A Story

So God has finished making the world, and all the parts in it. He calls up all the humans, and starts giving them their respective countries. The Canadians receive their sprawling tundras, the Nepalese their high mountains, Kenyans their expansive grasslands. The whole endeavor took a really long time, but at the end of the day, all the peoples of the world had their own special place.

Except for the Georgians.

They had been busy partying at a supra, and missed their turn to receive their country. Stumbling up to God hours after the fact, they apologized, and asked where they could go.

"Sorry, guys," God said. "There's no world left for you."

"Vaimeeeeeeeeee!" the Georgians drunkenly cried.

God felt bad about this, and pondered what he could do for this group of people who were oozing chacha out of their very pores. He sighed with his final decision.

"There is one small part of this world left, and I had made it for myself. And since you need your own home, and I'm God, I guess I can give you my little corner."

And God transported the supra'd Georgians to their new home, which they called Sakartvelo - or Georgia.

Moral of the story, kids:

Get too drunk and fat at parties when you have important shit to do, and it will all work out in even better ways than you could have hoped for!

Countdown

I've only got 39 days of school left.

58 days total until my friend Helen comes for our insane Caucasus Hilarity Fest.

86 days before I board a plane and go back home.

I'm. Freaking. Out.

Eight months in, with only two more to go, and I don't feel like I've DONE anything. Which is silly; I've seen a lot of this country, eaten most of their national dishes, almost died at least four times per marshutka ride. I've made incredible friends and can speak a ridiculously hard language in the most basic survival modes.

So I don't really know what it is that my brain wants from me, because it's not like I've been idle while here. There are just so many more places I want to see, and I feel like I'm running out of time and money to do all of them. Which is terrifying, since I don't know when I'll be able to come back here (although, according to Ani I will be visiting for three weeks every summer. So. There's that!), and I don't want to leave without having DONE everything.

"Oh, how cool! You were in Georgia? For how long?"
"Almost a year! It was wonderful!"
"I bet! Did you see this-really-cool-awesome-famous-thing-that-if-you-didn't-see-you-basically-wasted-your-entire-time-there??"
"...No. I was probably dicking around in the mountains with my friends, hitting water with sticks..."1

Not that I regret the dicking around with my friends, because they're goofy and awesome and a lot of fun is always had no matter where we are or what we do. And I keep telling myself that the next few weeks have to be low key so that when Helen gets here in June I'll have enough cash to run around and show her all the beautiful places and see the new ones I want to. Time is just marching on, and I feel like if I blink then it'll all be over and I'll be getting onto the plane at the Tbilisi airport with no picture of me doing big arms from the back of a horse with a crazy mountainous backdrop. Which cannot happen, since that has been my number one goal of my time here since I first decided to apply to this program. The whole teaching kids English was always secondary to my selfish desires of being a free mountain spirit. Or something.

So here are two lists - one of places I still need to visit, and the other comprised of things I need to buy2. I'm making these public so that I'll have some accountability in the matter, because maybe my procrastinating ass won't keep putting them off for "next week" this way.

Ha. Good one, Jo.

Places To Go!
1. Svaneti - Mestia, Ushguli.3
2. Tusheti - more crazy pretty untouched wild mountains!
3. Vardzia - big cave city of awesome!
4. Borjomi - home of the mineral water that has somehow won me over. Also a park.
5. Chiatura - if I'm going to die, it might as well be an awesome way, like a cable car line snapping over an old magnesium mining town.
6. Gremi - a super close and beautiful monastery that I've only ever driven past.
7. Lagodekhi - waterfalls and mountains and general prettiness!

Things To Buy!
1. Panduri - 3 stringed instrument of Eastern Georgia (my home!). I've decided that 2014 is the year that I stop letting string instruments outsmart me, and what better thing to learn on than a Georgian stringed instrument and YouTube videos (of which there are many!).
2. A mini book of Shota Rustaveli's The Knight In The Panther's Skin.
3. Periodic Table of Elements in Georgian. Cause it exists and it's badass looking!
4. Star Map in Georgian. Cause it's also badass.
5. Fourteen thousand packs of my favorite shitty Icecube flavored Dirol gum that loses its taste after about 45 seconds! I think the Russians put crack in it or something, because god damn if it's not all I want every day.
6. Four packs of the most perfect graph paper notebooks I've ever written in.
7. A Chinese Goosebeery cup which is so common all over this country. (No, not Gooseberry. Goosebeery.)
8. A few of the universal wine glasses - they hold exactly 100 mg, so they're incredibly useful for baking. And drinking out of.
9. Vakhtanguri horns - essential for when you link arms with a friend and down your glass of wine. Or in this case, a horn of wine.
10. Lots of chacha. Yum.
11. Even more wine. Double yum.
12. A janky film Soviet camera from the Dry Bridge Bazaar. Or a lens. Cause how cool is that??

Sorry for a pretty pointless post. My mind apparently is everywhere today thanks to five cups of coffee, so apologies for that.

But here's a picture of the puppy I'll be coming home to in 86 days!!

Meet Amelia Pond!

1. True story. That's how I spent this past weekend. In the greenest mountains I've ever seen, crawling around lush forests, and sitting next to a stream hitting the water with a stick while making dinosaur sounds. A lot of times we ask ourselves, "Georgia, what are you doing to us?" This was one such moment.
2. I use the term "need" very loosely. 
3. They say that you haven't seen Georgia until you've seen Svaneti. So clearly this is a mustmustmust.

Bako

This is Bako.

Well, her name is Bako now. Two weeks ago, when she wandered into our house, I was calling her "little dog" or "scrappy face."

It all started out innocently enough. When I first found her on our couch, I was home alone and heard a weird noise in our sitting room, kind of like a yippy whine. And that's when I saw her curled up on the cushions. I'd wondered a lot of times if my family had ever had a stray dog come into the house since we just leave the door open in the day when we're home. That query has now been answered, and it is yes - stray dogs can just wander in if they so fancy.

I brought her outside, and we ended up playing a bit in the courtyard once she stopped cowering out of fear because of the whole me being a human thing. I figured that she would be a one day visitor - a transient in our backyard, just like the little black dog from January was, and who the mangey pointer mix who roams around the neighborhood is. But the next day when I left to go to school, this little mutt came bounding over, and walked me to the gate. When I got home she crashed into my legs, tail wagging happily. The day after was the same. This dog stuck around the house, and has become our own ardent defender, barking at people down by the riverbed behind the house, and chasing birds, cats, and even the hens from nextdoor who wander into our garden.

She is really young - so young that I wonder where exactly her mother is - but she seems to have taken to us nicely. My host siblings are pretty indifferent towards her, which is weird, because they have been talking for months about how they want a dog, and now here one is and they couldn't give half a shit. Bebia and my host mom claim to not like her, yet they both collect leftover scraps of food from meals and give it to Bako in her own little dish outside. They both also talk to her when they're outside, although since it's Georgian I can never really tell if they're happy with her or want to kill her. I decided to just ask if they actually liked her so that I could stop blind guessing based on intonation and vocalization, which was getting me absolutely nowhere. My host mom said that she likes her outside only, but not when she is inside, where Bako frequently tries to sneak into.

Or, should I say, she did try to frequently sneak into. Until yesterday.

Yesterday, my host mother returned home to another pair of chewed slippers. Bako has the unfortunate [puppy] habit of gnawing on things, particularly shoes that are just left outside the front door, which is where my family just happens to leave most of theirs. I suppose the third pair of outdoor shoes was the last straw, so my mom got a belt. I was unaware of the previously mentioned chewed slippers, so I was really happy to see that the family was finally embracing this little puppy, and was giving her a collar of her own! I figured an old belt, one that no one cared about, would be the perfect puppy collar if you poked a hole in it at the right place and cut the excess down!

Only, that's not what happened.

 What happened instead was a little horrifying to watch, even though it wasn't all that surprising.

My host mom left the long bit of the belt and tried to use it as a leash. Bako has a tendency of cowering down and not moving if you pay direct attention to her while you are walking, so onto her belly she went, and was essentially dragged across the yard. Not in a malicious way or anything, but still it was pretty jarring to see. My mom then got a long piece of old electrical wire we're not using anymore and looped it through one of the belt holes, tying this to a tree by our wood pile.

So that's where Bako is now. This little puppy is confined to the circle that her five foot long lead will allow, half of which is woodpile and rock wall. She has food, water, and a sled to lay on, sure, but she's a puppy, and she sort of needs more than that.

And at least Bako is better off than my friend Chris's dog Maximus, who has a broken leg (from being hit by a fucking car) that's never healed so he can't walk on it. This dog was also, over Thanksgiving, shot or stabbed or something, which is where he got this nice little gaping wound from. He's still alive and kicking, happily living his life which is full of chasing cars down the street and trying to hump every dog in the Akhmeta district. So I mean, shit could be worse.

I'm really conflicted about all of this. I'm absolutely not ok with it, because I'm a dog person, and have issues with how this country handles dogs and their training - or should I say lack thereof - but I understand why it's happened.

This is the easiest solution to the problem of a stray dog coming into the house and serial eating your slippers and shoes.

The second easiest solution is to not leave the front door of your house wide open, and keep your shoes inside. But this house runs cold, and keeping the door open in the day helps get some warm air inside. So I get why my family doesn't want to have the door closed. And as far as the shoes being outside, I think this is just a habit that they don't want to give up, because in winter we kept all our shoes right by the door inside no problem.

The third easiest solution is to get a screen door, or a gate. But again, this is assuming the capital to do either of those things, and while my family is pretty well off I don't think a screen door to keep a stray dog out from their house is seen as a wise investment. Even if it is, but whatever. Their house, their decisions.

I wish I could be more bent out of shape about this, but every time I try to write something expressing my indignation I remember where I am and I just can't keep it on the page.

This country, like most developing places - I won't say countries, because there are plenty of locations inside countries that are better off than Georgia where dogs are treated this bad or worse - doesn't have the economic hardiness to deal with humans taking care of humans, let alone humans taking care of animals in a non working or livestock fashion. And even then, I've yet to see a horse or a cow here who isn't completely shaggy and in bad need of a brush.

But pet culture just isn't a thing here. People want to say they have pets, because they see it in movies; they see the whole Western world running around in yoga pants with some purebred dog on a beach and they want that, too. They just are unable to have that idealized vision for numerous reasons - lack of understanding of dog training; lack of capital to provide the animal it's own basic needs; lack of willingness to allow something into your house which culturally is seen as either a nuisance or an outdoor worker. I've yet to meet a dog anywhere in Georgia that lives in the house. I just don't think it happens all that much, especially in the smaller towns and villages.

So I understand all of it. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with it.

Commie Fun Park

I had a pretty surreal afternoon on Saturday. My friend Christine and I ventured up to the Mtatsminda park, which is a theme park of sorts that sits on top of one of Tbilisi's hills. It's accessible one of two ways - a bus which takes you way round the back of the hill and steadily up, or by the funicular. What's a funicular, you ask? It's this weird railway train thing that has two cars. They are at the opposite ends of the line and, through a pulley system, counterbalance each other to take passengers either up or down. 

It's actually a pretty neat thing, even if it isn't the smoothest ride. The last time I was on it was during orientation, all those months ago. Young, naive Jo was slightly alarmed at the jerky ride, the heartstopping pauses and jolts, constantly worrying that one of the cables would snap and that we would all plummet down to our deaths hundreds of feet below us. 

However, since spending a little more time here, where absolutely nothing is in my control, I've become sort of a fatalist. Not that I'm hoping to die or anything, but what the hell is the point in being worried constantly about near death experiences since I can't do anything to prevent them? It's been an enjoyable time in marshrutkas since I gave up caring about how drivers liked to pass each other at absurd speeds around blind corners, and this trip up to Mtatsminda was a far more pleasant experience than it had been the first time, as well. 

It's a pretty steep ascent, and that little white dot way up there is only the halfway point where there is, naturally, a church. Because Tbilisi loves its churches.

The funicular station at the top doubles as a restaurant as well, offering stunning panoramas of Tbilisi from the highest point around which you can enjoy with some beer, wine, and decent food. Upon leaving the station, you're dumped in front of a wide, gently sloped set of stairs, generously broken up by little platforms with various carnival type rides. You can also go right, and follow the ridge of the mountain where there are a bunch of game stands with very scary looking stuffed animals as prizes. The signs are super helpful for letting you know where you need to go. I'm glad that, since this is Georgia, there is of course a wedding hall in an amusement park.

There are also really creepy statues, like the one below. The more horrifying part of them, though, is the sheer size. This way-too-pleased-with-itself fat baby cherub thing is easily 15 feet tall, and is on the main entrance for the park. 

Basically, if you take Disneyland, reduce the budget of it by millions of dollars, and add 1970's Soviet vibe to it, you'll have the decor of this park.

Which isn't to say that there is a lack of cool shit up there, because that's not true. There's a gigantic ferris wheel that goes around and around at a snails pace. It's also right at the very edge of the hill, and that makes me more than a little nervous, so I've only ever visited the bar at the bottom of it. Shocker, I know.

There's also a pretty decent looking roller coaster, but it wasn't running on Saturday. Underneath the coaster, in a concrete space reminiscent of a parking lot, is the Go-Kart track. Georgian Go-Karts are apparently just small four-wheelers. And there are only two of them. Don't worry, though. You get a helmet for the ride, too! Or at least I think you do. There were two of them off to the side at least, so they might have just been for decoration. Like the roller coaster above, the Go-Karts were also not operational.

My favorite part of the park, though, is the Dinosaur Experience. Just past the ferris wheel is a small fenced off area with animatronic prehistoric creatures. They're motion activated, and don't do anything too crazy - opening their mouths in roars that aren't synchronized with the soundtrack, blinking with eyelids that needed to be replaced ten years ago because they had holes in the lids, wagging their arms around in weird little robotic dances. The trail takes you around the perimeter of the area, and is doable in probably five minutes.

We of course took almost fifteen, since most of the robots were exceptionally hilarious, such as the Ornithomimus making some incredibly weird sounds. I've been trying to upload a video of it, but it's not letting me. However, if you have an iPhone, go to Settings>Sounds>Ringtone>Classic>Old Car Horn and that is exactly the sound that one of the dinosaurs was emitting. I'm no Robert T. Bakker, but I feel like there's something off about this interpretation of saurian vocalizations...

What I was really excited for, and what made the two lari admission price to the dinosaur area really worthwhile (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you have to pay a few lari for all the janky rides and attractions at the top, since admission is free), was the prospect of riding this Pachyrhinosaurus. The attendant lady unfortunately dashed that hope, so this was the best I could do. Which I guess for being a 27 year old in an exhibit obviously targeted at those twenty years younger than me isn't too bad. I just really liked his shocked and concerned little face.

We explored pretty much all of the park, and while it was fairly slow and quiet that day, I feel like it's anarchy and pure chaos in the warm summer months. There are a ton of water features reminiscent of Splash Mountain, as well as numerous fountains that are obviously designed for children to run around in. Take any carnival you've ever seen, put those rides on top of a park, and voila - you have Mtatsminda.

There's also a little roller coaster for children, and we of course had to ride that. We wanted to ride the big coaster, dammit, and since that was closed, this kiddy one (called the "Happy Train," just by the way) would have to do! Who cares if we were the oldest people on the ride with no youngsters of our own, and who cares if we were laughing like complete goobers the whole time, and putting our hands up on the hills that were only a five foot drop. We were having fun, dammit! Which is more than we can say about all the actual children on the ride, most of whom were just staring straight ahead and weren't smiling or giggling or giving any indication of fun-havingness. The only reaction on any of them was one girl at the very front of the train who was unafuckingmused by us, and spent the entire time glaring at the two idiotic Americans cackling in the back cart.

Christine was most excited to do the Bumper Cars, so as we were on our way out of the park we stopped by. And of course, given our location, it couldn't just be normal Bumper Cars. No. There had to be furries on them. We hypothesized that this is what bored carnies are apt to do when days are slow. They had their costume heads over on the side, and stayed in the cars for consecutive rides. I guess when your job is "Be A Dog That Gives Balloons To Screaming Children," riding the Bumper Cars endlessly and for free is a perk.

The whole day was just full of weird, surreal little things like that. There are some Saint Bernards that are an attraction all their own - they don't do anything, and you can't pet them, and they're in a really remote part of the park. They just sit/sleep and you can take pictures of them. The old and broken parts of rides and attractions are just kind of thrown behind thin stands of trees, and you're able to get back and poke around them. There's a Ghost Castle which isn't open right now either, but there are attendants on the upper balconies of it who wave at you and call out, "Hello! How are you!", because even from thirty feet away it's wickedly obvious you're a foreigner. There are big paper mache mice at a supra, and a few roundabouts and swings for kids to play on that are chained and bolted to the ground, forbidding both the roundabouting and the swinging. And maybe these are all just side effects of the park being in offseason, but part of me really doubts that it will get all that "normal" come July.

We ended our little afternoon up at Mtatsminda grabbing a beer and some snacky foods, all the while making our own version of Cards Against Humanity: Georgian Edition. Christine and I spent most of the day in the park laughing ridiculously hard and having an insane amount of goofy fun and, judging by the wi-fi password for the restaurant, Mtatsminda thinks we're just as good of a time!

Gloating

I've had an absurdly good last 24 hours.

Yesterday, I not only got cake and khachapuri at school, but I also wrote 8 pages in my notebook while there. Then I went home and did this:

 Which is to say, I wrote and painted three more pages all to the sounds of the first thunderstorm of 2014! And then I went inside when the wind shifted and I started getting hit by rain, and ate one of these super nommy cookies:

I think the Russians are onto something - bribing kids into liking math by making it wicked tasty.

And then I wrote four more pages in that stupid notebook, all while watching Doctor Who.

And then today, I got to miss school, come to Tbilisi for a conference, and take a shower with actual shower pressure! I think I've lost like a person and a half in dead skin weight. It's pretty disgusting, honestly. But I don't care! More specifically, this.

The sheer amount of awesome that I feel right now is untranslatable. And quite frankly, this is a very pointless post. But, I'm listening to some "Don't Stop Me Now," and am about to go have a fantastic little evening with friends, so hopefully you will have half of the goodness that my last 24 hours has been!

That was a weird sentence. But whatever. I think you, oh diligent reader, are picking up what I'm putting down!

It's A Love Hate Relationship

A few weeks ago I was at a party in Tbilisi with a large majority of the Tbilisi expat community. I don't know them very well, but I've met most of them a few times, and while they're nice enough they're not really any kind of group I'd go out of my way to hang out with when I have my awesome comrades in the TLG program.

Anyway, I introduced myself to one girl, a former TLG volunteer who has lived in country for the last two years, and is dating a Georgian guy. I figured, "Hey, she must be kind of cool! She's stuck around past her contract, is living in Tbilisi, and is even in a cross cultural relationship! She's got to have hilarious stories about this goofy place we both so clearly enjoy!" Naturally, after initial pleasantries, she asked me how I was liking Georgia, and I said that I loved it. I might as well have called her a stupid fat cow, because she jumped down my throat for that for the next forty minutes.

"What do you mean you LOVE Georgia? No one LOVES Georgia! Georgians don't even love Georgia!"

She had a snipe for every single reason I gave her.

"I think it's a beautiful and diverse looking landscape. I love mountains and the sea."

"Oh, so you love trash everywhere because no one gives a shit enough to throw it away properly?"

"I think the food is delicious."

"Yeah, you get sick of it. Trust me. There's only so much bread you can eat."

"I think the people are really nice and helpful."

"And judgmental and bossy and really, really rude. And will totally rip you off once they find out you're not Georgian."

And on and on it went. For over a half an hour. This person, who I'd never met, belittled me and just kept telling me how wrong I was about every single one of my thoughts.

Now, I don't handle people telling me what to do very well, let alone how to think. Disagree with me, sure, but don't sit there and tell me that I'm fucking stupid for my opinions, cause guess what? They're MINE.

There are plenty of things to be upset about this country with, and it's not like she was necessarily lying about all of her reproaches.

There is a huge amount of trash everywhere. The creek behind my house acts as my family's dump. People let trash just drop from their hands while walking down the street, or chuck it out of car windows as they go driving down the road. And sometimes, sure, it is obnoxious to be in a beautiful field surrounded by snow capped mountains and see seven plastic bags hanging on tree branches or corn stalks. But then you remember you're in a place that doesn't even have a stable electric grid, let alone a reliable and orderly trash collection system. Also, it's not like America is really that much better. The national parks are clean [for the most part], but our major cities are pretty trashed (pun intended!). Granted, it's not to the level most towns here are, but still. Environmental friendliness isn't taught here, and unfortunately that's something that has to be taught. And since this is a country where many people burn their trash in winter as supplemental fuel for their houses, I think we should, once again, be focusing on fixing the bigger issues at hand. 

As for the food, I really think this one is about where you are in country. After talking to a lot of my friends who live in the mountains, I realized I'm pretty freaking lucky about my location. Telavi is a fairly large town, and we have a bazaar that is active every day. Not only that, but we're relatively close to Armenia and Azerbaijan so we continue to get vegetables throughout the winter. My family is also fairly well off by Georgian standards, so we have a good bit of diversity when it comes to meals. Sure, most meals are some kind of brothy meat stew with potatoes and some tasty spices, but I've yet to get sick of those since they're so freaking delicious. But in the villages and mountains it's a different story. Most other volunteers have been eating some kind of bread and potato dish all winter, and up in the mountains there is basically no type of vegetable other than cabbage. So I can see where some people might grow tired of the food.

But that's not necessarily "Georgian" food. That's "being poor" food anywhere. Also, if you live in a town or a city, you have options, and I don't really understand how anyone living in Tbilisi can claim boredom of food. I mean, they have a few Indian restaurants (oh my god they're so good!), a Thai place, a Mexican joint (and they totally ripped off the graphics from Chipotle and it's hilarious!), and even a pizza place! With cheese sticks! It's legitimate pizza! And that's not counting all the Lebanese restaurants, Turkish cafes, and even the American fast food branches. There are stores that sell pretty much anything you could want, so cooking isn't even a pain in the ass in a city.

And in terms of people and their judgmental tendencies, well, it's not that I can refute that, because I can't really. Georgians are no more judgmental than most Americans are, which is to say they're a pretty judgmental group of people. I've yet to really have that big of a problem with it, however. Most of the time, if I ask someone for help I'm greeted by curious and friendly questions in hopes of helping me out. I tend to avoid talking to younger women, because I've noticed that they're exceptionally not friendly, and I also stay away from younger men since I don't want them to get the wrong idea. So by narrowing down who it is that I interact with when I need help, I've effectively cut out the major judgers. It helps, again, that I live in a bigger city, and don't have to deal with small village life. It also helps that I'm not the first American to be through here, so my being a foreigner is pretty old hat. That's not to say that the people in the bazaar don't rip me off, because they absolutely do. But the people in my life that matter - my host family and coworkers and neighbors - are pretty non-judgmental, and that's really all I care about.

Now, there is plenty of shit about this country that drives me insane. All of the double standards I have to navigate get really tiring after a while, and being treated like a four year old when I'm twenty seven is equally obnoxious. I'm saddened by the way animals are treated even though I understand why. Sometimes when I catch people blatantly staring at me I feel like yelling, "JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS IT DO I HAVE FOUR HANDS GROWING OUT OF MY EARS WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!" Not having a car is vexing, and being reliant on a public transit system that doesn't have any kind of schedule other than, "We go when it's full, and we don't drive roads at night," is tricky to navigate sometimes. The lack of privacy with personal items, like phones or notebooks, is still a little jarring, as well.

So having said all that, you're probably wondering why it is that I say I love this place. And the truth of the matter is, I can't really give you a concrete reason why.

I think it's funny that if I want clothes without haggling at the bazaar I have to go to one of the three Chinese shops in town, all run by an unamused family of Chinese folks who all sell the exact same items of clothing, shoes, and cheap imported toys.
I like how a "big night out" in Telavi consists of sitting on a park bench and watching all the guys drive round and round the town center in their cars, most of which don't have front fenders even though they're BMWs or Audis.
I think it's fantastic that people have ridiculous decals on their car windows, like, "SORRY" or "It's My Drift, Bitch," and tinted windows on a Lada Niva are always a great sight.
I love the sound of the Tbilisi metro as it's slowing down between stops.
I don't think I really knew what beautiful was until I was in a marshrutka in the middle of the mountains while this song was playing.
I love that sometimes there's a space heater on our toilet, or pants in our hot water heater, or a stray puppy sleeping on our wood pile in the sun.
I'm tickled whenever I'm looking for our cutting board and, on a whim, decide to look out back of the house and there it is, sitting on a trash can full of distilling chacha.
I love how chacha is stored in gasoline canisters or Fanta bottles, depending on it's quality.

There are a thousand little reasons as to why this place makes me smile every day, and that's ultimately why I love it, which is a hard thing to articulate to people.

The point is that this goofy little country has, for the most part, felt very natural. Yes, it surprises me endlessly, and there are some things that I flat out do not understand. There are also a number of things that I really miss about America. But at the end of the day, Georgia has felt the most like home of anywhere I've lived, other than Upper Michigan. It makes sense to me, in a way that California or Texas, or even lower Michigan, just never did. I like that I have health insurance here, and that even though I make less than $230 USD a month, I'm able to live like an actual person, and go on weekend trips and buy decent food and see my friends. I've felt like an adult for the first time in my whole adult life, and it's something I'm not really eager to give up on my return to America.

I've been seeing a lot of articles lately about "Millennials," the name for the generation I am apparently a part of. It's a generation that's labeled as lazy in this dire economy, one who actually has to second guess our decision to get higher educations out of college because we're encumbered by crippling amounts of debt with no sort of income to properly counteract them. The articles all say the same thing - that if we just try harder, or suck it up and work crap jobs that we hate, that eventually we will be able to dig ourselves out of the financial hell in which we're stuck. And quite frankly, that doesn't sound awesome. Sure, teaching isn't my calling in life, but at least I'm making enough money right now where I don't FEEL like I'm living in some financial hell. I'm also not working sixty hour work weeks in high stress places for money that barely covers my living expenses.

America is, to me, a terrible reminder of all the things I want to do but can't due to monetary restrictions. It's working a lot for very small results, and always being painfully aware of how I should be doing better based on some self imposed ideal of what life with a college degree should be. But here, there is none of that. And I think that's what I dig the most.

"The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go..."

...said John Muir, a particularly bearded nature lover whose facial hair was rivaled only by his adoration of scrounging around forests and mountains, and it was this quote that was rattling around in my brain when I randomly decided to go visit a particular stretch of mountainous land a few weeks back. 

While I normally hate the type of posts like the one I'm about to do (the ones where I just recount all the fun I had and bore you to death with some blow by blow recollection of how pretty it was while bombarding your bandwidth with a ton of pictures), I sort of don't care. Because the mountains are ridiculously pretty, and no amount of words I possess or pictures I take will begin to do them any sort of justice. But I'm only a human, and if I've learned anything from watching Doctor Who it's that we don't really give a shit about things being impossible, because we will try anyway just on the off chance that we're wrong. 

I realized the other day that I normally talk about places and don't give you a lick of perspective about where all they are. I suppose if you really cared you could Google it on your own, but I'm feeling particularly nice today, so here's a small map. As you can see, there isn't really a direct route up to Kazbegi/Stepantsminda. You have to duck down south to Tbilisi (which is right where the "Google" is in this map) and then catch a marshutka going north from there.

The climb into the mountains starts innocently enough. The sprawl of Tbilisi gives way pretty quickly to small villages and rugged farmland, but your first ascension into higher elevations is fairly sneaky. You don't realize how high up you are until you see these bad boys in front of you. 

And you still don't really feel like you're that high, until you see the semi trucks in front of you, and realize that the "small ravine" next to the road has now turned into a gigantic how-the-fuck-did-you-not-notice-it-before canyon. 

And up and up you go. The switchbacks are ridiculous, the climb is an incredibly steep one, and the whole time the driver, whose vehicle is naturally in questionable health because Georgia, is clipping along merrily at a way too fast pace. If you're in the very back of the van, like I was, you will get tossed around like a rag doll, and if you're insane like I am you'll be smiling the whole way while listening to some goofy ass music as the soundtrack to your trip. I highly suggest all of this, as it was probably the most fun I've had in a vehicle ever, and that's saying a lot.
 However, if you're a normal person who does not like being tossed around due to shitty quality of roads or if you are simply terrified of heights, do not ever, ever, in the history of ever, go up this road with a Georgian driver.

I suppose even above treeline there have to be strange abandoned buildings, and while I think this one is actually a proper monument, that doesn't mean there weren't at least a dozen abandoned houses, warehouses, or churches along the mountain ridge.

So up and up you go, until you're driving in a world that's only white and blue, and suddenly you're going down. The downward part is interrupted by a series of commie fun tubes that serve as tunnels. I call them commie fun tubes because they don't really go through the mountain like an actual tunnel would - instead they serve as a protected road so that, when the mountains inevitably destroy the parallel exposed one, trade won't come to a grinding halt.
My guess is that until the weather becomes better, the outer roads won't be opened for traffic, and when we were up there, these outer ones were still closed. However, that didn't deter our driver who, impatient for the semi trucks to creep through the tunnel, decided to say fuck that rope for telling him he couldn't go on that road, and onto the "seasonal" road we went.1
Whatever their name may be, and whatever purpose these tunnels or tubes serve, eventually they dump you into this high moraine valley.

When you're this high up, it's hard to remember that the bottom of the valley is still actually about 5,000 feet above sea level.

There are a ton of little villages sprinkled throughout the valley, although they're mainly on the side opposite the highway.2 There are remnants of cable cars across a few of the gorges, but I'd hazard that  they've been out of commission since before the fall of the Soviets based on their degradation. Otherwise, there are no roads proper over to these locations - just sketchtastic footbridges and footpaths up the little houses on the hills.   

And then the road drops down onto the grey granite floor of the valley and begins to climb upwards again, until this is what you see - Mount Kazbek, the Gergeti Trinity Church, and the tiny village of Stepantsminda (the town formerly known as Kazbegi). And yeah, that little smudge on the hill just to the left of Kazbek is the church.

I really do think that the sky is a different kind of blue in the mountains.

Kazbegi is the third highest mountain in Georgia, and reaches almost 17,000 feet. The fact that it's a dormant volcano just makes me love it even more.  

There's not a whole lot to do in Stepantsminda this time of year. Even getting up to Gergeti, one of the more famous churches in Georgia, is a hassle, and walking up is nearly impossible. The whole area is definitely a summertime paradise, I'm sure. There are all sorts of glaciers, waterfalls, alpine meadows, and birch forests to go crawling around in, either on foot, by horse, or by parasail. In mid March, however, it's fairly sleepy. You can take a stroll up to the Rooms Hotel, which lies at the topmost part of town, and get a ridiculously awesome view from their ridiculously awesome porch.

Also you will want to get a mug of their hot chocolate, because I'm pretty sure they literally just melt a bar of chocolate into a cup and call it good. So you get a warm and uber tasty drink, plus the view from above. Add in some awesome company, and who can't have a good time?
Buttmunches. That's who wouldn't have a good time. And since you, oh diligent reader, are not a buttmunch, I'm pretty sure that you'd have a fun time!

The Rooms Hotel is definitely a great little place, and quickly escalated as one of my favorites in this country. Their entire lower floor is a sitting area/coffee shop/restaurant/bar and they have a huge collection of books in multiple languages (Georgian, English and Russian of course), as well as excellent musical choices. I say this primarily because I heard several Beatles songs and none by Pink Floyd. Well done, Georgia! 

My friend and I could only spend the day up in the mountains, so we were not able to get up to the Gergeti church. Instead, we found a taxi driver who agreed to take us 10 km up the road to the Russian border and the monastery that sits next to it.
In case you had forgotten that this is a supremely Orthodox country, and you might have gone a whole ten minutes without seeing some kind of church or cathedral (blasphemy!!), there is, naturally, a little shrine along the way which our taxi driver was nice enough to stop at. 

Hello, Russia!
Well, actually, hello three miles of neutral zone and THEN Russia! I felt a little weird, being an American and taking obvious pictures of the Russian border crossing, hence why this is probably a little wonky of a shot.
Either way, the border crossing sits in an impressive gulch. 

The church, within spitting distance of the border, is for the Archangels Gabriel and Michael. It's also, strangely, made from a pink rock which isn't remotely native to the part of the mountains this was built in. It's one more time that the ancient world makes me go "Damn!"
It's also currently under heavy construction and refurbishment, like so many sacred sites here are. The narthex is done, however, so we were able to get inside.
I didn't spend that much time inside, mainly because it's all new and apparently I find new things uninteresting and bland (seriously, all the walls were white. No weird fucked up icons or anything! Why even bother going to church if you can't check out ancient paintings that have been defaced??), but also because the outside is, to quote John Muir again, "a cathedral of light." So what if he was talking about the Sierras half a world away with these words - it's applicable to the Caucus, dammit!

In summary, I hate the mountains, they're not that pretty, and I definitely won't be going back again.

1. Times like this make me remember that I've become so used to "rules" not really meaning anything. Crosswalks, "Do Not Enter" signs - they're all more suggestions instead of law. America is going to be rough.

2. It's called a highway, more specifically the Georgian Military Highway, and it's been around in some form or another since medieval times. Queen Tamar had a summer palace up in these mountains, and used this road as transportation. Nowadays, it's barely two lanes wide, and has numerous semi trucks that take their turns incredibly wide and creep up the mountain ridiculously slowly, which will infuriate your driver and make them pass trucks at really dangerous and inopportune times. Basically, what I'm saying is that "highway" is a really liberal term for the type of road that takes you up into the mountains.