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.