Ak!

Contrary to what you might think, I am not yelling "ACK!" in disgust or because something went wrong. It's just the Georgian word for "here." BECAUSE HOLY SHIT I AM FINALLY FINALLY IN GEORGIA!!!!


It took a while -  like a seven hour drive to Chicago, and an excruciatingly long night there (not by anyone's fault, just because of my own excitement!), and then a ridiculously long plane ride over the Atlantic, coupled with a super lengthy layover in Warsaw, and then the longest. Flight. In. History. To T'bilisi - but I'm here!!!!!

Before I get to Georgia, I just want to say that the highlight of the trip in Chicago was easily my 89 year old aunt trying to convince my sister to grow and sell marijuana (since it's legal, and lucrative, in Michigan to do so). Chicago to Warsaw was nice because the kid next to me and I spent five out of the nine hours just yapping at each other about shit - Star Wars, video games, ex relationships, etc - that by the time we actually were getting close to Warsaw, most of the trip was over with, and we had also squeaked in some sleep. The 8 hour layover in Poland was probably my favorite leg of the trip, though. A couple of us decided to say eff it to the airport, and after some hilarious shenanigans with the lockers to put our bags in, and the train tickets to get into the city, we found ourselves in the middle of Warsaw.  I am so bummed that we only got to run around for about an hour and a half - I could've easily spent days in that city alone. Warsaw, I'm coming back for you!

The plane to T'bilisi wasn't departing until almost 11 pm, and all of us (there were almost 20 TLG volunteers in Poland for this layover) were exhausted from however many hours of travel previous, so pretty much all of us slept on the last leg of the journey. I do remember waking up partway through the flight to the Georgian woman next to me putting a blanket on me and sliding a pillow under my head. When I woke up before we landed, she kept asking me how I slept, while simultaneously freaking out about how the plane was never going to land because something was wrong and that her ears hurt and she couldn't hear anything. 

And then Georgia happened. Wonderful, amazing, exhilarating Georgia. We didn't see much at 6 am driving from the airport to the hotel, but I did notice a lot of Soviet style apartments that are slowly being renovated to match the Georgian architectural norm. I mean to say, they're turning grey boxes with small windows into more livable, interesting spaces. Poland looked like it was in the process of doing the same thing. I guess when your country has been under a predetermined set of rules for a long time, the physical detriment is great. Most of the buildings in T'bilisi that we saw today were under some sort of construction. I'm not sure if it was to renovate them, or remodel them, or just that 200 year old buildings require slightly more upkeep than most, but given the fact that I'm from the midwest, where our two seasons are summer and construction, the work was noticed. 

All that said. T'bilisi is incredible. There are vendors and restaurants and shops and cars on the sidewalk and cars going in reverse at 40 mph in oncoming traffic and random Irish bars where everyone inside only sings English songs. The love I have for this city, after being in it for about 12 hours, is ridiculous. And it's strange to me to talk to the other volunteers - almost no one did any research on Georgia before they came. They kind of just let it happen, and will roll with whatever happens. And that's great and all, but it just makes me feel way too neurotic to travel. Almost like I don't belong in this demographic of 20somethingyearolds who are currently country jumping. I've wanted to come here for almost two years, and I've read blogs, and articles, and watched videos and found pictures, of just about any possible thing that goes on here. And I'm still way too excited to be here. It feels kind of like I'm broken, and that I'm expecting things because the internet told me to. And while I don't personally believe that's the case, because I have loved every second since we touched down, I'm concerned that others here think that since I can tell you what all the different regions of Georgia are known for (because I can, cause I'm a stalker like that) that it means that the experience is somehow lessened. I sort of see where they're coming from, as true spontaneity is always amazing, but given that this is something I have wanted for so long, and that I am so to-the-core happy about, there was just no way I wasn't going to look up every possible thing I could before actually coming here. 

At the end of the day I don't really care what they think, it's just strange to see the complete difference in them and me. Which is good. Everyone's been great so far, and with the other half of the volunteers arriving today, I can't wait to meet the rest! Plus, when I'm in a country that has a hilarious sense of humor, it's easy to not really care about much.

Kakheti!

This morning started out pretty eventful. Upon opening my email, my heart almost stopped at the sight of a TLG reply to my contract. Before opening it, my brain started firing at about 10293801984102948 bad thoughts per neuron, and I had convinced myself in the span of less than a second that there was a problem with my contract and that I would be unable to go to Georgia next week (HOLY SHIT I AM GOING TO GEORGIA NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Thankfully, my think-the-worst nature was wrong.

All TLG was doing was giving me a heads up as to the region in which I'll be placed. Kakheti! Wikipedia's map will help show where this is!

This is Georgia's wine country. After doing some research, it looks like it consists of really lush forests, green foothills, and arable plains. Oh, and an insanely gorgeous river. A quick glance at Flickr for photos with the "Kakheti" tag can give you a better idea of the kind of diverse geography that's in this 4,000 square mile area. The capital of Kakheti, Telavi, is approximately the same size as Marquette, which isn't surprising given that the total population of Georgia is less than all of Los Angeles.  

Anyway, more to come about the area when I actually GET there and don't have to rely on the Internet for all my information! 

6 days!!

I'm leaving on a jet plane!

True to my contractual agreement, TLG sent me the itinerary for my flight today! They asked me to confirm the following:

So like, it looks a lot like mumbo jumbo to me. Obviously a few things off the bat are discernible, such as the dates, the airport codes, and even the 24-hour time (which is still tripping me up! I hate my super sub-par math skills!!). But the random numbers, the HK1, the +1 and the trippy asterisks? Those are not so helpful in the quest to understand how I'll be going over an ocean and a continent. 

And then I remembered that wonderful, amazing creation called the Internet. Every now and then I take it completely for granted, forgetting that there was a chunk of time when I was young that it wasn't readily available and useful. I mean, you used to have to BUY very specific types of books to understand things, and actually call and talk to travel agents for stuff like this. Thankfully that is not the case anymore! Fodor's had a whole forum thread on it. So using my handy dandy deciphering skills, this is what I've come up with!

There we have it! I'm leaving next Wednesday, the 28th, and will be getting into Tbilisi at 4 am on the 30th, with an 8 hour layover in Warsaw, Poland. I'm really hoping to be able to get out of the airport in Poland and check it out. Plus, it'd be another stamp on the passport, and seeing as how it's woefully empty right now, I really like that notion! 

Today, however, will be my last day of lazing around on beaches, joyriding the coast in a boat, picking blueberries on a river plain, or cuddling on the couch with the dog. Tomorrow starts the packing madness, the buying frenzy, and the overall jittery excitement of finally FINALLY going! I'm able to check one suitcase, and have two bags for carry on, so step one is doing a clothing inventory and figuring out what all I have and still need. And then step two is buying stuff I don't have, and figuring out where I can get a Bag of Holding so I can bring a shitload of books and school stuff for the kiddos. Step three is cramming all of the crap I need for an entire year into three bags, two of which are not full size. I'm getting really good at packing, however, and after converting an entire room into three suitcases, I'm confident this should be a relative walk in the park. 

I'm sure that in true Andronis procrastination style I will fully photodocument the packing process and then post it all here and write about it in a vain attempt to not ACTUALLY pack. Cause that's the proper adult thing to do!

The Upper Peninsula: An Abusive Relationship

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan (hereafter called the U.P.), is really one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It consists mainly of two colors: green and blue. In winter, you substitute green out for white, and blue for a slate-blue-grey. The only time it's not dichromatic like this is the fall, when it's an explosion of reds, oranges, and yellows. But the nice part of fall lasts about two weeks, so we won't really discuss it at this time. Instead, we will focus on the two primary seasons - the ones that account for most of the year.

Winter is a kick in the ass. It's beautiful, yes, but after about nine days of grey sky and it never really getting light, with no sign of the sun in sight, it gets old.

Summer, on the otherhand, is perfect. It's lush, vibrant, warm days with cool nights, pristine starry skies, and crystal clear lake water.

Evergreens and ferns, up on the Yellowdog Plains.

Sunset from Sunset Point.

Summer lulls you into this false sense of security. It tells you that it's great to live up here, and that everything is magical. It makes you forget about the months of drab bleakness, which hilariously take up about half of the year. But in summer you don't think about shoveling snow, or not seeing the sun for a week, or cold blustery wind that makes you wonder why you even got out of bed that morning. No. Summer makes you think you could stay in this amazing wonderland forever. That all of the prettiness is permanent (which, to be fair, winter is still pretty in it's own stark black and white way), and this euphoric feeling you have will carry over, come hell or high water.

Summer is when the U.P. buys you some flowers, and says "I'm sorry about the last seven months. I love you." It might even take you out for a nice dinner, and if you're very lucky you'll get a dance or two out of it. But then, after a short amount of time, Winter comes back. Winter storms (no pun intended!) through the door, yells at you about how you're worthless, and crap, and that you'll never feel good again. And Winter stays for months and months. It's lurking, every day, from November until late March, waiting to just kick you squarely in the face. It makes you question everything about your life - why you didn't go out and do something today, why you didn't get out of bed earlier to take advantage of the 8 hours of light, why you're constantly cold no matter how many layers of clothes you have on.

And despite all of that, I still look forward to winter in a really sick way. I've become trapped in an abusive relationship with this place. Even with my recent self diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder (I say self diagnosed because after living in a place that has sun 360 days a year, it was very obvious that, after coming back to a location that's closer to the North Pole than the equator, the big glowy orb of happy was missing from the sky and that its absence had a direct correlation on my feeling like a human god damned being), which was alleviated by taking Vitamin D pills every day, I still don't mind it. Dealing with winter eventually means that summer happens, and summer here is as perfect as a slice of Heaven pie. And that seems to make it all worth it.

I never was bothered by winter when I was a kid. Winter meant sledding and snowboarding and snowball fights and forts. I remember longing for winter, actually. I'm not really sure when the change in my head happened, but it did. And no matter how much I tell myself that it's not as bad as I think it's going to be, the perpetual coldness I feel, even inside, takes its toll. But I'm starting to face it with a sort of grim resolve. Now, it's more of an inevitable. I can hate it all I want, but in the end, the Earth doesn't really give a shit, and winter is going to be all over our faces anyway. And granted, I haven't been here for a full winter in a long ass time, but considering I'm going to a place where winter is going to be a large part of my life, I figured I should probably make peace with it.

So here's to you, winter. You selfish jerkface. You cold hearted conglomeration of months that make me lethargic and crappy feeling. I can't wait to deal with you soon so that you can crush every iota of Jo-ness that is currently in my body and leave me an empty, shmerry, shell of a person.

Critter tracks up a tree behind the house.

I'm On My Way!

I've been waiting for almost a year for this.

I am so fucking ecstatic I can hardly contain myself. 

So now the fun part begins - legitimately packing, and learning the language. I'm 27/33 for the letters, which is fairly disappointing given Georgians similar aesthetic to Elvish, which I'm pretty sure I learned in like 2 days (yeah, I was definitely one of those kids who spent her time in high school writing letters to her friends in Elvish - none of whom could actually read it, but that was besides the point). I'm thinking I should also try to get a Russian phrase book, since so many people there speak Russian still (In fact, Georgia is pretty awesome in the fact that most people are bi, if not tri, lingual, and a lot of the signs in the cities reflect this. How cool is that?).

The problem with all of this is that it is ridiculously difficult, and feels really counterintuitive, to learn a language strictly by reading it. I've found some videos on YouTube of Georgian, and I listen to those every day just so I can get used to hearing it a bit in a vain attempt of not being THAT awful American that comes to their country and completely butchers every single word. Although, from what I understand, Georgians are very accepting and helpful to foreigners, and any attempt of speaking their language is appreciated. Juxtapose this with Americans, who get irate at any hint of an accent from someone new. It's going to be interesting! I cannot wait to finally get a chance to actually speak it a bit!

It's all feeling very surreal still. Like it's hard to believe that in 26 days I'm going to be heading over there finally. Especially since it's been an emotional roller coaster for the last 11 months. I think the best feeling of all of it, other than the fact that it's going to be incredible and awesome and holy shit I cannot wait, is that leaving California, and everything there, wasn't in vain. It's felt like the last few months I've just been a transient zombie, kind of going about daily business for no real reason. I gave up a lot of stuff in LA, and while I might not have been the happiest with my job or whatever, at least I had health insurance, a car, income, and a smidge of independence still. And after pretty much walking from all of that for the chance to go to Georgia, just for it to not happen, was rough. Really rough. Probably a lot more rough than I ever let on.

This email was a very welcome sight.