Odyssy to Odessa

November 29 2010

Ron and I just returned from nine days in Ukraine which is the largest country in Europe. We visited three cities: Kiev, the capital, Lviv in western Ukraine and Odessa in the south. Ron’s maternal grandmother immigrated to the US from Odessa about 100 years ago.

It was a very rewarding trip and it was fun to compare two former Soviet states. It probably isn’t fair to compare since they are so different in size. There are 48 million people in Ukraine and 4 million in Georgia. Kiev has 3 million residents. Some observations and generalizations: Ukraine appears to be more prosperous than Georgia judging by the stores, (they are much larger and have better quality goods), restaurants (two that we visited were over the top in terms of décor including an eight meter Buddha with a granite stand), number of women wearing fur-coats, jackets, vests. People on the street smiled more and seemed happier, cars were newer and we didn’t see anywhere near as much Bondo (used for body work), drivers drove sanely, staying between the lines and actually yielding for pedestrians, buildings were in good repair and we didn’t see any abandoned, crumbing old factories like we do in ROG. The best was that they have no smoking areas in all the restaurants now. Well enough generalizations and on to the facts.

Kiev is a big city. We managed to get an apartment close to sights we wanted to see or that were easy to access via the metro which was built during the Soviet times. Kiev is a city high on a plateau but there is development below the plateau as well so the metro is very deep in order to be on the same level no matter where you go. It was two very long escalator rides to the platforms. Many people use the metro and I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like during rush hour. It was cold the entire time we were in Ukraine but it didn’t deter us. We took a walking tour our first day and immediately saw an old Russian army vehicle parked on the street like any other car.

Our first stop was St Vladimir’s Cathedral, considered to be one of Kiev’s most artistic churches. It had seven black domes and beautiful paintings depicting Kiev’s spiritual history. Next we walked to the National Opera House. Two young men who were university students helped us buy tickets to a ballet that night. Imagine two engineering students going to the ballet…not usual at home. We found very few people who spoke English in Ukraine other than staff in hotels. We did find English menus in the restaurants where we ate.

Next was St Sophia’s Bell Tower and Church. This was a huge complex that includes a small museum with period furnishings. Inside the church which is now a museum there was an exhibit by a contemporary artist, Ksana Mas who had created a wall piece that was fashioned after a 17th century icon of Madonna by Theotokos Eleusa. Mars’s piece was made from 15,000 hand painted Ukrainian style eggs done by 70 artists.

This was followed by St Michael’s Monastery of the Golden Domes. The original structure from the 12th century was destroyed by the Soviets during Stalin’s destructive wave of 1937 and was recently rebuilt and completed in 2001. By this time we had seen enough interiors so admired the exterior and moved on down the road. From here we got a little lost but asked directions and started down to the lower city (we had been on the plateau known as the upper city) and passed by various vendors selling souvenirs and crafts. We stopped into a charming museum called Museum of One Street. Here they had two rooms with displays of personal items from various residents who had lived on this street. There were displays of a circus performer, an Orthodox priest, a Jewish rabbi, a composer, a soldier, and a writer. It was a small museum but told a wonderful story of the lives of people who had loved here about 100 years ago.

We stopped at the bottom of the hill for afternoon tea and a pastry. We rode the funicular back up the hill. That night we saw a ballet at the beautiful opera house. Don’t ask which ballet because we have no idea since the two students bought the tickets for us. We never asked and the program was in Ukrainian which we cannot read!

The next day we visited the central synagogue that was reopened and restored after the fall of the soviet union.  Then we did some of the shopping streets. We were surprised to discover they block off one of the main streets, making it a pedestrian street every weekend. We found a shop that specialized in fine crafts and got some cross stitch table linens and lacquered jewelry boxes with beautiful paintings of flowers. We ate at a restaurant nearby that played Ukrainian music videos on a big screen right near where we sat. This was a very small restaurant. I looked up to see scantily clad women in thongs and bras gyrating across the screen. I asked them if they would change the channel not realizing it was a DVD and they said no. Since we were the only customers at the time, I didn’t mind asking. Later videos included fast cars, crash scenes and automatic weapons. Oh my, have I become a fuddy duddy? Not my idea of music to dine by! It started getting dark by 4:00 here and was dark by 4:30. At 1:00 there was a large demonstration regarding a new change in the tax law and it was still going on at 3:30 when we took the metro back to our hotel. That night we dined at the Buddha Bar. Go figure. The décor was unbelievable. No expense was spared. There were at least 100 Buddhas from Asia there: India, China, Japan, and Thailand. The most impressive was a wooden Buddha from Thailand that rested on a granite stand and the combined height was eight meters (about 26 feet). Well they had to pay for all that décor so the prices on the menu were high. It was our first time to pay $12.50 for a liter of water! HA! The food was quite good and beautifully presented.

On our last day we visited the famous Kievo-Pechersky Lavra which is a caves monastery. It is the number one sight of Ukrainians and tourists. We however were non plussed. It is a series of churches, libraries, caves, and museums. Over 500,000 pilgrims visit here yearly and it is considered the spiritual heart of the country. We walked the grounds and visited the ‘near’ caves. This required that I put on a wrap around skirt which went to the ankles and cover my head (I had a hood on my jacket which was sufficient. We walked through a ‘hallway’ that had been plastered. It was narrow and we had to walk single file. There was no room to maneuver and there were folks in front and in back of us. So we basically marched through this hallway which was the cave. There were one or two small rooms off the hallway but they were crowded so we did not go into them. We carried candles as our light source and the event took about five minutes. Perhaps if we were religious it would have meant more…

Lviv

That evening we boarded a plane for a short hop to Lviv which is in the western part of Ukraine. UNESCO designated the entire city as a World Heritage Site in 1998. Lviv was once part of Poland and consequently feels very European. There was little evidence of the Soviet style butt ugly architecture here. Because there was no industry to speak of here, there are no abandoned factories like we have all over Georgia. Attention to detail is everywhere here. As we walked the neighborhoods we were constantly pointing out beautiful iron work, doors, window boxes and the like. Art Nouveau is in evidence here in abundance. The weather was sunny for the most part although chilly. Our hotel was absolutely wonderful, furnished with antiques; it was housed in an old building that had been completely refurbished. Everything from the bed covers to the curtains was beautiful. There were 12 rooms in this small hotel with a great restaurant with good coffee and a good breakfast.

The old part of town is very ‘walkable’. We did our usual first day tour of the city on foot and managed to get around quite easily. When we got to the main town square we were looking at our map and a woman walked right up and started telling us where to find all the important spots. It was charming and said a lot to us about how the town appreciates tourists. Because there was no industry here, the Soviet apartment houses and abandoned factories are not in evidence in Lviv. The symbol of the city is the lion in honor of the founder’s son, Leo, hence the name Lviv from the Slavic root for lion. The lion motif is found throughout the city: sculptures, door knobs, cornices, gates, keystones, etc.

There were lots of fun things about Lviv. One of these is the story of Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch (1836-95). He is remembered best for the clinical term for morbidly obsessive behavior: masochism. He was a writer and wrote novels about his own childhood fantasies. He was said to have beat his wife when she refused to whip him. So far this isn’t funny. But there is a statue of him in front (note the extra hands appearing on his body) of the Masoch restaurant. The restaurant apparently has a vaguely pornographic menu (no we didn’t bother to eat here), the interior is bedecked with whips and laced up bodices. The staff will offer to handcuff or whip you if you so choose. While I am writing about restaurants, on several menus we saw the term ‘lard’ as an item you could order. We learned from a guide that in one of the invasions of the region, the invaders were Muslim and took all the livestock and food except the pigs. So the locals ate the entire pig including the fat. Now they have a taste for it. YUCK! Once Ron ordered a bacon and cheese sandwich and it was raw bacon. ! Double yuck!! Another restaurant gave us a complimentary appetizer plate and it had slices of cheese that turned out to be lard. Yikes!

On our first day we visited an outdoor market where we bought some needlework items and we saw a working pharmacy that had been in the same location for the past 250 years. It was part museum, part pharmacy. We went to the Lviv History Museum which had some fabulous old metal work, ceramics, textiles, etc. The old Jewish quarter was at the end of our street where we were staying. Some buildings still had the mezuzahs on the doorways.

On our second day we hired a guide to take us out of town to see the nearby countryside and a castle from the 1327. It was perched on top of a small knoll and gave us a good panorama of the Galician countryside. Our guide was very knowledgeable and talked throughout the tour with numerous stories on the history of the castle. He wore a jaunty hat he has purchased in Germany I think. At one point I got saturated with history and wanted to say to him, ‘take a break, it’s okay.’ But I never got the nerve to do it, afraid I would hurt his feelings. His castle tour took two hours. The castle had started as a fortress in 1327 but by the 15th century had become a chateau for the Polish nobility. Now it is an eclectic museum of medieval art, religious artifacts, and late 16th century furniture. There was a fabulous icon of the Last Judgment that our guide explained in great detail and I only wish I had a copy of it as it showed some folks headed to Hell and some headed to Heaven, including those who had been born before Christ and who had not been baptized. Intriguing how religion makes it work for some .We drove back to Lviv afterwards and had a good discussion about current affairs in the Ukraine. Our guide felt the last election was a total fraud. This is the election that was backed by Russia. Now there’s a clue…as the candidate favored by the Russians won! Well imagine that. Our guide told us the cappuccino was created by the Capuchin monks. The story goes that a man was captured by the Turks and became fluent in the Turkish language, learned about coffee and later opened a coffee house that was not successful until he added milk to it.??What was the relationship to the monks?

At the end of the day we visited the Museum of Ethnography and Craft housed in an old 1920’s Soviet Bank, which was quite elaborate. It contained all manner of things: textiles, ceramics, clothing, etc. On our walk back to our hotel we shopped at the outdoor market again and bought a few more textiles. We also stopped by the chocolate factory and picked up some gift chocolates. Ron took photos of the young women who work in the window making the individual chocolates.

The next day we tried to find some of the sights further a field but were not successful. We stopped in a brew pub and had a yummy lunch of garlic soup, hearty black bread and a brewskie for RB. We also popped into a couple of antique shops on our way back to our hotel. We had sunny weather almost the entire time but it was cold about 10 degrees Celcius. We visited a museum of the religions of Ukraine. Some exhibits were much larger than others with Christianity being the largest. There were several branches of Christianity exhibited: Orthodox, Catholic, and Greek Orthodox for example.

We boarded a plane for Odessa via Kiev that night. Our hotel was a small fabulous place centrally located to what we hoped to see while there. It was well decorated but had no restaurant. We could have a continental breakfast in our room or get a voucher for one of two restaurants nearby. Our first morning we went to Buffalo 99, owned by a Ukrainian who was in Chicago at the time but who had spent a lot of time in the US judging by the décor and menu. We had a good breakfast. Again we did a walking tour, self guided. We got tickets for Puccini’s Tosca that night, great seats for a great price. We visited the synagogue to see if we could gather any information on Ron’s grandmother who had lived here before coming to the US when she was a young woman. No records or resources were available.

We found the park where the local crafts folks were and bought so more needlework items. Such beautiful work. It rained throughout the day and even with our umbrellas we got soaked. We walked down to the port and viewed the famous Potemkin stairs, designed by an Italian architecture and built in 1841, there are 192 steps which I refused to descend. By this time we had been on our feet since breakfast and it was past lunch time. We did see many restored buildings and I would describe the exterior decoration as wedding cake icing. They were well done but looked sugary sweet.

After lunch we went to the Museum and Eastern and Western Art to get out of the rain for awhile. This was a small museum and the western section was closed due to the restoration of part of the building. Often when we go into older buildings in this part of the world, we see peeling paint, crumbing walls and buckled flooring. This museum was no exception. But we enjoyed the small collection of Asia objects and the photography exhibit on India and Nepal. The exhibits made me very homesick for Asia. We managed to dry off a bit in the interim. Once we went back outside the sun was out although Odessa was cold the two days we were there. That night we ate at the brand new Karma Sutra restaurant next to our hotel. The décor was over the top. Huge walls covered with sculptured karma sutra poses, elaborate colored chandeliers, exquisite fabrics on the windows and tables. It was non stop eye appeal. The food however was mediocre.

Off we went to the opera. The Odessa opera house is supposed to be one of the top three in Europe. We were bedazzled! The opera house was recently restored and the gold leaf was incredible. I’m not sure if the décor was Rococo or Baroque but it was very ornate. Not our style but we had to admire the craftsmanship. We had a small box for three and right at my elbow was the next box with three people. During Act II, the young woman (early 20’s would be my guest) next to me picked up her cell phone and dialed her friend for a chat!!!! During the performance, not during a break!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I came unglued and told her to be quiet. She apologized and continued to talk at which point Ron and I both leaned over and told her to hang up. What a frigging idiot! I hate cell phones for this reason. We have become so obtuse and rude as a result of the little handy gadget. BOO! After the opera I spared her my lecture of how to be a good member of a live performance. Our son Mark is a classical musician and I always think about him when people talk during a performance. During a rock concert maybe but an opera? Okay enough of my rant. We treated ourselves to dessert and tea afterwards in a nearby restaurant and toddled off to our hotel and to bed.

Did I mention all the furs in Odessa? Women wore all sorts of outer wear made of all kinds of furs. Jackets, coats and vests. I think Ukraine is much more prosperous than Georgia judging by their dress. I have never seen so many furs and shops selling furs. Somehow in our travels we read that many fur bearing species are now endangered in this part of the world and the piece I read was discouraging tourists from buying a fur while visiting the Ukraine.

The next day brought more walking with no specific target in mind. We tried the alternative restaurant for breakfast and regretted our choice. We should have stayed with the known quantity. We passed by an antique store and went in to look at the artwork and ended up buying a very old amber necklace and a carnelian necklace.

Our trip back home was an adventure. We checked into the Odessa airport Sunday morning. You are not allowed to check your bags thorough to your final destination for some unknown reason. So we checked our bags to Kiev where we had one hour gather our bags, to change from the domestic terminal to the international terminal which was within walking distance, check in with a different airline, go through security, customs and passport control. Each of those had a line. Talk about a panic. At our last line, passport control, the line was quite long. We looked at our watches and realized our flight was boarding. So we got brave and said to people in front of us ‘excuse me, our plane is boarding, may we jump ahead of you?’ People were quite kind and let us through. This required repeating our statement numerous times and made us feel good that even with long lines, people were very generous. We got through and realized there was no gate number on our tickets. It turned out that the gate hadn’t been scheduled and we ended up with five minutes to spare. Whew! The reason for the panic is there is only one plane a day with the various airlines to TBS so if we had missed our flight, we would have had to wait another day to return. Luck seems to be with us ever since we found each other all those years ago. Lucky lucky us!

USA on speed!

October 14 through October 30

On Oct 14th we went to bed at 11:00 and got up two hours later to start a 24 hour trip to the US. Oy! We flew from TBS to Munich with a layover then on to London with a layover then to SFO where we took a shuttle to San Jose, which took two hours. That last two hours put me over the top. I could not get comfortable after so much sitting and my back let me know ‘enough already!’ We arrived Friday late afternoon. We went to San Jose for Ron’s ICMA annual conference which started on Sunday morning and ended on Wednesday. After checking in to our hotel in downtown San Jose, we unpacked and walked to a lovely restaurant nearby where we ate a light supper of appetizers and headed back to our hotel and to bed.

Saturday we rented a car which took 45 minutes. We were second in line but only one person was staffing the office and he kept taking phone calls while waiting on customers. Oy! We drove to Alameda to see our friend Wendy Wibbens, who I have known for 40 years. We met when I gave her a GED when she was 16! At the time she scored higher than anyone I had tested. We became lifelong friends. She went on to college where I was working at the time. We visited with Wendy and her daughter Jasmine who prepared a lovely lunch of fresh salad with lots of goodies and an omelet with smoked salmon and cheeses. Yum!

Afterwards we went to an outdoor art show and then we came home and rested due to extreme jet lag. Saturday was a beautiful sunny California day but Sunday it started with rain. I had planned to go to a mall to buy a sweater but ended up reading in my room and finding a great Thai restaurant for lunch. That night we went to a reception at the conference for dinner and later to a reception for dessert. Monday I made it to the mall and it was huge. After being in TBS for a year where most stores are the size of a walk in closet I got overwhelmed by the mall. I needed a basic black cardigan sweater and wandered around Nordstrom’s in an overwhelmed daze. Later I managed to go Macy’s and find just what I needed. I took a bus back to the hotel and rested.

On Wednesday we flew to home to Vancouver. What a treat! We hadn’t been home in a year. Although we were in the States in February and in May, we didn’t have time to go home. We arrived late Wednesday afternoon and Dana picked us up at the airport. She and her husband Wayne have been taking care of our home for the past year. On Wednesday we hit the road running. At 8:00 we had our first doctor appointment for check ups. We ended at 5:30 with me seeing the fourth doctor of the day. Then we headed to Jeri and Tony Holt’s for a great visit and fabulous salmon. Yum! On Thursday and Friday we spent our time doing a consumables shopping spree. We are allowed to ship up to 1250 pounds a year of consumable products: food items and things like shampoo, deodorant, wax paper, etc. We managed to spend $1800 in two days.  What's this about a recession?

On Friday night we had dinner with Gary and Edmund, another couple whom we have known for years. They treated us to a wonderful meal of salad, homemade soup and bread. Gary made the soup and Edmund baked the bread. This was followed by apple crisp. Yum! On Saturday Dana and Wayne hosted us with Chris, our neighbor. We had chicken marsala, rice and salad. We ate well the entire time. After eating in restaurants in San Jose this was a most appreciated treat each evening.

On Sunday we flew to Los Angeles to see Sonia and Bob, Ron’s mom and her friend Bob. They recently celebrated 23 years together. We had a great time with them. Sonia and Bob live in a senior residence right next to UCLA. One day Ron took a trip down memory lane and we walked around campus where he got his undergrad degree. We went into one of the four original buildings and I was overwhelmed with the arts and crafts architecture. What a treat.

We ate each meal with Sonia and Bob at Westwood Horizons. The dining is restaurant style where we order from a limited menu each meal. I worried about gaining weight with the big meals I ate there. There was incredible weather while in LA. One day it got to 82 degrees. Our hotel was one block away so we were lucky that we didn’t need a car while there. We discovered right before arriving that Tom Cohn, an exchange student from Germany who lived with us in 1988-89 had recently moved to LA. So one day he came by with two of his kids and we had a brief visit. What a thrill to see him. He is no longer the skinny 16 year old we knew back then. He is all grown up and we so loved seeing him again. We saw him once in London in 1999 after he had married but before he had three kids!

We flew home on Thursday going from LA to San Francisco then on to Munich and on to TBS. Again it took about 24 hours door to door. We arrived here at 3:30 a.m. Oy! I managed to stay awake until 7:00 then slept until 1:00 in the afternoon. Ron however fell asleep sooner and woke up at 2:00, asking ‘is it really 2:00?’ For the next four nights neither of us slept well due to extreme jet lag and our bodies wondering what time zone were we in. I had been waking up at 3:00 or 4:00 and had been unable to get back to sleep. Last night was our first night where we both managed to sleep all night. What a relief.

A belated post about an Anniversary, an Armenian and San Jose

October 17, 2010

On October 4th Ron and I marked the end of our first year in Tbilisi. Our language teacher asked us what we liked and didn’t like about Georgia aka Sakartvelo in Georgian. I talked about the food and how limited the variety was: one kind of lettuce, veggies consist of one kind of potato, beets, carrots, eggplant, cucumbers and tomatoes, rarely get to buy broccoli and cauliflower, every supra and every menu in restaurants have the exact same dishes, etc. She said most people complain about the driving. I said that was a given. I must say that is what I absolutely despise about Georgia. Drivers are incredibly irresponsible, reckless and rude. Pedestrians have NO rights. You take your life into your hands crossing a street. Drivers routinely run red lights; turn right from the far left lane across multiple lanes of traffic, never yield to pedestrians, speed excessively in commercial/residential areas, park on sidewalks making it necessary to pedestrians to step into traffic and occasionally drive on sidewalks. Did I mention how they drive in reverse down the streets or that they think nothing of driving the wrong way on a one way street because it is more convenient for them? It is truly maddening. Have I described how they don’t bother to wear seat belts and many, many car windshields have ‘spider web’ cracks where someone has hit their head on the windshield and still the people in these cars don’t bother to wear seat belts. Are they stupid or obstinate? Then there is the frequent sight of children standing up in front seat without a seat belt. OY!

What do I love about Georgia? The scenery is spectacular. The people are gracious. I have noted that Georgians don’t smile when you see them on the street. I would imagine when the Soviet Union fell and Georgian became independent all that ensued caused them to be wary and untrusting. Any money you had in the bank at that time disappeared with the Russians. For along time there were no utilities. Imagine a winter with no heat, infrequent water and electricity, etc. So I can understand the reason for no smiles. Usually if I initiate a greeting I get a response.

On October 9-11 Ron and I joined other from the embassy and took a trip to Yerevan Armenia, about 6 hours south of TBS. We had a small bus and took off early Saturday morning. We stopped for lunch and arrived late afternoon. Several of us went for a quick walk and shopping downtown. Then out to dinner. Afterwards we went back to our rooms and collapsed. On Sunday we started early again visited the Genocide Memorial. This is a beautiful outdoor structure with an eternal flame. We were too early to visit the museum which I would have liked to see to better understand the facts of the genocide. As I understand it about one million Armenians were murdered in 12 contested provinces. Another one of the horrific events in our past where we still haven’t learned to stop killing each other. I assume we will learn since we have been doing this since time began.

Next we visited a huge outdoor market: paintings (mostly amateurs), embroidery (beautiful), real and fake jewelry, souvenirs, wood carvings, and a flea market with lots of junk and a few treasures. These markets are fun but a lot of work if you want to buy anything. It all requires bargaining and I don’t enjoy that. In the afternoon we visited two churches/monasteries out of town. Armenia is an orthodox apostlistic Christian country. Their churches are quite simple and plain: no frescoes or icons to speak of. I was told that the Ethiopian Christian church is the same as the Armenian. Sunday was Yerevan’s birthday so when we got back to town many streets were closed off. Ron, Kirsten, Aquil and I got out of the van before our hotel to do some more shopping. Afterwards we met our group for dinner. There were throngs of people on the streets to celebrate. Live bands we performing on many outdoor stages and fireworks were on display as we walked back to our hotel.

On Monday we headed for home and stopped at another church along the way. We had great weather and enjoyed the trip immensely. We arrived home happy but exhausted from having spent three days in a bus.









On Thursday we went to bed at 11:00 p.m. and got up at 1:00 a.m. to catch a plane for San Jose CA where Ron is attending his annual ICMA conference. Twenty four hours later we arrived at our hotel exhausted but thankful for an uneventful trip. We grabbed a light bite at a lovely, quite and delicious restaurant nearby and came home and fell into bed around 9:00. I managed to sleep until 3:30 a.m. but never did fall asleep afterwards. We got up bleary eyed around 6:30, showered and headed out in search of a good cup of coffee. We found a Starbucks and sat and read our newspapers while munching sweet rolls. We were desperate for a newspaper, one of the things I miss about TBS. I never seem to get to the TV to catch BBC and there are no English international newspapers. So it was a thrill to sit and devour two papers over a good cup of joe.

It took 45 minutes to rent a car at Enterprise. The staff of one arrived at 9:00 with six of us in line. We were second in line! But the employee took numerous phone calls and allowed for multiple interruptions from other customers before getting to us. The usual fee of $9.99 for a weekend rate had become $45 a day since we didn’t book it on line. Then we had to rent it for two days because they close at noon on Saturday and are not open on Sunday. Drat! Off we went and missed a turnoff due to our fatigue. We drove an extra 10 miles before realizing our mistake and turned around. We went to see our dear friend Wendy Wibbens in Alameda. I met Wendy almost 40 years ago when I gave her the GED. At the time she scored higher than anyone I had ever tested and we ended up becoming life long friends. Wendy starts cancer treatment on Monday so she took time to fill us in on the details. In the past month, three of our friends have discovered they have cancer. Wendy has a great attitude and we shared lots of funny moments with jokes about ‘butt cancer’. She has asked us to wear a brown ribbon during her treatment. Her daughter Jasmine treated us to a lovely brunch of a fresh salad, whole wheat toast, scrambled eggs with cheese, smoked salmon, goat and cow’s milk cheese. YUM!

Afterwards we headed to an arts and crafts fair in Menlo Park. We had planned to go to a flea market in San Jose but couldn’t find the roads on our Google maps print out. We decided we were too tired anyway and came home for a 90 minute nap. YUM again. We got up and headed to a shopping center to get some lipstick and dinner. Again we had a light meal of soup and salad. On the way home we stopped to get a few snacks of fruit and cookies for our hotel room. Once home we watched a TV movie before dropping off to sleep.

Sunday we got up and found a breakfast place nearby before Ron headed off to his meetings. I will join him at 5:00 for a reception followed by a dessert reception. In the meantime I have caught up on emails and now the blog so I feel free to go exploring around downtown San Jose. I need to replace a lost black sweater for all occasions.

September 20, 2010

Good lord, what the heck happened? It has been weeks since I have been able to write so I guess that means things are quite busy here. The best part was having my childhood friend Jimmy James Wall here for a week. What fun we had! He arrived on a Saturday afternoon from Atlanta. On Sunday we climbed into the car and Gia took us to Kazbegi. The last time we were there, the mountain keep going under cloud covers but this time it was visible the entire time. Gia had been through the town but had never stayed there nor had he ever gone up to the church above the village. Because of construction we had to hire a car to take us up to the village, get out and walk around the construction and another car picked us up and took us to the top. What a wild ride that was. Jimmy and I couldn’t stop laughing and the driver couldn’t figure out what was so funny. Gia was up front and Ron, JJ and I were squeezed into the back. It was impossible for three of us to sit facing the front so I was canted sideways and crushing JJ most of the way. We needed a chiropractor after the trip. The road was close to non existent with very sharp hairpin turns. Every time the driver got to one of these, he would gun the engine and roar up the turn. Sometimes he was talking on his cell phone or talking to Gia and not watching the road. Most of our laughter was pure nervousness that we would go careening down the mountain side.

We came home the next day which was Labor Day after a morning hike to a waterfall . On Tuesday Ron went back to work and JJ and I went to visit Maia, the felt artist who made our wall hanging. He loved her work and bought three of her pieces: two scarves which he is going to frame and a silk paper piece. On Wednesday Gia took us to Signaghi where we visited the museum and an art gallery where JJ bought some CDs of Georgian polyphonic singing. We stopped in a restaurant for lunch and purposefully chose a table near a fan as it was hot on this day. At one point I was quite hot and turned to discovered that a young waitress had turned the fan to face where she was sitting. I asked her to turn it back onto the main dining area which she did with a frown then proceeded to stand smack dab in front of the fan and dance with her back to us. Ha! JJ said she had raging hormones and the Signaghi wasn’t big enough for a girl like that!

The next two days we hung around Tbilisi and James offered us a thank you gift of one of Maia’s pieces of art so we returned to her home on Friday to choose a lovely little tapestry she had made entitled Cityscape, so perfect for two people who love urban scenes. We were sad to see JJ leave but are ever so glad for his visit.

During his visit I developed an awful cough so haven’t exercised or done any yoga for over two weeks. I have been to the clinic a couple of times and today got a cough suppressant which hopefully will give me some relief. In the meantime Ron has made progress on his ‘jeepi’. Did I mention that Ron bought a 1972 Russian jeep, referred in Georgia as a jeepi? Remember all nouns must end in a vowel so if it doesn’t they add an ‘i’. The majority of the mechanical work is finished after a month in the shop for what was supposed to be a two day job. Ron then hired an electrician to rewire the entire car and he got it done in three days working here in our garage. The man told Ron it would be best to work here as he would have constant interruptions in his shop and it would take longer. Ron was so pleased that the guy got it done in three days he gave him a big fat bonus and the guy couldn’t believe it. We can only hope the next three or four people who work on it could do such an efficient job.

Our language classes continue three times a week. We have learned a good number of vocabulary words but neither of us does very well with verb conjugations and the seven cases in this language and then there are all the exceptions to the rule so both of us are shy about speaking the language. I like to use a word or two with Georgians but rarely make a complete sentence. We love our teacher and enjoy conversations about our two cultures and differences. She is an open minded, bright, modern Georgian woman. She is expecting her second child in December.

Ron and I have a very active social life here, much more so than at home. Every weekend there are invitations to dinners, parties and the like. One of our friends has started a series called Fabulous Fridays where he talks restaurants into having a limited menu which includes a drink, an entrée and sometimes a dessert for 15 GEL. Rami started this as a way for folks at the embassy know about good restaurants but also so Georgians who work at the embassy could experience them also with the low price. Last week 120 people went to the Indian restaurant in our neighborhood that we discovered and had told Rami about. It is quite new and the manger was thrilled with the response. They had to turn 20 people away as they could not seat everyone. This Friday we are going to a restaurant owned by a woman from Oregon!

After about 10 weeks of near 100 degrees temperature we are moving into fall (we think) and it is now in the mid 80’s and a welcomed relief. Our asters are in full bloom and the butterflies love them. It is a double treat for us to have both the butterflies and the blossoms. My work is progressing. I will work the next three afternoons trying to complete a draft of our action plan for the next two years. I don’t know if I mentioned the rector of TSU resigned quite unexpectedly and now we have our second interim rector whom I assume will be appointed as permanent rector since he left the government as the Minister of Health. He left just in time as there is a big scandal about inappropriate awarding of a contract. Apparently the firm furnished ineffective immunizations. OY! I can only hope he is innocent. It doesn’t bode well for TSU if the guy is corrupt. The last rector was a champion as he eliminated the practice of students paying professors to pass them. A student could ‘buy’ any degree she wanted if she had the money. Needless to say the last rector was unpopular with those who benefited from the practice. I thought he was the greatest! A man with integrity is hard to find in a position of power.

We have plans to go to Yerevan, Armenia over Columbus Day weekend with the CLO. They have made all the arrangements so it couldn’t be easier for us. We are also trying to figure out when to go to Odessa/Kiev and most probably will go Thanksgiving week as there is a Georgian holiday also that week. We want to maximize our sight seeing in this part of the world while we are here as I doubt that we will return after our tour is finished.

 

Baku and Back to

August 23, 2010

We flew to Baku Azerbaijan, a neighbor of Georgia on Saturday Aug.14th and returned Sunday night, Aug 15th. We got up at 3:00 a.m. so it was a short night. We went with our friends Laurie and Jock Conly. Jock works in Baku one week each month so we timed it on a week he would be traveling there. Our flight was a brief one hour and 20 minutes. After checking into our hotel which was quite lovely, we went upstairs to the 20th floor for breakfast in a glass dining area where we could look out over the city and Caspian Sea. Let’s just say, air quality is non existent here. By 1905 Azerbaijan was supplying half the world’s oil. You can see oil derricks everywhere including in the Caspian Sea which was described in my tour book as ‘polluted with raw sewage, oil, pesticides and chemical fertilizers.’ Much of this took place under the Soviet regime. Baku sits on the Caspian Sea surrounded by semi desert. It is a city of four million people, the same as all of Georgia.

Because it is a richer city than Tbilisi, we saw newly paved roads, buildings in good repair, and real sidewalks that were paved, level and didn’t have any open manholes without covers like we have in TBS. Many of the Soviet era apartment houses seemed to have been replaced within the city or upgraded so they didn’t have that Soviet look that is so depressing. After breakfast we walked to the carpet museum. What a treat that was! They had 1000 carpets from all the regions of Azerbaijan as well as some from Iran and Dagestan. So much beauty in one place. It is easy to see how people living in this region can get ‘addicted’ to buying carpet. They cost much less than at home and you have so much variety. More about that later.

After the carpet museum we went to the Historical Museum that was recently restored. This museum is housed in the 1896 former home of one of Baku’s greatest oil barons. It was filled with furnishings from the period and it also an enjoyable experience. Baku was hotter than TBS so we meandered towards the hotel for a rest but stopped at a sidewalk café near the sea for a cold drink. We noticed most Azeris were drinking hot tea while we ordered cold water. Back at the hotel, we napped and showered before ventured out again. The highlight of the trip was the ‘Ali and Nino’ tour. Ali and Nino is a novel written in the 1930’s about a romance between an Azeri Muslim boy and a Orthodox Christian girl from Tbilisi that took place in Baku in 1917-20. The tour guide was fabulous, a passionate man who created this tour because he loved the story so much. So we walked the streets that Ali and Nino walked, we sat in the park where Ali and Nino courted, saw the house where they had their graduation party. All the while, our guide read passages from the book. In addition he had collected over 800 photographs of the area from the turn of the century so we could see how it looked in Ali and Nino’s time. All four of us had read the book shortly after coming to Georgia so we were familiar with the story. It was a two hour tour that started at 6:00 so afterwards we walked to a rooftop restaurant again overlooking the sea and city and had a good meal. We walked back to our hotel and headed to bed.

On Sunday we slept in and after breakfast walked to Old Town where we wandered streets and visited the Palace of the Shirvanshahs. This is a sandstone palace mostly unfurnished that was the seat of northeastern Azerbaijan’s ruling dynasty during the Middle Ages. It was restored in 2003 and is a beautiful complex but it was hotter than hell inside with no air conditioning and very small windows. We didn’t tarry. We sat in the shady courtyard and visited for a while before leaving. Jock suggested stopping in a carpet shop. We ducked into one and it was stifling so I had no interest or energy to even look at the wares. Further along we saw another shop and ‘popped’ in for a look. It was air-conditioned so guess what? We lingered…for three hours! Ron and I bought two carpets and another mafrash. Laurie and Jock once again out spent us and bought three carpets. They swore it is their last carpets. Ron also said this was our last one. We did a similar escapade with them in Istanbul if you remember reading about it in an earlier blog.

Afterwards, we went around the corner to the restaurant we had tried to get into the night before and had a lovely lunch sitting in the shade outside. We meandered back to the hotel to rest before grabbing a bite for dinner and boarding our plane to return to TBS. The Conlys stayed on as Jock was spending the week working there and Laurie was returning to TBS on Tuesday. As it turned out she flew to TBS and the plane had to go back to Baku before landing due to a trerrible rain storm. She spent a few hours at her Baku hotel and they flew back to TBS in the morning. Although it was a short trip we were able to a pack a lot in and see everything we had hoped to see in the two days.

On Saturday Aug 22 we went on a CLO tour (embassy sponsored) of Dmanisi, a town about two hours from TBS that has a wonderful archeological dig. Here they have found four skulls of hominins that are 1.8 million years old. Boy do I ever feel young! These early species of Homo erectus appear to be the first hominins to have left Africa. The site sits on top of a wooded plateau and two rivers flow through deep gorges on either side of the plateau before meeting at its tip ‘where the land rises like a prow over fields and pastures’.

Almost two million years ago a series of volcanic eruptions flooded the site with lava. Later more eruptions dumped tons of ash on top of the rock. Buried by later ash falls, the bones of these early humans lay entombed until the 1990s when archeologists excavating the medieval ruins nearby began finding very old bones beneath the crumbled cellars. We visited the current dig site and the researchers were working on removing a complete bison skull very close to the area where the four skulls were found. Scientists continue to analyze the more than 50 human bones found at the site, which holds the largest cluster of Homo erectus remains ever found in one place. An archeologist from Wellesley College gave us a tour of the site and showed us replicas of the four skulls found there as well as letting us walk down close to the current site where they are working. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Can you tell my undergraduate degree was in anthropology?

After an hour here we walked up to the medieval fortress and 13th century church where a Georgian archeologist gave us a tour of the remains. Dmanisi dates to the 9th century. The site encompasses 32 acres enclosed by fortress walls. An entire city of residential buildings, baths, artisans’ workshops, caravanserais and public buildings once flourished here, of which only a small portion was excavated by archeologists in 1932, again in 1960 and in the years following. This site is located 12 miles from the Armenian border. This city thrived in the 13th century but Tamerlane’s invasions of the 14th century ended its glory days and by the 17th century no one was living here. We were allowed to climb all over the area and go into the building that was once a bath house and see how the water was brought into the building and heated before going into the bath.

Afterwards we boarded our bus and headed to a nice spot by the river for a lovely picnic lunch. Most of us seemed to fall asleep on the way back to TBS. Another great adventure in this beautiful country.

Kazbegi or bust

August 11 2010

We went on an embassy arranged outing to Kazbegi, a town high in the Upper Caucasus. We left Saturday morning around 9:00 with about 25 or so folks from the embassy and a few who do not work there. We were treated to a big tour bus which makes for a much more comfortable ride and a guide, Marika, who does lots of tours around TBS. The Community Liaison Office (CLO) arranges various activities throughout the year for the embassy ‘family’. We participate in many of these: everything from local carpet and art tours to longer out of town and even out of country trips. All are well planned and very affordable. Throughout the trip we had snacks provided: fresh fruit, chips, pastries, candy. Much of it was junk food but it was nice for those who hadn’t brought any snacks as we didn’t eat lunch until 2:00.

Friend Dorthy Bell

unknown Author

We stopped along the way by a small waterfall where a few villagers had gathered to sell their crafts: sheepskin hats, knitted wool socks, hats and classic Georgian snacks of fruit leather and churchela, walnuts on a string covered with fruit leather. The site also had a bust of a famous Georgian author. We stopped later at a hotel for a toilet break. We arrived in Kazbegi, parked the bus and walked to a guesthouse where lunch had been arranged. We are led into a very crowded room where the table had been set with the exact same meal you get anytime there is a preset meal: eggplant, tomatoes and cucumbers, cheese and bread. There was no meat at this meal but a small bowl of what looked like oxtail soup to be shared with four other people. Since we didn’t have bowls or soup spoons, I put a piece of bread on my plate and spooned some liquid on the plate. It was one of the poorer meals we have had on these trips. There was some fresh fruit for dessert. Then we walked back to the bus, got our bags and checked into the hotel. We had a room on the back side that overlooked the glacier fed Tergi River and Mt. Kazbegi and the Holy Trinity Church. It was too perfect. Many of Ron’s photos of Kazbegi were taken from our balcony at the hotel.

Mt. Kazbegi is the third highest mountain in Georgia (after Mount Shkhara and Janga) and the seventh highest peak in the Caucasus Mountains. The summit lies directly to the west of the town of Stepantsminda and is the most prominent geographic feature of the area. The name in Georgian, Mkinvartsveri, translates to "glacier" or "Ice Mountain". It’s current name is for Kazibek Chopikashvili, a local feudal magnate who was in charge of collecting tolls on the Georgian Military Highway. His grandson, Alexandre Kazbegi, whose most famous work, the novel The Patricide is about a heroic Caucasian bandit named Koba, who, much like Robin Hood, is a defender of the poor. Koba has nothing but contempt for authority, a proclivity towards violence, and a firm belief in vengeance. Kazbegi's work was a major inspiration to Iosif Jughashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, who used Koba as a revolutionary pseudonym.

Most of the group, including Ron, chose to hike up to the church. However seven of us chose to hire two jeeps to take us up. I was still recovering from my fall on the hike two weeks ago and had no desire to walk for 90 minutes straight uphill! I am smarter than I look! Ron said the hike was all work with very little in the way of scenery, other than some wild flowers.  Shortly after we arrived at the church it started raining but before we headed back Marika told us about the church which was built in the 14th century and is at 7,110 feet. Ruins of another church were found in 1913 at 13,000 feet on the slopes of Kazbegi. Go figure! While we were there a service was being conducted in the church. There are always several (4-6) priests/monks involved in the service. Women were required to wear skirts and headscarves to enter and no shorts for men were allowed. Wrap around skirts and scarves were provided.

We rode back down the hill and Ron joined us. We walked around town and visited Alexander Kazbegi’s home which is now a museum of his life. He is a famous Georgian writer who became mentally ill at the end of his life. The town is about three blocks long with about 4,000 residents. The mountain was first climbed in 1868 by a man from London with local guides to help. The mountain is 16,560 feet and it is the highest mountain in this section of the Caucasus range. It is an extinct volcano. The town is at 6,000 feet.

We returned to our room and rested for about 40 minutes then went downstairs for our dinner. We sat in a little corner of the hotel for a few minutes afterwards and decided to go back to our room as both of us were tired. We turned out light out at 9:00! We kept our door to the balcony open and got to hear the rushing river below us all night.

Ron got up at 5:00 and started taking photos of the mountain once it was light enough. The mountain reflects early morning light and casts vivid colors. 

We had breakfast at 9:00 and at 10:00 got back on the bus and were driven to the Dariali Gorge which goes to the Russian border. The Georgians are building a church near the border as a way to claim the area in the event of future border disputes with Russia.  We looked for Sarah Palin’s place since we were right next to Russia but weren’t able to see it. We turned around and headed for Tbilisi.

We stopped several places on the way home.  The first was a naturally carbonated mineral spring where the site was encrusted.  Then we went to a lookout which commemorated the signing of a peace treaty between Russian and Georgia in 1783. The memorial was built in 1983, the 200th anniversary of the treaty, had some wonderful ceramic tiles depicting life in Georgia and the structure overlooked several canyons.

Later we stopped for lunch and it started to rain as we were finishing our lunch outside in the garden. We hurried back to the bus and made our last stop awhile later at the 16th century fortress in Ananuri. Here there were two churches, one built in 1689 with wonderful carved external decorations, with a huge cross that stands on the backs of two dragons flanked by vines being eaten by deer above two mustachioed angels and two lions. According to my book, the pagan elements of the design show Persian influence. The second church was built in the early 17th century. The interior is brick and the remaining frescoes had been marred by graffiti, mainly Russian.

It was a great rip, easy to arrive at our destination. My dear friend James Wall is coming to visit in September and we will do this trip again.