Security

Our house has a big metal door. This door is never shut if we're home, except for when we're asleep. It also only has one doorknob. It's not on there with any bolts or other securing measure - you can slide it out one side and put it on the other really easily. 

So my family's version of "locking up" when we're not home in the daytime is taking the doorknob out of the inside, using it to close the door from the outside, and then "hiding" (I use this term loosely, since it's just sitting on some scarves or whatnot) it in the glass door cabinet we have outside next to the entrance of the house. 

Awesome. 

What's In A Name?

I really, really love how my host family all calls me Julie, since apparently Johanna is just too much. 

Also, here's a gratuitous mountain shot.

I'm mobile, bitches!

I've finally gotten my iPhone all hooked up to Georgian cell towers, so check my badass self out! Subsequently, this might become more like a Twitter feed, with numerous smaller posts, but I'll still do big uploads every few days. Gotta keep things interesting, after all! 

I'm currently sitting in the teachers lounge at school. This is the fourth day so far, and I've a break between classes, so I figured I'd give some first impressions on being a teacher. 

First off, English is stupid. I've known this for a while, but having to teach all the rules and stuff to kids, and watch their tiny heads explode from definite articles, prepositional words, and messed up spelling, has only solidified this opinion. Especially coming off a language like Georgian, which fundamentally is logical, simple, and whose alphabet is specially tailored to it. Also, these kids start learning English and Russian in first grade, on top of Georgian. So that's three different alphabets, three different grammatical structures, and three different pronunciations. Georgian kids are badasses, and I am officially done complaining about how hard it is to learn a language. 

Secondly, the staff here has not disappointed in terms of hospitality. They all are very welcoming and nice, and always try to talk to me either in broken English or my ridiculously bad Georgian. I think it's funny that no matter how hard you try and inevitably slaughter the language, they will laugh at you, but then help out. Being from a supportive, somewhat mean family (I say "mean" because we all make fun of each other a lot, and that's how we show affection...), this isn't that out of the ordinary. I also really like it when they make fun of my abysmal Georgian and then hand me a cup of chacha and make me eat dumplings and cake. 

My coteachers have also asked me if I like Georgia every single day. It's like their go to "we should try to talk to the retarded American" question. This question also, every day, inevitably leads to "do you like Georgian men? Do you want a Georgian husband?" I've found that men here know one English word - "boyfriend." Any time I try to use an excuse like "Oh, I have a boyfriend in America," which I totally don't but I don't feel like being endlessly courted by men here so I lie, all the men in the room erupt in ridiculously hearty laughter. They then tell me they've heard that before, and since Georgian men are the best I will soon change my mind. Given that I can't cook, and they sure as hell can't either, if I ever did end up with a Georgian man we would shortly starve, so I think I'll stick to non Georgians for now. 

Finally, the school itself is...if I said rough shape that would be giving it way too much credit. It would fit in well in Detroit, lets say that. The walls are fucked and cracking, I've yet to find a light that works, the stairs have holes in them, the railing is messed up, and some rooms have that musty "haven't had a breeze blow through in 40 years" smell. But none of that matters. The kids don't notice, and neither do the teachers. All the rooms have drawings on the walls, and posters and flowers and curtains and tablecloths on the front desk. After I initially noticed all of these negatives, I stopped seeing them. 

The kids are all very bright, very enthusiastic, and they pick up on things incredibly fast. One of my co teachers called this school a big family - she meant it literally, as we have several pairs of mothers and daughters, sisters in law, brothers in law, etc. But it also functions as an extended and unrelated family due to it's size. My biggest class is 10 kids, the smallest is 4. The kids all know, respect, and generally like their teachers, and there is a level of familiarity present that you don't really find Stateside. 

So these are just first impressions, and I'm sure they'll change and that come mid semester I'll be frustrated by something. But for now I'm gonna just chill and suss out my place in this crazy chaotic workplace. 

Stop being such a Diva!

This is going to be kind of a weird post, so I’m going to hide it and you can click and read at your discretion.

Men, and women that don’t feel like reading it, today’s topic is about periods. Sorry! But I am on a crusade to help women everywhere in dealing with that stupid time every month where we want to burn the world down while stuffing our faces with chocolate! Especially for girls who are going to be travelling a lot, and haven’t thought about this particular issue yet, I’m hoping this can be a helpful point of view!

Ink'd

Today I was finally brave, and walked around the house in a short sleeved shirt, thus exposing the giant nerd tattoo on my arm. I’ve been trying to tip toe around this particular subject with my new family, since a lot of people, in Russia especially, only have tattoos if they’ve been to jail. TLG even warned us to not really advertise our body ink, since most people in Georgia have never seen them, and they have a lot of negative connotations associated with them. However, I ended up talking with one of the guys who has done TLG before, and he has several very large and visible tattoos on his arm, so we delved into how Georgians actually feel about them.

Ken put it very well. He basically told me that I shouldn’t hide it because this is a cultural exchange – my tattoo is a part of me, a part of where I come from, and they have to deal with my culture as well. He’s right, of course. This is an exchange, meaning I am thrown into the deep end of their life and they have to just deal with sticking a toe in my pool. But even with this empowering mindset, I still was nervous about showing it to them. Like more nervous than I was with my actual blood parents. My own parents have to love me. It’s a mix of me sharing their genes and them dealing with my charming self for 26 years that ensures I can do whatever dumb shit I want and at the end of the day they’re sort of stuck caring. This family, however, doesn’t know me, doesn’t have any fealty to me, and I wanted to make sure I got off on the right foot with them.

So out of the bedroom I walk with a short sleeved shirt, Boba just staring at all of them. And no one even cared. No one did a double take, or even looked at it. No one said anything until Ani, my sister, came up to me and poked at it, telling me it was very pretty. My grandmother and grandfather both still even hugged me when I tried saying an entire sentence in Georgian. My host father didn't scream in Russian and Georgian and then throw me out of the house. I got all wigged out and worried for nothing. Shocker, right?

Later that night, Ani and I were sitting in the kitchen, and she was asking me about it. I really enjoyed tonight – it was the first time she and I have gotten to hang out and talk. She is hilarious, and super animated, enthusiastic, and adorable. She has the absolute best laugh I’ve ever heard, and she calls smiling too much “pain in my face.” We ate a lot of fruit, she talked about  how she is going to be going on a diet (all women in Georgia apparently diet constantly. It’s part of the reason they’re so annoyingly drop dead gorgeous), and I showed her an Ansel Adams book of photography, which she really got a kick out of. Anyway, amidst her and I talking in very broken English and Georgian, and her laughing ridiculously hard when I kept trying to make various sounds in Georgian, we got onto the subject of tattoos. She was asking if it hurt, what it was, why I picked my arm, etc. And then she admitted to wanting two of them; one on the back of her neck, and one on her wrist. It was kind of awesome to hear this little 11 year old Georgian girl talk about getting tatted up, not gonna lie. So dad, if you’re reading this, just remember that if a family in the middle of an ex Soviet country can like my tattoo, you can, too!

I think TLG gave us a lot of “worst case scenarios,” which is great, considering the last groups didn’t get any kind of cultural warnings or language training. And while I think they went very, very overboard in this respect (they should’ve summed it up with “don’t be a dick” and we probably would’ve been ok), I think they wanted to let us know that in some cases things will be vastly different for us. I’ve been lucky enough to be in a larger city, with a family that’s already had a volunteer, so I’m living the easy life comparatively! Like today, the weirdest “Georgian” thing I did was scrape off moulding and plaster on the stairs with a steak knife since we didn’t have a razor! Tame day in Telavi!

Telavi Life

My host mom is a pretty impressive woman. She wakes up at about seven in the morning to get breakfast going and gets ready to work, then she puts in a full day of teaching at the preschool. When she gets home at four, she starts dinner, or makes a little snack, and then starts cleaning around the house. This has lately meant tidying up the construction area on the second floor. Why she has to do this, I’m not sure, but I do know that today it included not only bits of leftover wallpaper, but also a random hypodermic needle just lying on the floor. Cause you totally need that when you’re renovating upstairs bedrooms. Oh, and we also threw gigantic twelve foot long planks out the second story window. And threw a few doors out said window, also. And hauled a gigantic tarp full of wallpaper scrap down to the backyard so we could light it all on fire.  And then just left this huge pile of trash burning while we went inside and chatted with a neighbor. I guess when you don’t have a landfill system, or some kind of environmental bureau on your ass, it’s pretty much do whatever the hell you want with your garbage!

It’s funny, because Georgians make a lot of stuff happen with very few materials. They are the masters of jank. They’ve perfected it, and it is super impressive. Subsequently, having spent a large chunk of my life surrounded by Yooper jank, the Georgian way of doing things doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary. My mom and I walked up the road and went down a little trail yesterday to get some water out of a pipe in the side of the hill that spits out a really heavy stream (ha, period joke, boom) of ridiculously cold water. We filled up a huge jug with it, brought it home, and then she disappeared out back with it. What it’s for, I still have no idea, but I know damn well that it’s most likely essential for the house running, so I’m not going to question it. Our house has a seemingly unending supply of water out of the faucets – all the sinks and shower work, and we have a washing machine. What that jug was for I am at a loss, unless Georgians have secretly found a way of creating shitloads of water out of a few gallons.  Although, considering they are just now getting scientists and agriculturalists back in the country for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting “brain drain,” I find this highly unlikely.

I think my favorite part so far (I keep talking like I’ve been here for a long time, when it’s really only been like three days) is when my mom and I get some fruit and go walking down the street to Leah’s house, where we sit out front and they judge the everliving shit out of all the cars driving by and the noisy kids playing down the street. It’s nice to just sit and listen to them, and I’m finding myself able to pick out words here and there, but more importantly discern what some of the verbs are and how they’re being conjugated. Of course, that doesn’t help me at all, since I still have no idea what the fuck they’re referring to, but whatever. It’s progress, and I’m gonna chase that feeling! Although, if my brain could shut the fuck up with the Greek internal monologue I have going when I play the “what would I say to this question” game, I’d really appreciate that. However, the overall feeling - the camaraderie, the affection for each other, the loud talking and laughing and closeness the neighbors all have - reminds me a lot of being around the family in Chicago. It feels very natural, and very familiar. It's nice. It's made me really happy that I grew up with an insanely animated, loud, everyone-in-everyone-elses-shit family, because that's what these communities are. 

While I'm over the moon happy to be here, I find myself almost breaking down on a near daily basis. It's like I look at a tree, and am just so happy that this tree has figs that I can pick off the branches from the street, and it fills me with this crazy affection to this tree and I almost start crying out of happiness about it. And forget the mountains. Or the buildings. Or the people in general. It's all just making me so happy I can cry. I finally understand my mom and sister at the end of Homeward Bound, when Shadow comes limping over the hill and Peter runs over and they're reunited. I used to make fun of them when I was little, because why would you cry when you're happy? I swore up and down from ages 5-24 that I wasn't going to be that person that cried whenever they were happy, and now I'm totally one. Although, I haven't actually done it in front of anyone yet, because I don't want to be THAT person in the program. Bully for me, I suppose! Anyway, it's hard to really express how I feel about this place, other than it feels...right.

On a less serious and deep note, because whoa...

My house currently doesn't have internet, as a car ran over the cable and it's out (what?), so I've found a few places nearby that have free wifi. It's weird not being able to just hop online whenever I want, and it's doubly strange not being able to use my iPhone to look things up whenever I want. I resigned myself to not being able to have constant internet, and I figured it wouldn't be that bad to deal with. And it really hasn't been bad. But a few of the kids in the program thought ahead and brought unlocked smartphones with them, so they were able to get a micro SIM card from TLG. Know how much the data plan here is? You're all going to punch me, but for 15GB of data (so about 5 times what you probably have with Verizon or AT&T), it's 5 lari to set up (3USD about) and then 50 tetri a month (so like .26 USD). Yeah. I don't think I'm ever fucking leaving this country. Anyway, now that I know this is a possibility, it's just sitting there, tantalizing me. Every time I look at my iPhone it's basically just snickering at me, saying "Haha, you fool! How could you not even think to unlock me! I'm supposed to be a great international phone! What were you thinking!!" How's that for being a shitty First World Problem? "Wah, I went to a place that has an unstable power grid and didn't think to unlock my ridiculously amazing smartphone so I could have 3G coverage while there, all so I could look up pictures of cats whenever I wanted! Womp womp!" 

I'm trying really hard not to be a shitty American about things, and I think so far I'm doing a pretty good job. The smartphone thing, though, is a tough habit to shake. Especially since I never really realized just how MUCH I used it. It's making me slow down a bit, though, and not worry about what everyone else is doing around me, and focus more on what all is right here. I've been drawing a good bit, and reading some Emerson, cause apparently traveling abroad is also forcing me to go through a transcendentalist phase, which is something I never thought would happen. 

All that being said, I'm totally about to call Verizon and throw a shit fit about things until they unlock my phone, since apparently they were giving my mother a hard time about it. I figure with my iPhone unlocked, if anything, I'll be able to text fellow TLG volunteers with a normal keyboard again, instead of the archaic keypad typing that was popular back in 1999. That's really why I want to switch. Plus all of the lolcats. We can never forget the lolcats.

My little TLG-provided phone. He's awesome, and it's like doing a time warp back to being 18 and texting with the old brick phone we used to have, but damn. Go hug your touchscreen keyboards, everyone. Tell them how much you love them, and appreciate them!

Still a crap shot, as the Caucasus mountains are under a seemingly perpetual blanket of fluffy cumulus clouds, but this is about  four steps out from my front door. Rough life, eh?

Georgian Hospitality

A recent article listed Georgia as the third most hospitable country in the world. All my research of the country echoed the recurring themes of "Georgian kindness," and "the warmth of the Georgian people." Yet upon finally getting here and actually interacting with people on the street, I found it was  just the opposite. The first few days were very strange because I noticed no one smiled. I'm a pretty friendly person to strangers on the street, and will at least shoot people a smile, or a head nod if they happen to make eye contact. But everyone here walks around with a very stoney face - no expression, no looking at other people, no acknowledging other human beings exist. I found it all a little disconcerting.

And then, after having a few phrases under my belt, I noticed that the second you actually initiate a conversation, especially if you try in Georgian, folks just light up, and become incredibly animated. Having made it to my host family's house last night, I finally understand the meaning of "Georgian hospitality."

My family lives up a cobblestone street off of another rubble strewn road off one of the main thoroughfairs in Telavi. The upstairs is currently under construction (I get one of the new rooms when it's finished!), but the rest of it is very warm feeling, very homey. Especially the kitchen, which is hilariously where I have spent most of my time. My host mother, Maghka, is this really vibrant woman who doesn't speak English - she only knows a few words here and there. Naturally, upon finally meeting her, I was so nervous and excited that any Georgian I learned over the last week just went straight out of my head. Conversations right now are a weird mix of me slaughtering Georgian, just straight up making words I think COULD be Georgian (adding an -i to the end of most things seems to work well), and lots of gesticulating. When I get back Stateside you will want me to be on your charades team. However, I have gotten a lot of bonus points for keeping a little notebook where I scribble down words I'm learning using the Georgian alphabet, even if I do need help discerning a few of the p's, k's and t's still. Ani, the 11 year old daughter, and her younger brother Goga, are currently at their other grandparents house in a different village until the construction is done, but I spoke a little with Ani on the phone, and it sounds like she has a pretty good grasp on English. It will be nice to have her around, especially for those times when elaborate acting is needed.

In the four or five hours after my arrival to Telavi, I had four meals, numerous hugs, and several cheek kisses, mostly from the neighbors who kept dropping in. Georgian hospitality is outrageous - we even ran into a Polish kid who is backpacking across Georgia and needed a place to stay for the night. He was asking us if we knew where a cheap hostel was, and Maghka instead invited him to stay with us. So currently this family, whose house is under construction, kids are in another village, and both parents work, have taken in not only one foreigner, but two, neither of whom speak their language. They've fed both of us full meals, and always insisted we take more. We both have numerous blankets, pillows, and I bet if we needed clothes they would help us with that, too.

It's strange to me that the private circles of Georgians are so completely different than the public face they put on. For a group who is so welcoming and open with their house and belongings, they look completely unapproachable on the street. In fact, we were told in training that smiling at strangers, especially girls smiling at boys, is considered "flirtatious." It was slightly horrifying to find out that the first few days I was in Tbilisi everyone probably thought I was some crazy loose woman who was trying to lure men into my bed with a smile. It also explained why a couple times some men followed us for a short ways, yapping at us in Georgian or Russian. I basically just ignore everyone now, which turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Public outings, especially if I'm by myself, are way less stressful now that I don't have to worry about social graces on the street.

Telavi unfortunately is currently under some cloud cover, as are the Caucasus mountains to the northeast of the town. Hopefully it will clear up by sunset so I can get a picture of the view outside our door. It's sort of stupid how every time I turn around it's another perfectly picturesque scene. The Caucasus are ridiculously impressive. They basically just jut a straight 11,000 feet up from the floor of the plains. The front range, which we can see from Telavi, go above treeline, and the highest one around here soars over 18,000 feet. I don't think I'll be doing that much trekking around in the high mountains, but some hiking definitely needs to be in the future. A few fellow TLGers were talking about possibly taking a trip this weekend and exploring around Kakheti, so hopefully that means mountain adventure time!

Either way, pictures to come when the weather clears up a bit!

Stuff and Things

We received our placement information a few days ago, and I've been too lazy to properly talk about it, so I guess that changes now! Kakheti is the easternmost region of Georgia. The capital, Telavi, is slightly smaller than Marquette, sitting around 21,000 people. That's where I'll be - living with a host family who has their own house, complete with an indoor toilet, indoor bathroom, and (WHOA) internet! I'm pretty stoked to meet them. As much as I like Tbilisi, I am way more excited to see the rest of this country, particularly the city which is considered to be the most medieval city in all of Georgia. Why is Telavi medieval, you ask? Because it has ruins from four very different time periods - something no other city can boast! It is also in the middle of a vast reconstruction. All over Georgia, renovations on buildings are taking place to make them more livable and safe. Sighnaghi, another city in Kakheti, recently underwent this update, as did the old capital of Georgia, Mskheta. P.s. I find it endlessly amusing that Georgians keep calling Mskheta the "old"capital as if it was the capital back in the 1700s, when they last had a long stretch of independence from the Russians. In reality, they're really referring back to about 500 A.D., when Mskheta was the capital before King Dachi moved it to Tbilisi. I love that in this part of the world, old is actually fucking old, instead of referring to something from 1936 or whatever. It's pretty awesome. 

We head out to our assignments on Monday, and then apparently have a week to get used to our new families, meet the school teachers and principles, and just kind of chill out for a couple days. That will be nice. Maybe then my brain can slow the hell down and process this jumble of information known as the Georgian language.

There are lots of super neat things about Georgian that I really like, but am having a hard time grasping being an English speaker. First off, it's got a completely different alphabet. And while I really love it, and can basically read it flawlessly now (to be fair, it's at the speed of a 4 year old just learning words, but still!), there are times when it tricks me. I find myself many times writing a Greek letter instead of the Georgian one I want, even though I know the Georgian one. The same thing happened when I was learning Greek, though - I'd constantly be thinking of French words and slipping those in conversations instead of the Greek vocab I knew. So maybe this is just a case of my brain rewiring itself. Whatever it is, it's pretty annoying, because I KNOW what it should be, yet out of habit write something else.

Secondly, Georgians use postpositions for shit like "to" and "from" (-ში (-shi), -იდან/-დან(-idan/-dan)), and you just replace the last vowel of the word, or add onto it. Now, that's pretty cool, and it actually makes a lot of sense, but it's strange sitting there forming a sentence which in English has four parts and only having three words in Georgian. For example, "I am from America" is "მე ვარ ამერიქიდან" (me var amerikidan). The "from" is wrapped in the last 4 letters of the third word. Subsequently, I can change those last three letters to mean I'm going TO America, or I am IN America, and so on and so on. It's really a strange thing to get used to. Also, I have to say that this is the first time I'm learning a foreign language that has no genders, and it is so fucking awesome I cannot even stand myself.

Thirdly, plural forms. So, Georgian does the same thing English does to pluralize objects - that is, add an -s to the end of the noun. I really like that it does this, as it is one of the few really easy things about this language. However, you only ever add the -s when it's a general term, like "tables" or "cats" ("მაგიდას" (magidas) and  "კატას" (k'at'as). The second you have any kind of absolute number, like "3 tables" or "5 cats" you drop the -s, because the number already means it's plural, and the -s would just be redundant ("სამი მაგიდა"(sami magida) and "ხუთი კატა" (chouti k'at'a). Logically, that is awesome, and makes absolute sense, and I get why they do this. But my stupid English speaking brain hates this. Subsequently, I make the mistake of keeping the -ს a lot when I shouldn't.

The last bit that has been the hardest to grab hold of is the different p, ts, t, k, and various guttural ch sounds this language has. My awesome linguistic savvy sister sat me down one night with a bottle of wine and tried explaining the various aspirate sounds that a few of the letters represented. Now, I have to say, after actually hearing them in use I'm starting to distinguish which "t" to use, or which "k" to use. Hell, I can even tell you which "p" is which! But this fucking language has three different types of a sound like the "ch" in Greek and German (think of Bach if you need to verbalize this), with just SLIGHT differences. And quite frankly, when its nestled in between a sea of other consonants, with only one vowel in sight, they all sound basically the fucking same. These three letters, ღ, ჭ, ხ, are giving me hell. Again, I have no doubt that living in a household where these sounds will be commonplace will help dramatically with individualizing them. I'm not being a pessimist or anything, or throwing the towel of defeat in from now. All I want to do is strangle those three little symbols.

This has been a very rambly post, so I'll end it with some pictures of this place. Because seriously, it's so pretty I could puke.

Artwork in the Metro stop at Rustaveli Avenue. Probably for the Rose Revolution, if I had to take a shot in the dark...

The church in aforementioned "old" capital, Mskheta, called Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. I was bad and took pictures inside when priests weren't looking. This church has tombs of several old Georgian Kings, including the last one, George XII, when Georgia became a protectorate of Russia in 1800. 

Vineyard in the church courtyard. I wanted to eat one, but figured God was already pissed enough at me for  walking around such a venerated place with nothing on my head, so I didn't chance it. Georgia apparently has something wild like 9,000 types of grapes. 

Health care shenanigans

Let me just start this with six words: I am fine, nothing is wrong.

Ok. So, with that out of the way, Monday I went to a Georgian hospital! I ended up missing all of my language classes that morning in order to take the trip, but thanks to some very helpful fellow TLGer's, that isn't a problem.

It all started a few weeks back with what I thought was a heat rash. Marquette had been particularly steamy and gross, and heat rash was a perfectly acceptable answer for the itchy redness that started popping up all over my arms and upper thighs. But then I had to get on a plane, so there was a lot of doping myself up with Benadryl just to make the 9 hours sitting bearable. I found it strange that after almost a week, this rash was following me overseas. Georgia added a new fun twist to my itchy life - the tops of my feet and around my ankles randomly develop itchy spots, but they tend to disappear about as randomly as they appear. This doesn't really placate me, however, because I still find it annoying as shit.

So we had our orientation meeting about the health care and insurance plan we get while here. I find it endlessly amusing that I'm in a technically developing country and I have better health care than I do in America, but that's a whole other issue. Actually, it's not, because fucking shame on you American pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Ok, now I'm really done, cause I don't feel like going into a diatribe right this moment. Anyway, I spoke with the TLG medical staff after the meeting, asking them if they had any advice about what I should do. They got the mother hen horrified face, and told me that they would arrange for me to see a doctor immediately.

Tuesday rolls around, and sure enough, I'm told I have an appointment. Now, here's why I love Georgia. Instead of leaving me at the hotel while a TLG driver went out to the headquarters (about 40 minutes outside of the city center) to pick up Kate, the TLG med staff member who would be coming with me, and then going about 10 minutes out of the way to come back and pick me up before going to the hospital, the Georgians just said fuck it, and brought me out to the suburbs with them. I am way not complaining, because it was a pretty awesome excursion around Tbilisi, it just cracked me up. The circuitous nature of my morning continued at the hospital.

I hate to do a comparison this early in, but it was just such a stark contrast that I sort of have to. Ignoring all the other things that I'm sure people would nitpick this establishment about, the one thing I think would rattle your average, run of the mill American the most is how Georgians enter their doctors rooms. There isn't a nice waiting room with the sort of smug and judgmental receptionist who tells you when you can go in, at least not on this particular floor - there are a few small rooms around a large open space with chairs for you to wait in. But in order to know if you have to sit down, you have to open the door of your doctors office, and poke your head in. If there's no one with them, you can head on in. If there is, you just pop a squat in one of said chairs until the current patient vacates. Maybe they have ways of indicating that you shouldn't enter, but there wasn't any discernible one I saw.

The whole process was pretty entertaining, especially since Kate had to translate pretty much everything. She was awesome - super patient, really helpful. The doctor just looked at my arms, and basically told me to go see a dermatologist, so Kate and I hopped in the ridiculously small elevator (no seriously, it was about the dimensions of a twin bed, and about 7 feet tall only) back down to the lobby, where we took the note the doctor gave us, and they scanned my passport, insurance card, and pointed us down some stairs to the dermatologist. She was pretty friendly, and prescribed an antihistamine pill, a sedative antihistamine pill, an antihistamine cream, and some other liquid that is supposed to help moisturize the area. So we take her written prescription back upstairs to the first doctor, who writes out the order on a different, fancier piece of paper, and that's all. We're done.

After that, it's just a matter of taking that fancy piece of prescription paper to a pharmacy to fill it. By the way, those four things I mentioned? Yeah, it was a total of 11.50 GEL, so about $6 USD. With our insurance, all prescriptions are covered 50%, so I effectively only paid 5 GEL, about $3 USD.

Granted, I did not have a serious ailment, nor did I require urgent medical attention, but the fact that I was in and out of a doctors office, with a prescription, for less than $5 USD, in under two hours, is pretty fucking amazing. 

So as of this writing, along with the two antihistamines a day, 80 minutes a day total of the bottled liquid on the rash, and putting that box of gel on them, it's way less itchy, and going down. I'm also on what looks like a gluten free diet, since they also think the rash is an allergic response to something I'm eating. I swear to god, if it's actually a food allergy, and I can't drink my delicious IPA's ever again, I will choke a bitch. But I will wait until it's fully clear and then slowly start eating foods I actually like again (I miss chocolate, meat and coffee the most, and we're only on day three of this!). Upside is I guess I'll lose a lot of weight? Neat?

Tbilisi

I love it here.

This whole city has such a good feeling to it. It's full of little alleyways with bars and restaurants, and everyone is drinking, or eating, or both, usually with groups of people.

There've been a few times when not knowing Georgian (or Russian) have been annoying, but so far those are really the only language barriers. Everyone else either speaks English, or you can mime out stuff enough for them to get the jist of what you're saying. Except for cabbies. You're sort of fucked if they don't speak English, nor you Georgian/Russian. Also, they're insane.

Let me preface this by first saying that no matter how many moments I imagined fiery, awful car crashes, I have yet to see a single accident here. This caveat is mainly for my mom, who I am sure will just puke if she thinks of me being in a cab here after reading this.

Cabbies. Are. Nuts. Well, this entire city actually seems legitimately mental once you put them behind a wheel. Everyone kind of just goes willy nilly where they want, and people apply their conversational personal space boundaries (i.e. none) to other cars. This actually works out pretty well, because it really forces the driver to pay the fuck attention. Or so I tell myself. In reality, I think they're mostly just lucky. But almost every vehicle I've been in, be it a taxi or a marshrutka or the normal metro busses in Tbilisi, has Orthodox icons on the dashboard, so maybe that's also part of it. I find it a little disconcerting that on more than one occasion I've seen drivers do a quick cross before a light changes. And they always know when the light will change because there's a little countdown clock on the side so you know exactly how long you have to wait. That's besides the point, though - we're talking about how bonkers cab drivers are.

You know that scene in Fifth Element, where Bruce Willis is driving his floating taxi trying to run away from the cops right after Leelu falls through the roof of his car? That's Georgia, only add ridiculous eurotrash techno music to it, since that is what is on every single radio. The lines on the road are more suggestions that people don't tend to really agree with. Most of the time, cars will just drive right down the center of two lanes, and sort of move over if another car wants to pass them; although if the car is passing them on the left then that car will just go into oncoming traffic a bit if the other doesn't move over fast enough (hint, you can never move over fast enough). It's really understandable why TLG doesn't want us driving here - I'm pretty sure the insurance costs alone would run the program into the red in about a week.

 All of this being said, I have to admit that cab rides are some of the most fun I have ever had. Even if they are mildly terrifying. But hey, if you're not a little scared, what's the point, eh?