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 4^th century but the current church was built in the 11^th 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.