Gamarjoba!

1) Gelati Monastery in Kutaisi (where one of the kings of Georgia, David the Builder, is buried).

2) View from the monastery (which, by the way, is an active monastery, so there were monks wandering around doing chores and staring at the foreigners).

3) Batoni Saakashvili, President of Georgia.

4) The Black Sea coast in Batumi, right outside where we heard the president speak.

5) Me, obviously, standing on the pebbled beach (which had some cool stones and a few bits of sea glass).

The longer I'm here, the busier I seem to get. All we do is go to class, have breaks, go back to class, have lunch, go to class, have breaks, go back to class, have dinner, go to a lecture/event, go to the pub across the street, go to bed. Wake up and do it all again. Slightly overwhelming.

I actually have a cell phone now, but it doesn't have an international plan, yet, and I'm not sure I'm going to get one. I kind of like how much time I spend away from the computer. It's liberating to realize I have no idea when I last checked my e-mail or updated anything. I know most of you want me to keep in touch, and of course I will, but it's so nice to be unaware of the presence of technology. Plus, I currently use my phone for two things: checking the time and waking up in the morning. That's it. Simple, easy.

I really wish I could put up more pictures, but it just takes so long for them to load and generally when I AM putting pictures up it's because I'm forcing myself to stay awake longer than I should or giving up time chatting with friends/eating/showering/doing laundry to be on the computer. I'll try to get a few more up in the next couple of days, though, because it IS amazing here.

One thing about Georgia (that I've learned from experience) is that their idea of drinking or having one beer is a little different than in America. Back home we have 40s of beer, which is the 'trashy' drink as everyone knows. Here, they have 2 liter bottles of beer. That's right. TWO LITERS. And it's not weak beer. However, if you want to play a couple games of Durak on the steps outside and share a beer, one beer goes much, much further. If you're playing Durak and drinking with a bunch of people with accents from various countries (Ireland, Estonia, Australia and England), sometimes you might start speaking in their accent and confusing them. It's even more confusing when half the time you can't remember people's names so you refer to them by country. Or State. "Hey, Texas!" has been used more than once on me and on other people from Texas. I love it here, I really do.

Ghame mshvidobisa!

P.S. After learning French, which is all vowels, it's incredibly strange to move to a language that is all consonants. The record so far is 5 in a row. Just try to pronounce that correctly. (It's good night, by the way.)