SPRING HAS ARRIVED!

So somewhere baby Jesus is angry at me for not keeping my lent promise, but hmm yeah all I can say is that things got busy. Just to list a few things I got really sick, Duncan came to visit, I went to Cyprus, and classes got super interesting. I should probably address all of these things in separate posts, but right now I'd like to talk about the SPRING! Its so sunny and wonderful here now! As I type I'm sitting barefoot in the grass in the bright sunshine. The library is right behind me haha.

Speaking of the library, I'm really excited to be in one class in particular, "Family, Marriage, and Kinship Dynamics in Turkey". In the course we discuss the different way family is understood in Turkey and the way its similar to worldwide perceptions of family. Actually sometimes its a bit depressing, so goes sociology when you realize we're all doomed to influenced by our social upbringing. One well expressed view on family is from Pierre Bourdieu's article, "On the Family as a Realized Category," in which Bourdieu claims that family structures are a series of obligated affection and affective obligations. Basically family is a circular relationship where you feel emotionally attached to your family and simultaneously are expected to preform certain duties for them and vis versa. I thought it was a very well articulated understanding of the complicated power structures embedded in the family.

As expected, the differences from American family life are most interesting to me. Its really a cool experience being a foreigner taking a class on Turkish family. I'm the only one who doesn't understand the social references, but it does makes it more fun when they ask me about stereotypes of Mexican immigrants in the US and suddenly I'm an expert. Actually that would be false, our professor studied at University of Texas, Austin and worked in Mexico, so I'm pretty sure I'm not the real expert, just the cultural one. Anyways I've learned a lot about Turkish culture such as women in Turkey are extremely shamed after divorce. Divorced women become threats to the monogamous relationships of couples. They are expected to wear modest clothes and devote their lives to their children. Not exactly typical of American where roughly 50% of all marriages end in divorce.

What should be really cool about this class is that I'm finally going to do real research! Hooray! My final project is on the duel lives of gay Turks. In the US, if you're gay its almost socially required that you come out to your family members and friends to be fully accepted in the gay community. In Turkey this is not always a viable option. Many gay Turks never tell their parents about their sexuality, but sometimes a few family members know. My project is on why gay men keep their sexuality from their family and how it affects their relationships with their families. I'm really excited to finally do real interviews, especially because I'm in Turkey and the whole topic is so different from my understanding of gay life.

Yeah so that's it for now. I'll have more to share, especially about Duncan visiting and the amazing Cyprus trip, but I should probably go write a proposal for the project I was just talking about.

Goodbye beautiful grassy outdoors. Ah those purple trees are everywhere!

Show and Tell

When I was in 5th grade, I had to journal my week long vacation to make up for the homework I was missing. I got the journal back with some mediocre grade because, in Ms. Dahl's words, I had "told" but not "shown" what I had done during my vacation. I feel like this blog is verging on only telling what I'm doing which is not only extremely boring, but totally underneath my own expectations and ability. In an effort to curb this problem I think perhaps my lent pledge will be to write at least once a week and not be so boring. Ha. Together we'll see how well this works out and if I can make baby Jesus happy with my Lent 'sacrifice'.

So onto exciting things! I'm back in Ankara (hooray!) and now that I'm looking at the semester from a whole new perspective. I came to Ankara upset about leaving my family, friends, and boyfriend. In retrospect I was totally unprepared to move to a completely different country with totally different norms. In addition, all my other travels were either extremely short (read: Janterm) or they were just so much fun I didn't care about the problems I faced (read: Berlin). Coming to Ankara was neither of those things. I was now living in a very different country for a very long time and there were problems that made me initially hate living here. First off its hard to be the foreigner all the time. People stare, people talk about you while you're standing right there, you wake up and the moment you step out the door people look at your like you're some foreign crazy. You get on the dolmus and again people are staring at the yabani who somehow knows how to ride the dolmus. There is literally no way for me to pretend to be Turkish.

At first this used to really really bother me. I was really upset for constantly being told through social interactions that I was different therefore somehow available to be treated like an alien. In my mind I think about how in US we're all taught not to stare at foreigners, handicapped, or disabled people (granted some people are horrible at this). Its part of our ingrained American identity to try and at least pretend that we don't see differences. This is why to me its rude to be stared at because I've been taught that staring at something that makes people feel uncomfortable and 'different'. While it can be infuriating at times, I think I've just grown accustomed to to being stared at. Also when I went to Istanbul I realized that this is really an Ankara thing. In Istanbul (at least in the touristy places I saw) people could care less if you were foreign. There were so many Germans, Brits, and other Europeans there that no could cared that I was clearly foreign. I don't think I was stared at the whole time I was there. In Ankara, the lovely Ankara, foreigners have no reason visit because there are barely any touristy sites. Ankara has Atatürk's mausoleum, the building in which the first parliament of Turkey was held, and an old ruin of a castle... not exactly enough to make droves of tourists come to Ankara. Even the city itself is relatively new to non-American standards. It sprung up in the 1920's when Ataturk moved the capital of his new nation from Istanbul to Ankara. In sum, getting stared at was seriously hard to cope with at first and like most problems I've encountered, I eventually just realized that its a cultural difference that leads to misunderstandings.

What I've found most amazing about Turkey, and also about traveling in general, is how little people actually need to live and how people just made due with what they have. I live in a nice part of town, but still have had the power go out at least four times and the water has been turned off twice, once for three days. To make the hot water in the shower work you also have to turn on the water in the kitchen so there's enough pressure to heat the water. Then the water drains from the tub into this hole next to the tub and when there's too much water it'll just go all over the bathroom floor. The sidewalks are cracked and there's never enough guard rails. The buses are totally irregular and have no timetable. It's just a sort of 'make-do' attitude and I feel like I've started to accept this mindset because the other day I bought a pair of shoes in two different shoe sizes. They only had the left shoe in my size so to remedy the problem I just got the right shoe one size up. (Okay in my defense it was in European sizes so its not like an American shoe size up, its only an centimeter bigger on the right.) I'm walking around with two different sized shoes. It's hard to explain but silly things like this make Ankara all the more enduring now. I've really grown to live the funny little quirks and even when its frustrating I feel like I still really like living here.

Maybe its the fact that I have friends that I love, a wonderful roommate, and a pretty decent system of interaction with friends from home, but I really like Ankara. Visiting England for such a long time also made me made me miss my friends and home in Ankara. It's really weird when you realized you're getting used to living in a very different place, but that's what's happening and I totally love it. So while living in Ankara can be really hard and in the beginning I had some serious doubts about my happiness here, I can honestly say I really love it and when I have to leave in a few months I am going to be very sad.

Merry Ol' England otherwise known as Culture Shock 101!

So I am currently in England with Amy and Pete and my my has it been one culture shock after another. As I traveled to England there was an interesting moment where I was the outsider, the yabancı, in Istanbul then as we landed suddenly I was seemingly assigned to the majority. Weird. The beginning of a lot of weird experiences.

So Amy lovingly picked me up from the airport and right off we whisked ourselves away to Canterbury. She drove and I soaked in all the GREEN and the fields and PALE people. It was really weird. I caught myself staring at children because they were soo pale. The houses all seemed to be either medieval wooden houses or cute little brick cottages. Everything is so ridiculously cute. I know its an American stereotype to think of England as quaint or adorable, but I can't help it everything is so similar to how I'd imagined the English countryside. Ah I just love it when stereotypes come true.

So one of the first things we did after getting into Canterbury was head over to the ASDA, the Walmart/Target of England. Oh my god, it was almost like being home. Everything I could have wanted was there! So much candy, so many American brands! In Turkey, everything is Turkish or European, almost none of the brands in Turkey are American, and in Turkey it is often hard to find certain types of foods (pasta sauce and oregano for example) that are staples in American supermarkets.

The next day we went to Evensong in the Canterbury Cathedral and saw the sight of Saint Thomas Becket's murder, the reason pilgrims have come to Canterbury for over a thousand years. Never missing minute, we drove from Canterbury to Herne Bay then down to the white cliffs of Dover! Hooray! I've always always wanted to go to the cliffs of Dover mostly because they're super famous and they're in Shakespeare's King Lear. So cool. So we hiked around the cliffs and then we headed back to Derby, where Pete and Amy live.

The next day we did a tour of Derby and I got to meet some of the American ladies that Amy hangs out with. Its a group for women who live abroad, mostly because their husbands got a two or three year assignment abroad. It was SO weird to be around so many Americans. I think I've literally met 5 Americans in 4 months and by met I mean spoken too. Jake is the only American I hang out with on a regular basis. So it was weird to suddenly be surrounded by American women talking about such normal American things. Its also really weird for England to feel so like home for me and for these women it is their daily experience of a very different culture. Its just interesting how we all have different levels of tolerance or perhaps, just current experience. In Germany, I felt like I was in another world, but now, after Ankara, anything really Western feels homey.

The next day Amy and I went on a great hike through the English countryside. Oh it was just great! We took the bus to Bakewell (where this pastry called Bakewells come from) and then we hiked along a former railroad track into the countryside. It was freezing, but sunny and so so beautiful! The oak trees, sheep(!), rolling hills, and little cottages--it was just so beautiful. We hiked to a pub in this small little town on top of a hill. It was really great and exactly what I wanted to do in England.

With no time to slow down, the next day we made a short trip to York. Ah and York is one of my favorite places. Its this really old city that still has its old city wall. We toured the castle, or what's left of it, then checked out the museum. The city has a place called the shambles which has all these jetted old buildings. Ah so great. I loved York. We finished off our trip there with some delicious Indian food! So nice to get some different types of food while I'm here!

The next day Amy and I had an early morning bike ride along the country roads near their house to get to the post office in the other village. (Ha! A village!) It was COLD, but there were sheep! Then we took a quick 25 minute bus to Nottingham to check out the city there. Can you remember who lived around Nottingham?? He wears tights? He shots a bow and arrow? He fought the sheriff of Nottingham? That's right Robin Hood! Ha, so we went to the castle in Nottingham which actually had a really great museum, but the city was weirdly modern. Especially after York with its wonderful old streets and Roman roads, Nottingham felt like the first modern city (other than London) that I've been too.

Finally, yesterday we went to the American military base near Cambridge. Now, that was SUPER weird. In line waiting to get my pass everyone was American. It was really weird. Everyone in line was an American saying little American phrases like "hate that with a passion," "if you don't shut your mouth your'e going in time out," and other normal things to say that I just haven't heard in sooo long. Really really weird. The culture shock just kept on coming too because we went to the stores on base and it was like being in Walmart! It was really weird to be surrounded by people who are all American and then actually knowing the socially acceptable thing to do. It's not like I don't know what to do in England and Turkey, its just that I'm always second guessing if I'm acting properly. So being able to walk around a store and know that should be said to strangers was really weird. The good news is that I stocked up on American food that I can't get in Turkey like oregano, top ramen, easy mac, you know, things I don't even like in the states, but I just can't get them at all in Turkey. So I'm going to head back to Turkey with my bags full.

I have a ton of photos of ALL of these events, but I'm afraid I'll forget everything if I don't write it down now! I'll add the photos later and write more about the adventures I'm having. Tomorrow this mother and daughter plus Amy and I are going to drive down to Windsor Castle and see where the monarchs of England have lived for hundreds of years. Then we're heading to Bath to check out some more Roman ruins.

This trip has been such a whirl wind and the time is flying by super quickly!

Last, but not least, with some reflection over this trip to England I really think its interesting how 'normal' Turkey is for me. I feel like I'm still constantly running into problems in Turkey and seeing things that are so different from home. I didn't feel like I'd become normalized to Turkey until I came to England. Suddenly, England which is so similar to home, was the weird unusual place. Everything felt familiar, but it felt so abnormal. Living in Ankara can be hard and frustrating, but I also had the glorious realization as I got on my bus out of Ankara that I was going to miss it, something that has certainly taken a long time to realize.

Education

There's only one more all nighter between me and a three week break! Hooray!

So my dearest father is always bugging me to write more about school (love you Dad!) so here's a summary of the paper's I've written for finals. See I do work here!

--An 8 page paper on the relationship between civil society and democratic consolidation using Turkey as a case study. (Sounds horrible, right? Political science is lurking around my course work like some horrible zombie that won't die)

--A syllabus for a pretend class on militarization in Modern Turkish history. Seventy pages of reading a night for my pretend students! Sorry pretend class!

--A 16 page paper for sociological theory on Robert E. Park, an urban sociologist part of the Chicago School, and Karl Marx. It's basic thesis is that Park problemitized the city, but failed to see that the capitalist system was the source of many of these problems. Basically it was a big "I love Marx" paper.

--The last one is a 15-20 page paper comparing laïcité in France and Turkey. I haven't finished this one yet, but I will tonight! I chose this topic because both France and Turkey have a strict secular system which would appear to allow for religious freedom because the government separates church and state. In reality both France and Turkey have problems with recognizing and giving equal rights to their religious minorities. My paper examines why laïcité creates problems for religious minorities when it should, on paper, give religious freedom to all. We'll see how this one goes! It's sort of turned into a paper on how laicite becomes part of the national identity of a country. We'll see. I've written a few pages.

Anyway, so there you have it, I do actually go to school and work while I'm here. Actually this whole last month has flown by because I've literally been in the library for the past 2 full weeks.

Well I'm off to the library to get this last paper out! Sorry if this post was boring, but my life has been these papers for the past two weeks. It's almost over! So close!

Finals

So I forgot I hate school.

Just kidding! Ha! I just hate finals. The reason I haven't been posting recently is because I had a 20 minute presentation last week, two 7-8 page papers due tomorrow, a 15-20 page paper due Friday, and a 15-20 page paper due Monday. Lucky me.

So I've moved into the library at METU which is really great if you love working in a sauna or passively aggressively staring at people who squeak their chairs too much. You can tell I'm loving finals here. The real problem is that finals at METU are TWO WEEKS (just to emphasize, TWO WEEKS!!) long. This means instead of one week of hell and papers and stress, at METU there's two weeks of hell and papers and stress. Seeing as I'm only just approaching the beginning of the second week, I'd say I'm managing, but I don't know how long that'll last.

In other news, I'm going to England when all this work is over! Yay!!! I'm visiting Pete and Amy and for those of you unacquainted with my family this is Brian's, my sister's husband, parents. Since Mer and Brian dated for almost a decade (not a joke, 8 years) I'd say I know them pretty well. They've been living in England for the past year because when their kids flew the college coop they decided to travel. Pete works as an engineer for something I'm not quite sure of in Derby and they live in Etwall Village. Guess what that means?! I'm going to a village! Hooray! It just tickles me that villages exist in England, it sounds so medieval. So I'll be visiting them for two weeks and speaking English to everyone and relaxing while enjoying the beautiful English countryside. I can't wait! I believe Amy also has some plans to do a trip to Canterbury (Yeah like that famous ancient book!) and then maybe do some other things in London. Good thing I just watched the entire two seasons of Downtown Abbey to prepare myself. Speaking of which everyone in their right mind should watch that amazing show. Its streaming free on Netflixs people, get on it! Also I'll be meeting up with Dan in London sometime to see him in his natural habitat. All I can hope for is that his regional accent comes out and he shows me things about the city I'd never know since he lived in London for 4 years.

Anyways that's about it for me. The last piece of news from here is that it snowed! It's so beautiful and makes campus look like a fairytale land. It's been snowing all day and its really thick. Apparently it should snow off and on all week. So lovely. Also when I was walking to the library with some friends we saw the campus wide snowball fight in Devrim stadium. AMAZING! There were definitely more than 100 students running around throwing snowballs like it was a real battlefield or something. Talk about the best way to get relieve some tension from all those hours in the library.

Here's a few pictures of the snowball fight below.

Outside my apartment.


A bajillon people.


Sebastian ready for a fight with Sibel and Caro trying to look tough.


Snoooow


The fight moved into the corner of the stadium. Hard to tell here but about 100 snowballs were being thrown here.


Caro's defeat by Sebastian.

Christmas in Turkey!

Two posts in one day, OoooOOoo

Christmas almost sort of exists in Turkey through the magic of globalization and Santa Claus' witchcraft. Turkey actually has a surprising number of Christmas things which have sprung up around Ankara labeled as "Mutlu yıllar" (New Years).

In the past twenty years a New Years tree has become somewhat of a tradition in Turkey. Gotta love globalization and consumerism. Fake trees no taller than four feet can be bought everywhere. Tree decorating consists of putting little tinsel garland on the tree with maybe some little ordainments. Its all mixed with New Years so in stores you can usually buy party hats and funny glasses at the same time.

So I was walking around Kızılay when I realized I needed to spruce up my apartment. Tugba also seemed excited to celebrate Christmas since she's never had a reason to before now. So I bought some red and green garland and we decorated the house. The next day I bought a tiny cheap strand of Christmas lights and Tugba brought me home some mistletoe. Sweetest of all was Monday when Tugba came back from the mall she had bought a box of ornaments, some garland and a TREE! Yay! We put the ornaments and the lights on the tree. So wonderful.

This was all very inspiring so I've decided to host a Christmas party with Jake. We're the only ones who actually celebrate Christmas who aren't going home for Christmas. The Germans are are going home and Dan, the token Brit, will be home as well. So Jake and I are going to have a party and introduce our friends, most of whom have never celebrated Christmas, to a food and wine filled night for baby Jesus's bday.

In honor of this post I thought I'd share some extremely interesting things I've learned through my friends about how Christmas is celebrated by people outside of the US.

--Europeans don't think Santa lives in the North Pole, in Europe its and actually place called Lapland in the northernmost part of Finland.

--Dan told me that in London Christmas decorations go up around late October because Halloween isn't such a big deal in England and Thanksgiving doesn't exist.

--In Armenia, Christmas is celebrated on January 6th and there's no presents because small gifts are given for New Years.

--Germans have the Christmas tradition of gluhwein, basically a mulled hot wine that is sold everywhere, at street stands, at soccer matches, and grocery stores.

--In Germany, Santa doesn't leave you presents, but Christkind (that's right baby Jesus) comes through your window and leaves you little presents on the 24th. Wikipedia just told me the most interesting thing about Christkind which is that Martin Luther made it up during the Reformation to get people from worshiping saints like St. Nick. Today I'd say its still pretty common for both Catholics and Protestants to tell their kids that Christkind is leaving presents.

--Germans also celebrate Christmas exclusively on the 24th. They put up their tree on the 24th and throughout the month of December they have an advent wreath where they light four candles, one for every Sunday leading up to Christmas.

--Another thing Germans do is instead of watching Christmas movies they watch fairy tales! The tales are not necessarily about Christmas and I've never heard of the stories before so there not like Little Red Ridding Hood or Mother Goose. My friend Caro told me her favorites are Väterchen Frost about a nice old man (who looks sussipously like Santa) who controls the forest and Das Kalte Herz, about a poor coal boy from the Back Forest who falls in love with an engaged beautiful rich girl. Apparently most of them are of Russian origin and I'm thinking this is some leftover DDR thing which is great because it sounds like a lot of fun. They're played all December long and of course, on Christmas day. Here's the preview for Das Kalte Herz.


Apparently all the fairy tales were filmed in 1973.

And last but not least, a fun fact about Christmas: The real Saint Nicholas was Turkish! Whoo! Saint Nicholas of Myra was a 4th century Greek Christian living in Lycia which would you know it, is now in Turkey! So all Christmas is actually Turkish Christmas.

So Merry (early) Christmas everyone!

Georgia! Finally!

Georgia was quite the experience. Not many people make it around Georgia because its so hard to get to, even from central Turkey it was a 17 hour bus ride to Batumi which is right over the border. It has the feeling of a place that hasn't yet been touched by the outside world. If I could sum Georgia in one thought it'd be post Soviet.

So my arrival in Georgia was quite the experience, one I wish to never have again. I joined Jake, Dan and Kamila on their trip but they had already bought their tickets and their bus was full so I purchased my bus ticket for the same time and hoped we'd get in around the same time in the bus station. Oh my, how things went wrong.

The bus wasn't bad at all and I sat to nice old Georgian granny who asked me a few questions in Turkish and I tried to tell her I was a student at METU and I was from America. She proceeded to tell anyone who'd listen she was sitting next to a yabani (foreigner) from America. There was literally no one on the bus that spoke English so it was a quiet ride for me and I actually watched the (HORRIBLE) movie with Nicolas Cage that came out about 9/11 in dubbed Turkish. It is interesting to mention there were no toilets on this nice big coach, but we stopped every three hours so people could go to the bathroom. Also we never really pulled into any bus station, the hostess lady would just say the name of the city over the speaker and we'd stop for a second and the people would get out. Huh.

So the trip was fine until we got to the border at hour 15. At the border we had to get off the bus trek all of our things over to the check out station then get one stamp for leaving Turkey and another one for entering Georgia. Everyone was scuttling around and I had no idea what was going on. It was around 1am so it was pitch black and this entrance to Georgia was HUGE. So after lots of scrambling and uncertainty I find a Turkish family and follow them through the border.

At this point I call Dan and ask where they are because I've realized that 1) I have no way of communicating with people and no one seems to be speaking English 2) I don't know where I'm going to get dropped off 3) Its really dark 4) The parts of Georgia we're passing look like the scariest most run down dark places I've ever seen. Oh no.

Here's a photo I took later of Batumi at night so you know I'm not exaggerating...



Here's the street we stayed on during the day.



Seriously imagine being foreign and alone and lost looking at this.

So Dan tells me they're already in Batumi at the guesthouse we're staying at, UM WHAT?! Weren't they going to wait for each other? How are we supposed to meet? What's going on?! Then after about 40 minutes I realized my phone has literally stopped working in Georgia, it won't call out or send texts. I'm officially stranded.

Eventually through the mess someone lets me borrow their Georgian cell phone and I call the owner of the guesthouse who's really nice and tells people in Georgian what's going on. Then after much hassle and stress I get off the bus into a Taxi with this Georgian family with a four year old boy and they call the guesthouse guy who then tells the taxi where to go. So for some reason Batumi was going through major road construction (see photo below) and there were literally HUGE pot holes in the ground. The roads were all dirt and muddy from the rain and what should have taken five minutes took about twenty while I sat next to some small Georgian boy trying to pretend like this was all totally normal.

Potholes and construction, not a joke.




After about twenty minutes I see Dan and I get out of the taxi, pay, try to say thank you to this family because honestly who knows how I would I have found this place without them (seriously, for some reason no taxi drivers in Batumi knew where this major cross street was, we always had to explain it to them). Without the kindness of strangers I don't know where I'd be or what I'd do. So many people helped me get to the guesthouse like the hostess, the guy who spoke English on the bus, the guy who let me borrow his Georgian cell phone, and this family who helped me. The kindness of strangers makes such a difference.

Whew, yeah that was my arrival in Batumi. Lesson of this story: don't travel alone to Georgia unless you speak Georgian or Russian.

Anyways once in Georgia we had a really good time checking out Batumi. The city was built as a vacation spot and was once one of the largest beachfront resorts in the Soviet Union. So much about the city is evidence of the emerging capitalism that has begun to take over the city which clashes strongly with the old Soviet left overs. The buildings are a mix of really old early 1900 buildings, super Soviet apartment blocks, and brand new corporate buildings. Georgia itself is a Caucasus country and has its own very unique culture. It's amazing that Georgia borders Turkey because it is almost nothing like Turkey. The city is trying to transform itself, evidenced by the tons of construction projects going on throughout the city.

The mix of old and new in Batumi.







Our first day in Georgia we went to dinner at a great restaurant for Georgian food and it was there that I realized GEORGIAN FOOD IS AMAZING. Seriously, I'm not a foodie, but the spices and the meat and the cheesyness of Georgian food is amazing.

I remembered to take a photo only after we ate almost all the food.


Georgia is also known for its wine which is also delicious. You can get a liter of house wine for 5 lari (that's about $2.50), amazing. So we ate a ton of food and when we were just finishing up these three guys sitting at the table next to us invited us over for some wine. We didn't really know what to expect, but they spoke English and seemed nice so we went and bought some more wine and hung out with them. Haha these guys were amazing! They told us all about Georgian culture and were really proud of thier country's great history and food. They taught us the proper way to eat Georgian dumplings and also taught us that you almost always cheer's for every sip of wine. There was lots of "To Georgia!" "To traveling!" "To new friends!" "To beautiful people!" "To our country's history!" ect. Naturally lots of fun ensued. These guys took us to another pub where there three girl friends from work were. It was really really fun and such a wonderful surprise to meet such hilarious awesome people.

Our Georgian friends




So after Batumi we took a night train to Tblisi, the capital of Georgia. And my my, Tblisi is one of my new favorite places. The city is cradled in between the Caucus mountains and has this old world feel to it. It feels really European, but so different and uniquely Georgian. The buildings have a real art deco feel to them and they're so colorful. And while our hostel and the people working there were really weird (why are so many of the Americans I meet outside of America so aggressive and eager to show off about how they "know" the city and culture so well??), the city itself was amazing. Jake and I stayed an extra two nights, but it was totally worth it. There were so many beautiful Orthodox churches and the river that goes through the city is breath taking. I want to always visit Tblisi, it is so beautiful.

So here's a round up of some photos of Tblisi so you can see for yourself how beautiful the city really is.

So many buildings were still wooden. Totally cool and totally old.




We hiked up to Mother Georgia.


Mother Georgia through an old church.


The city between the mountains.


Wallpaper still intact.


River through the center of the city.


At the old castle above the city.


The old colorful buildings.


Huge Orthodox church.


Upclose


Yeah so that was Georgia! A crazy arrival, but totally beautiful and so interesting.

It was really great and Dan plans of buying a home in Batumi in 20 years and speaking only Russian so if you want to visit in the future call him up.