What happened to March?

I just looked at my calendar and I JUST realized that there are only 2 days left in the month. Good-bye March! It seems like only yesterday I was waiting for my birthday to come... I seriously have no idea where it all went. I didn't think I was that busy, but in a way I'm glad that I haven't noticed the time. I actually like feeling super busy! 

I've picked up some extra-curricular activities. I'm taking a stab at private tutoring! I've only done one lesson so far, so we'll see how that goes. My student, Lizi, is fantastic. Only in 7th grade, she's so smart (or as the Georgians say "She's so clever.") and she really tries her hardest! :) I know it's going to be fun! I'm constantly trying to think of different activities and lesson plans for the kids. I'm thinking that we need to try some "popcorn reading" for the 3rd graders. I'm also working on fixing the resume and job hunting. It actually a lot harder than I thought it would be since I'm applying for jobs while I'm on the other side of the world. Everything will work out though :) 

This morning I did not have a class during first period, so I had some time to kill. A great time for making a "To Do List"? I think so! I got that finished and then I started thinking about the time that I have left here. I'm almost at the halfway point of my contract (April 1st)! I've always had "countdowns" for important events...  For example, my birthday, I had a countdown for that. Well I started making random countdowns  and I'll share some of them with you!

(Today is pretty much over for me... These start tomorrow)

-Time away from home: 77 days 

-2 days left until April

-8 days left until my Spring Break

-49 school days left

-78 total days left until the last day of school

-83 days left in my contract

That seems like a long time from now, but if this time goes as fast as March did... I'll be home before I can count anymore. Well I better not waste another second. 

Live every moment!

Until next time. Adventure is out there.

Seriously, What time is it?

Since I've come to Georgia, I've been using my iPod as my alarm clock. Luckily, it's been going well so far. I've woken up immediately every time it's gone off. That doesn't mean that I get out of bed right away. That's the down-side to having an electric blanket. It's so lovely and toasty warm all the time! I've gotten into the habit of setting my alarm about 30 minutes ahead... That way I get to pretend that I'm getting more sleep. Frankly, I do the same thing at home. At home, it takes be at least 4 snoozes and then I'm up! In Georgia, I've gotten down to 3 snoozes. Progress!  This was not a good alarm clock morning.

Don't worry, I didn't over sleep. On the contrary, I got up 1 hour early! My iPod has decided to play a little trick on me. It has decided to reset my clock so that it's an hour fast. I was absolutely and utterly confused this morning. 

When my alarm went off at "7:55 am," the sun didn't look like it was in the right spot. I looked at my iPod, 7:55am. I looked at my phone, 6:55 am. I looked at the clock on my dresser; 7:30 am. I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes for about a minute, glancing between all the clocks, trying to figure out which one I should go by. Finally, I got up and went into the kitchen. The clock on the kitchen wall said 7:15 am. I think I'm a pretty smart person in general, but with all this confusion first thing in the morning, I was not functioning very well.  One of my initial thoughts was Day Light Savings Time. That must be it! But as the wheels began turning in my head, I remembered that I heard there is not Day Light Savings Time in Georgia. Weirdos! Way to confuse the Americans. Some more time rolled by and I was trying my hardest to figure out a solution. I logged onto my computer, opened up the google search, typed in "world clock" and found out that it was 7:02 am in T'bilisi, Georgia. Success! Then I went back to sleep for 50 minutes. I would not have been happy to have gone to school one hour early. Honestly, I have no idea when the building opens up. Well I am only a 3 minute walk to school. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal to go that early. I would have just come right back home. I'm glad that the wi-fi was my friend this morning. State of confusion resolved!

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Some memorable Georgian moments :)

For the past few days, Mari and I have been talking about how we really want to start exercising! If only the Batumi weather would help us out and become absolutely gorgeous every day. Low and behold, today there was more rain. Therefore I did not get to go for my afternoon jog :(
But Mari, wonderful person that she is, looked up a local gym for us to go to! This is only theoretical at this point because of our busy schedules. She found a gym that is just down the street (thanks to the local Sports University there)! PLUS, we can pay to have our own personal trainer 3 times a week! For an excellent price. Today we embarked on a journey to pinpoint the exact location of this gym and talk to the personal trainer that we recommended to us. The only details we were given was "in the building behind the Sports University." Descriptive, right? We took a quick jaunt down the road and began our exploration! When we reached our destination, we had two choices: the green building or the pink building. It reminded me of a game show, Let's see what's behind the green curtain! Except in this case, it was a green door. Well, we stepped into the green building and a rather rancid smell climbed into our nostrils. We walked through the foyer in our attempt to escape the smell and find someone who could tell us if we were in the right building. We found a gymnasium where a lovely group of gentlemen were having a little wrestling meeting. The coach had no idea where a fitness area was, so we figured we were in the wrong building. Thank goodness! That smell was absolutely putrid! I am so glad that was the incorrect building.
Moving on to see what is behind the pink curtain! This time we found a some very nice ladies who said we were in the right place and gave us the phone number of the personal trainer to call her down. Mari took control of the phone call, obviously since my Georgian is not up to par. I took it upon myself to watch the gymnastics practice that was taking place in this gym. There were some younger boys starting a warm-up right by the doors, some older boys working in the far corner, and in the middle of the room were some girls working on their floor routines. After watching the floor routines, I recognized 3 of the girls. They are some students from one of my 4th grade classes! They were wonderful. I can't wait to talk to them about it tomorrow!
When the trainer arrived, she informed us that the only time available is MWF from 8pm-9pm. That's awesome. Since Mondays and Wednesdays were the 2 days we were trying to avoid. Schedule rearranging in underway. Hopefully I'll know soon if I get to join in the fun! And when I know, you'll know.

Another funny moment of the day involves doing my laundry! This morning before I left for school I threw A LOT of things in the washer. I'm a little surprised that things actually got clean. Upon returning home from school, I hung my things out on the wires on the balcony and in the stairwell. Did I mention that they don't have Dryers here in Georgia. Well, they might but I haven't seen one. Another luxury of home! So I hung my things up and waited for them to dry. When we left on our personal trainer hunt this afternoon it began drizziling... and all my clean, almost dry clothing was outside. Whoops! Well the first thing I did when I got home from the hunt was to grab my things and get them out of the rain. At one point I was unpinning my delicates and I hear "Hello Ms. Kristina!" I look down in the parking lot and 3 boys from my 6th grade class are watching me. I pop my head into the kitchen and say to Mari "Some of my 6th graders are watching me take care of my underwear. Awesome." Luckily, we're on the top floor.... I hope those boys didn't realize that's what I was handling. If so, oh well!
When in Georgia!

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Georgian Dancing With The Stars!

Yes, they have it here too! I didn't know "Dancing with the Stars" was that popular. Surprisingly, the Georgian version is remarkably similar to the US version. For a moment, when I heard the theme music, I almost felt as if I was home... And then I heard rapid Georgian being spoken. Reality set in. The great thing about it being similar to the US version, is that I had a really good idea of what was going on! :)

Some similarities of the shows:
-Theme music
-Skimpy costumes of the girls
-There's still one celebrity who's a significantly older man than all the other contestants (Buzz Aldrin comes to mind)
-The co-hosts are one man and one woman
-The musicians have really bad singers
-They dance to American music
-Same set
-Same layout of the show: introduce everyone, name the first pair to dance, show their week of practicing the dance, dance, review from the judges, go backstage for a mini interview, get the scores.... etc

Some differences:
-There are no commercials! (Improvement! - That seems to be a common theme in Georgian TV. Few commercials during the show.)
-Obviously they speak Georgian, not English. Except one of the judges lives in the US. He will throw out random English phrases. I like hearing his critiques :)
-They added a Georgian National Folk dance. That was cool to watch.

Strangely enough, after watching a little bit of the show tonight, I feel a little less out of the loop. I mean for everyone back. It's as if EVERYONE I know watches the show. Actually, I only know a handful of people who watch it. It's just sometime that mentally connects me to home.

If any of you are interested, I found a clip of the intro for the Georgian version. Just have a little looksy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpNuoV3zpU4&feature=related

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Fun punishment. Is there such a thing?

Today the 3rd grade class had English. As usual, the kids were quite rowdy from the get go. We quickly got the kids on track. It took one loop around the classroom, pausing at several desks as I went. Because of those lovely ones, I have no mastered the "children-you're-being-loud-and-annoying-and-need-to-listen-up-now" stare. Some what effective. Of course they're kids... So they get distracted again in 5 seconds. Anyway! We recently started a new unit, Unit 8 I believe, and at the beginning of every unit there is a dialogue. This particular dialogue was about whales, sharks, and dolphins. Sounds cool, right? I guess not for this class. They were simply not interested today. 

Before I know it, my co-teacher has 4 kids in chairs facing the walls around the room. Time-out for you guys! They were being very disrespectful and loud. I took up the job of standing by those kids so that they would stay quiet while the other kids were reading. I was by this one boy and every time I turned my head, he would start kicking the air in my general direction. It was weird. I could see enough just out of the corner of my eye. Obviously he wasn't taking his timeout seriously. I thought to myself, what would a teacher back home do? Apart from detentions, which don't exist in Georgia, I couldn't really think of anything. But then! Lightbulb! Let's have the kid write "Lines" on the board. Therefore he'll get to practice his writing skills as well. 

Problems that arose from this:

-The kids don't know enough grammar that they don't understand "I will not talk in class."

-The other kids in the class were so interested in what he was writing on the board that they weren't paying attention to the reading!

-Most importantly, the kids in class didn't see this as a punishment. "He gets to write on the board. I want to write on the board too!" GAH!

Well, after about 5 minutes, the boy's arm was tired and the complaining began. He kept on trucking! Maybe now he'll think twice about being disruptive in class. The other kids will WANT to do it though... Even though doing "Lines" was supposed to improve his writing, his letters got worse as he grew more tired. They're quite nice on paper, just not on the board.

Side note: My co-teacher is preparing for a examination this summer to get a special teaching certificate. I've been helping her prepare by going over exercises with her. Today I taught her what these words meant: requirement; outlook; jetting off; appraisal; likelihood; shimmies. It was difficult not to giggle while saying "shimmies." And yes, I'm still 2-years-old. I wonder what new words we'll go over next!

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Shopping in Turkey? I think so!

Today I went to Turkey! I didn't venture that far into Turkey, just a wee jaunt across the border to the Istanbul Bazaar. Shopping! I know what you are all thinking, "why are you going shopping when you're making next to nothing as an English teacher?" Okay, that's what my mom is saying right now... Love you, Mom!  But Seriously, I HAD to go. I've been walking around for weeks in ripped jeans. BOTH pairs. Georgia is really rough on the clothing. I've been told that it's the water. My clothing is just not used to the ts'qali (that's georgian)! I took a picture of my jeans for everyone to see the amazing-ness.

I don't know how I did it... But isn't that great! I brought 3 pairs of pants to Georgia. That does not include my sweatpants. I brought 2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair of dress pants for school. Out of the 3, I have giant rips in 2. Even though my awesome Silvers look like that  ^ I'm just not ready to throw them out just yet. They've been so good to me the last couple of months. It will be a sad day when I finally toss them. Ha.  Luckily, my new pants only cost me 25 Turkish Lira = $14. Can you say "score"?

I wouldn't say that getting to Turkey was "challenging," but it didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. Despite the trip getting postponed 2 weekends in a row, several other road blocks perked up today.  Kas and I woke up a little later than we had planned due to the St. Patty's Day festivities of the night before. Another story for another time. After getting ready, I headed over to Tbilisi Square to meet Kas for the Marshutka ride to the border. The square is about a 35 minute walk from the apartment. About halfway there I stopped dead in my tracks. "I forgot my passport. Shoot." I don't know if you know this, but a passport is key to crossing a border into another country. So then I did a little reverse back to the apartment, grabbed my passport and headed back out once again. When I arrived at the square, I mentally went through my checklist.
Step 1: Find Kas.
Step 2: Change Money into Dollars and Lira. That was a struggle!
Step 3: Food! Good ole Khacapuri for the Marshutka ride. But the really exciting part was that I found a banana as well! I've been lacking in the fruit department lately.
Step 4: Find the Marshutka to Sarpi.
That's as far as my checklist went for the time being. We were the first ones on the Marshutka so we were given the spot of honor: the front seat! The downside to being first is that you need to wait around for it to fill with passengers. Tick Tock. After about 20 minutes, it was full and we went on our merry way to Turkey!
The border crossing was a little confusing, but we navigated well. We talked to the lovely Passport Control guys, got our visas, and then had to find another Marshutka to the Istanbul Bazaar. Tick Tock. It's full now!

Welcome to the Istanbul Bazaar! Is that a Burger King sign on the left side of the building?! Upon entering the bazaar, we passed through some metal detectors. Of course we set them off with our purses that contained my phone, ipod, money, etc. Even though we set it off... the guard did absolutely nothing. She was just staring out the window. Such a lovely time for daydreaming! Well, we breezed through a couple stores to do some prices checks. Checking out the competition and attempting to find the good sales. After that, we headed to Burger King for a little taste of home! Let me tell you, I inhaled that burger I was so excited! Ha. The next store reminded me a little of a Turkish version of H&M. It was decent stuff and the workers there were really interested in us. It's hard to talk and shop at the same time. They were really nice though. I guess they don't get to talk to foreigners very often. But they did speak English pretty well. A few more stores after that. I think the hardest part about today was trying to figure out my size in pants. I still have no idea what I am over here. Sometimes I'm a 40, sometimes 38, sometimes 30... That's helpful. The waist size was challenging enough, but then adding on the length. There is nothing past a 32. At home, I'm a 35. I love being tall! Well I did get some pants that fit and for a good price. Success! We headed home around 7pm. Marshutka to Sarpi. Tick Tock. Cross the border once again. Once we walked out of the Passport control building, we had to pass through the swarm of taxi drivers and I literally mean swarm. I would guess there was about 20 or 25. We passed over the taxi drivers and waited for the Marshutka to come and take us into town. While waiting, we chatted with a taxi driver just to see if it would be the same price. Wrong! Marshutka = 1 Lari.... Taxi = 20 Lari. We ended up taking the bus instead. We had to literally run across the expansive parking lot to catch it in time. That ended the Turkey adventure. Safely back in Batumi.
Turkey, I had a great time and I will definitely come back to visit again. Next stop: Trabzon? :)

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Batumi Weather, we're in a fight.

Seriously?! Big news everyone! It's probably been raining for the last week... I think it's time to stop. I mean I love the rain and all, but I'm ready for warm weather! I have very few complaints about Batumi at the moment and now the weather has reached number 1 on my list. CONGRATS! I'm totally venting right now. Apologies. If you were in my shoes, you'd be grumpy as well.  A special thanks to everyone at home who is posting things like "It's 60 degrees and we're turning on the air conditioning in the car!"  Sorry Andrea, I had to say it. Rain rain go away! Aaaaand! The rain is going to turn to snow tomorrow! Yipee! 8 cm. Bring it on!
Okay rant of the week is now over. :)

On the bright side, I'm hoping that that's the last of the snow for this year. I could be completely wrong. Anyway! Oh and something that I'm SUPER grateful for is that the snow never really sticks in Batumi. But now that I've said that... So after the snow this weekend, next week will be full of sunshine, 60 degree weather, and an amazingly happy Krissi! :):)  That is the week that I will be able to run again along the Boulevard! Exercise! I would do it now, but leaping across massive puddles and going head first into stinging rain and winds... Doesn't that sound delightful? Plus, I already have a super gnarly cough. I would really like it to go away and not turn into anything else.

In summary: Rain is making me sad, but 60 degree weather is on it's way! :)

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Please let our driver go. Thanks.

Yesterday, I said "good-bye" to Armenia and "hello again" to Georgia. I had a fabulous time seeing the city of Yerevan, meeting new people (in the hostel and around the city), and making lots of memories! Special shout out to Stacey, Andrea, and Rachael for inviting me!! :) When Andrea asked me how I would rate the weekend, I originally said an 8... But I think I changed my mind. I would say that the city deserves an 8.5 but the experience gets a 9.5!  I think if the weather was a little bit warmer, then it would get a 10. Favorite moments of the trip were:

Climbing the Cascade. "It can't be more than 200 steps." -Andrea- Well we counted on the way down. It was roughly 755 steps. We were pretty tired when we reached the top, but it was worth it! Now I can say that I've climbed the steps of the Cascade in Yerevan, Armenia. :)

The outdoor market that we went to Saturday morning was pretty awesome too. Did you guys know that a symbol of Armenia is the pomegranate? Well neither did I! There were so many stalls of people selling arts and crafty things and they were covered in pomegranates. We never quite figure out why they are know for pomegranates though. I recommend that everyone should try some pomegranate wine. Delicious!

I also loved the food! I did try "brains" that Rachael ordered, but that's not what I was referring to. It wasn't exactly gross, but I'm glad it was mixed with egg! Ha. Well I've decided that I really want to make Tolma when I get home. It's rice, beans, lentils, chickpeas, and maybe some other stuff thrown in there. Then it was wrapped up in cabbage! Yummy!

But I think my favorite moment from this weekend was on the Marshutka ride from Yerevan to T'bilisi. Upon leaving the station to embark on the trip back "home" to Georgia, we got pulled over by a police car. No joke. I think were on the road for about 10 minutes and the driver pulls over to the side of the road, gets out, walks to the police car, and I see them chatting for a little while. I looked out the front window for a second and by the time I look back to see what's going on with the police... There was no one there. The police had driven off with out driver! We were literally stranded on the side of the road in Armenia. Luckily, the police came back, but our driver stayed in the car for another 20 minutes or so. That's when Rachael started to sing "Let our driver goooooooo!" Memories. We never did find out what the problem was... but it turned out okay. Our driver was released and hopped back in the Marshutka. When in Armenia.

After the minor detail, it was somewhat smooth sailing back to T'bilisi. Those of you who have been in a Marshutka will know what I mean by "somewhat." Bumpy roads. Insanely fast drivers. Zooming around pot holes and past slow pokes. It's interesting to say the least. We arrived back in T'bilisi around 4:45pm, but we had separate Marshutkas to take back to our final destinations. I don't know about Rachael, Stacey, and Andrea, but I arrived in Batumi at 4am. That was awesome. NOT. Freezing cold because the window kept sliding open. I can't even tell you how hard it was to get up for school at 8! Yikes. I was a trooper and pushed through it though. Now I know, stick with the night train. :)

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

First trip outside Georgia. Check.

I had a great birthday and I'll be posting something about that day later. I just wanted to let everyone know that I have just arrived in Armenia! Let's talk about that first.

I literally made the decision to go to Armenia the day I left. That was about 21 hours ago. I left to come here Wednesday night. My first Georgian night train experience. Not my first night train ever, I already checked that off my bucket list in 2009. Oh Poland. I was a little worried about this night train. I've been hearing a lot of negative comments about it. Let me set the record straight, the train itself is pretty nice. At least this night train worker didn't lock us in our compartment. Those of you who went to Krakow with me know what I'm talking about. Also, I was in a compartment with a Georgian man and his son. That sounds a little sketch, right? Just the opposite, I felt really safe and they were even offering me food and drinks. Even though it was pretzels and beer. I declined because I was super tired and I couldn't keep my eyes open once the train got moving. 9 hour night train. Check.

Arrival in T'bilisi at 7:20am. I walked around trying to find an ATM so that I could get a metro card to get into the city to meet up with Stacey and Rachael  (and later Andrea). Once I got off the night train I had about 20 tetri on me (which is about 12 cents) and that's all. So much money! Ha. ATM: check. Metro card purchase: check. When going down to the metro, there are these awesome escalators that goes about a mile under ground. So cool! I really wanted to take a picture... EXCEPT I forgot my camera at my host family's place in Batumi. I almost cried when Mari called to tell me that she found it after I left. Major bummer. Thank you Stacey for remembering your camera!

After my metro ride, I made it to the hostel that Stacey and Rachael were staying at so that we could pack up our things and begin the trip to Armenia! The first thing we wanted to do was to book our tickets for the return trip home on Sunday from T'bilisi. Night trains sell out quickly. After about 20 minutes of battling to try book a return ticket with failed attempts of explaining our situation to several locals, getting dirty looks from people who wanted to use the yellow box but we were taking too long... Long story short. We gave up. I have faith that there will still be open cars on the ride home. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
The rest of the morning consisted of walking around the city trying to find a bank that is open that would allow us to change our Lari into Dram (the Armenia currency). Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that today is a holiday. Happy International Women's Day Everyone! That makes the whole bank/currency change a little difficult. We even trekked all the way up to Liberty Square. No cigar. It actually is not that far but the full backpack and full belly makes that hill seem a whole lot bigger! After a few closed banks we finally got the hit and just decided to change money when we got to the border.

I'm going to try and shorten this lenghty post because I bet more than half of you have stopped reading. After the unsuccessful bank search, we took a taxi to the marshutka station to find out when it was leaving for Yerevan. Marshutka tickets. Check. Sitting and toilet break at Bazaleti (the hotel where we had our orientation. Nostalgic, right?) Break over and back to the Marshutka station. Quick stop for drinks and khacapuri for the ride. Then onto Armenia! It was about an hour to the Armenian border and we literally walked across the border. Such a funny experience. Got our visas and with help for the Armenian military guarding the border, we exchanged our money! Yay! My $60 became about 23,500 Dram. Something like that. This currency is strange. Back on the Marshukta for another 5 hours.

As we approached Yerevan, we had a lovely view of Mount Ararat! So beautiful and that is the spot where Noah's Arch crashed after the flood was over. Who knew?! Not I. Then... Arrival in Yerevan! Taxi to the Envoy Hostel! I highly recommend this place, it's great. Dinner at a local Mexican restaruant. We got free drinks for International Women's Day! I love Armenia. Chicken Flautas and shared some Spinach Enchiladas.... Fried Ice Cream for dessert! YUM!!!! Lastly, my adventure today ended with a wonderful shower in the hostel and blogging with a cup of tea. It was a crazy day but that's why I love to travel. All these adventures and making fabulous memories around the world! :)

Tomorrow: The forecast looks like rain, but we've got umbrellas for that. The tentative plan is walking tour around the city, stop in a museum, and then hitting the Brandy Distillery. Originally, I was so on the fence about coming to Armenia this weekend... but I'm SO glad I came!

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

The coughing begins... :(

Well I've tried my best to keep it away, but the birthday cold has arrived. Not cool. I don't know what it is but I always get sick around my birthday. It doesn't help that the Batumi weather has been going a little wacky. It seems like the city can't make up it's mind what to do. "I'll make it rain for a little bit... Then let's turn it to snow... Now I want it to be sunny! .... Wait, I want some more rain.... Add in the wind... And one more curve ball, HAIL!" Now it's raining again.  One of my co-teachers said that Batumi's weather is the worse in March. Score. I blame myself. I wanted to make things a little more interesting. That's what I get! I'll just roll with the punches. :)

On the bright side, I am getting busier. I'm working on some lesson plan ideas. If anyone has some good ideas for teaching English in levels 1-6, let me know! I tried playing hangman with the 6th grade class today. After 2 words we had to stop. It was a little chaotic. I'm was really happy because it got some kids involved that I have not seen talk yet! Participation for all students is what I'm going for. I'm sick of hearing from the same 7 kids every class. Let's mix it up a little!

I'm participating in this training program with my co-teachers: English Language Through Civics Education (ELCE) with Charles Kinney, Chuck. I went to my first session this past Saturday. There have already been 2 other session that I didn't go to because I didn't know about them. It was really interesting. We talk about lesson ideas, share problems and brainstorm ways to fix them, and so many other things. It's really for the Georgian English Teachers and I'm happy that I get to participate because I want to help my teachers in the classroom as much as I can. We're already planning our lessons for when Chuck comes again to observe on March 16th. It's not until next week, but it seems to be all that my co-teachers can think about! I hope they can relax and know that it's going to be fantastic! :)

Lastly, I heard through the grapevine that a TLG volunteer in Batumi, James, with the help of Chuck, is organizing a small production of Romeo and Juliet. I volunteered up my services! We have our first meeting in about 1 hour! Potential plan is that it will be performed in June. It's going to be so fun. So excited!

Until next time. Adventure is out there!@

A bit of school, botanical gardens, and icky weather!

This past week flew by! I was somewhat busy at school. My class schedule changed a little because Charles Kinney, Chuck, did come to our school and observe our classes! He came on Tuesday and I’m pretty sure we were a big hit. The children were well behaved. Everyone seemed a little on the nervous side, but that’s to be expected. It made everything easier that he’s super nice and had a lot of great feedback for my co-teachers and I. After the classes were finished, we walked down to the “canteen” for coffee, potato pies, and our critique. On the way, Chuck asked me if I had a teaching degree. Nope! Just teaching experience from camp :) He told me that I should think about going back to school to become a teacher… Something to think about. I’ll call that Plan B. Anyway, the feedback was great. He said that Nino’s class with the 4^th grades was one of the best classes that he’s seen in Georgia so far! No pressure for the next session ;) Seriously, that was great to hear. Thanks Chuck! We worked really hard to prepare that lesson! I’m glad it went so well.

Mari and I at the Botanical Gardens

Later in the week, I got the chance to go to Green Cape, a.k.a. the Botanical Gardens, and it was beautiful! Even though it was February. It was chilly but not freezing. There was so much to see.  It’s going to be gorgeous when it gets warmer out. It will be beautiful and crowded! I went to Green Cape with Mari(host sister) and Bella(host mother) to visit Bella’s parents. I’m pretty jealous that they live inside the Botanical Gardens! After briefly stopping in and meeting the parents, Mari and I left to wander about the gardens a little bit. Finally my camera is getting a bit more use out of it! I wish I took more pictures of what’s going on here. I’ll just add that to the list of things I need to do here. Haha!

Funny story about when we were waiting for the Marshutka to take us to Green Cape: Mari and I were talking about something or another and Bella noticed that when we speak, we say “sometimes” a lot.  So she asked Mari what this word meant.  I do believe that is not Bella’s favorite word because whenever either of us says “sometimes” Bella repeats it and laughs. Sometimes. Sometimes. Even on the Marshutka, Mari and I sat towards the front and Bella sat in the back (with a friend who we met on the Marshutka – we didn’t make her sit alone!) and we could hear her repeating “sometimes” over and over again. Too funny. J

Under the category of random thoughts (as my mom says) it's been pretty chilly lately in Batumi, but I feel like my body has been preparing for the "Midwest winter"so I haven't been too cold yet. My host family has been getting on my case because I don't dress in 500 layers when I go outside and I don't blow dry my hair after my showers. Actually, one day I went to school with wet hair because I was late. When I got to class the other teachers sat me in front of the heater and wouldn't let me get up until my hair was dry. I thought I would be fine, but they seemed so worried. It's really sweet that they worry about me. Thanks guys! Anyway, Bella has been so worried about the fact that I don't wear a hat when I go places (usually because I'm running late or I just plain forget)... But she knitted a hat for me! SO CUTE! And it matches Mari's hat. Twin-ies! 

Twin Hats!

This weekend there were more fellow TLG visitors to Batumi. I’m sensing a pattern. Batumi is the place to go! Except this weekend it was crappy weather again! It really puts a damper on weekend fun.  On Friday, a few of us went to the Italian restaurant, Venezia. I’m not a big pizza fan, but this one I liked because there was very little sauce. Bonus: there was no mayonnaise or ketchup on it! Georgians seem to replace pizza sauce with ketchup. My palette has not adjusted to that quite yet. I don’t think it will any time soon.  Then we set out on a mission to locate some ice cream. In the US, all you would need to do would be to hop in the car and drive to Cold Stone or Culvers or even a grocery to pick up some Ben & Jerry’s. (Really craving ice cream at this point) This simple mission was not that simple. Picture this: you’re walking through the beautiful “Old City” section of Batumi where all the palm trees on the sidewalks have different color spotlights on them. However, it’s not a calm, warm night. Oh no, that would be way too fantastic. The weather needs to keep you on your toes! Instead of a pleasant evening, it’s colder than usual, there’s a pretty decent downpour, and we’ll add in some giant gusts of wind. How does that sound? Very picture-esc! Some of you have umbrellas. Some of you don’t. Those of you who have your 15 Lari umbrellas are battling to keep them from flipping inside out ever 10 feet.  That has never happened to me until I came here. From my description, I bet it sounds like I’m complaining, but it was actually more comical than anything. By the time we found a market, I was not really in the mood for ice cream any more. Plus, they didn’t have any. Then we went to my friend’s hotel and hung out in the café/bar because the weather didn’t really give us a choice to do otherwise. We battled the weather the following night.

My original plan for today was also ruined by the weather. I had planned to go to Turkey (just across the border) to go see the shopping center, Istanbul Bazar, with Kas. I woke up this morning told my host family that I was going to be leaving around 10, looked out the window, saw the rainy/snowy/windiness… I stood at the window, said to myself, “just kidding!” and crawled back into bed.  Some things you just can’t control. No matter how hard you try. I would say that I’m going to go next weekend, but there is a potential plan for Armenia. Cross your fingers and hope that I get to go! :):):):)

Until next time. Adventure is out there!