first sunburn in georgia

ahhh! i finally got to go to batumi for the first time on thursday! this fabulous beach town is located on the black sea about an hour from my site. i went in for the day with one of my students who just returned from a year in tennessee. we relaxed, we swam, we ate pizza…we burned! well, nino did…a lot. i took to calling her a pomidori gogo (tomato girl) since i didn’t know how to translate “red as a tomato” into georgian (i made a funny in georgian. i win). funny story:  here in georgia the homemade yogurt (matzoni) tends to be quite the cure-all, especially for sunburn. at the marshutka stop in ozurgeti waiting for our ride back to our village, i had told nino to start looking forward to being lathered in matzoni. she looked at me as if i was crazy and told me she had never heard of matzoni being used for sunburn. i then told that i must be more georgian than her because i knew that matzoni cures almost everything (except a cold…that’s where the homemade vodka is most useful). she continued to tell me i was crazy. lo and behold i get a text message upon arriving home that nino is, indeed, covered in matzoni and her family is calling her a pomidori gogo now too. needless to say, i’m going back to batumi soon if, for nothing else, to get a sunburn on all the places i missed this time :]

this weekend was equally as eventful. with my newly acquired tan (and sunburned shoulders) i bussed it to tbilisi for a weekend in the city. unfortunately the ride is 6 hours and there were kids and i was tired. bah. but, i was able to decompress and watch some episodes of breaking bad at prospero’s: a nice, little oasis of a cafe in downtown tbilisi…only after gorging myself on mcdonald’s. they’re so close to each other, i couldn’t help myself. at the cafe i met some fellow pcvs from armenia that had just cos-ed (close of service a.k.a. they’re done with their 2 years of service and are heading home). it turned out 2 of the armenian volunteers were staying at the same hotel as me and some other georgian pcvs. we swapped stories, took in the sites, ate some good food and drank some ludi (beer). sunday i attempted rather successfully, to get back to my site in one piece and without fights breaking out on the marshutka. i originally thought taking a marshutka would reduce travel time, but it took 6 hours to get home as well. bah!

i’m heading back into tbilisi tomorrow morning for a visit to the doctor that’s scheduled on wednesday. my finger’s fate has been decided by washington and it seems i will be getting some sort of anti-inflammatory injection directly into my thumb. yay! no. there may or may not be a series of these shots depending on how my finger reacts to them. i should be back to my site sometime on wednesday night or thursday.

wish me luck and enjoy the final days of july!

cheers :]