The Day of the Dead and Halloween

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. The combination of costume parties and sugar consumption is magical to me. I was so excited to share this tradition with my friends here in Georgia that I ended up having two Halloween parties.
The first one was with the Bookmobile kids. These are the local school kids age 7-17. Our crowd was pretty young, but they were great kids. I prepared a quick presentation about Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations. Then my friend and fellow PCV Ed came and taught the kids how to make pinatas. It was totally new to them and they loved it. It was messy, hands on fun.

And Ed had pre-made a couple so we gave them the full pinata experience. And we, in turn, witnessed an almost full zombie attack experience. Once the pinata hit the floor, the kids were on it with a frenzy I've only witnessed on Walking Dead. Practically World War Z up in there. Once one victim was consumed, they turned to the next. I have a new terror/respect for the youth of Tserovani (as pictured in the below photo).

Behold the fear on my face and the madness on his

The next party was on Friday. This one was at the cafe and catered to the older kids in school. This time we bobbed for apples, ate a donut (actually it was a really large bagel that Eka found at the store) off a string, painted faces, bowled with a pumpkin, carved said pumpkin, and then watched some Nightmare Before Christmas. This one definitely felt like a true Halloween party - I played the Monster Mash at least 4 times. You could say it was a graveyard smash.

The day we had our first visitor!

A couple weeks ago, Logan and I got an exciting message - our friend Megan (technically Logan's from DC, but I like her so I'm claiming her) told us she is going to Turkey and was wondering if she could come for a weekend. My answer was not just yes, but heck yes! Now that we hit our six month mark, we can take vacation days and welcome visitors. And fall is lovely here, so we were so excited for her to come! Plus it was short notice, so we didn't even have to wait long - just the way I like it.

She flew in on Friday morning, and with no time to spare, we went directly to Mtsketa, the ancient capital of Georgia and a lovely little town. We met up with Sophia and had a feast of kinkhali. As proper initiates of Georgian hospitality, we were bound and determined to stuff her as full of food as possible during her trip. After a quick tour of Mtsketa, we traveled out to Galivani and spent some time with the Bookmobile kids there. They were so excited to welcome new friends and use their English. Logan and Megan introduced themselves and we all played some games in the school yard.

From there we rushed off to Skra, Logan's training site. We had dinner and stayed the night with his host family there. They are some of my favorite people in Georgia. The welcome is only matched by the deliciousness of Irma's food. Everything is from their garden or animals, and she works magic in the kitchen.

The next day, we kept up the pace of the activities by taking a drive through Kakheti. (It may not sound like much, but that's Georgia's Eastern Region. Our entire round trip was about 300 km/186 m.) We hired a taxi for the entire day, and he was a great sport. He would drive us to a fort/church/castle, wait for us to explore, and then drive us to the next one. He even added a spot onto our itinerary, and it was a great addition. Fall is in full swing in Kakheti, and it was gorgeous. The rolling hills covered in bright colors was so gorgeous.

Most emblematic picture of our trip: our driver, the fall colors, and Russian music videos

The day was a bit of a blur of car rides, fall colors, and old things, which turned out really great.

Stop 1: Ujarma Fortress
I don't actually know that much about this one. It was a fortress with a great view.

 Stop 2: Shuamta
This was a set of three churches. The one in front is from the 5th century, the other two from the 7th century. So old! It's so impressive that they are still around, and then you add in the fact that people still use them.

Stop 3: Alaverdi Monastery
UNESCO Heritage Site. Second largest church in Georgia. The frescoes were impressive. Plus this one had a winery and pomegranate bushes in the yard.

Stop 4: Gremi Castle
Personal favorite. This one we got to go into a museum and they had a fancy old toilet chair. We were a little obsessed with the color of the roof. Lots of wars happened here.

Stop 5: Nekresi Monastery
This one was on an impressive hill. My favorite part about this one was that when we were across the valley, I pointed it out to Megan and said "See that? In Utah, I would think that's just a big rock. But I'm sure it's a church." As it got closer I knew it was, and then we ended up going there. Surprise! The road there was so steep with crazy switchbacks, we had to take one of their buses and assigned drivers. The view was amazing. I learned later that one time this monastery was kept safe from attacking Muslim Persians because the monks filled the road there with pigs and the Persians wouldn't deal with the dirty animal. So now this monastery loves pigs.

Stop 6: Sighnaghi
Georgian "City of Love". On another hill with an awesome city wall that we got to walk around on. Super charming little town. Hometown of our taxi driver.

Stop 7: Bodbe, or Nino's Monastery
Saint Nino was the woman credited with bringing Christianity to Georgia. She's a pretty big deal. This is where she spent the last part of her life and she's buried in the complex. The gardens were amazing.

It was a marathon day and we covered so much ground, but we all enjoyed it. So much history and culture, and we barely scratched the surface. We showed Megan on a map of Georgia how much we covered and she agreed she needs to come for another visit - there's so much more to see!
We even had part of another day to explore Tbilisi and the festival that was happening there. More kinkhali was eaten too. We got her to the airport on time and unfortunately she left us for Turkey. I'm so glad she visited, though! Hopefully this shows people how fun we are to visit and that they should come visit us too.

The day I squished the grapes

Fall in Georgia means grapes. Not literally, but grapes are everywhere. At every turn, you can see either grapes or grape products. One morning, I woke up to a flurry of activity on the porch outside my window. This flurry of activity was the harvesting and squishing of my host family's grapes. (I'm sure there's a more technical term than "squishing", but I'm not sure of it in Georgian or English, and squishing is a fun word, so I'm going with it.)

Alby and Zura hard at work

Naturally, I was excited and intrigued. The process was a bit different than I expected. Yes, that is a bathtub, which is pretty ingenious, since the juice drains perfectly out of the bottom into the collection bowl. But the funny part is that this is the only bathtub I've ever seen in Georgia. No one takes baths. It's either showers or buckets. I have no idea where this bathtub came from (or where it went after). It's a mystery. 

Action Shot

First, they let me watch, and then gave me some juice to drink (which was delicious!). I've had freshly squeeze orange juice, but never grape juice. I'm a fan. Then after a while of me hanging around and low-key begging to do it too, they let me put on the big work boots and give it a go. It was really fun, but harder than I expected. I had to move the bag around to make sure that I got the most juice out that I could. Also I had to make sure not to fall over (possibly the hardest of all the tasks) and stay to the back so that the tub didn't move forward. 

I finished up my bag and drank some more juice. I was feeling quite satisfied with myself until later that day when I learned that you shouldn't drink too much fresh black grape juice because there's something about the color/skin/juice that is too strong. Which I learned the hard way because I had quite the stomach ache that evening. So I literally drank myself sick on grape juice. It wasn't even wine. So I'm a lightweight, but a lightweight who regrets nothing. 

The day I turned 26

I love birthdays, most especially my own. So I was very excited to hear that a training had been scheduled the week of my birthday, which meant that although I had to be in a training on my birthday, I would be surrounded by other volunteers in a fancy hotel (paid for by Peace Corps) with a buffet and a spa. That is definitely my idea of a great birthday. And it lived up to my excitement!
As the clock struck midnight on September 16, most of the G15 IOD PCVs (that's a lot of letters to describe my group: the people in the program and same year group I'm in) were in one room - hanging out and watching VH1 (the best thing on TV, tbh. They were rocking the 00's jams.). One of my favorite birthday traditions is celebrating my birthmoment (12:08 am, I'm really lucky it wasn't at like 6 am). The other volunteers complied and sang Happy Birthday to me right then and it made me very happy.

During the training, I got a shout out and M&Ms from the staff, and birthday wishes and songs from many people. Plus, luck was even on our side, and my table even won both the trivia games. The party continued all night. Two people love me and gave me Oreos. I quickly proceeded to eat them with milk from the restaurant, which came in a goblet. In the evening, the hotel had live music. It was two of the hotel employees playing guitars and singing covers of Georgian, Russian, and English songs. They were really great, and I think we were the biggest and rowdiest crowd they'd ever had. They were great. Scott had them play a song just for me. By the end of the night we were all dancing and got them to play a couple encore songs.
Even at home people were working to make my birthday special. My family did acts of service all day "in my honor". It was so sweet. Their updates all day were such a lovely gift of the heart.
The best kickoff to my 26th year I could have asked for. Thanks for everyone who helped make it special!

The day summer ended

August is Georgia's vacation month. Mostly everything stops and people take some time to relax. Then on September first, the country bustles back to work. It's funny what a difference a day makes. I had some fun adventures during the month of August, here's a quick wrap up:

The first adventure was Bookmobile Camp. The Bookmobile is one of our projects at my organization, but it doesn't operate during the summer. But they planned a camp with kids from all four settlements where it operates. The camp was in a campground above a town called Juta, one of the highest continuously populated villages in Europe. Basically it was hours on a dirt road from anywhere, but beyond beautiful. The camp was so much fun. We had sessions on different life skills, plenty of games, hiking, and I led a morning yoga class every day. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth millions, so watch the fun video they made of the camp, even if it is in Georgian:


The next weekend, a bunch of volunteers met up in Kutaisi (the second largest town in Georgia) because it had been almost a month since a lot of us had seen each other and obviously we were having some separation anxiety. There was of course, the required copious amounts of talking, eating, and adventuring. One of the volunteers lives near Kutaisi and showed us the incredible Martvili Canyon. Parts of it reminded me a lot of the slot canyons in Southern Utah, but the water was clear blue and surrounded by green instead of desert. It was the perfect summer day of swimming and fun.

Kutaisi wasn't done with us yet. The next day, to escape the heat (did I mention it was high 90s and humid?) we went to Prometheus Caves. I was expecting it to be cool, but I was very impressed. The cave system was much larger than I expected and it had awesome formations. One huge difference I noticed between Georgia and the States was that in the US, we usually try to put the smallest amount of things in the cave to minimize impact. But in Georgia, they carved out the path and light it up like a Christmas tree, and I have to say, I liked the Georgian way better. (Side note, they called it the Prometheus Cave, because there's a rumor that maybe the Prometheus myth happened here. Or it was the place he got condemned to after he stole the fire? Something like that. I was too distracted by the pretty stalactites and stalagmites.

The next weekend the party was at my house! Literally. Some PCVs had signed up to do an enamel jewelry making workshop at my organization. Naturally, that couldn't be all we did, so they slept over the night before and after. They did an awesome job at making the jewelry and then we celebrated by making fajitas and watching a movie with a borrowed projector. It was almost like a movie theater! (Funny story, we shared the fajitas with my host sisters and they did not like them at all. But they were good sports and much prefer fried rice.) Tserovani might not be as happenin' as Kutaisi, but we know how to bring the party.

Thanks to Logan's dental filling falling out of his head, the next weekend was an adventure too! He had to get it fixed in Tbilisi, we took the opportunity to explore the city. I hadn't really been there on more than business, so it was great to be a tourist for the day. We utilized as many forms of transportation as we could, including cable car, metro, taxi, funicular, and foot. (The last one counts because we put in like 16 miles that day. We checked on Logan's phone pedometer.) We explored the old fortress, Mother Georgia (a huge metal statue that looks over the city), the largest and newest church in Tbilisi, and a flea market in a park. That market was so much fun; I felt like I had been transported back to the Soviet Era. We spent almost the whole time trying to find the right Hammer and Sickle pin for Logan to buy and I got an awesome new necklace. I'll definitely go back - there was so much cool stuff! Another highlight was when we were up on the hill overlooking the city (by this time it was night), we took a ride in the Ferris Wheel, and fireworks started going off while we were in there! We had the best seat in the house. It was awesome!

By the time the month ended, even though it was so fun, I was ready to quote Green Day and say: "Wake me up when September ends." But it's my birthmonth, so it's my favorite. Plus, the rest of Georgia was ready to get back to work too.

The Day We Hiked Among the Clouds

The Thursday after I started at the organization, it had a birthday. To celebrate, the whole office closed, we piled on a marshutka, and we drove a few hours north into the mountains to a place called Kazbegi. Kazbegi is the home to Mount Kazbeg and a mountaintop monastery named Gergeti. Every time I researched Georgia, I saw pictures of this place. It’s world famous and for good reason. It was quite a hike to get there, but when I got there, I was breathless for a different reason.

My words can’t do justice to how beautiful this place is. We were so high in the mountains that we were literally in the clouds. We could see them below and as the wind passed, it would obscure the church for a minute or two. The church was built right at the peak of a mountain among the mountains. I was blown away (not literally, even though it was windy), and I never wanted to leave. This place made its way into heart and my list of most beautiful places I’ve ever been (on that list includes Guilin, China and Havasupai, Arizona.) Since my words fail me, I took lots of pictures. Look at them instead.

360 Degree Pano

Afterwards, in proper Georgian tradition, we feasted. There was mtsvadi (Georgian barbequed meat), khinkali, salads, watermelon, and even s’mores! No Georgian supra is complete without toasts and laughter. We even danced. This was a wonderful way to get to know my coworkers better and experience the incredible beauty of the Caucuses. 

The Day I Started as an Official PCV

We swore in on Friday and then started at our organizations on Monday. I was so lucky in my assignment – the organization For Better Future. My counterpart is Nana – an incredibly active and tenderhearted woman who is involved with basically anything that happens here in Tserovani. She’s also a bit of a foodie, speaks English well, and has even been to Utah. (Which is incredible, because most Georgians just give me blank look when I say I’m from Utah.) There’s also Eka, who just graduated college and she’ll be helping with our social enterprises. One of them is an enamel jewelry making business. We have three full time artisans (Matsi, Tiko, and Tako) who make beautiful rings, pendants, earrings, and cufflinks. It’s so cool to watch them work. Our other enterprise is a café here in the settlement. It’s brand new and just getting started, so I’m excited to help with the progress there. We also have other projects with other settlements. We have the Bookmobile, which is an American Corner library that rotates around the four settlements in the area. Another project that is starting this fall is for youth civics clubs. I’ll write about each project specifically in their own blog post, because they deserve their own.

The organization is busy and full of amazing people. I’m so excited to be working here and I know it will be an amazing experience. Two years is going to fly by!

The day we swore...in

They day finally came. We had passed our language exams, proved ourselves capable in our technical trainings, and cramped our hands filling out paperwork. We were officially ready to become official Peace Corps Volunteers. The day started early with leaving our PST Host Families. It was an emotional moment. It was hard to say goodbye to these wonderful people who had introduced us to Georgia and been patient enough to take care of us until we had mastered simple phrases like “I need to go to the bathroom” and “I really can’t eat any more of your delicious food.” But luckily we can still go back and visit while we’re here.

As a G15 group, we traveled together to Tbilisi, loaded with anticipation and all of our physical belongings. We got all dressed up and after a rehearsal, welcomed the U.S. Ambassador to Georgia, old host families, new host families, and future counterparts for our swearing-in ceremony.

In a small choir, I sang the Georgian and American National Anthems. We definitely did better on the American one, but they still applauded us for effort on the Georgian one. There were speeches and cameras and pomp and circumstance. It was a very special moment as our names were read, then the Ambassador had us raise our right hands and swear-in as official Volunteers.

After a reception and cake, we all headed our separate ways to start what we came here to do. As our group has said at every big milestone, “it just got real”.  Congrats and good luck to all my fellow G15s!

The day we partied like it was 1777

July rolled around and that means hot weather and American Independence Day. We may be in the good ol’ US of A, but we are a sizeable group of Americans, so of course we’re going to find a way to party. Luckily it was a Saturday, so PC gave us a break from Saturday classes and told us to bring our host families to a barbeque. It’s not 4^th of July without hamburgers and hotdogs.

The party had been in the works for about a month, and it was quite the event. It really felt like home for a while.  There was watermelon, potato salad, and we (the Ruisi cluster) even tried to make a cherry pie. (It turned out alright, but it was quite the ordeal. Basically I didn’t know where to get some of the ingredients or a pie tin, but we made it work, not without a frantic call home to my mom.  One day I’ll be able to cook properly without her. Not yet though.)

There was face painting and tug of war and all sorts of shenanigans. I’m glad we got to bring our host families, it was fun to host them for a while and be able to share our culture, since they have been so giving of theirs.

Happy Birthday, America! 

The day like all the others

Even if it is seemingly uneventful, I want to document a normal day of PST.  It may not be exciting or grand, but it’s this slice of life in the sopeli that gives the truest taste of Georgian living.

I wake up in the morning feeling like P.Diddy. JK. I’m sorry I made a Ke$ha reference circa 2010. I only feel like P Diddy if when he wakes up he has to psych himself up to walk to the outhouse first thing. And then he gets ready and goes to school in the neighbor’s marshutka with all the other neighbor children and Fellow Trainee Kyle.

The mornings pass in a blur of poorly pronounced Georgian and fierce competitions for the colorful paper stars that will determine one of us superior.  Maybe I should explain what “us” is: we call ourselves the Ruisi Cluster. We do so because the Peace Corps called us that and we do everything as they say. We are six brave Americans on a quest to advance world peace and friendship. We have assembled from all parts of the continental United States and Guam. JK. I wish one of us was from Guam. I’ve never actually met anyone from there.

I tried to sneak a picture. Obviously I wasn't that sneaky.

Anyway, we study beginner Georgian for four hours a day from our LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator), Maka. Maka is a wonderful Georgian human who not only schools us in all things Georgian, she actually seems to like us. She has more patience and composure than you know. After class, we have lunch together at one of our host family’s houses. This is the real reason any of us wake up in the morning. Georgians know how to host a dinner party, I’ll tell you what.

Just as my tea gets cool enough to drink, Maka gets a suspicious call from an unknown number: “The marshutka has left Tiniskhidi.” We all know what that means. An unmarked van is about to pick us up and deliver us to Kareli. Actually, it usually has a sign that says PST. But they may be agents, because I never seem to be able to drink all my chai, I think they have us bugged or something. The rides to Kareli are shared with the Tiniskhidi cluster, and even though we are all fighting off the post-meal exhaustion, the marshutka is usually full of talking and the occasional outburst of song. Good times are had by all.

In Kareli, we have our Technical Specific trainings.  These are to help us be the best Individual and Organizational development volunteers we can be. We learned about how to plan and implement projects and trainings, as well as other Georgian-organization specific information. We only have 20 IOD volunteers, so we are a close knit little group. It’s good fun.

Basically we are at trainings until the cows come home. Literally. We usually have to share the road with at least the cows, if not other livestock. Makes for some smelly traffic jams. 

About the time we are waiting for the cattle to clear, one of us looks to the others and says: “ნაყინი დღო?” (Ice cream time?), to which the answer is invariably yes. We then convene the “AmerikeliBirzha”, a title we have appropriated from the groups of men that gather in the streets in the evenings. Many times they drink, but we have our ice cream. We all have our vices.

And then we go home to our respective houses. We usually have homework due the next day. If it’s Monday, I’ll watch Georgian X Factor with Nazi and Rezo. Other nights we eat dinner and hang out with the neighbors. Life is good in the sopeli.  

The Day I Made Khinkali

One typical evening in Ruisi, seven o’clock rolled around and my hungry alarms were going off. Luckly it seemed that my host family’s were too, as they looked to each other and asked: “What should we eat tonight?” After some discussion, it was decided that tonight would be our khinkali night.

In the most basic way, khinkali is the Georgian version of dumplings. But that fails to fully describe the beauty. They are delicious little pockets of juicy goodness, complete with a little dough knob that serves as both a handle and a way to number your conquests. Behold:

The process of making khinkali is not for the faint of heart. First you have to make the filling. Typically, this is  a mix of ground meat and various spices: we used fresh cilantro, coriander, peppers, and of course, salt.

Then you have to make the dough and work it till it’s though enough to hold in its tasty contents. The dough is then rolled out into Fruit Roll-Up sized circles

Next you get to put it all together. A heaping spoonful of meat mixture goes into one dough circle, and then you fold. The folding is a work of art. The best of the khinkali makers can get 18+ folds on one khinkali. I am not a professional, but I’m good enough to make sure that all the filling doesn’t get out. I’ve got my priorities. Nino and Nazi even taught me a fancy way to make them look like fish. It’s adorable and delicious!

After you’ve made a heaping pile of khinkalis, you’re ready to boil.

And in 7-9 minutes, they’re done! That is, 7-9 minutes in the water. At this point it had been nearly three hours and we were all starving. But luckily it was time to eat ourselves silly. The act of eating khinkali is one of the best parts. It’s so fun. You get a whole pile placed on the table, they get covered in pepper, and then it’s a frenzy.

At least, it’s a very organized frenzy, because there are some very specific rules about how you eat khinkali:

·         No forks allowed. You grab that khinkali by the nob and nom nomnom, but

·         Don’t drop any of the juice. It would be an offense to the cook. You take a bite, and then sip it like a gentleman/woman. (You can choose if you want pinkies out, that’s flexible.)

·         Don’t slurp it. This isn’t 7/11. (Can someone please send me a Slurpee though? That sounds amazing right now.)

·         Don’t eat the nobs. They’re not usually cooked all the way through, plus you want to pile them up and prove you can eat more than Giorgi over there.

There you go, now you and I are both khinkali experts! See you at the next supra!

The day I tasted the future

We have our placements! It's very exciting. This whole time we have been in the dark as to where we will live and work for the next two years. For IOD volunteers, this is especially nervewracking, because we didn't know what kind of organization we would be working at. The process of finding out was really fun, because they had us all line up around a makeshift map of Georgia, and we took turns reading each other's location.  Nerves were high, but I think everyone is excited about their placements.

They didn't leave us any time to think too much about our new homes, because the next day we were whisked away to a conference to meet our new supervisors. To our delight, this conference was held at a great hotel in the tourist haven of Borjomi. (A little like the Park City of Georgia, if Park City was famous for its naturally carbonated, cure-all mineral water.) This hotel would have been nice under any standards, but especially for those of us living in villages with limited niceties, this was Shangri-la.  Of course we all took advantage of the showers and toilets (that not only were Western and flushed, they even had a phone setup right next to it. True swagger.), Logan naturally found free spa services.  We enjoyed ourselves in the sauna, yet again.

The view from our room in Borjomi

The conference had a different point, which was to get to know our supervisors.  We had a few sessions over a couple days, and then all of us took off to the far reaches of Georgia to visit our sites. Oh yeah, I should probably say my site. I'm headed to Tserovani, a settlement for Internally Displaced Persons, established in 2008 after the war in South Ossetia.  More about the settlement in a different post.

I will be working with an organization named For Better Future. This organization is located in Tserovani and is run by the formidable Nana. My first impression of her was stellar, and everything I learned in the following days followed suit. She is so busy with many projects. She's basically the voice for Tserovani. Our organization has two enterprises, a mobile American Corner (Bookmobile! I was transported back to my youth), and even more projects ranging from youth civic clubs to economic development in and around Tserovani.

I am so excited to work with this organization. I am so lucky to have been chosen for this post.  I got to meet the G13 volunteer who is leaving, and seeing her love for the work she's done made me want to throw my whole self into the work, and I know we'll keep up the good work.

I also met my host family, and they are awesome. I know I'm being brief about all my descriptions, but it really was such a whirlwind of new things and people, it's hard to be specific about anything. That and I'll dedicate posts to each thing when I know more and have pictures. Until then, some brief highlights:

• One of my new co-workers, Matsi, had a birthday while I was there. I was invited to the birthday dinner, and the night ended with her playing her guitar and the whole table singing along to the songs. It was a perfect summer evening.  
• Mstkheta, the historic old capital of Georgia, is only minutes away from Tserovani, so Nana took me to go see some sights. It was a blur of churches and khinkali, but I really enjoyed it. There will be another G15 there, so I will have plenty of time to explore and visit. 

The view from our walk in Mstkheta

All in all, I got a taste of the next two years, and it was sweet. I am feeling so relieved and excited about what I will be doing and who I will be with.  PST has been fun, but I'm ready for the next step.

The day we hung out around New Castle

In Georgian, it’s ახალსითკე “Akhalsitke”, but it translates literally to New Castle, and that was fun to say.

This weekend, Peace Corps let us break free again, in a very controlled way, to see more of what Georgia has to offer. A small group of us chose Akhalsitke, slightly influenced by the fact that our LCF (Language and Cultural Facilitator, aka Teacher/Mentor/Assigned Friend) Maka is from that city. It’s south west of where we are training, so onto another marshutka we went. Claire and I did have a spot of trouble actually getting one, and a lot of the apple sellers got invested as we tried to flag one down for an hour, but we finally got one and met up with the rest of the group.

There are G14 and G13 volunteers there, so we called them up and hung out with them for the night. Luckily we hadn’t planned on sightseeing during the evening, because the weather would not have permitted that. There was lightning and hail galore. So instead we got junk food and talked the stormy night away.   It may not sound like much, but it was a really fun evening. Plus it’s fun to get to know the other volunteers.

The next day was an ideal touristy day. Our guesthouse provided a monstrous breakfast and we each took a long, hot shower. (Yes, you’ll probably hear about each time I get a proper shower. It’s a notable event and can turn a frown upside down.) The weather had cleared up and the sun shone on our walk to the “New Castle”, the central feature of Akhalsitke town.

First, we stopped to pay our respects to our favorite King/Queen, Tamar.  She was a no-apologies, rocking queen that they called King. I’m a fan. I’ll need to do a whole blog post just on her. Then it was on to the castle.  Even though the castle itself is relatively new (which is still hundreds of years old, but Georgian history is incredibly long), they also had renovated the castle a few years ago. So it really felt like a new castle.

I guess some of the Georgians refer to it as “Georgian Disneyland”, since it’s so new and touristy, but we didn’t care. It was actually kind of fun to see the castle as it would have been while it was being used. The most interesting part though, was the dissonant architecture. There were the oldest, medieval looking walls, then a church in the center based off the Hagia Sophia, and other miscellaneous influences. They didn’t bother trying to make it all match, and as a result, made a very interesting, beautiful, and unique place.


I am enjoying getting to know all of these awesome places in Georgia. Every little area has such treasures to behold; it’s hard to believe that such a little country can have so much to see and do!