Monday, October 25, 2010

Festival in Mtskheta

Mtsketa is a town where everyone goes for a big festival on a October 14th, a national religious holiday called Svetitskhovloba. It is to Commemorate St. Nino's "Living Pillar." They told me the story about how someone bought Christ's robe from one of the Roman soldiers and brought it to this town (this place) and a woman when she heard it was there, she came and touched it. As soon as she touched she died with a tight grip on the robe in her hand. They couldn't get the robe out of her hand so they buried her with it. On top of her grave grew a tree and eventually they wanted to cut the tree down to build a church.  But when they tried to cut the tree down, from my understanding, they cut through the tree and it wouldn't fall it just hovered above the ground.   So they eventually built a church in this place in the 4th century but the current church was built in the 11th century. It is the second largest church in the country and people come to worship at least once a year there. They have a High Patriarch in their church, comparable to the Pope and he was there that day. When the women go into the churches, they must cover their heads. They take in candles and light the candles to their Saints and I think pray to them and kiss their pictures. I went into the church and just waited in the middle of the church because it was very crowded every where else. I just happened to be standing next to this chair and put my hand on the arm rest and someone got mad at me and said that I wasn't supposed to touch the chair because it was where the High Patriarch sat.
Anyway, there was a lot more to do than just visit the churches, I had quite a bit of fun there with my host mom, her friend Levan and his cousin Nino (btw every other woman here is named Nino). 

On the way there, there were groups of people walking and celebrating. We took a taxi and the taxi driver was CRAZY!  Well, normal for Georgian driving standards but that was my first time in a car since I arrived and wow! They have lanes on the roads but everyone ignores them and wedges themselves in between whatever space is availaible to pass.

 The white van is called a Marshutka and they are everywhere. They're like minibuses that have regular routes, we took one home.
 A very old church on the hill called Jvari.
 The view as we arrived in Mtskheta.

 The crowd
 Georgian children dancers.

 Me and my awesome sheep wool hat. I was lucky enough to get to keep it.
 Levan, Nino, Inga & me.
Levan wanted to see if I could ride a horse and of course I couldn't turn down the challenge. This is about the time the news reporter came over and interviewed me. I was doubtfut that it would actually be on the news but Levan and Inga were pretty certain and said it was the main news channel that everyone watches. Sure enough when we turned on the 9pm news 10min later there I was. It was pretty exciting and funny. Of course when I went back to school all the students and teachers told me that they saw me on the news. 

 Cute little donkey and cart.
 One of the churches, not the one in the story.
 Behind the church was this little bell tower where everyone was gathering,

Georgian kid's boxing.

The big church, it has like castle wall around it.

 The church high patriarch was there.
 Grape grow as a canopy here, its awesome.



 We walked and searched for this restaurant with bbq. I was so hungry that I forgot to take pictures of it. Levan's hungry face




2nd Week in Georgia

Some of the group met up in Liberty Square. It was my first time riding on the Metro (subway).  My host mom didn't think I could make it on my own so she rode all the way there with me. Once we were there she could see that I was with other Engish teachers and left me, but she was still worried that I wouldn't be able to make it back home on my own and told me to call when I was on my way. I was pretty confident I could make it so I didn't call. 

This is the escalator in & out of the Metro, I couldn't believe how long it was.
At Liberty Square we waited for about an hour for whoever was coming to come and then walked around the corner and waited some more. We finally had everyone with us so we made our way over to a cafe, sat down and then decided the prices were too high and got up and left. Well, me and a few others decided we didn't want to find a cafe and sit and chat so we went on to explore that part of the city. - October 10, 2010 

The monument in the middle of Liberty Square. 

 A cracked church


Kartlis Deda (Mother Georgia)- she has a bowl of grapes in one hand to welcome friends and sword in the other to warn off enemies.


We hiked up to what I like to call the castle on the hill but what is really called Narikala Fortress. These pictures are taken from there. You can see in the first picture it was a bit of hill and it started sprinkling on our way up so it was a bit slippery as well.

 Can you see the rainbow?

 The view
 The castle


The way up 

 New friends


This monument and these bells were on the top of the castle.
Glass Foot Bridge 
 
Downtown















Sunday, October 17, 2010

1st Week in Georgia

Just doing a little back tracking at first to catch up:

I'm in Amsterdam waiting for my last connecting flight to Georgia. I feel like I skipped the night and went straight to the next day.  While waiting I spent about $6 for 15 min of internet and I scarfed down a delicious panini that prob cost me $12.  My previous 2 flights were pretty uneventful, just long because I only slept for about 2omin. -Oct. 2, 2010 at 12:34pm

I made it! I'm sharing a room with two other girls at the Sheridon for a week of training in T'bilisi.  There was media and video cameras everywhere when we were gathering and trying to leave the airport.  When I first walked out of the airport, the impression I got was that the country smelt like cigrette smoke and donuts. Mmmm. -Oct. 2, 2010 at 9:21pm



Learning the language is crazy. We've been studying all day every day since I got here.  Basically, we get this awesome breakfast in the morning of pretty much anything we want, then we meet together as a group for about 15 min and then we have Georgian Language classes for 4 hours. After that we have lunch and then go back to class for Cultural training for three more hours, then dinner break and then back to another group meeting for whatever they need to give us or tell us. - Oct. 6, 2010 at 1:54pm

We took a venture out one night and saw this castle on the hill.

 The view from breakfast, 10th floor of the Hotel.
 Our fearless leaders Giga and Tamara.
 My hotel roommates, Jiayi & Joanne.

So we all just found out where we're going to be teaching. I am staying in T'bilisi the capital. Yay! I wanted to go to the coast but this will be great too. - Oct. 7, 2010 at 10:33pm




The separation.
  











So I am living with this very sweet family here in a subsection of T'bilisi. There is a mother, father, their 2 boys (9 & 11), and the grandparents. Lucky for me the mother speaks English pretty well. She took me around shopping with her yesterday and we went to my first bazari (outdoor market) It was pretty neat.  Oh, the driving here is crazy, trying to cross the street anywhere is like running a gauntlet. No one stops for pedestrians, not even for a little boy who looks about 4 years old on crutches. - Oct. 10, 2010 at 7:57am

My host family.



This is when we went to the Bazari




Yum yum.