The Good, The Bad, the Banya (Monday)

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that I did in fact attempt a shower. It was one of the not so good experiences I've had here. We've discovered that at night, the water turns off around 11pm and does not come back on until after 8am, which can be difficult to schedule around. Saturday night I attempted my shower. The shower itself isn't that bad, it's old with a water tank that has limited hot water and basically drips out so slow its impossible to wash your hair. The biggest problem was that our shower curtain was COVERED in mold. I put up with alot of stuff when I'm overseas, but mold is not really one of them. I just really felt like I didn't get clean in the shower, which means that as of Monday  I had not showered since. Gross, I know, but I just can't bear the thought of that mold on me. We were hoping that as a Memorial Day gift, that they will get us a new curtain today, or at least get that one out of here. Annnnnddddd, they pulled through!!! How beautiful and clean are those dolphins!!!

I am up at 5:45 this morning. I think it is ridiculous to be up this morning, but I do get alot of work done while everyone else sleeps. Today, I submitted a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times about a Georgian article. If it gets published, I'll let you know! Everyone met downstairs for breakfast in the hotel at 830. We had tea and hot dogs - breakfast of champions! At 915, we left the hotel and walked to the ICCN for classes to start at 930.

Our first meeting was with an NGO called CARE. A representative named Anthony Foreman came and spoke to us about their mission to involve women in the peace-making process. He discussed the challenges of that in general, and then specifically to applying that to the Caucasus. Next, we had 2 girls from the Georgian Young Lawyer's Association- probably the most well respected NGO in Tbilisi. They were absolutely fascinating talking about the legal aspects of not only the breakaway conflicts, but also the domestic problems as well, including the protests and subsequent violence from last week. Nina and Tamar were extremely open and honest of their assessment of the government ministries and the police. Sometimes I couldn't believe they were telling us certain things.

After our meeting with them, we went back to Vino Veritas for some lunch. We were hoping to meet with the EU Monitoring people while we were here, but they were kind of busy, so two people came and had lunch with us so we could at least hear a little bit of their perspective. Ariel and I were apparently twinkies in our purple shirts...

After lunch, we walked down to the Ministry for Reintegration to meet with the Deputy Minister Porchakidze. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the outside, the policeman got mad when we pulled out our cameras. Inside, they had to searched all of our stuff and we even had to turn on our computers and take a picture with our cameras to prove that it what they really were. Interesting method. Inside, we listened to the Georgian minister for about an hour, and I have to admit I feel like most of what he said was pretty biased. Of course everyone we heard was biased, but some of his comments were bordering on entertaining. First off, he would not refer to the Abkhaz people or South Ossetian people - they may be ethnically those, but they are Georgian citizens. Instead of the breakaway regions, we talked about the occupied regions. He clearly HATED Russia and accused them of some pretty intense things, including ethnic cleansing. It was important to get his opinion, but wow. My favorite is that when he walked in, he asked us who else we were talking to. When we mentioned the Young Lawyers Association from that morning, he said "oh great, I'm sure they were critical of us." It's almost funny how nobody gets along. We snuck a few pics before the minister arrived

After the Ministry, we came back to the hotel and changed clothes really quickly for a walking tour of the city. Originally we were just going to be gone about an hour, maybe a bit more. We were gone about 4 hours and I can't even begin to imagine how many miles we walked.

Here is a picture of the old city, near where we are staying.

This is a new and very modern bridge in the heart of the city.

Saint George (of Georgia!) and an old church

Sorry this picture is kind of far off, but its a statue of Queen Tamar, aka Mother Russia. In one hand she has a bowl of wine for friends and in the other a sword for enemies. As you can see, Georgia is pretty black and white in its view of the world haha

Me and my new friend Cathrin from Switzerland in Tbilisi!

Katie and I are holding up the ancient tree!

And making strong shadows

We walked up a giant hill through the city in the search of a magnificent church. I was starting to get worried when I took this picture...

Here is a picture of Georgian writing. I have no idea what it says, but how pretty is this writing!?!? Most people speak Russian too so its easy to talk to people, but all the signs and labels are impossible!

This is the remnant of our local snack on the way up the hill called Churchkhela. It's basically nuts dipped in a grape compote on a string. It looks like dirty candle, but its actually delicious!

 Me and Ashley sitting outside the big church!

 How cool is this reflection?

 The presidential palace! Sorry its from so far off. If you pull your camera out any closer, a policeman jumps out from nowhere and yells at you. Seriously...

We went from one side of the city all the way to the other, up hills, down hills, we crossed the river multiple times, and then finally walked all the way back. It was great to see the city, but it was exhausting! Plus, we aren't sure whether it is pollen, dust, pollution, or what, but my allergies are INSANE here. I probably sneeze 50 times a day, sniffle the rest of the time, and while we were out walking yesterday, my whole face broke out in hives. Made enjoying the scenery a bit more difficult.


By the time we got back to the hotel, we were completely whipped. I basically inhaled my dinner of chicken, yogurt and egg soup, chicken, nut stuffed carrots, and cold mashed potatoes. Side note- we also drink endless amounts of tea here. It reminds me of Turkey.

After dinner, we decided to go try out the Georgian banya - the sulfur baths. There were 6 girls and 3 guys. When we got down there, we ended up getting group rooms- one for the guys and one for the girls (thank goodness we did that!!!!) Our room was incredible. We had a sitting room with a couch and table and tea. Then you walked into a HUGE room that had a hot water spa, a cold water spa coming from a rock formation, and two rinse off stations - this led into a room with a massage table, a sauna, and our own personal restroom. It was unbelievable and the smell of sulfur wasn't actually that bad! After such a long day and all that walking, the water was unbelievable - I can't believe natural water gets that hot. We also all paid to have scrubs and massages which sounded so nice. What we didn't realize, is that when you sign up for those, this gruff Georgian lady comes in and demands your clothes. Yes, all your clothes. So whether or not the 6 of us girls were friends before, we are definitely all friends now! Naked banya-ing was not what we all expected, but it was still great. The gruff lady was a little rough in her scrub and massage, but we probably needed it. PLUS, we were able to use the unlimited hot water at the rinse off station to take showers and wash our hair! (this was before I knew about my new shower curtain). We all felt incredibly clean and relaxed when we left an hour later.[Sorry no banya pictures - I think it is obvious why!]

My intention was to blog all of this last night when I got home, but I could barely keep my eyes open and it was almost midnight so I totally crashed. Before I did, I happened to get a few pics of our room so you can see our living quarters.

They aren't great or anything, but they could be alot worse!!!! Well I've now been blogging for almost 2 hours and it is time for breakfast (Tuesday). I'll update more later!!

Cheers to Georgian Hospitality! (Sunday)

Well, it is 530am and I can't sleep. So I have 2 hours to kill before breakfast, so I guess I do the blogging I didn't do last night. Yesterday was an incredible day. I'll be honest and admit that everyone slept til noon - those of us that have been here a day, and those that arrived at 4am last night. We are still missing 2 people in our group who missed their flight in NY due to weather and now they have a crazy path to get here. The last I heard was NY-London-Istanbul-Baku-Tbilisi! Sooooooo glad that wasn't me. At noon, the program officially started. We had a group lunch in the hotel that was delicious! It was another broth soup, this time onions and cabbage, we had rice stuff green peppers, bread (of course), more salads, and a honey-square pastry dessert. After lunch, we all headed to the International Center on Conflict and Negotiation (from here on out to be referred to as the ICCN).

We have our own "classroom" downstairs in the basement to use when speakers come to us.

We spent the first 2 hours doing introductions, goals, going over the syllabus and discussing our field trip options. I'll be super honest and say I'm a bit disappointed with our field trip. Originally we were going to cross the occupied border and go visit with South Ossetian students in Tskinvali to understand their perspective. Everyone said yes except for the South Ossetians who said there was too much violence in Tbilisi to let us come - a total excuse. Oh well. Our next plan was to take a 36 hour trip via soviet train, bus, walking across the border, etc. into the other contested area of Abkhazia. BUT, yesterday the Abkhaz president died under some sketchy circumstances in Moscow, so it is definitely NOT a good idea to go there now. Hopefully everyone will keep it together and not fight over the next Abkhaz leader until we go home. Sooooooo now that those options are out, I think we are just going to go visit some beautiful churches in the mountains at Kakheti. Still a great day, but not quite the same.

For the last 2 hours of class, we had a group of Georgian students who are engaged in peace activities with the Abkhaz come and dialogue with us about their experiences - Nino, Lali, Keti and Nana. They were fantastic! I really wish I had thought to take pictures... At first they spoke to us (via translator), then we got to ask them questions (via translator) and then we broke up into small groups to talk more one-on-one. Somehow I got lumped into the group with all Russian speakers - the native Georgians, a native Russian, and a peace-corps girl from Kazakhstan. Awesome. I think I picked up most of what they said, but when they got excited they started talking really fast! I have to say that I found them incredibly inspiring. To hear them talk about getting past the idea of "enemies" and get to not only know the Abkhaz but understand their desires and their problems really made me excited about being here. They were so passionate about something that alot of people dont understand or respect - peace. I hope we get to see those girls again.

After class, we all walked down the street for a welcome dinner at a restaurant, Vino Veritas, together.

That dinner was one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. To start off with, the restaurant was absolutely beautiful! Very traditional and set the mood for a great evening.

 They brought out tons of different Georgian food. I took pictures, but I only know what a few of the things actually are. Whether you like it or not, you try everything! We had.....

 Tarragon water. I believe the Tarragon is what made it green? It tasted slightly licorice and sweet. I couldn't drink alot of it, but it was good! They also had grape, pear and lemon flavored water.

 Beef in a sauce. It was actually one of my favorites from the evening. The sauce was spicy and delicious!

 I'm not totally sure what these are, but they taste alot better than they look. I believe they are bean, spinach and something else mixed with herbs and nuts that you eat with bread.

 This is cheese in cheese. The outer cheese was mozarella-esque and the inside was like a feta/goat cheese. Pretty strong so I ate mine with bread, but still tasty!

Fried cheese! This was literally a bowl of friend squares of cheese. As one girl said, I can hear my arteries screaming, but it just tastes so good!

The food alone would have made for a great dinner, but our tour guide Nelly brought us some of her family friends' homemade Georgian red wine. Then we started in on a true evening of enjoying Georgian hospitality. She started us off by making a toast. She told us, from memory, a beautiful Georgian poem about love and then toasted to love.

She then explained that in Georgian culture, the entire group goes around in a circle and toasts to a variety of things. In fact, they spend the whole evening toasting and spending a good time together. Soooooo, she then passed the toast off to one of our leaders who is from the Netherlands. He toasted in Dutch, and then we listened to an Arab love song, and a Russian poem on love, and so on and so on all the way around the table. Everyone had BEAUTIFUL things to say about love, and to hear about them in so many different languages was incredible

Of course, after our group of 15 toasted on love, then we went around the circle toasting life, and friendship, and, of course, peace. We were there for hours talking and laughing and just truly enjoying the beauty that is Georgian culture.

 Me and my roommate Lydia at dinner.

The whole group at our table! (sorry its kind of blurry).

After dinner, we all came home and people divided up between studying and sleeping. I hung out with several girls in my room for awhile and then g-chatted with Caleb, which is why I didn't get my blogging done. Monday is going to be a very full day of meetings, so I better go to bed! Happy Memorial Day to everyone tomorrow!

Journey to Tbilisi

Well, I am officially in Tbilisi Georgia!!! No, not like the southern state that is the home to Chick-fil-a, but the former republic of the USSR.

I am here with several other MA students from the DC Consortium to study/participate in Conflict Resolution activities in the Caucasus. In particular, we are focusing on the conflicts between Georgia and its breakaway regions, Russia and the North Caucasus and Nagorno-Karabakh. We'll be meeting with students, NGOs, government organization and lots of other people trying to understand and work through the conflicts. At the end of the week we will be presenting at a conference here. It's going to be a crazy, long, intense week, but I'm super excited.

I spent all last week packing up all of my different research/reading materials and clothes for a week. It was super hard to pack because we have to wear professional clothes most of the time. Scarlett went into deep dark depression when I pulled out the bag, but when I offered for her to get in the suitcase she freaked out!

Oh well. Side note- if you are looking to travel anytime soon, or just organize your travel gear, go to the Container Store. They are running an unbelievable deal on all their travel organization stuff. It really saved me packing this time!

My flight left DC at 11pm on Thursday night. Caleb and I had our traditional dinner at Chili's before I left. My original plan was to stay up on that flight and finish up my reading for the course, but I was on the side of the plane with only two seats and the seat next to me was empty, so I curled up with both pillows and blankets and slept all the way to Istanbul. I had an 8 hour layover in Istanbul, which was kind of a bummer. I was just in that airport- but that time was 4 in the morning and nothing was open. Luckily, the airport had a Starbucks for me to camp out at and work on my reading. My only complaint is that they decided NOT to turn on the A/C in the airport and it was SOOOO hot in there. 8 hours was a pretty long layover. When they finally posted my gate for my flight to Tbilisi, it was at least a 2 mile walk through the airport to this really shady basement area where they basically loaded everyone on busses and took you out to the planes. It was a pretty interesting experience looking around at everyone with their maroon Georgian passports and being one of 3 people on the entire flight with blue US passports. At least it was easy to spot the other people in my group!

Overall, I highly recommend Turkish airlines except for their food. On my first flight they served salmon with horseradish sauce and an apricot cake- gross! My second flight was a piece of raw fish with cottage cheese. Nasty! So I was a bit hungry by the time I made it to Tblisi, or Tiflis as some say. On my flight from Istanbul to Tbilisi, I sat next to a Georgian soldier. We got to talking about what I was doing here and he explained that he actually fought in the war in 2008. What is interesting, though, is that he actually didn't understand what he was fighting for. He thought Russia was just trying to break up the country of Georgia (perhaps more cynical people would agree) but he had not idea that Abkhazia and South Ossetia wanted to be free, or why they did. It was a pretty interesting discussion - and made me excited for the conference to get started!

Finally we landed at 3:00 am. There were 3 of us on that flight and we waited about an hour for one more girl to come in before we road to the hotel. We road down George W. Bush highway (yes, that is its name), past Freedom Square to our hotel, which is pretty old (pictures to come). Luckily, my Russian has not completely abandoned me, because the hotel staff do not speak English. So we all got checked in and then I dragged my 60 pound bag to the 3rd floor (no elevator) and got ready to take a shower and...... no water. I went all the way back down and summoned up all my Russian vocabulary to try to understand why we did not have water. As of this moment (9pm the next day), still no water. I'm sure I look and smell as attractive as I feel right now. Oh well, looking at the shower, I'm not totally sure I even want to give it a try...

Anyways, about 5:30am I dropped into bed. I set my alarm for 930 and cringed, but knew it was the only way to fight the jet lag. Our hotel may be old, but we get homemade meals for breakfast and dinner. For breakfast it was hard boiled eggs, boiled potatoes with dill, and tea. Everyone then scattered to study and read for awhile (we are all a day early). In the afternoon, we braved the neighborhood to exchange money, buy some snacks, and see a bit of the town (thank goodness again for knowing Russian!) Unfortunately, my allergies are going completely crazy here. What I've seen is beautiful, but definitely a lot of trees and plants to make me sneeze! I only took a few pics today, but I promise more later!!

We all decided to spend the few hours before dinner studying a bit more (can you tell we are all procrastinators) but I ended up completely crashing for an hour. Oh well? For dinner we had a mushroom broth soup, some assorted salads - cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower, a weird tomato fish thing, etc. and a traditional Georgian food that looks like a quesadilla - looks like being the key word. I took a big bite an immediately regretted it. The cheese was soooooooooooo strong and had a nasty metallic taste to it. I had to drink an entire cup of tea just to get it down. I will try/eat/force down just about anything overseas, but I am unwilling to ever put that kind of cheese back in my mouth. Wow it was bad!

Now, its the evening and everyone is back to reading/studying. I am currently g-chatting with Caleb, but after that I will be getting down to business myself. The actual program starts tomorrow at noon. I am soooooo glad I came in a day early, the others are going to be soooooo jetlagged for the opening speaker tomorrow. Yikes!

I will do my best to update as we good. The program is pretty intensive and I think we will spend most of the evenings researching, writing, consolidating interviews and notes, etc. But I'll do my best! If anyone wants anything in particular from Georgia, speak now (or before next Saturday) or forever hold your peace! My last note for the night is about a tradition that Caleb and I have. I like to travel (obviously), which isn't Caleb's favorite. When I go, he tends to booby-trap my bag with notes and fun things. Our traditional game is that he sends his hog bracelet with me. It is one of those live strong bracelets but a red razorback one. That bracelet has gone with me to Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Ukraine, China, Turkey, and now Georgia. I was a little stressed leaving and last minute packing on Thursday and he told me that he didn't have time to get it in there. I was actually pretty disappointed. Last night as I was unpacking at 5am, I emptied my entire bag looking for it. No razorback bracelet. While I was g-chatting with Caleb tonight, I told him I was kind of disappointed and he told me that I obviously hadn't looked good enough for it. Sure enough, in my glasses case in my laptop bag, was the red bracelet I was looking for! We may be thousands of miles apart, but a part of us will always be together!!! That's all I have this evening- good night!

First Baptist Bombers!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but Caleb and I play on our church's co-ed softball team. We both love and grew up playing baseball/softball and this sounded like a really fun opportunity. Well... I should back up and say that Caleb signed up first thinking it was an all-male team, apparently he doesn't believe in co-ed softball BUT then we found the team was co-ed so I signed up too!

Our team is quite the interesting mix. We have high school girls, couples, tattooed and pierced brothers, a crazy old guy whose got to be 70, former college baseball players, and baseball wannabees, and us. We are quite the motley crew. For some reason our team hasn't really taken to us. They seem to think we don't know how/can't play. I'm not saying we are olympic quality athletes, but we know how to play softball. On top of that, our coach hasn't really felt it necessary to learn my name. At the first game he referred to me as Elizabeth the whole time. Weird. Then we have missed the last few weeks while we were home, but when we showed up again tonight, he introduced us to the team as having never played before (must've forgot about the first game) and introduced us as Caleb and Elizabeth! What gives? Do I look like an Elizabeth. Strike 1 on Coach Dave - who falls into my category of thinks he's hot stuff but makes at least 3 errors per game.

We also have quite the interesting uniforms. Coach Dave decided to order us jerseys, which sounded like a great idea. Except that he wanted 3/4 length shirts...... for summer league? Who wears long sleeves in the summer? So weird. Plus, instead of just getting tshirts or something, he found $25 shirts. I think that is ridiculous, but we paid for our jerseys and requested what size and number we wanted. The shirts came in while we were in Dallas, so we requested that he bring our shirts tonight. Somehow he no longer had my small shirt that I ordered. I still don't know how that happened. But we showed up and he handed me my medium which was a long sleeve shirt on me. Great.... looks like Elizabeth will be playing softball in summer heat in a long-sleeve shirt. I tried to keep the sleeves rolled up but didn't have much luck. Strike 2 Coach Dave....

The good news is that our jersey's aren't the worst out there. I'm so bummed I didn't get a picture, but I couldn't find an opportunity to take one that wouldn't be too obvious. Tonight we beat the #1 ranked team with uniforms worse than ours. Their shirts had a giant clock in the middle with a heart inside it with a cross inside that. If that wasn't corny enough, further down on their shirts over their stomach area is a face. Yes, a human face on their jersey. From the dugout I couldn't quite make out whose face that was. I asked Caleb if we were playing a team with Jesus' face on their jersey.... Luckily, at the end of the game when we shook hands, I was able to get an up close glimpse. Turns out, we beat a Lutheran Church team, because that was the face of Martin Luther on their jerseys. I'm not sure whether that is sad or funny haha. All I know is my long sleeve jersey isn't as ridiculous as that.

In our win tonight, I made a pretty good play out in right field and Caleb got a triple, so we are definitely doing our part for the team. Unfortunately, I won't be hear for our next 2 games since I'll be overseas, so I'm sure when I get back I'll be back to being Elizabeth in the long-sleeve jersey. Oh well. : )

Little Rock, Fayetteville and BBQ

When we left Dallas, we headed up to Little Rock to spend a few days with my in-laws. It's funny, Caleb and I joked about the difference between visiting our homes. When we are in Dallas, I feel like I really need to be active and seeing people and getting stuff done. I don't want to disappoint people when we are there. Caleb just hangs out and relaxes. When we go to Little Rock, it is the exact opposite. Caleb runs around and visits with everybody, and I play with kids and just relax.

On Thursday, I spent half of the day down in Hot Springs visiting my grandparents. Actually, I got to visit my great grandma Thelma and great grandpa Ed, and then I got to celebrate my great grandma Gerry's 95th birthday with her and my grandparents at Chili's. Initially I was supposed to go back to LR after lunch, but I ended up staying for the afternoon and spending some more time with my grandma! It was really special to have that time with all of them.

That night was really fun. We all had dinner at Caleb's parents' house. EVERYONE was there except for Micah and Kelsey (who were preparing to graduate that weekend). It was so nice to see everyone and get to play with all the kids. We only had a few days to see Josh, Mandy, Noah and Sam because they got to go to the beach that weekend (lucky ducks!) Unfortunately, since I was so relaxed, I forgot to take pictures... sorry : (

On Saturday, Caleb's parents, Brian, Rachel, Ellie, Mollie, Caleb and I all loaded up and headed to Fayetteville for Micah and Kelsey's graduations. It was a long day, but super fun! When we got up there, we were SHOCKED at how cold and windy it was. I had chosen to wear a sleeveless summer dress which turned out to be a terrible choice. Luckily, Mollie Ruth decided to be my buddy for the day and insisted that I carry her EVERYWHERE which not only kept me warm but was also a great exercise! Again... forgot to take pictures and remembered just in time to get 1 attempted picture at Micah walking in, but luckily my sister in law Rachel remembered to take pics so I'm stealing some of hers (thanks Rach!)

It was a long day, so Rachel, Brian and the girls headed straight home after the graduations. Caleb and I stuck around for dinner at the Catfish Hole and cake over at Micah and Kelsey's apartment before we headed back to Little Rock. It was a very long but great day!

We hung around Sunday and Monday really not wanting to go back to DC. But, first thing Tuesday morning it was time to come back to reality. Usually I'm a bad car rider- for some reason cars put me straight to sleep BUT I chugged 2 bottles of Mt. Dew so I stayed awake the whole way and even drove some! We may have had to stop a few more times.... but it was nice to give Caleb a break from driving. Unfortunately, after we grabbed dinner about 3 1/2 hours outside of DC we had to drive through some AWFUL weather - we knew it was bad, but didn't realize how bad until we got home and our tv shows had tornado warnings for the area we were driving through. awesome. oh well, we made it!

We have been pretty busy since we got back Tuesday night. We've grocery shopped, unpacked, done the laundry, cleaned the apartment, taken Scarlett to the vet, I had an afternoon of training at my internship, Caleb actually started his internship, I've done a little work, we've visited apartments, signed a lease for a new apartment in the fall, and attended our Sunday school BBQ. Phew! Talk about a crazy week! We really did enjoy our Sunday School BBQ last night. There are some great couples and this was a chance to get to know them better. We spent most of the night playing lawn golf - I'd never played before but it was fun! Caleb actually won a game, I was not so lucky...

We have another fun week coming up! This will be Caleb's first full week at his internship and I'm leaving the country on a one-week study abroad to Georgia (the country, not the state haha). But more on that later....