Murtazi and Juliet

About a month ago, I helped start up a project with James (another TLG in Batumi) and Chuck (the trainer of the ELCE program in Batumi). We decided to use the kids of School N15 because they had an English Club.  We went through a couple practices and everything was on schedule and running smoothly.... or so we thought. Early this week I got several confusing SMS messages from Chuck saying everyone quit. EVERYONE QUIT?! No more project :( Boo. It all came down to a miscommunication error between us, the students participating, and the faculty.  Jealousy could have been a factor as well, but I don't know for sure.  Basically what I'm trying to say is that Murtazi and Juliet is no longer running at School N15. I really wish it could have worked out. The kids were doing a great job and it could have been a wonderful project for them. That's okay. We'll do something else for them.  Great job putting in the effort guys! We tried but it's kaput.

After the whole debacle earlier this week, I thought the project was officially dead. But then a wonderful ray of sunshine came peeking through the dark clouds! The show must go on!  Thank you Keti and School N2! We have now shifted our efforts to the English/Drama clubs at School N2.  Yesterday, we had a brief meeting (Chuck, James, Keti, and I) to talk about the possibility of trying it at school. Determination took over and we're doing it! End of story. Keti did some scouting and organized a meeting between James and I and all the kids who were interested.  About 20 or so showed up. Fabulous since the cast is about 14 or 15 people.  Now we have extras! I'm so excited. You think you know, but you have no idea.  After about an hour and a half we had an entirely new cast.  We still have our Murtazi (Romeo) from School N15. He's worked so hard and knows a lot of his lines so far. Well done Vazha!  Many of the kids wanted to be Murtazi (which I found surprising when there was little interest for that role at school N15), the narrator and news reporters. While deciding the cast, we had many of the students read some lines.  Not only we they just reading from a piece of paper, we found that they were already acting into it! I loved watching it. I can't wait to dive in on Tuesday! This is going to be a lot of work but it's going to be a great time!

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

The Much Needed Stress Reliever

Got stress? When then you need a stress reliever!

I'm not sure if all of you out there are in need of some stress relief, but I sure am.  People deal with their stress in a variety of ways.  Some take a nap (which is a person favorite choice of mine). Some have a glass of wine (which could be nice as well). Then some turn to exercise.  I've been trying to turn to exercise because with all the oily food that I've been getting here in Georgia, I'm a little worried that I'm going to blow up like a balloon!

Usually my form of exercise here in Georgia is pretty limited to going for a run or walk on the Boulevard.  Tonight I wasn't feeling it too much.  The main reason was that I ate way too much at lunch with Chuck and James.  It was really great food and I'm not sorry that I ate what I did.  It was fabulous! Thank you "Tiki Hut"!  So running/walking was out because of the "beached whale" feeling. What did I do? One of my favorite exercises: Yoga!

I really miss doing yoga on a regular basis.  Off the top of my head, I didn't remember too much.  That was a bummer.  Shortly after starting, I remembered a certain powerpoint that I had saved on my computer.  When I took the Yoga class in River Falls with my bestie, Kelly, we had to do a project, 30-Minute Yoga Workout. That is still on my computer! So I turned on my relaxing tunes and the powerpoint.  It was amazing! I'm pretty sure that this is the tightest my muscles have ever been.  Especially the back of my legs.  My downward facing dog was not the greatest and I couldn't balance to save my life. The wall was my new best friend. I kept thinking, "don't fall down, don't fall down, don't fall down." I'm sure that my back is going to hurt tomorrow, but that's okay!  The benefits of my yoga workout: my stomachache disappeared, my headache is gone (perhaps the 4 Advil finally kicked in), and already feel my flexibility coming back! Slowly but surely :)  

Maybe the 30-Minute Yoga Powerpoint will become part of my new routine. It's definitely more fun than running.

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

More about Trabzon...

As you know, the first day of Trabzon was a success. Day 2 began with a lovely Marshutka ride into Meydan (a.k.a. the city center).  As soon as our feet stepped out of the Marshutka, we did the typical “tourist-in-a-new-city” thing and busted out the city map. Kas had circled everything that we wanted to see in Trabzon.  Normally it doesn’t take me that long to navigate my way around a map, except it was so unbelievably windy! The map was flying every which way. You know that cartoon where someone gets hit in the face with a piece of paper ball and then it forms to their face? That’s probably how we looked to those who passed us by.  Another element that slowed down our map reading abilities was that there are NO street signs in Trabzon. None.  Well none that we could see anywhere.  The locals were probably playing tricks on us.  In that moment, this is what we knew; we’re in Meydan, we want to find the Ataturk Pavilion.  The problem was getting from Point A to Point B.  Always tricky.  After a certain amount of time, that felt like an eternity, a Turkish man whisked us into the closest tourist office. We spent the next 20 minutes trying to explain to them that we didn’t want to go on their tours, we just wanted to know where we were! Is that too much to ask?  Then we left that office and wandered down the street to the Tourist Information Office.  The man that worked there spoke English significantly better than those in the previous office.  He helped us get our bearings and map out a plan for the rest of the weekend.  Over the next two days, we were able to hit up everything that we wanted to see.  Success!

One of the funniest parts of the weekend is how we got too and from the city. The hotel we were staying at was slightly outside the city center.  That meant we just had to Marshutka around. Since neither of us spoke a single word of Turkish and the drivers had no idea where "Novotel Hotel" was when we said it, I developed a different strategy to communicate to them.  I took a picture of the Outlet Mall next to our hotel and that is what I used to convey our destination.  When whenever we were trying to head back in the evenings, we would stand on the big street parallel to the Sea and flag down every, and I mean every, Marshutka that would be driving along.  When they stopped we would open the door and show them this picture:

Their answer would be a simple shake of the noggin.  Yes or no.  It should really silly, but it was really effective.

On Tuesday, we checked out of the hotel and took a quick detour to the bus station to check bus times before one last day in the city.  We located the stand of the bus company that went to and from Batumi, got the time schedule, and were then searching for lockers to put our bags. Well… they didn’t have lockers.  Oh silly Turkey!  Luckily, we left them with the charming secretary in the Prenskale office.  I’m happy that I brought my combo locks with me.  For the most part, she looked trustworthy but it was comforting to know that my bag was locked.  When we returned from our exploration, I checked my bag and everything was in its proper place. J

Here's some pictures of the local sites!

Meydan!

Kas and I with the Sumela Monastery in the background.

Inside the Sumela Monastery

Overlooking Trabzon!

Hagia Sophia

Atatürk Köşkü

Behind all the trees is the Trabzon Museum.

The bus ride back was nothing out of the ordinary. The best part was just after we crossed the border back into Georgia.  At this point we were the only ones on the bus, except for the driver of course.  Since it was nearing evening, Kas felt a little chillier and decided she wanted to add some layers and change from sandals to tennis shoes.  My bus driver was simply transfixed!  Maybe he’s never seen bare feet before or maybe it was that Kas’s hair kept sweeping into his face… I thought we were going to hit something because he was hardly looking at the road, just her feet.  Pretty hilarious moment.  

Part 2 of Spring Break is coming soon!

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Spring Break! Part 1: Trabzon, Turkey.

I'm on my Spring Break! 11 days to relax and do whatever I want! Okay, not exactly whatever, but you get the picture.

After all the planning and changing plans again and again... My plans are finally fairly definite. Here they are:
Right now, I'm in Trabzon, Turkey. Next is Vardzia, a beautiful city full of caves. I'm hoping to hit Gori, Stalin's birthplace. (I want to go see it, but Kas doesn't seem that excited.) A possible stop in T'bilisi (the capital) or to Borjomi to see the formal Romanov Summer Palace. Frankly, all this depends on time and money. Isn't that always how it goes. Everything comes back to money. Boo. It'll still be a great break!

Getting to Trabzon started the same as any other trip I've taken in Georgia so far. It began with the mission on finding the right Marshutka. My fellow traveler, Kas, and I decided to meet in T'bilisi Square at 9am and then head to the main Marshutka station from there. Actually, we had to meet in T'bilisi Square because I had no idea how to get to the main station. It wasn't that hard to find and I'm sure I could have figured it out. However, it was so much easier to get there together! Anyway, we decided to get there right away to get on the early Marshutka to maximize our time in Trabzon. We assumed that there would be one leaving around 9am. So we got to the station, found the Marshutka and sat in our seats. 2 hours later.... the Marshutka was full and we were on our way! So much for getting up early. You live and you learn. So we left Batumi, had to cross the Georgia/Turkey border where we saw some fellow TLG-ers on their way to Turkey as well. Of course, we were all headed to different cities but it was nice to see some familiar faces. Back on the Marshutka once we went through all the checkpoints, another 4 hours on the Marshutka we were in Trabzon!

Drama of the trip: We didn't exactly know where the hotel was but thankfully I had written down the address and phone number on a piece of paper to show to someone when we arrived in the city. On the Marshutka we made friends with a guy who spoke English to help us communicate with who we needed to. He helped us a lot once we arrived in Trabzon. Thank you David! He was helping us find a way to our hotel from wherever we would be getting dropped off. Well, right as he asked, we found out that we were passing the hotel. Whoops! Until like Georgia, the Marshutka just can't stop in the middle of wherever and drop us off. Lame! We were then dropped off close to the city center at a giant mall called "Forum Trabzon."David helped us talk to some taxi drivers via a security guard.
"How much to get to this address?" "30 lira" "Do you know of a bus we could take?" "No. There are no buses that go there. You need to take a taxi!"
Riiiiiiiiight. Buddy, we hopped on a Marshutka that took us right to the hotel for 3 lira. Thank you very much. The funny part was that we were ready to take the taxi and just bite the bullet. Luckily, we did some digging around first. I'm so glad that I didn't just hop into the cab. I used my brain instead! :)

First day in Trabzon was an overall success. We arrived safely, avoided the outrageous taxi prices, looped around the outlet mall by the hotel, lunch at Burger King in the mall, took amazing 30 minute showers (opposed to the normal 5 minute ones), walked on the beach... The usual things to do in Turkey :)  Tomorrow the real exploring begins! I can't wait.

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

Oh 6th graders...

I can honestly say that the 6th grade class at my school is one of the weirdest classes I've been in. Ahhhh, the adolescent years.

I finished off my day with the 6th grade. They are a naturally distracted bunch. I like to think of it as "Ooo! Something shiny!" syndrome. To makes things even worse, the kids had just had their P.E. class. It's hard to sit down and write about old black and white TVs with giant screens after playing dodgeball for 40 minutes. Some of them were participating. Thank you!

When my co-teacher and I first walked into the room, there were maybe 10 students in the classroom. That's another thing, it completely baffles me that the bell hardly means a thing in Georgia. The message of the Georgian bell seems to mean, "Class has started, but get there when you can." That would never fly in the US. Anyway, the bell rings. We go to the class and wait for the rest of the kids to come. They come from the gym downstairs, drenched in sweat. Gorgeous. Apart from being late, many of the kids had strange smirks on their faces. My antenna went up! Something's going on here. I glance around and most of them had white streaks going down their jackets and sweaters. Chalk. I found myself spending much of the class room collecting chalk pieces from the kids. They were still drawing on each other during class. One boy in the front row, took a mechanical pencil from the girl behind him and colored it with the piece of chalk he had. Pretty sure he's crushing on her. I will now be referring to him as Chalk Boy! Honestly he's not one of my favorites because he, among other boys in the class, spend 80% of their time staring at me. Only slightly creepy. I'm not THAT interesting. I think that they stare at me to see when I'm watching them because I actually notice when they are throwing things across the room or drawing on the desks or what have you. Haven't they figured it out yet? I see all! :)

Until next time. Adventure is out there!

A Picnic on the Beach, Complete with Dolphins!

On Friday, March 30th, I enjoyed my first picnic on the beach of the Black Sea with my new TLG buddy, Kas. We planned it about a week ago and thank goodness the weather cooperated. My fellow picnic-er and I met at the local Goodwill (which is the Georgian version of a Pick 'n Save except it's 4 times smaller) to purchase some goodies for the picnic. We each got a drinkable yogurt, score! I can't speak for Kas, but I got it because I'm seriously lacking some calcium that my body is craving. We also purchased some chips, a strange flavor of Doritos, and of course some candy for dessert. I know what you're thinking, that is such a healthy lunch! We got our main course at the next "shop" we went to. It's more of a stand than a shop. But to get to that place, we had to leave Goodwill and that meant battling with the beggar/gypsy children that swarm you as soon as you leave the store. On this particular day we got lucky and weren't harassed. They were better behaved than the other ones I've unpinned myself from. Usually they clamp onto your arm, purse, leg... Frankly, anything they can get a hold of. I'm not a fan of Goodwill because I hate what's waiting for you on the other side of the exit door. Thankfully, Friday was a good day. After Goodwill, we meandered our way to T'bilisi Square in search of the stand with our main course. Since I said "stand" I'm thinking that you all can guess what we purchased? That's right, KHACAPURI! A picnic on the Black Sea is not complete without the Georgian staple of Khacapuri. We got it for 1.40 GEL each (85 cents) as opposed to the usual 1 GEL (61 cents). Plus, it wasn't the greatest tasting Khacapuri. We won't be going to that lady again. Khacapuri places are a dime a dozen! On the way to the beach, I even scored myself a wonderful looking banana. Yummy fruit! We chose a certain pathway to the beach that lead us through the back roads to avoid walking past the front of Goodwill. We walked past the port and settled down in one of the best spots of Batumi. We were at the beginning of the Boulevard and surrounded by the Ali and Nino statues, the Ferris Wheel (that was turned on!), and the Alphabet Tower. We found a beautiful spot on a giant concrete slab on the rocky beach. The reason we chose this particular spot was because it is the best place to do some dolphin watching!

Picnic!

Let's go through the necessities to make a fabulous Georgian picnic: Black Sea? Check. Beach? Check. Gorgeous weather? Check. Amazing landmarks? Check. Snacks? Check. Khacapuri? Check. Dolphins? Check! Honestly, the only thing that was missing was a red and white checkered blanket and a Diet Coke. I couldn't find a blanket that resembled such description on short notice. Furthermore, good Diet Coke doesn't exist over here. I have to wait until I get back to the USA for that. I took me a long time to each my lunch because every five minutes I would throw my food down and frantically rummage for my camera while shouting "Look over there! Dolphins!" This picnic is going down as one of my favorite moments of my time here in Georgia.

Please enjoy some lovely pictures from my picnic! :)

The famous Ali and Nino

Picnic Lunch! 

Boats heading to the port.

Dolphins!

More dolphins!

Ali and the moon.

More often than not, I stop and think to myself: Is this really happening? Am I actually here? Sometimes my life in Georgia feels like one extended dream and I'm just waiting for the moment I wake up suddenly and find myself still in Wisconsin. Wisconsin, I love you and all, but I'm so happy that my life path has lead me to experience moments like having a picnic on the Black Sea while watching dolphins swim around. :)

Until next time. Adventure is out there!