wow, so this post makes Georgia seem super rosy and easy, so let me just disclaim that it's got it's fair share of, um, quirks as well. Starting with the fact that it seems like I'm always THE only person that is cold. I asked a student today (weather of 30 degrees, maybe even lower) if it was cold outside, to which he replied no. Thinking he didn't understand the English, I repeated myself, and he proceeded to tell me in Russian that he was, in fact, NOT cold, wearing his jean jacket and t-shirt. HAHA. I was practically shivering in my WINTER COAT in that classroom! The schools don't really have heat. And if they do, they're waiting an awful long time to turn it on. It's already started snowing in the mountains.
Also I will gain 897489324 pounds while I'm here. The words I use the most in Georgian are probably "ar minda", in English, "I don't want it"... but I have to say it forcefully or no one listens at ALL. Haha they take a LOT of pride in the fact that they WILL make me fat before I leave Georgia. Greaaatttt.

Finally, I think I'm going to wrap this up before the internet goes away and I've gone another day with no blogging : )
I'll hopefully be blogging more and giving better detail of my day-to-day life. Some details I'm sure you won't believe. Living in Georgia so far is sort of like living in a constant hyperbole. It is downright ridiculous a lot of the time. Hahaha.

Laptop

So I haven't quite figured out how to get the internet working on my laptop since my host family doesn't have wireless internet. I was hoping to post a picture of the awesome cake they got me yesterday, but no such luck. Anyhoo, for my Georgian birthday, my host family got me this awesome cake that was 2 layers and had BANANAS in the middle! It was super yummy. We also drank my host dad's homemade wine, of which he apparently has 200 liters in the basement! Haha! We didn't drink nearly that much. My host mom and dad got me a pair of slippers which apparently is a necessity, both because my feet are always cold, and no one walks around the house with some sort of slipper or house shoe on. So that was definitely nice!
I also just got a text today that said I will be meeting with my co-teachers (I don't teach a class alone, I do it with another Georgian teacher) tomorrow, AND a friend I trained with will be in Rustavi tomorrow! Big day! Haha. I think I might also be going to a pop concert tonight which I JUST googled. HAHA oh lord. The name my host sister keeps calling it is "Geostar" which I thought was the name of the band. If you think about it hard enough, it makes sense, but apparently it's the Georgian version of American Idol. Hahahaha. I've already agreed to go with my host sister and her friends so I guess I'm going to see the Georgian version of American Idol tonight! HA! I'll let you know how that goes, and I'm sure I'll be taking loads of pictures.

Ok, One More Since It's Working

I had to post this one because I love it so much. The stuff in the very back is the ruins of the castle that used to be in Tbilisi. I like this picture so much because, really, Tbilisi is just kind of so-so in the daylight, but at night they turn on all these spotlights on the prettiest places and it becomes exponentially more awesome! The place in the foreground is just a bar; we didn't go there, but it's similar to the place we were at after I took this picture.

Host Family

Woa buddy! I'm gonna push my luck with this internet and try to post this picture. From the left, that's the principal of the school I'll be teaching at, my host mom (I told you I was a LOT taller than her), me, and my host sister. You can't see, but she's wearing at least 4 inch zebra print shoes. I was HOPING the girl with ridiculous shoes was my host sister. And lo and behold. Haha.

Quick! An Update Before the Internet Goes Away!

Haha, but seriously, that's pretty much how it is. I wanted to check in so people don't think I'm dead; I've made it to Rustavi and am getting settled in with my host family, who are... well... VERY excited to see me. Hahaha my host dad said I'm not Kropp anymore, I'm Llkajdsfkjasdfiasdjflasd (something I couldn't possibly pronounce EVER, but their last name, so you get the point), my host mom keeps calling me her docherinka (little daughter, even though I'm about a foot taller than her), and my host sister constantly wants to hold hands and be best friends (she's 20). Haha, so I'm feeling the love for SURE. I'm pretty positive they gave me the biggest bed they own, which is CLEARLY for 2 people, and they found out my birthday is tomorrow so I don't even want to know what they're going to do for me that I'm sure I'll feel guilty over, just like this bed. Which is sounding kind of negative, but seriously, haha their niceness is a little overwhelming. I'm sure it'll wear off after the newness of having me in the house wears off as well. Also, I'll probably be the fattest person in the universe once I'm through teaching here. Here's a run down of the day's food: pasta with heavy cream and bread for breakfast (not even kidding in the least), donuts and coffee for lunch, ice cream, and something untranslatable for dinner which was really yummy chicken with a plate full of basically grits with a "bitter plum" (according to the dictionary) sauce. Oh, of course, and bread. And they wonder why I can't eat it all. Hahaha.
I've also been getting the most intense Georgian lessons EVER from my host sister, who is really eager for me to learn Georgia, so we can get on with being best friends already (her English is pretty minimal). But luckily for me I instantly earned "good girl" status with everyone by attempting to speak Georgian followed by actually speaking Russian when I arrived. And don't underestimate the good girl status, especially when you're American. It's that or "easy girl" sooooo I'm thankful I didn't really have to do much to get the former title haha.
OH and the food for all you fatties that specifically asked for food info. haha. The food is HEAVY. I'm already running into a wall with it, and I've been here a week. I don't know what my host mom did to this chicken, but it looked disgusting sitting in the sink and I was a little wary... 30 mins later and what comes out onto the table is amazing. I assume she waved a magic wand? Georgians make everything EXTREMELY salty, mainly because there's cheese in a LOT of stuff and Georgian cheese is borderline too salty to even consume. For foreigners, of course. : ) There's a LOT of carbs. One thing that would interest you guys (Doug and Richard) is the Khinkali (KHH like in Hebrew). They're dumplings filled with meat and you can't eat them with a fork  because when you bite into them all the meat juices pour out and you just make a mess on your plate if you cut them open. I'll post pictures when I'm more sure about my internet connection, but you could probably google the name if you reallllly were that interested. You guys would like them though. Maybe I'll get a recipe to bring back!
Anyway, I should go before all this is useless because my internet craps out. My host mom and sister said the internet would be ready tomorrow, so maybe tomorrow I can start scheduling some skype dates with everyone? I'm doing well so far, definitely getting into that freak out phase because I can barely communicate with anyone here, but psyched to start teaching, hopefully Tuesday!

Heeeeeerrreeeee's.... more training.

I'm still in the middle of training and as a fellow TLGer put it, feeling like I'm in The Shining. We've been stuck in the hotel for roughly 12 hours a day (8am to 8pm) training and trying to learn Georgian. It's been pretty intense and I feel like I haven't really experienced Georgia at all, despite being here for around 5 days now, haha. Never fear though, when we get out to our respective towns I'm sure we'll have Georgia coming out our ears. So I'm not worried, just bored as of now. I did go to a bar/cafe last night with a couple of the other TLGers and that was REALLY nice seeing something other than whitewashed walls and fluorescent light bulbs. Our cab ride there was interesting to say the least. Cabs in Georgia are ridiculously cheap. It costs 5 Lari (3 USD) to get all the way into the city center from our hotel, and when you split that between 4 people in the taxi, it costs next to nothing. This also means that your cab driver doesn't necessarily have to be the most, um... experienced. Our cab driver got hopelessly lost trying to drive us to a jazz club we wanted to go to and ended up driving through a LEGIT construction site, bottoming his car out TWICE, then turning around Austin Powers style. See the link below for the appropriate scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTzv3N25rqI
But seriously, we NEARLY scraped the side of a giant cement truck, hit 2093489324 different people, and got the car hopelessly stuck all in the span of 15 minutes. Somehow none of those things happened and our cab driver dropped us off in front of a church, pointed to it and said "no car there". So we got out at the church that was clearly not our jazz cafe/bar. After several people offering to help us in EXTREMELY broken English (Georgians are amazingly nice to foreigners. Seriously REALLY friendly), we actually ended up right behind the church where our cab driver said we should, but who we didn't really believe after the whole getting lost debacle. It was great fun and a fabulous first ridiculous adventure and from what I've heard, one of many that will probably happen to me if I ever get out of this hotel ; )

First Glimpse of Tbilisi!

Here's a quick picture I snapped of some sort of statue thing. It was in between 2 sides of a highway which was kind of weird. We were walking along the middle because there was a crosswalk to the middle, but not all the way across and unless you have some sort of death wish, you absolutely cannot cross a street where there's no light forcing the cars to stop. But anyway, in the picture you can see the Georgian letters on the side  and how crazy they are! I plan on studying a lot tonight. haha. I'm going to go to dinner now, but I wanted to show you guys a quick peek of where I am for the week! It was BEAUTIFUL weather here today. 70s and sunny.

Hello Blog Followers!

Hi everybody!
For those of you who aren't as technologically savvy, I've decided to write a post explaining the whole "blog" thing. First of all, to the right of this post, you can sign up to be updated on my blog via e-mail if you so desire. It'll probably be a little obnoxious, so I suggest doing that only if you want to know every time I do anything on my blog (mom) haha. Along the bottom of the screen there's a little news ticker that I've set to alert you about interesting happenings in my neck of the woods. It's got updated news on Russia and the geographic region around where I'm living. Below the news, there's a few links that you all might find interesting, mainly providing some info on Georgia and the program I'm participating in. I'll be updating my blog as often as possible, posting pictures and the like so you guys can see what's happening in my life! Yay! For now, I'm packing and trying to bring my whole life across the globe for a while : )