Village life, batumi, and trabzon

Ok, it's been a while since I've checked in so I'd figure that I'd let everyone know that I haven't fallen off the side of a mountain.  After the long bus ride to my village I was met by an excited Georgian family and their neighbors (one of which speaks English and acted as a translator).  My host family consists of my host dad, mother, grandmother, and sons (27 and 28).  They do not speak English so I will be picking up Kartuli rather quickly.  Village life is slow to say the least, and I fill my time by reading books and going on walks.  As school has not started yet I have all day to do very little, and my host family does not allow me to do simple tasks.

The house and farm that we are living on is interesting to say the least.  There is one building for the kitchen and dining area, the bedrooms are in another building, and the outhouse is at the very back of the yard (my host family conveniently ties their bull next to it at night so you may be in for a surprise when going to the bathroom).  All sort of foods are grown on the farm and it appears that almost everything that we eat is grown on the farm.  Our food consists of mostly bread, cheese, tomatoes, and cucumbers.  The scenery is very beautiful and I enjoy looking up at the mountainside.  Never less it is slow and I grew a little stir crazy.

A few other tlg volunteers decided to go to batumi in southern Georgia on the black sea coast.  Even getting there was an adventure.  My Monday morning marstruka ride out of the village was absolutely packed.  I must have hit rush hour because we fit 32people in a bus that had 14 seats.  After getting to batumi we spent a 2days sitting on the beach and visiting the botanical garden.  It w a nice city but extremely touristy (mostly Turkish).  Four people, myself included that we would like to go to Turkey because we were so close to the border.  We departed the next morning for the first bus to Trabzon.

It was absolutely pouring in the morning and Lindsay, Caroline, John, and I searched the bus station for a bus to turkey.  Finally after we were told by one Georgian man that there were none there we saw a bus on the side of the road with trabzon in the window.  By now we were soaked to the bone, my backpack had broken and was tied shut with belts and it's own clips, had no plans in turkey but were determined to go.  We bought tickets and rode to the boarder where there was yet another adventure.

Three of us did not have visas to enter turkey.  We we're escorted to a small office where we were told to pay for the visas in Turkish Lyra.  Us being the brilliant planners that we were only had Georgian lari.  Luckily we were able to find a man with Turkish money and were able to trade it for the Georgian currency that we had.  The man in the room stuck a visa in each of our passports and we we're escorted to where the passports were stamped.  The person escorting us around knocked on the door where a guard took our passports inside and stamped them without looking at any of us or our credentials.  Finally we had all our paperwork in order with a little hustle and money to grease the axels.  From there the bus ride to Trabzon was smooth sailing.

We have spend the past two days in Trabzon seeing the city and surrounding areas.  It is a very urban city with lots of streets of shops that seem to be overflowing with merchandise.  Anything from markets to restaurants to clothing stores can be found easily, and I have enjoyed walking around looking at the people and the things that they were shopping for.  This city seems very crowded and it is a chore to walk through the streets, but it is worth pushing through people.  Today the group went to the Sumela monastrary.  It was built on the side of a cliff at about 2000 feet above sea level.  The buildings were carved into the side of the mountain and offered a spectacular view.  The misting rain seemed to add to the aura of the place.  Sumela monastrary was defiantly a major tourist attraction but also worth dealing with all the people.

Tomorrow we return to georgia and back to our respective villages.  It was a nice break but I'm sure that my host family is wondering about my well being.  School starts in another two weeks so soon I will have something to do.  Until then I will be back to having no Internet and off the grid.