Early Sunday morning (September 19th) Corrie and I met up with Sonya – a German woman Corrie’s been talking with who lives in Gori – to go to Tbilisi. We went to the bazroba and purchased tickets for the bus to the city (the marshrutkas are scary…). It ended up taking just a little over an hour to get into Tbilisi, which is great! I think Tbilisi trips will be quite frequent. We parted ways with Sonya on the metro – oh, metro, how I have missed thee – and meandered down Rustaveli (the main road) until we found an English-language bookshop. Everything was quite expensive, so we left and met up with Chase, who was in town, and two of the newly arrived Fulbrighters – Michaela and Ryan – for lunch. I had some random Georgian dish which ended up being essentially an entire chicken in broth (grease?). It was delicious in small quantities, but kind of overwhelming. We then found Sonya again, who showed all of us Goodwilli – one of the main supermarkets in Tbilisi – where we left the others before heading to an international church. The service was a lot of fun. People had Bibles in English, Georgian, Russian, Persian, and a number of other languages. We met some really great people and chatted for a bit before running to the bus station to catch the last bus back to Gori.
The next morning, I observed some classes at one of my schools before meeting up with some students and teachers to prepare for the Ambassador’s visit on Tuesday. The visit went very well, I believe. The kids were engaging and asked great questions. I was on TV, which was quite uncomfortable but funny, too.
Sophie and Saul, our embassy contacts, came with the ambassador. They brought us peanut butter, fig newtons, and contact solution – all things we had jokingly asked them to find for us. So, much love to them. Next time I am going to come up with some more outlandish request and see if they can get it for me… A turkey for Thanksgiving? A pet pygmy bunny named Waffle?
I spent the rest of the week observing classes and meeting with teachers. And then…our hiking adventure!
Wow, Tblisi is closer than you thought before, right? International churches like that can be really cool. I bet it was neat to be with so many people from different - really different - countries. Was the service in English?
ReplyDeleteAre you and Corrie going to try to make a little Thanksgiving dinner? And... what about this hiking trip?! I'm glad you're not posting too much for me to read at once, but when you've got something interesting to tell a girl about like hiking... :0)
You're wonderful! I hope you have a great week!