| wee! i'm published! |
[Jan. 22nd, 2006|01:40 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | "la camisa negra" by a random spanish band...big hit here | ] |
http://www.messenger.com.ge/issues/1033_january_20_2006/n_1033_7.htm
That would be my first internationally-published article. Yee-haw! It's light-hearted but it was fun to write. Good times. Speaking of good times, last night we went out to a marionette show that used cows to depict Georgian life under communism. It wasn't in English, so 95% of the details went sailing over my head, but I think at the end they escape to cow heaven or something. And there was a great scene of Gorbachev talking about condoms in English, randomly. There was also a cow in a tutu. That was interesting.
This is probaby my last journal entry...tonight we have our goodbye party, then tomorrow we basically shop and pack and nap till 4am, when I leave Tbilisi (driving on President George W. Bush Street...good riddance) and head for Istanbul, then New York, then finally Boston. Thanks to everybody who read this...I hope I made it at least mildly interesting :) Can't wait to see everybody! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 18th, 2006|04:22 pm] |
Today I had my second "holy crap, I feel like a real journalist" experience. (The first, for those of you keeping track at home, was this past spring when the WHS baseball team went to the sectional final and I was seated in a press box and got to break down calls and plays with the 40-70 year old male seasoned baseball experts who constituted my colleagues.) The second was today. After much discussion (and the discovery that the source for the article I originally planned to write was unavailable), I was assigned a story on the Democracy Cup, which is a soccer league made up of teams of employees from Georgian NGOs, businesses, and government industries. The idea behind it, as I learned in the two interviews I conducted today, is that through playing a sport people can interact with those who share the same basic values and thus strengthen the relationships between the various orgs. Pretty awesome. I got my "real journalism" buzz when I did my first interview, which was with the leading scorer on the UN Association of Georgia team. The player spoke no English, so we had to use a translator. So there I was, in an office, in what basically was a business suit, notepad open, interviewing a Georgian soccer player through an interpreter. It was AWESOME.
The newspaper office was closed today, so after I finished my interviews I got some lunch (I found non-gag pizza...thank goodness) and decided to make use of the gym membership I got my first week here (6 visits for 30 USD...not bad at all). The facilities were pretty good, although problems arose when I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. I went over and asked the trainer who, as fate would have ti, spoke no English. So I tried everything: "bathroom," "toilet," "water closet," "WC," at which point he called over another trainer to try to decipher my words. I finally gave up on words and decided to try and use gestures. So I squatted, hoping they'd get the message. They thought I wanted to use the leg press machine. Finally, they found somebody else using the gym who spoke English and asked her to translate. Wanna know what "toilet" sounds like in Georgian? "Toiletisli." I will never understand how certain words will always end up lost in translation.
Anyhoo, after I finished using the bathroom, I started my workout. I was sharing the gym with a blonde English-speaking woman and what had to be the sketchiest gym user I have ever seen in my life. I sincerely wish more of you were there to observe this character. He was short and slim, and was wearing bell-bottomed Adidas workout pants and a black tanktop with sparkly numbers on it. I'm not kidding. What's more is that he was doing only ab exercises, and everytime he finished a set he would run to the mirror and lift up his shirt to check his six-pack. I was trying so hard not to laugh. Between that, the toilet fiasco, and the French music videos playing on the TVs, it was one of the more interesting workout experiences I have had.
A few days ago a few of us had a late lunch with some Georgian college students, who were all very interested to hear more about the States and also what we liked most about Georgia. Georgians in general are very proud of their country, which is great to see, because it needs a lot of support in order to reach its potential, so to speak. I talked with one girl who has been studying English for 8 years and is a law student planning to eventually move to the US or UK. When I asked her why, she said that there was no opportunity for her in Georgia; she could only have a good job if she moved to the West. This kind of exemplifies the place where Georgia is caught. Basically the West is where the money is, which unfortunately pulls some of the most educated people in Georgia away from it, and those people are needed if the country wants to fully recover from Soviet rule and assert its independence. It's a very interesting situation.
One last thing. I have a confession to make. I have done something I swore I would never do. Last night, at around 10pm, I ate at a McDonald's in a foreign country. Not only do I not even like McDonald's in the US, but I vowed never to eat there while abroad because McDonald's is a ruthless cultural imperialist. (Don't even get me started...read "McWorld" by Benjamin Barber instead. Or watch "Supersize Me"). But last night, a bunch of us met at McDonald's before going to a bar, and I was basically like "screw it, I need a cheeseburger!" And after two and a half weeks of khachapuri (cheese-filled bread) as the major staple of my diet, it was sooooo delicious. PLease forgive me. I will never give into temptation again, but I was going to go insane otherwise!
Anyhoo, I am off to get coffee with some friends and work on my article. I love you all and can't wait to see everyone when I get back next week! (I'll be at home late Tuesday till Friday, then heading back to Moho Friday evening) |
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| driving a bus down a goat path = priceless. |
[Jan. 16th, 2006|11:05 am] |
| [ | music |
| | this morning it was "the wasp"by the doors. | ] |
Hello again everyone! I thought I'd brief you on the latest in Georgia...
Saturday we went to see Stalin's birthplace, where the only statues of Stalin in the former Soviet Union remain. Stalin's birthplace is FREEZING. The museum (which Stalin had built to honor himself in the 50s) was really interesting, but I was wearing four layers of clothes and almost froze to death. I thought it was ironic that Stalin's museum would be an icebox. It also demonstrated the failure of the Soviet heating system. Made me a little less curious about how Stalin became, well, Stalin. We also got to go inside Stalin's bulletproof train car that he once shared with Roosevelt (it had so many mirrors...Stalin really liked himself), sat on Stalin's childhood bed, and held Stalin's throw pillow. Honestly, the whole trip was kind of bizarre, because you're seeing all these things that once belonged to a guy who was basically a deranged dictator responsible for millions of deaths. It was kind of unsettling. My friend Meg rather astutely noted that you felt somewhat guilty for enjoying the museum or the artifacts at all. Plus, you don't think of crazy dictators as people with nice train carriages and cuddly throw pillows. You think of them as cold. (Much like Stalin's museum.)
Anyhoo, afterwards we went hiking in an ancient cave city where Alexander the Great used to make pit stops. There were former fire temples, little shelves cared into the caves, frescoes, theaters...everything. It was pretty incredible, as was the view of the snow-covered mountains. It's also really ineresting to think of how this place was like a little city a few thousand years ago, and it's still standing today.
The next day we went to see a monastery on the border of Azerbaijin. The road to the monastery is located an hour from Tbilisi. So when Archil, our leader, told us that the monastery was at the end of the road we were turning onto, we all thought "great, we're almost there!" Two and a half hours later we pulled into the monastery. What happened? Well, basically, the road to the monastery runs through an extremely impoverished village, and then becomes a goat path. The part of the road in the village was paved in the mid-1980s by the Soviets after a snowstorm in which half the village died. The Soviets not only did a crappy job, but the road has not been updated since 1987, to give you some perspective. It was potholes galore, and parts of the road were completely caved in and were basically mini-ponds. We were half-joking that we were playing Oregon Trail and it was time to ford the river every time we went through one of these water-filled potholes (this made us start discussing the fact that we needed to caulk the wagon, go kill 500 pounds of buffalo even though we could only carry back 50 pounds, and half of us would die of dysentary...anyone who played Oregon Trail understands this). The driver had to go at a snail's pace and constantly swerve to avoid losing a wheel. An hour later there were no more potholes, but there was also no pavement. Or civilization. It was just our bus and the Caucasus Mountains and valleys. We, my friends, were driving on a GOAT PATH. It was also very slow going, and we wound around so many breathtaking valleys and mountains. As the road got higher, we could see the mineral deposits literally making stripes across the mountains; it was gorgeous. We saw absolutely no sign of any monastery or signs of life other than goats and sheep and the occasional cow along this road. It was taking so long and the road was so winding that we started (half-)joking that we were actually lost and any moment now a sign would appear that would read "ÏRAQ WELCOMES YOU!" (Thankfully this did not happen, although we did see a shepard and his, um, really diligent sheepdog, who proceeded to run after the bus and bark at it until we were a safe distance away).
So after three hours of the worst driving conditions known to man, we arrived at the monastery, which has been around since the 6th century (it had been used earlier as a pagan fire temple) but was discontinued under the Soviets. About ten years ago it reopened. We couldn't see parts of it because the monks actually live there, but we did get to see the tomb of Saint David. The monastery is solar-powered, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. There's a giant solar board in the middle of one of their gardens, and on the back it says that it was donated by an NGO committed to "powering places of worship by God's light." Very cool and environmentally-friendly concept. I love how this obscure monastery is more advanced in its use of natural energy sources than the United States. But I digress. Anyway, after that Archil said we were going for a little hike to see some more caves. Getting to the top wasn't difficult, and on the other side of the mountain, there were more caves that had been used as chapels and places of worship by early monks. Our guide showed us ancient paintings of icons on the walls of the caves from the 10-13th centuries. It was pretty incredible that they had survived so long. And the view on the other side of the mountain was of Azerbaijin, and it was completely breathtaking. There were these beautiful sloping valleys, oasis, rivers, and in the distance, snow-capped mountains. The sun was coming in through the clouds and casting these gorgeous sunbeams across the valleys. You could not see any villages or towns, and I just felt so at peace. It was beautiful.
Next up was the task of getting back down the mountain. This proved difficult. There was snow. And lots and lots of blistering, freezing wind. It was slippery, my hands and face were completely numb, the wind was literally pushing me from side to side, and halfway down I was convinced I would lose a finger to frostbite (my gloves are great for Tbilisi, but not for sub-zero temperatures while mountain climbing). Somehow, however, we all made it down safely. Afterwards, when we were warming up in the caretaker's house (where we were given vodka to help us feel warmer), we all said that the experience of seeing Azerbaijin and its beauty was worth the harrowing climb down. So, it's all good.
Alright, time for my meeting with my editor. I hope everyone is doing well, and I am very excited to be back in the USA a week from tomorrow! Seriously...as beautiful as Georgia is, it has really made me newly appreciate where I come from and all of my friends and family. I miss you all so much and can't wait to be home! |
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| and the beat goes on... |
[Jan. 12th, 2006|11:52 am] |
| [ | music |
| | fixed the iPod, only to have it die again the next day. arf. | ] |
hi everyone! Once again I am at work. I'm in the middle of a bunch of things so this entry will be relatively short, but I wanted to make sure I updated. For whatever reason, my main computer doesn't like livejournal and Internet Explorer shuts down whenever I open it. So I'm on my fellow student and co-worker's computer while she's at an interview (don't worry, she knows!). The newspaper work has been great; I have been copy-editing and also creating a style handbook for the writers at the request of the editor-in-chief. Georgian newspapers tend to write almost in prose, so he wanted them to have a handbook that went over the more Western formats of the lead, quotes and details, and a conclusion with speculation. So that's been keeping me busy. I will also hopefully be writing a few stories. I was originally going to cover the Olympic sendoff in Borjomi, but actually getting to Borjomi proved to be too difficult logistically, so I'm going to end up doing something else. Currently I'm writing a piece for their monthly cultural journal on being an American in Tbilisi. When I told the editor that my background includes a lot of baseball, he mentioned that the US military camp near Tbilisi has been trying to get an informal baseball league going with the Georgian equivalent of the YMCA. So, I may end up once again doing some baseball writing! (Speaking of which...I did not get the AWSM internship, which I'm bummed about, but I still have a good shot with my direct application to Sports Illustrated, and I have a few more applications to send out, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed...). Actually, the other night my host kids wanted to watch an American DVD with me and my two roommates. So we decided to watch Fever Pitch. The kids absolutely loved it. They said it was the funniest movie about baseball they'd ever seen. (Apparently the movie channels air dubbed versions of American baseball films, but my host brother told me that they usually have a hard time understanding them because they don't understand baseball.) Most of the channels are in Georgian or Russian (including Nickelodeon...you have not lived until you have seen Rugrats in Russian) but we get the BBC News in English, and for some reason, we also get Cartoon Network in English. We don't watch too much TV, but every now and then we crash with the kids and some Cartoon Network. I'm hoping that my recent appreciation for some of these cartoons ends the second I return to the US...at times I feel the same emptiness and loss of brain cells that I felt after being subjected to 10 minutes of Laguna Beach.
I have added to my running list of Things I Will Never Again Take For Granted:
-- pizza. I ordered what I thought was plain pizza at a cafe (which was very cozy and quaint, yet for whatever reason decided that 50 Cent was the most fitting background music. Hey, who doesn't need some bitches and hoes with their coffee?). My pizza was not onyl piled high with mushrooms, tomatoes, and cucumbers (the only 3 vegetables I dislike), but it was covered in what I think might have been the same sauce people put on beef strogonauff. I choked down as much of it as I could (Georgians get somewhat offended if you don't eat what they serve you) but the entire time I was thinking what I wouldn't give for some Dominoes.
-- ketchup. here it is basically Tabasco sauce with extra jalapenos. Plus they give it to you without asking and then bill you for it. Why. Why.
-- the sun. I've seen it twice since arriving. Good thing I was already blindingly white before coming.
Upcoming excitement: Tonight the professor leading the trip is giving a talk on his new book, after which we'll be celebrating at a bar. Tomorrow we are going to a Turkish bath house to, well, have baths. And possibly massages. Everything is SO inexpensive here...gotta love that exchange rate. Then Saturday we're going to Stalin's birthplace (note: yesterday I saw my first hammer and sickle symbol engraved on a building -- three cheers for Communist holdovers!), and Sunday we're checking out a monastery and doing some hiking.
So overall, this continues to be a pretty interesting learning experience. I'm loving my newspaper work and I'm excited to learn more about the political history by seeing the birthplace of Stalin, but, I mean, every day I see beggars on each block, I walk past caved-in buildings sandwiched between international cell phone stores, and half the buildings I've been in don't have heating (including the one I am in now, yet I am still typing away on an expensive computer...go figure). This is truly a nation in transition, and it's definitely made me appreciate the fact that I live in a developed country -- and also question what the US has done and should be doing to help countries like Georgia. I really wish I spoke the language. Georgian to me sounds like a combination of French and Yiddish, if that makes any sense; written it honestly looks like squiggles to me. I've learned a couple of phrases ("thank you" and Ï speak English") but it's a challenge. Plus, because Georgian sounds kind of like French, whenever I hear it my brain goes into French mode, and I end up even more confused. In lesser news, I'm getting used to people staring at my blonde hair. The black students on the trip are in a more awkward position; one of them had some random woman on a bus see her and whip out a photo of her son with a black person and start nodding excitedly and pointing.
Well, it's time for me to return to work. I love you all and can't wait to see everyone when I'm back in the States! And please keep emailing me and responding to my entries -- I don't always have time to reply to everyone's emails because I don't get a ton of Internet time, but I love hearing how all of you are doing. It makes me feel less homesick :)
PS: I do not have the bird flu, nor am I likely to get bird flu. From my browsing of Georgian/European and American news sources, I have realized that the Americans are far more scared of the fact that the disease is in Turkey than anyone else. The Turks who have died from it caught because they were interacting with dead infected chicken carcasses. I have no plans to do this. I also will not be spending anymore time in Turkey aside from my 2-hour layover in the chicken-free Turkish airport en route to the States. So please don't worry. Georgia has been placed on alert because we border Turkey, but that just means that my host mom now refuses to buy chicken and eggs, so I have to get my protein intake elsewhere. In other words, I am fine. (And yes, I did knock on wood after typing this.) |
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| howdy!! |
[Jan. 9th, 2006|12:29 pm] |
I'm at my job at the newspaper right now and we've been allowed an email/Internet break. yesssss. I have a running list going of things I will never again take for granted once I'm back in the US:
-- hot water
-- toilet paper in public restrooms (you have to bring your own. i kid you not.)
-- trash recepticles in every/most rooms.
-- wireless Internet
-- lanes, stoplights, crosswalks, and other things that ensure safe driving. You have not seen bad, unsafe, and downright scaryy driving until you have come to Tbilisi. You can't cross most of the streets because you'll die trying; they have underpasses which are fine during the day but dangerous at night, so you have to plan your evening excursions around staying on one side of the street. basically I am never complaining about MA drivers again.
I guess I should begin my discussion of Georgia through two unsettling observations I made on my first day here...
1. There is a President George W. Bush Boulevard in Tbilisi. I thought it was a joke when I saw it. It's real. And what's more, the sign for the boulevard is a giant glowing sign that features a picture of Bush waving. My first reaction was that these people really missed Stalin and needed a subsitute.
2. One of the nicest buildings in Tbilisi is McDonald's. It's a three story round building with bright lights, impeccably clean windows, and it looks like the Plaza hotel from a distance. there are also signs all over Tbilisi telling you how many kilometers you have until you reach McDonald's. We later told our host mom about the film Supersize Me so she understood why we were so surprised that they liked it so much.
So at first I was totally confused by why Bush was a frickin' rock star over here and McDonald's was the lap of luxury. Looking around Tbilisi, there's a very sharp contrast. Some buildings are nice, but there are also huge sections of the city where roofs are caved in and the buildings themselves are essentially rundown shacks. It's shocking and incredibly sad. These buildings are contrasted with the nicer buildings, which are usually Western shops (such as the random Tommy Hilfiger store on an otherwise crappy boulevard). Our talk at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies, however, taught us that Georgia has no desire to go back to being buddy-buddy with Russia (understandable) but has consistently felt rejected by Europe as they develop democracy and capitalism. So they've turned to the United States. I guess Bush was here recently and made a speech calling them "the beacon of democracy" for the post-Soviet block. Georgia apparently stands to benefit from the flow of oil that could come out of US-controlled Iraq (thus explaining the love of Bush) because it would end dependence on Russian oil and gas, and they value the investments made by American companies (such as McDonald's) in Tbilisi because frankly, they need the money. I've never seen American culture and policy from this perspective before. As was explained to us, Georgia desperately needs better infrastructure so that it can develop its own economy and government, separate from that of Europe, Russia, and even the US. In the meantime, however, the US is the best they've got. I'm still trying to figure out how accurate my understanding is of the Georgian situation (this was all explained to me at 9am the day after I arrived) but this is what I have been told and observed. It's something I hope to continue learning about, but most of our trips and lectures thus far have been on Georgian history, particularly the history of Georgian Christianity.
Georgia is home to the oldest non-African human remains (1.8 million years) and has been influenced by both the Greek and Roman empires. We saw a museum exhibit on the gold items excavated from the Georgian mountains. They've been a very advanced culture for a long time. They became Christian in the 4th century, and supposedly the robe of Christ was buried in one of the churches they saw. I was in Tbilisi for the Orthodox Christmas on Saturday, which was...not like an American Christmas at all. There is a giant parade that goes through the streets. People wave white flags with red crosses, dress up as saints, and collect money for the poor as they douse people in holy water (including me...I thought I was being spat on at first, but turns out I was actually being blessed...how ironic) and hand out icons. I don't want to knock anyone's religion, but icons scare me. Especially the massive ones we saw on our visit to the old churches in the highlands yesterday. All of the churches have huge paintings of unsmiling holy men who glare at you as you walk around. It's awkward.
I need to get back to work -- more tomorrow! I love you all! |
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| finally here! |
[Jan. 6th, 2006|10:57 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  content | ] |
| [ | music |
| | none. my iPod died in Turkey for no reason. | ] |
Hi everyone! I'm finally online. I'm at the Georgian Insitute for Strategic and International Studies, where we just had a lecture on Georgian political history. Later we're going to the Nutcracker! I have only about 10 minutes so this will be brief...
How did I get here? Well, 10 hours on an airplane from NYC to Istanbul did most of it. I learned the hard way that no matter how much Tylenol PM I take, I cannot sleep on airplanes. When we got to Istanbul after no sleep, we toured two famous mosques (including the Haiga Sophia, which was gorgeous and a wonderful mix of Christianity and Islam, and the Blue Mosque, where we heard the Muslim call to prayer) and also the former sultan's palace. We ran into some Turkish schoolchildren, who realized quickly that we were American and shouted greetings at us in English. They were particularly interested in me (tall blonde) and the black students with us, because we kind of stood out. We also got the full Turkish carpet experience. They basically served us tea and booze in a private room and tried to convince us to buy rugs (it was only the fact that I turned down the booze that allowed me to decline...I was damn close). Then we went shopping in a Turkish bazaar. FYI: Turkish salesmen make American solicitation callers look like Buddhists. I kid you not. I walked through the bazaar with my friend Karen, and every salesman we passed started shouting at us, trying to get us to come into their store. If you so much as glanced at a shop, the salesman was on you like stink on a monkey. Honestly, although the stuff being sold was cool -- Aladdin lampos, hookah pipes, calligraphy, etc -- the pushiness of the salesmen bordered on harassment. It got awkward fairly quickly. Then Karen and I went out thew wrong exit of the bazaar and ended up being lost for half an hour, which is an experience I hope to laugh about one day but currently prefer to forget.
We finally got to Tbilisi at 3:30am on Wednesday night, and me and 2 other students, Laura and Hannah, went to our host family's house. Our host mom, Keti, served us some great food and then we went to bed and slept until 5pm the next day. When we woke up, our host family, which includes the two cutest children in the world, took us out for dinner at a traditional Georgian restaurant. The food is meats and potatoes wrapped up in dough. Yummy stuff.
I want to write about another ten pages on my host family and Tbilisi, but I'm pretty pressed for time, so that will be my next entry! I start work at the English-language newspaper on Monday, where I was told my primary job will be checking the English in the articles before they are published, because I am a native speaker.
I miss everyone SO MUCH and hope you all are doing fabulously! |
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| sign of the apocalypse |
[Jan. 2nd, 2006|05:26 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "dirty water" by the standells...i'm gonna miss boston | ] |
Thanks to the weather, craziness has ensued with my flights. As I was trying to figure out if it would make sense to get an earlier flight from Boston to JFK, I searched for such flights on cheaptickets.com. This web site needs help. They listed my second-best option for getting from Boston to New York that morning as taking a $250 flight from Boston to Raleigh-Durham, waiting in the Raleigh-Durham airport for 6 hours, then flying from Raleigh-Durham to New York. Yes, this was suggested as the SECOND-BEST option for getting from BOSTON to NEW YORK: a six-hour layover in the middle of North Carolina. Sad thing was, turns out that that actually was the second-best option...the rest of the suggested flights had me going to the Midwest and West and then back to the East Coast. Insanity. Total insanity. I decided to just keep my original flight. |
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| hello all! |
[Jan. 1st, 2006|04:59 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | chipper | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "jump (for my love)" by the pointer sisters | ] |
I have a livejournal. Normally I'm not a fan of these things because journals are supposed to be personal and such. However, then I realized that I am leaving the country for 3 weeks and that this just might be the easiest way for me to keep in touch with everyone while I'm gone and let folks know what I'm doing in eastern europe! So..here I am. I'm not sure if this will last beyond my Eurotrip, but for now...here we go!
Also, the name "megiweg" was made up by Sabato. Thank you, Sabato. If it weren't for him, this would be called something lame and boring, like "meg_in_georgia."
EXCITEMENT IN GEORGIA:
1. A day in Istanbul! Pumped to see the Hagia Sophia and the rest of this incredibly unique city. Also, I've been told that every Turkish street vendor who picks up on the fact that I'm an American (that shouldn't be too challenging) will try to sell me a carpet. I'm a fan of rugs, so I should enjoy that.
2. Internship with an English-language newspaper. This could go either way. The newsroom and international experience will be utterly incredible. That being said, I have no idea if I will be doing interesting work or will simply be somebody's minion. I'm also trying to come up with ways to describe baseball to their sports department, something else that could also go either way.
3. TBILISI. My home for 3 weeks. Living with a host family along with another American student. SO EXCITED to run wild in a foreign city (figuratively speaking). I guess Tbilisi is very cosmopolitan and a real blend of Europe and the Middle East.
4. Hiking in the Caucauses. Hopefully I'll remember to pack appropriate clothing.
Speaking of which...packing...better get on that... |
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