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?