We decided that, rather than take that one long marshrutka ride, we would break things up a bit by going first to our old host family's house in Kortaneti to stay a bit and say hello and see how things were going. We got in on Friday evening and were reminded of how nice it is to have homemade bread and cheese all the time (and I was reminded how good it is to not be living in a house that constantly makes bread and cheese, as all the women kept complaining to me that it looks like I am not continuing to put on weight as I was while living in the village and enjoying said bread and cheese). It was fantastic to see everyone again and to see how much further along the grapes are and to get to eat a number of the cucumbers we "helped" plant.
The Kortaneti crew was expanded a bit from our days there, though, as there were some new faces in town to take a break from the sweltering heat in Tbilisi and to enjoy the beautiful scenery and fresh air. One holiday neighbor, Neuta, regaled us with stories of her family and it's crazy roots. She has an Italian grandmother, a Russian grandmother, and a Circassian grandfather, and her father had first come to Georgia with his family to vacation. He became an honorary member of Kortaneti's government when he sent in a proposal to the Soviet government to rebuild the town's bridge, which had collapsed at some point in the 70's, even though it wasn't in the 5-year-plan (the current bridge in Kortaneti is there thanks to this). Because of that honor, Neuta's brother was able to get a job teaching at the Kortaneti school (and had taught our host father German when he was a child attending the school); teaching at a village school meant that Neuta's brother was exempted from his military service. All in all, she was very happy to be in Kortaneti and said that it only holds fond memories for her. She and two of her grandsons plan to be there for the next month or so to relax.
The bridge that Neuta's father was responsible for is sort of visible in the far right-hand corner of this picture, and if you look really closely in the river just to the left of that, you see the remains of one of the supports of the bridge that collapsed in the 70's.
There was one other addition to the neighborhood, as a neighbor's daughter gave birth to her second child. The excitement around this and the necessity to drive her to the hospital in Borjomi took Maia and Zurab away for the better part of Saturday, which was fun and happy for them, but we were (selfishly) wishing to have had more time with them.
On Sunday morning we got up early and took another marshrutka, this time just to the outskirts of Tbilisi, to the old capital of the country, Mskheta. According to the English textbooks that the students in Kortaneti used, the capital was moved to Tbilisi after the king went there hunting. He shot a bird and it fell into a hot spring, where it was immediately boiled. The king founded a city in that spot and called it Tbilisi, from the Georgian word tbili, which means warm.
Mskheta, aside from having the draw of a few fabulous old churches and monasteries, is also where our Georgian teacher from training and her husband (also a PC training staff member) and their two daughters (made famous previously in this blog) have been relaxing since the end of training.
Gizo, Ana, Elene, Tea, me and Sam at Jvari
Us with the view from the Jvari Monastery
Jvari was built in the 6th century
Again from the English books our students used, we learned that from Jvari you can see the two rivers converging and see their two distinct colors mixing. We thought this was a silly topic for an English textbook, but it is in fact very true and very cool to see (even if it's a little tough to see in this picture)
Sam, surveying this land. And he shall call it this land.
More Jvari
From Jvari, we headed down into Mskheta proper to see the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, where the Georgian kings had their coronations and were buried.
The view from Svetitskhoveli back up towards Jvari
The cathedral up close
Ana and Elene being adorable, as always
After a very full morning of site-seeing, we went and got some fresh baked bread and headed back to the house for some delicious kabobs (and got to watch Elene consume a vast number of chocolates as Ana exclaimed over and over how many she ate). Then, as the heat of the day started to die down some, Gizo, Sam and I headed in to Tbilisi to check out a cultural festival. It was being held on the grounds of the open-air ethnographic museum and celebrated traditional arts, crafts, song and dance of the various regions of Georgia. It was spectacular and despite the crowds and the heat, I can think of no better way to spend an evening.
This young man was the most incredible drummer I've ever seen
I'm sure the man in the middle is a hobbit
His abandoning his singing in order to dance confirmed my suspicions
One of many fantastic singing groups
This time in red!
And because the awesome day just kept getting awesomer, before being dropped off at our guesthouse in Tbilisi for the night, Gizo drove us up to the Tbilisi castle to get a midnight look at the town, all lit up (unfortunately we didn't bring our mini-tripod to get a better shot, but it was an incredible site). Also incredible was that we saw a real live wild hedgehog, being poked and prodded by some tourists before scampering off to safety (it extracted its revenge on one of the prodders, though, by stinging or biting or needling or something).
Tbilisi at night
After this very full weekend, we only had the monotonous duties of making it out to the American embassy to submit a passport application (me) and attempting half-heartedly to look for a winter coat (Sam) since we must surely be approaching the start of the "8 months of winter" we have been warned of here in Akhalkalaki. It seemed like it would be a simple enough set of tasks, but you should always expect the unexpected here. Sam was foiled in his attempts at getting everything to work out by a power failure in downtown Tbilisi which shut down one of the metro lines, causing some trouble in getting back and forth (Sam got to ride the metro, several marshrutkas and a cab in order to make it through the day!). I hopped on a random bus back from the embassy (to which I had to take a cab; it's pretty far out in the boondocks) and luckily made it back to the main bus/marshrutka station (I rode the metro, a bus, a cab and several marshrutkas in Tbilisi!) where I was able to finally locate the marshrutka heading back to Akhalkalaki. That is, I found it after asking 6 different drivers of some sort where it was. Since I had an hour to kill between finding the marshrutka and buying our tickets and actually needing to board, I wandered around the market, where I proceeded to bump into one after another of the various drivers who had (mis)directed me. Each was interested in who I was and why I was in Georgia. One made me take his cell phone number and promise to call him if Sam and I head to Kazbegi (his home town. He promises to give us a private drive there and a tour and a place to stay, as long as we give him at least 2 hours notice.)
Sam finally navigated his way through shut-down metro, wrong-way marshrutkas and taxi rides to get to the station and we packed up and headed off. We got to take that nice, long 5-hour ride back home, this time with only one car-sick passenger. We made it home by about 10pm, giving us just enough time to get our full 8-hours' sleep before summer camp started up the next morning.
And now, if you feel tired after reading all this (for those of you brave souls who made it all the way through), you'll know how we were feeling when we got home!
You are like King Arthur's knights, questing through Georgia with obstacles springing up all around!
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