გამარჯობი = Gamarjobi = Hello!

Hey all,

So, to start things out, I love it here!

Ok, I left off writing on Thursday morning, and it is now Friday. Yesterday was basically a hurry up and wait day. We were rushed to the Ministry, where we waited for half an hour for the Minister to come in the room we were in. After a short speech, he left us. They gave us Georgian wine and Juice. I had some peach nectar (amazing!) and some cherry juice (which I have never had before but is completely genius!) . Then most of us who had lost our luggage were swiftly escorted over to a very expensive and fashionable shop. I bought no actual clothes, but I ran across the street to a store where they sold undies. Really expensive undies. I don't know if it is a Georgian thing, or if it was the store I was in. But then again I am comparing in prices of a Georgian Boutique to Walmart.

After this we rushed back to the Hotel so that the people who did have their clothes could change. It was around this time that I realized that my camera was busted! I think there is an inner mechanism that is freaking out because the camera turns on, but as the lens slides out it makes this wicked clicking noise, then it continues to zoom out as far as it can go. It will not zoom in or out according to what I do at all. And worst of all, it will not take pictures. Nothing. It would be one thing if all of my photos were super zoomed in, but to have no pictures at all! It sucks.

Anywho, we waited around the hotel for a few hours, finally leaving at 3:30 when we had been informed that we would go at 2:30, no matter what. We drove to the beautiful Marushka and had our first introduction to supra. Supra is a huge meal that is generally spread over hours and has many many courses. Usually a toastmaster is voted on, and they lead the festivities. During supra you can only drink when a toast is made, but it seems you would never go thirsty. Since our supra was for almost a hundred people and we had no toast master, we just ate and drank at our leisure. Our meal was sort of an imitation supra. At the end there is traditionally fruit, and I think I have never had such flavorful peaches, nectarines, watermelon, honeydew, and plums.

At the end of the supra one of our directors told us that some of the luggage had been delivered to us. I went to have a look, not letting my hopes get up. But lo and behold, there was my bag, sitting all lovely and green amongst the others! We drove an additional four and a half ours to the outskirts of the city Kutaisi. The school we are all in is a boarding school that was fixed up for government use, so it is really nice. We have great air con in our rooms and the whole building is very lovely. I took a shower and changed into lovely clean clothes, we had a small dinner, and after scriptures and prayers, I went to sleep.

I woke up fairly early this morning, after a wonderful nights rest. My bed here is like a cloud. After several weeks of Anika's couch, and many many hours on Airplanes and buses, I could not ask for something more delightfully soft. We had breakfast first thing, then had a meeting. It was long and boring, and closely followed by our first Georgian Lesson. Georgian is really beautiful and very difficult. It is one of only fourteen of the worlds alphabets, and it is very curvy and pretty. We spent hours at it, learning some really basic introduction phrases, and began trying to learn the vowels of the alphabet. There are five vowels in the alphabet. ა is a like in a sheep's ba. ე is e like in sheep. ი is written i but pronounced like eh. ო is o like in can't remember. უ is u like in blue. Georgian has no capitalization, so that's good.

After Georgian and lunch, we had methodology. It is one of those subject where everything is pretty obvious, but some one just decided to swing by and name it. Like positive vs negative feedback. I already knew it was a bad idea to tell students that they are idiots, but now I know what to call it. After methodology I went down the street with one of the girls here. Eairlier this morning me and a couple of people went for a walk and found this joint store that is like a gas station (without the gas) on one side and a ladies pharmacy one the other. It is kind of weird, but dead useful. Anywho, after that, I stood in the rain a while, wrote the first half of this, went to dinner, and came up here to write finish up. So now I am just sitting here rambling. I have one more meeting in a few minutes here, and then I am off to sleep in my insanely comfy bed!

I have decided to keep this blog as faithfully as I can for now, as a sort of journal-ish thing, so if you get bored of my ramblings, I give you official permission to skim.

Love you all!

Katie