Wedding Season!

Chef Carly

 Given the lack of internet and my overall lack of ambition to find it, I guess I will try to just give an update about the past couple weeks and all the events that have been going on as of late without creating another novel :)
 First of all, Carly and I did end up making Mexican food for the family and it was a huge hit! We made an off-shoot of Enchilada Soup, homemade tortillas and all, and the fam loved it. In fact, we had it at every meal that following week. As great as the soup turned out, it wasn't my ideal breakfast food served lukewarm after not being refrigerated for a week straight so I was very relieved when we finally finished it off.

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 In other news, the inevitable finally happened and I caught the flu here. I figured my immune system could only kick ass for so long and of course it picks the weekend when I have to go to a wedding that's 6 hours away by way of a crowded marshuk'ta to the Turkish Border to strike. Initially, I thought about just booking it to Turkey or Armenia when I found out it's not socially acceptable for women to drink at weddings but all in all I'm glad I stuck it out. The "wedding" was outdoors in a neighbors backyard and consisted of more food than I could have imagined and lots and lots of wine (for the men) and Georgian dancing. It was cool to see all the dancing and they even taught me how to do a few of them so that was pretty cool. Irma's family is amazing and I had a great time considering the circumstances. Being outside in the middle of November on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere in a dress and tights until 2am while having the flu was definitely not my first choice of weekend experiences but it turned out to be fun nonetheless. The tamada (aka toast master) made a toast to me and Chicago and I had about 4 different old men make me promise to take them with me to America when I go home and if I ever get married I all but signed in blood that I would invite the whole village to come. I also lucked out and found some renegade women there that were sneaking drinks in the back of the house so I did end up getting to drink which was a God send... I don't think I could have dealt with all the creepy guys in the village that haven't seen a foreigner in 10 years otherwise.

The fam and me at the wedding

The next day we went back to the house that hosted the wedding and just ate more food, got creeped on by all the men that were

Gorami and Babua

drunk at 10am, and ended up going with Irma's English speaking cousin, Natia, for a few hours which was a lifesaver. It was great to speak English to someone and feel like a real human being again for a few hours, even if we were collecting water spilling from a rusted pipe along the ditch to use for wine making later that night. Later Natia, Irma, and my two host sisters and I all went to a beautiful rebuilt fortress that night in a town nearby which was gorgeous to see and also a big change in scenery from the village. I was starting to feel better by that point and after scaring the mouse out of my bed, I got a good night's sleep and felt a million times better the next morning before starting our 6 hour journey home which was an experience all in itself. For starters, the marshuk'ta stop that we needed was a good mile or two away so Irma's brother, Vapo, was going to give us a ride. I thought that my car in the States was an experience, but Vapo's car makes my car look like a Benz. Getting his car started (on a good day) involves having his 8 month pregnant wife and the 79 yr old grandma push the car up a hill so he can try and start it on the way down. When that failed, we all had to push it down the road and up a bigger hill to try and get it started that way. When that failed, they had to stop the neighbors walking down the street with a cart of lumber being pulled by two cows for help. The image that I 

One of the people invited to my future wedding

have of two cows pulling this car down the street and up yet a bigger hill to get it started is one that will surely stick with me forever and one that I wish I had my camera for. Having the cows pull it up the bigger hill ended up doing the trick and it was like the scene from "Little Miss Sunshine" having all of us run and jump in the car while it was moving as there was no way he could get it started again if it stopped moving. Priceless.

Parents of the bride and groom

 The way home was actually enjoyable this time and having my host sister projectile vomit all over some random lady on the marshuk'ta was the icing on the cake. I think I laughed to myself most of the 6 hour ride home.

 In other news, one of the most abnormal relationships to date is procurring and Mr. Kevin Cox will be gracing Georgia with his presence in less than one week. I think the host fam still thinks that we're engaged or just live a life of sin in the States. But I think they're excited for him to come visit and see what my "type" actually is considering we've discussed numerous times how I don't find the majority of men here and their creepy tendencies attractive. So feel free to send all monetary donations with him given the lack of a postal system here :)

Azerbaijan!!

I think if I had to sum up my trip to Azerbaijan in one word it would definitely be: Lucky. There is no other words for the series of events that occured surrounding this amazing weekend getaway. To start it all off, Rob and I were drunkenly talking the week prior to our departure and he happened to mention that he saw an advert for a jazz festival on the Caspian Sea in Baku, Azerbaijan. He thought that the dates were for the upcoming weekend but couldn't really be sure and there really wasn't any information on the internet. Then we come to find out that visas for Azerbaijan were among the most difficult to get in the region, apart from Russia of course. Fortunately, Rob was heading to Batumi, where 1 of the 2 Azerbaijani consulates are in Georgia, for a wedding during the week so he said he'd look into it. Once he got there the guy was super cool and let us pretty much lie on the visa applications with dates and everything so we could get them in time for the weekend and even let Rob fill out my application, which is usually a big no-no, so all we had to do was pick up the visas in person 2 days later right before we left.


 I kinda just slid it in there with my host fam and my co-teachers that I would be gone for a few extra days and prayed the school wouldn't have a freakout. I also kinda said that Carly, my friend in a nearby village, would be going to because initially my host mom had a mini freakout that it would just be me and Rob going. I ended up mentioning to the school the day that I left that I would leaving a bit early that day and might not be back until the following Tuesday and was hoping there would be enough of a language barrier that they wouldn't ask too many questions. My co-teacher was super cool about it so with all systems go I left Thursday afternoon for a weekend of allegedly jazz and to find out why everyone said not to go to Azerbaijan.

 The guy from the consulate had told Rob that he was needing us to get there around 3pm on Thursday and I can't say that I was halfway shocked to rock-up at 2:50 after booking it to catch three different marshuk'tas only to have the security guard say the guy would be back around 4. So Rob and I lingered around Batumi a bit, which is absolutely gorgeous, and returned at four to have the same security guard say that the guy wouldn't be coming in at all which ruined every plan. Luckily, the guy had given Rob his number so Rob just called him and the guy said he'd meet us at there in a half hour. So we just got a couple beers at an outdoor pub nearby and took them right in with us when the guy finally showed. I can definitely say that I was in disbelief sitting in the Azerbaijan consulate, drinking a beer, lying on an application under the guy's instructions, and sending my passport up through a second story window in a plastic bag attached to a rope to be photocopied. After we got our visas and finished our beers we went to the metro station to buy tickets for the overnight train to T'bilisi where we would catch another night train to Baku and had no problem getting the third class tickets for the 10pm train. That gave us plenty of time to grab a big jug of beer and head to the stoney beach on the Black Sea to chill out until the train left.


  My first experience on the night train turned out to be not as bad as I had expected. We started a drinking game with some Georgians bunking across the way which made sleeping in the cramped conditions that much more manageable but also made the 7am arrival in T'bilisi a bit tough. After Rob and I got our tickets for our next night train to Baku, we had the whole day to hang out in T'bilisi and to further explore with no agenda. We landed 2nd class tickets for the Baku train and that turned out to be sooo much better. We shared a small room with two bunk beds in it with a Georgian girl that was around our age and her Russian grandma who insisted on feeding us the whole time. We got our passports checked about nine million times by the police and were stunned when they went room by room with a device checking for what we guessed to be radioactive materials or nuclear weapons. We filled out the custom forms which were completely in Russian the best we could and never got second guessed on anything and drank and slept with ease.
 After we arrived in Azerbaijan and left the train station, we found an ATM that was 10 steps away, and headed in thegeneral direction to what we believed was Old City. We got to walking and asked some random guy on the road which direction
Old City was just to double check and a guy in a super nice car overheard us asking and told us to hop on in and dropped us off right in front of Maiden's Tower just out of pure kindness. We made finding a hostel our first priority and were stunned to see arrows pointing to what turned out to be the only hostel in the whole city spray painted on the wall in an alleyway. Pure. Sheer. Luck. Turns out we took the last bunks and it was only 15 manot and it even had a shower and mini kitchen. With all that settled we literally just spent the next two days going around the city and exploring endlessly.

 We figured out pretty quickly why our organization didn't want us to go to Azerbaijan.. because the cleanliness and ease with which you can get around the city blows Georgia out of the water. Instead of the underground street crossings being filled with the pungeant odor of piss and poverty, they were literally granite and marble with pictures and monuments to their well known artists and poets with escalators instead of broken stairs. Even the turkishy toilets were porcelain, sheer heaven. We drank beer on the paved ledge along the Caspian Sea, walked through paved streets surrounded by Dior and Gucci, laid down in the grass barefoot in the many parks with monuments and fountains, got coffee on a rooftop bar overlooking the city, drank beer with a bunch of Scottish ex-pats while watching the soccer games at a local bar, ate dinner with a bunch of Azerbajianis in some hole in the wall basement "restaurant" and were able to buy tickets at the door for the jazz "festival". While the jazz festival turned out to be a lot different than what we were expecting (i.e. it was indoors with no alcohol allowed) we did manage to have the most amazing Indian food and try out the authentic local food and we even managed to stumble across the only Mexican restaurant that was in the area and have our first and most likely last tacos while we're here. We climbed Maiden's Tower which overlooks the whole city, walked along the old fortress wall that runs through the city, visited a few art galleries that were free of charge, went to a Theatre History Museum, and saw my personal favourite which was the Azerbaijan Independence Museum. We later learned that it's ridiculously hard to get into Azerbaijan if you have already visited Armenia and the museum and Scottish ex-pats did a great job of explaining why that was the case so it was cool to see and learn the history.

Cute little hole in the wall restaurant

 We had some interesting people staying at the hostel with us as well which made the experience that much more enriching. We had a few aussies that had literally driven all the way from Australia, and after the given 'kangaroos as a viable form of transportation across the water' jokes, we were able to talk to them about how they've been able to literally drive across the world and their future travel plans. We had two guys from Iran that were pretty cool to talk to, a Russian guy that had been to North Korea which was interesting to hear about, and then there was Mark. Mark is a 50 something retiree after being an architecture professor in Minneapolis for the past God knows how many years. We asked him how he ended up in Azerbaijan and all he answered was "I got lost" and left it at that. He's spent the past 6 months traveling and just plans on keeping on until his money runs out in what he thinks will be many years from now. He had already been through Africa, Iran, and most of Europe and had his sights on Kazikstan or Uzebekistan next and had been stuck in Azerbaijan for a month due to visa problems for Turkmenistan. His only immediate goal is to end up in India within the next month and when we asked what he wanted to do there all he could say is "haven't gotten that far yet, I'll find out when I get there". My hero.

Why yes, that would be the
Museum of Carpet Weaving..
riveting. 

 While we were in Baku, everyone just gave us everything for free essentially and we hardly got any of the wierd stares that come from being a blonde and a red head in Georgia. People that we had just met would buy all of our beers, a lot of our meals, berries, chocolate, and just let us into the museums. They geniunely just wanted us to enjoy our time in Baku as it tries to become more of a tourist destiny and get it's name out there. It was beautiful, and once again sheer luck.
 We were able to buy overnight train tickets again with no problem on Monday and spent the whole last day exploring and laying in the grass by the sea just drinking beer and soaking in the sun. We made it back to T'bilisi Tuesday morning and I was able to make it back to my village by dinner after texting my co-teacher to let her know I got "caught up" and wouldn't be able to make it back to school for class. She was super cool about it and my host fam didn't seem to be too ticked off that I had disappeared for almost 6 days. All in all, one of the coolest trips and a place that I would definitely want to to come back to one day!

October in a Nutshell

The weeks just keep flying by and I can't believe that it's already November! With how eventful October was, I can only imagine what these last months are going to be like. Although with the weather starting to cool down, I'm thinking that turning into a hermit and camping out in front of the fireplace will be in my near future. Sorry this will probs be a novel seeing as I haven't done anything with my life blogwise for the past couple weeks.

The Birthday girl, Lizico!

A few weekends ago, Carly and I decided to stay in the village for the weekend since we had been leaving our host fams every weekend for over a month. We stayed at her house the first night and went to a seven year old's birthday dinner where we all toasted (including the 7yr old) with black current vodka and overloaded on kachapuri until I thought we were going to die. The next day Carly and I went to Kutaisi to try and get some wifi in our lives and get updated on what's been going on in the world.We initially planned on just taking the marshuk'ta but while we were waiting at the stop some guy pulled up in a truck saying he was heading that way and would just take us for free so we figured we'd give it a shot. Big mistake. We ended up going on work visits and errands with him for a few hours and just sat in his truck while he unloaded poles, dropped off bills, and chatted with neighbors. Then he put me on the phone with his Spanish speaking friend and I had to try and explain in Spanulish (Spanish/Qartuli/English) that we actually did not have time to go to the supra where the guy was en route to and eat kinkhali. We ended up making it to Kutaisi after the long and unnecessary, yet free, excursion but only had about thirty minutes on the internet before our marshuk'ta home left. We're supposed to write weekly reports to turn in at the end of the month to our organization regarding our school and classes but I'm not exactly sure how they expect that. The only source of internet is over an hour away and with the elections and everything going on, the last thing I really want to do is teaching stuff. So in true Jenna style, I wrote all my weekly reports this past weekend in about the 15 minute time span I had between my marshuk'ta transfers :) But after we got a little clued in on what's going on in the world, we headed back to my village to spend the night with my host fam. We walked into a supra at my house and got to drink with my host mom's extended family for the night so that was pretty great. We've started playing a game involving seeing who can say various obscenities in public the loudest to pass the time or to make heinous toasts at dinner seeing as no one has any idea what we're saying anyways and we don't have the slightest idea of what's going on around us.
 The next weekend I ended up going with my 11th graders on their school excursion and I'm not sure why their idea of a school excursion hasn't spread worldwide. Essentially we rented out a marshuk'ta for the day and went to a nearby city where we went to a few gorgeous churches, the Promenthius Cave with my friends Rob and Jamie, and to an amusement park. We stopped to eat and drink wine a few times, and after drinking with a 7yr old the week before, I didn't really feel awkward in the slightest drinking with my 14yr old students. The parents supplied all the food and the wine for the day and there were about 4 of us teachers that went and the students paid for everything. The kids had a great time showing me around, wrapping skirts around me whenever we went to a church and helping me cover my head with scarves. In one church, it was customary to crawl under an altar, climb up the stairs to a shrine, make the sign of the cross, and kiss the shrine three times, then repeat the whole process again three times. As if I didn't already stick out like a sore thumb, I forgot that they make the sign of the cross the other way here which all the students and teachers got a big kick out of.
 The following weekend I ended up going to Azerbaijan for a jazz festival that Rob saw on TV the week before, which was a whole experience in itself. Long story short, I had an amazing time and more pictures from that are sure to come! After that trip, I've concluded that Rob and I might actually be the luckiest people alive given how smoothly the trip went considering we literally just packed a bag the night before and rocked up at the Azerbaijan Embassy in Batumi with a couple beers the day before we wanted to leave. Awesome, awesome, awesome.


 The whole Azerbaijan trip turned into me taking quite a few days off school which the school was pretty cool about.I ended up starting my English Club the week I got back in order to put in a few extra hours and opted out of traveling the next weekend to spend some time with the fam. I opened up the English Club to my two favorite classes to start with and every single kid showed up after school, along with some random lady and her 4yr old grandson who she wants me to start teaching English to.. even though he can't talk yet..bizarre. But she brought chuchella for me and the kids so that was pretty awesome. But English Club has been a big hit so I'm really excited about that. I basically put on some of my music and help them with their homework and then we just play games for the last part. Bringing the game 'Uno' was quite possibly the best decision I've ever made hands down and the kids and my host fam loooove it. I think I seriously play about 3 hours of Uno a week. But the weekend I spent with the fam went really well even though I had to break it to them that I wouldn't be extending my contract to stay the extra 6 months. Gia said he was just going to kidnap me, and Irma is still trying to convince me to come back but I'm just ready for whatevers next. Even though I have absolutely no idea what that is... such is life.

  Carly and I are making 'tacos' for the host fam tomorrow since they really wanted me to cook for them. They already eat pizza, there's no access to meat unless I want to slaughter and clean a chicken, so tacos seemed like the best option considering the resources. We're planning on making our own tortillas which should be great fun seeing as neither of us know what we're doing, but at least if we screw it up they'll never know! I went with Irma to the market this past Sunday morning at 6am to go get some fresh produce for the tacos and to help her sell her cheese. The stars were still out in full force and absolutely breathtaking from our mountaintop view, but it was still 6am and I was surrounded by angry women trying to sell cheese. Not the most ideal circumstance but it was definitely a lot of fun and quite the experience. All the women on our 'street' pile into a 'taxi' (aka van with a wooden bench in the back) with the goods they're going to sell and just pile all the stuff they buy into the taxi throughout the morning to take back to the village. Everything's sold from the trunks of cars or a blanket on the ground and all I could think of is how my vegetarian friend, Rhea, would die if she
saw some guy pulling live baby pigs out of the trunk of his car by a hind leg to sell/butcher. Only in Georgia..

Wedding at the Bagrati Iglesia in Kutaisi

  I was pretty wiped after waking up that early but there was no way I could turn down Gia's offer to go mushroom hunting with him the following morning at no other than 6am. First of all, I hate mushrooms. Absolutely despise. I've convinced a great number of people that I'm deathly allergic to mushrooms just so I can avoid them at all costs. I tried to politely explain that I hate mushrooms to my host fam but I don't think they got the extent of it. But nonetheless, I have been dyyyying to go hiking in the mountains here and this was finally my opportunity so I jumped on it. We couldn't see anything for the first hour as it was pitch black and we didn't really find very many mushrooms but I think Gia picked up that I'm not a very strong asset. I was busy looking up and around me the whole time as opposed to trying to spot the red mushrooms that could barely be seen hiding under the brush. But Gia I think got a kick out of having me around so it was great fun. While I was at school, my host mom cooked them up and all but force fed me, and I will admit that they weren't that bad but I think I'll still stick with the 'allergic' route when I come back home.

Me and my 11th graders

 In other news, I think Kevin is coming to visit me which has been another great topic of discussion with all the neighbors. I know enough Georgian to know when they're talking about me and the gist of what they're saying so I guess having them talk about how Kev is coming to visit is better than the usual convo about how I don't wear/match my socks or how I refuse to dry my underwear on the clothesline in plain sight of everyone in a five mile radius. I'm kind of curious to see how the fam reacts to having him around as I can't quite gauge what they make of us. For awhile I know they thought we were getting married when I got back to America, and then they caught on that he was just my boyfriend, but they still tell people I'm engaged. But I kinda think that's just so people will stop trying to set me up with their sons or give the look of disapprovement when they find out I'm not married and don't intend to be for the next 27 years.