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 : )