Daily life and the Jeepi returns home!

Feb 26 2011

Alas, winter has arrived in Tbilisi. Until about mid January we had sunny days with mostly warm afternoons. It was fabulous although it worried me about next summer’s water supply. Then it got real cold but we still had sun. Not anymore. It has snowed or rained everyday for a week. Last weekend we woke up to snow both days but it warmed up during the day so the snow melted. That is great around here because Georgians can’t drive on dry pavement so try to imagine what it would be like in snow or ice!

I have been gaining a few pounds so started walking this week to try ands shed the few before they grow into the many. One day I walked on neighborhood streets where I have not been before. I once again became aware of how ‘planning’ in not a word in the Georgian vocabulary. Streets curve around, up and over and end quickly. I went down three or four streets that ended within a block of their beginning but I couldn’t tell as they curved around and I couldn’t see the end. I was struck by the poor conditions of the streets. Many turned into mud tracks. Most had as many potholes as they had pavement. Sometimes there was more dirt than pavement. I saw litter reminding me of Sri Lanka. They do have regular trash pick up here but you don’t see any waste bins outside of residents’ gates. Most people run out when they hear the trucks and hand over their garbage. Often I would see a run down modest house right next to a giant McMansion built for a wealthy Georgian or for a member of the expat community who is working here and lives as though they were in their home country. Most Georgians live in unheated or partially heated apartments/houses because utilities are so expensive here. They don’t have things like thermal paned windows. Our exterior doors leak like a sieve.

Lala is the woman who is my friend Laurie’s housekeeper. Lala does a lot of sewing for us. She made a bed cover and skirt for us and is now making a second one. She is also making a carrying case for our massage table so we can give it to Maia ( our Masseuse)  when we leave and Maia can do out call with a table making it much better for her back. As it is now, she bends over a bed to massage her other clients. Lala has no fear when it comes to sewing. She and Ron have worked closely on these projects and both have learned from each other. Lala tells us tales of the Soviet era when people didn’t have very much in the way of clothes and the clothes they had didn’t come is a variety of styles and colors. Lala made her own clothes and her office mates would ask her where she got her clothes.

I continue to be very annoyed with Georgian drivers and pedestrians. We call the pedestrians "Suicide Pedestrians" because they wait in the road for marshutekas or buses. They cross in the middle of a block rather than at a crosswalk with a light. They cross the street when the light is against them rather than with them. They wear all black at night and cross in the middle of the block where there isn’t adequate light to see them. You would see then right after you hit them. They don’t use the pedestrian underpasses or the overpasses. It is as though they don’t understand how dangerous it is. Georgian drivers are wild. They drive too fast, too close and totally disregard any rules. It is very common to see drivers run red lights, make illegal turns across multiple lanes of traffic, and drive on the sidewalk or to drive fast in reverse for a great distance. My all time favorite is drivers who go into the opposing lane of traffic, crossing the double solid line because they are in a hurry. Never mind that there is a car coming directly at them. They flash their lights to indicate they are more important than you and you should get out of their way even though they are in the wrong lane, your lane. Our friend Jock was driving us to the movie one night when this happened. Instead of getting out of the oncoming driver’s way, Jock held his ground and the other driver had to get back into his lane. We all had a good laugh on that one.

February 28, 2011

Today Ron gets to bring his ‘jeepi’ home. It has been at the mechanics, the body shop and the painters for months. I have lost count but probably about six months. Next an electrical guy will come and finish up some work then off to the top shop to install a new top. I think then there is some more mechanical work to be done before Ron can say it is done. Ron got so frustrated with the painter who promised the job would be done by Jan 28th that he decided to sell the jeep for parts. That seemed to light a fire under the painter’s hinny and he got it finished within ten days so it took almost twice as long as originally promised, two months instead of one. This has been consistent with every one who has worked on the jeep. Whatever time frame they give you should multiple it by a factor of two at least. The one exception was when he had the car totally rewired and the guy said it would take two days. It took three and Ron gave him a bonus. The man thought he had won the lottery! By contrast the paint guy said if he didn’t finish on time Ron could subtract 50 lari a day for everyday it was late. I think the painter owes Ron at this point!

Ron and I have trouble sleeping here and neither of us can figure out why. Ron had four bad nights this week and I tossed and turned last night until 5:00 a.m. Oy! Several of our friends say the same thing. Our street is mostly quiet so it isn’t that. It is truly annoying and very disruptive to a routine exercise schedule. I just cannot seem to exercise when I haven’t slept well.



We leave Wednesday night for Dubai. We are going with the Conlys who are great travel buddies. We will be there for five days and all of us are looking forward to warmth and sun. It will be in the high 70’s and low 80’s. I will wear sandals! And cotton clothes! Yippee! At the end of March we will go to Brussels where Ron has a meeting of all the US Treasury reps. We are going early so we can go to Bruges a quaint town now overrun with tourists. After the meeting we will zip down to Italy to see Jim and Jane Burke from Oregon who are house hunting. What fun!



Lately there have been lots of good English language films at our one theater that plays English language films. A group of eight of us frequently meets for dinner beforehand either at someone house or at a restaurant and then head off to the movie. It has been great fun to have a regular group. It will be hard to leave Tbilisi when the time comes as we have made many new friends here.

Lazy Days

Feb 1 2011


The weather is finally starting to act like winter here. We have had many sunny days with warm afternoons and cold nights. Now we have grey and a few snowflakes. I am grateful that so far the snow has not lasted. Georgians do not know how to drive on dry pavement so imagine how they might drive in snow without chains or snow tires! OY!



Today I read an article about how the government might start ecological inspection of cars here. Georgia wants badly to someday be a part of the EU. Check out these statistics from the article. There are four million people living in Georgia. In 2000 there were around 200,000 cars registered here, 2005-400,000 and in 2009 -666,000. From the latest number only about 30,000 cars are less than five years old! Almost 270,000 are over 20 years old! If these cars are checked according to European standards of ecology, there is high probability that even cars which are younger than five years old will have problems qualifying.



My volunteer job at TSU ended last week. I am so happy to have some free time. The job took much more of my time than I had envisioned. It was fun and I was grateful to work solely with Georgians as I don’t have as much interaction as I would like with Georgians on this tour. But yesterday was my first free day and I had a blast doing things like polishing all my winter shoes, organizing three drawers of scarves, jewelry, etc. Nino, our housekeeper has been out for a week with family illness so I swept, mopped and ironed a little. No need to get carried away since she will return later this week! I cooked! I planned menus to make sure we use up all those groceries we shipped here in October. I caught up on email. I actually watched the news in the afternoon. It was a great day and I went to bed happy to have had some much free time to do things that needed doing and to do them at a leisurely pace.



Week before last I helped Ron’s office mate prepare for an interview for a fellowship to study in the US. She had never prepared for an interview and I had mentioned earlier to her how important preparation was. Today she found out she made the cut to semi finalist. Next are the GRE and TOEFEL tests. The applicant pool started at 4,000 and now she is in a pool of 30 people for 15 fellowships. I am very happy for her. Next I want to help our driver. When we leave Georgia, there is very little chance that Ron’s position will be funded for the next year. The Ministry hasn’t used Ron’s services and it is a waste of money to continue to fund a program that isn’t being utilized. Gia will need to find other work and wants to apply to the US embassy as soon as a guard position opens up. We have worked on updating his resume and now I want to help him with interviewing skills since he is a very quiet man.



Feb 6 2011

We have had a very laid back weekend. Five of us went to see The King’s Speech on Friday night. We had Thai dinner beforehand. For some reason there is a great run of movies here right now so a core group gathers before the movie to eat then heads to the show. Monday night I invited the group here for soup and salad beforehand. One advantage to not working is I have more time to entertain. I am enjoying cooking again.

On Saturday Ron and I slept in then puttered around the house before setting off to find some fabric we can use to have a carrying case made for our massage table. We want to leave the table with Maia, our massage therapist, when we leave so she can use it for outcall. The case will protect it as she loads it into and out of cabs. The table isn’t a standard size so we are having Lala make a custom case for us. Lala is currently working on another bedcover for us. Some time ago we bought four mafrash panels that are over 100 years old. Ron decided they would be great to incorporate into a bedcover. While in Sri Lanka we found the perfect fabric for the cover and bed skirt so now Lala is working on it. It will take a while since she works full time as a housekeeper for our two best friends. After finding the fabric we stopped by Entrée and had a light lunch before coming home and watching a Russian DVD at home last night. We slept in again today and had breakfast. I got on the treadmill and then after lunch we watched another DVD. Today I never got out of my exercise clothes. Laid back day!

Back to the tropics

Jan 9 2011

We are now in Paradise, our ‘home’ in Phetchaburi. Ron has the option of a four week R&R and chose to take two weeks and go to Thailand and Sri Lanka where we lived in 2005-06. We left ROG on Dec 31st at 5:00 a.m. and flew to Istanbul, which took two hours. We then had a 14 hr. layover. Turkish Air gives you a free room if your layover is more than ten hours so we checked into a hotel and rested a few hours, got up and had breakfast then went out in search of a shop we had visited about five years ago where we had purchased a beautiful textile that was used as a camel decoration with tassels, coins and patchwork fabrics. We actually found the neighborhood and the street without knowing the names of the shop or street. Alas the shop was no longer there but we had fun poking our heads into various antique shops along the way and a bit of pride with having found our way back to the shop area from memory. Afterwards we found a shop where I had bought a silk shawl five years ago and bought a couple of scarves for gifts. The owner noticed my surname on my credit card and asked if it was an Ashkenazy name? It turned out the shop was owned and staffed buy Sephardic Jews.

From here we ventured backed to our hotel area and had a late lunch before boarding our transportation back to the airport, all provided by Turkish Air. From Istanbul we had a direct overnight flight (nine hours) to Bangkok. We arrived about 9:00 a.m. and checked into our hotel where we have stayed many times. It is conveniently located next to the sky train. We went to our favorite breakfast place and discovered it was closed as it was New Year’s day and Bangkok was quiet and most shops were closed. We ate at another nearby place called Cabbages and Condoms. This restaurant was established by a man who wanted to help fight HIV infections by making condoms as common as cabbages in Thailand. A portion of the proceeds goes to help fight and treat HIV/AIDS. We have eaten here before as well. The place is artfully decorated with condoms: mannequins sport various outfits made of many different color condoms. It is artful and fun and serves an important cause. Later in the day I did my annual shopping for bras in Bangkok. Our friends who worked with Ron on a two year project in Thailand back in 2004-05 used to laugh at me for buying bras here but I discovered my favorite brand which sold for $50 at Nordstrom sold for $10-$20 here. I am a smart shopper. Ron explored a new hotel that we booked for our next stay the night before we leave to return home on the 15th. We had a great foot massage then headed to our favorite dinner place. It must have been an off night as it just wasn’t up to par. We dined outside which is always a treat. Bangkok is usually hot but not this trip. We lucked out. The next day we went to our favorite breakfast place and it was open. We had crepes and good coffee again dining outside which is one of the things that makes this part of the world so very special. We ventured to Wat Po taking the water taxi and had our fortunes read by the same man who has been doing it for us since 2005. Then we went to Nuch’s Salon, the mother of a Thai student who was in Portland for her senior year of high school We were good friends of Noone’s and now are good friends with her mom, Nuch. Ron had a foot massage while I got a mani/pedicure. Then we had a quick dinner with Nuch and a friend at a nearby restaurant before dashing back to the hotel to catch our plane to Colombo Sri Lanka. We arrived shortly after midnight but it took forever to get our luggage then we took a cab into town and stayed at a small inn called Havelock Bungalows, where we used to have breakfast and dinners when we dined out. We arrived late and woke up the night duty person who let us in. He was confused about which room was ours, showed us a reservation card with a different name, took us to the wrong room that had a baby crib and asked us if we had a baby. I think the last woman my age who had a baby was Sarah, Abraham’s wife!! It took a second person to iron out the mistake and finally we got to bed at 3:00 a.m. The next morning I woke up and Ron asked me what time it was. I told him it was 8:30. Since we were being picked up at 10:00 we thought we should start the day although both of us were quite tired. After we showered and dressed we realized I had not changed my watch for the local time which was 1.5 hours difference so we had gotten up at 7:00 not 8:30. Drat, we could have used that extra 90 minutes. Yes folks, Sri Lanka uses the same time zone as India and for whatever reason they are .5 hour different from the other time zones. The next day we had our friend Debra’s driver pick us up and take us to Debra’s house. She and her husband Roy are in the US and offered to let us stay in their home. What a blessing. We have five days in Colombo so had written friends to ask if we could get together in the time we had. Our first day we went to the grocery store for breakfast items and a few snacks. Then we realized we were quite tired so we rested for a couple of hours then did a little shopping as SL is a shopper’s paradise: you can get good quality at reasonable prices. We met friends for drinks at one of our favorite places and it was grand to see Don and Som who had gotten married recently. They were leaving for Bangkok the next day.

The next day Ron went to the Asia Foundation and I took Geetha and her daughter out for a marathon shopping spree. Geetha works at the Asia Foundation and was our housekeeper when we lived here and I had promised to take her shopping when I came to visit. She asked if her daughter could join us and I am thankful she did as she seemed to know the needed sizes better and didn’t worry about the prices. Geetha and Dineshia took me to a store that had items for $4-$5. When I realized Geetha was looking at the prices of everything she picked up I told her to stop it. I had a budget in mind and realized we would not exceed my limit at this store. We managed to buy clothes for everyone. Geetha has her two married daughters and four grandchildren living with her. Everyone got something new. We finished around 2:00 and I offered to take them to lunch. As we were driving to a restaurant we got a call that lunch was ready at Geetha’s house so we turned around and went back to the house and had a feast of curried chicken, crab, rice and greens and fresh fruit for dessert. Afterwards I left and went back to the house where we were staying and hooked up with Ron. That night we went out to eat at Mango Tree, one of our favorite Indian restaurants.

Wednesday is a bit of a blur. I went to see Ajith, a jeweler whom I used when we lived there. He has been a manufacturer for about 15 years. He operates in a small container. It is about six feet across and maybe 12 feet deep and windowless. Three men work at a work bench and Ajith is usually standing. He is always immaculately dressed and his workers are often shirtless. I recognized his workers from before and he told me they had been working for him for 15 years. It speaks well of Ajith’s fairness to his employees. I ordered some pendants for gifts and treated myself to a pair of earrings. At lunch Ron and I went to Agra, another Indian restaurant, where we were joined by 10 people who had worked with Ron when we lived here. All were Sri Lankans. You cannot imagine how much it meant to us that these friends took the time to meet us. Most had moved on to other NGO’s, some had been promoted to more responsible positions. It was great to catch up with each one and to tell stories about when we had lived here. There was lots of laughter and many good memories. We went away from the luncheon with more fond memories and a grateful heart.

In between meeting friends for lunches and dinners I did a lot of shopping and Ron did a little. I mostly bought gifts as I need next to nothing. I bought some wonderful shirts for several men friends as Barefoot has beautiful hand dyed, hand woven cotton shirts. Later we went to Shilpa, the orphanage where I volunteered when we lived here. There are 50 girls here, ages 6-20. Some of the young women I worked with in teaching career development and job search came by to see us as well. These women are now working and successful. It was a thrill to see them and to know they had found their way in the world. The older girls at Shilpa put on a dance performance doing a dance depicting reconciliation after the end of the 25 year civil war. Then the entire group of 50 girls sang a song in English at which point I burst into tears. Oy! It was very touching and very sweet.

That night we met Veena and her family for vegetarian Indian food and had hot chili masala dosas, a large thin pancake filled with potatoes, onions and who knows what else. Veena was our former landlady and her brother, sister in law, two nieces and her sister joined us for the reunion. More great memories and super food.

Thursday I got some of my prescription drugs at a fraction of what I pay in the US, same manufacturers. Ron had a meeting that day so we worked around his schedule. He is trying to drum up some business so we can return sooner rather than later. After finishing up in the ROG he hopes to do short term assignments. I failed to mention that all week we used our former trishaw driver, Mr. Kularathna, to get around town. It was a thrill to be with him again. He remembered where some stores were that I couldn’t remember the name of but could describe the general area and what they sold. We had lunch with Herath who works at the Asia Foundation and who helps me communicate with Geetha via email. Geetha has limited English skills and Herath translates her messages to me. He has helped also by getting her a birthday cake each year to celebrate her birthday at work. When I lived there I got her a cake and she told me it was the first time she had ever had her birthday celebrated. Since then I have sent a check to Herath who carries out the deed for me. I wanted to thank him so asked if I could take him to lunch. He picked out a nearby restaurant which happened to be a place where Ron and I ate when we lived here. We had our cheapest lunch ever there one day: $1.10 for a hot meal and bottled water…. for both of us! Herath was a delight and I was thankful to get to know him better as I had never met him before this trip. That night we had dinner with Chandini and Lakshman, her husband. Chandini had been our language teacher and was the person who got me involved with Shilpa. The four of us had dinners often when we lived here and I have always enjoyed our time together as the conversation is always stimulating as we often talk about Sri Lanka and the US.

Our last day was a day of tying up loose ends. I went by Ajith’s and another store to pick up items I had ordered. We had lunch with two friends who still worked at the Asia Foundation then went by Suba’s home to see his family. He presented Ron with a beautiful shirt and sarong from Jaffna, a region in the north that we were never able to see when we lived here as it was part of the war zone. Ron hopes that we will be allowed to go there our next visit as it is supposed to be beautiful. Right now no foreigners are allowed there. We did some last minute shopping then went to Mr. Kularathna’s home. Mr. K has an exquisite yard filled with tropical plants and many, many orchids. Since we were last here he had built an addition on his house: two bedrooms and a bath. He said he did this so that when he dies it would give his wife an income to rent out this space. The suite is located behind the house up a set of stairs and includes a small patio where the tenants could sit outside and enjoy the garden. It reminded us of our little apartment over our garage. Mr. K has a heart condition and needs surgery. We offered to pay for it two years ago but he refused to take the money. He is very proud. Then he sold his vehicle to build this addition and had not worked in a year. While we were here he borrowed a friend’s vehicle so he could squire us around. He recently bought another vehicle and is now trying to get it registered. We were treated to an elaborate meal and I forgot how many dishes there were: two kinds of fish, rice, rice with veggies, chicken curry, and I cannot remember what else. Dessert was four kinds of fresh fruit. Yum!

We went back home and finished packing and Debra’s driver, Mahalingam, took us to the airport where we caught a 1:15 a.m. flight to Bangkok, a three hour flight, arriving here at 6:30 given the time difference. We were met around 8:00 by friends: Nuch, her daughter Noone who was an exchange student in Portland three years ago and Noone’s sister, and Suraporn. We piled into a van and one car and off we went to Phetchaburi where we have use of Nattawan’s house, a dear friend’s who lives in the Portland area. We spent the day with our friends at the house. They left in the late afternoon to return to Bangkok. They refused to let us pay for the van and driver. Su left us her car to use and we went to the grocery store to get some essentials. Our house is on a family compound. Nattawan’s aunt, Pa ChaAn, her two sons and their wives, a granddaughter and her son and a former daughter in law live here. Pa ChaAn sent us a dinner of pad Thai and the next morning we received breakfast: rice with sliced chicken and yummy soup and sauce for the rice. Later lunch arrived. This is an amazing family who cannot do enough for us. We are always treated like royalty here. Our first night we were visited by Pear and her mother Timm, Nattawan’s cousin. They told us Tui would be here later that night so we walked up to where the internet café is and checked our email. We were so tired we went to bed around 9:00 and missed seeing our friend Tui who is Nattawan’s cousin. She had come to Phetchaburi that night to see us and no one told us she was leaving early the next day to go back to Bangkok. We were so disappointed to have missed her. Tui is a nurse practitioner in Bangkok. Pa ChaAn has four sons and four daughters. They are a very beautiful family and so kind to us.

On Monday we tried to find a hardware store we had seen on one of our trips but we were unsuccessful. We came home and went down the street in search a massage parlor but it had moved on. We stopped by the internet café and checked email and came home. Again a hot meal was delivered to our door. I have not cooked once since we have been here. Ron brought a TV and DVD player here that we had in ROG. When we came to ROG we bought the electronic equipment that was in the house where we live. This included two TV’s and DVD players, etc. We never use one of the TV’s so brought it here. We watched a DVD we found here and realized we had watched it on Ron’s computer once before two years ago. HA! Old age has its benefits: you can watch the same DVD twice and near the end realize you have seen it before!!

It is now Monday and we had planned to go to a town, Hua Hin, about an hour and a half south of here to see our friend Bill, a former contractor from Bend Oregon. However we are waiting for a satellite TV rep to come by to see about getting a dish installed this trip. They were supposed to be here yesterday and never showed up and now they are late by 45 minutes. All this has been arranged by Noi, a cousin of Nattawan’s. He speaks no English and we speak no Thai. Ron is at the big house now trying to find out what is going on so we can leave. Ron and Noi went to town and discovered it isn’t practical to get a satellite dish at this time. We decided to wait and go to Hua Hin to see Bill tomorrow so we took off for ChaAm, another beach town about an hour south of here. In 2004 when Ron first started working in Thailand we went to ChaAm and spent a few days at a hotel right on the beach. We ate outside on a little raised patio with a thatched roof and walked down the beach a short distance and got a foot massage under another thatched roof on a raised platform with the surf crashing at our heads. We repeated both activities today, holding hands while lying down on the massage pads. We thought we had died and gone to heaven. Life is indeed good!

On Wednesday we drove to Hua Hin. As we were turning into Bill’s drive, a right hand turn, a truck passed us on the left (they drive on the opposite side of the street here) and sideswiped the front side of the car we had borrowed. The bad news is we are not covered by the insurance. The good news is the damage is not bad and repair is not expensive in Thailand. We only hope we can get it repaired before we head back to Bangkok on Friday so Suraporn is not inconvenienced in any way for loaning us her car. We were bummed but life is good regardless of what comes our way! We had a wonderful visit with Bill, a great guy. Kay, his wife was in Eugene OR with her businesses, a Thai restaurant and hotel so we were sorry to have missed her. The three of us drove to our favorite beach restaurant and had a delicious seafood lunch. On the way back to Bill’s house we stopped by a huge shopping center in search of lamp parts. Ron is making two lamps for our Thai house from two celadon vases but alas, you cannot buy lamp parts here. He has everything he needs at home but when we left for Georgia in 2009 we did not anticipate coming here. Those lamps will just have to wait. They are for the guest room so it isn’t critical at this point.

On the way home we stopped by an outlet mall. There are many in this region with some brand names that we know well. As we were looking around I spied my favorite shoe store, Ecco. I found two pair of sandals my size which is not easy with my large feet. I was thrilled to get two pair for $10 more than I pay for one pair at home!

When we got home, we walked to the internet café. Again it was filled with young boys (it is always filled with them) playing violent video games and the one next to me wasn’t using his earphones so I was listening to grenades exploding, automatic pistols and rifles firing, etc. That lasted about 60 seconds and I asked the attendant to require the boy to turn off the sound and use his headphones. It was just too much for this old girl who doesn’t much care for violence. I wonder how many men these boys kill each day on the computer. Oy! I wrote Nattawan about our auto mishap and she called shortly thereafter with a solution. She suggested that her cousin’s husband take the car in for an estimate/repair. She said if we took it in there would be a language problem and that we would be charged a much higher rate because we are foreigners. She told us to not worry about it that these things happen. Ron was really upset but calmed down later in the evening.

Wednesday we got up and after breakfast we put on our work clothes and got some bleach water and scrubbed the outer walls of the house that had developed mold. Tomorrow Ron will do some touch up paint. Noi jumped right in there to help us without being asked. He is Nattawan’s cousin and he is our caretaker when we are not here. He maintains the gardens. Noi doesn’t speak English but we manage to communicate. He is also the one who most often runs out on his motorcycle and gets our meals. It is so cheap to eat in restaurants and take away many Thais dine out often. We do as well when we are here. Later in the day Ron said he didn’t feel well. When we compared notes we discovered both of us felt ‘something between hungry and sickish’. Later Ron was sick to his stomach and I called Bill to see if he had been sick. Turns out all three of us had felt icky but only Ron got sick to his stomach. That will teach us to eat at our favorite seafood restaurant without Kay!

The weather has been perfect, with cool days and nights. The air quality is awful however. They are burning the cane fields according to Bill and this really messes up the air. Reminds me of the grass field burning in the Salem OR region. A good rain would help but I don’t think any is predicted.

It is now Thursday, our last day in Phetchaburi. Ron finished his outside painting while I did our daily laundry and ironing. We wash everything by hand here. We hope to get a massage in today as we spied a massage place a little further down the road than we went earlier this week. How great to have a place nearby. We got a quote to repair Suraporn’s car and it is a fraction of what we would pay at home. She wants to have it repaired in Bangkok, not here, so we will give her the money to do it there. We are lucky that it wasn’t a bad accident and that only minimal damage was done. It was an international incident however as Nattawan who lives in Tigard OR called us three times to convey what was going on and her former husband, Chong, who lives in NE Thailand called as well as he speaks perfect English and helped us to understand about the plans to pick us up on Friday and how we would get the car back to Suraporn.

Every time we come to Thailand there are many people who go out of their way to ensure we are comfortable and that every need is met, usually without us even asking for help. We are grateful for their attentiveness but go away feeling awkward as it is difficult to reciprocate.

Today we ran errands: filled up the gas tank, Ron got a haircut ($2.00), got cleaning supplies for Linn who cleans the house for us, had lunch at our favorite noodle shop, and got a massage. The internet café is closed so we can’t check email. We started covering the furniture with sheets, just like in the movies. We are sad to leave but have had such a wonderful R&R. Tomorrow we head to Bangkok and will have dinner with Auem, one of the Thai students who lived in Portland a few years ago. Her parents will join us as well. Saturday we fly to Istanbul , have a six hour layover and then a two hour flight to Tbilisi. We arrive at 4:00 in the morning and have a massage scheduled for 1:00 in the afternoon.

December 26 2010
It is the day after Christmas and my geraniums are still blooming in the pots on our front porch. What ever happened to winter here? We continue to have warm sunny days in the mid 50’s and cold nights in the low 30’s. We have had two days of rain in about 12 weeks.





Alexi & Gigi



Last weekend we were invited to go to the wine region called Kakheti east of TBS with Sophie and Gigi who used to work with Ron at the ministry and now works for a small city outside of TBS as a Deputy Mayor. We were later joined by Alexi, the finance director from Telavi, another small town and by Tina and Dato, the former finance director for the City of Tbilisi, and lastly by Paata, the interim finance director for TBS. Our first stop was about two hours out of TBS where we visited Akhali (New) Shuamta, a 16th century church and monastery for nuns. The church had beautiful frescos that were being restored. As I have mentioned before, the Soviets in their infinite wisdom and fear of religion, white washed all frescoes in the Georgian churches during their regime here.

From here we stopped briefly in Telavi to view a 900 year old tree that appears to be on its last leg. Onward to see Gremi, a citadel that stands on a small hill about 19 km outside of Telavi. We visited a very small museum, church and palace. From 1466-1672 Gremi was the capital of Kakheti. The church of the Archangels was built in 1565. The ground floor of the palace contained a small museum of local archeological items. We climbed very steep stairs in the tower. At times I had to put my hands on the next step in order to pull myself up. My quads felt it the next day. It was a fascinating place to still be standing and in as good a shape as it was. Restoration continues here. They hope to have the wine press working in the next six months. This is a large stone vat requiring pressing with your feet and then draining the grape juice into subterranean vats, the traditional method of Georgian wine making. By now all our group had joined up and we headed for our last tour stop, the Nekresi Monastery with churches from the 4th and 16th centuries. This was a large complex with several buildings and churches, one with murals. We had to park at the bottom of the hill and take a minibus to the top where the structures were. This was a very steep and narrow road. We had a grand view of the valley below including the foundation of a ruined pagan temple.

Afterwards we drove back to Telavi where we were Alexi’s guest in his home for supra. We arrived around 4:30 and ate until 8:30 when Ron and I had to get back to TBS for a Skype call with Sonia, Ron’s mom. It was a pleasure to be invited into someone’s home. Alexi’s house had a large dining/living room on the first floor as well as a den and kitchen and half bath. Upstairs were three bedrooms and a full bath. The balcony off Alexi’s bedroom had a panoramic view of the Upper Caucasus Mountains. I am not sure I would get anything done if I had that view on a daily basis. It was spectacular.

One member of the party who joined us at the house played his guitar and sang Georgian songs. A fire in the fireplace was used to cook the barbeque or shish kabobs. I lost count after 24 different dishes. I will try to recall some of them now but it has been a week. We had fish, beef meat balls in a rich red sauce, fried chicken, chicken salad, pork shish kabob, mushrooms sautéed, mushroom caps baked with cheese, cottage cheese bread, plain bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, eggplant with walnut paste, chicken with walnut sauce, spinach with walnut paste, three kinds of cheeses, fresh fruit platter, three or four kinds of dessert pastries/cakes. Wine, more wine, more wine…fruit juice and carbonated mineral water. I have obviously forgotten some of the dishes but this is what you eat at every supra. The menu is identical whether you eat at a restaurant or at someone’s home.

My life has been hectic for the past two weeks. I volunteer at Tbilisi State University and we have been planning a reception with high profile government and business people to announce the alumni office. Georgians do not plan so imagine hand delivering invitations two days before the event. There is no viable postal service here. In addition, Georgians require coddling so you MUST call to remind them to come and assure that they are coming. As I said it was hectic. The good news is the event was Thursday and it worked well in spite of some ups and downs. And I do hope my life will not be so hectic. My contract ends Dec 31st but I offered to help when we return from our R&R in mid January. We leave Dec 31st for Thailand and Sri Lanka. We are so excited. We will be seeing friends in Colombo and staying at a friend’s house all but the first night. We plan to take an empty suitcase to do some serious shopping there. We never shop here as things are more expensive than the US but Sri Lanka is heaven for shopping. We have a favorite store that sells beautiful men’s shirts that are hand woven, hand dyed. So very colorful in the tropical rainbow. They also sell placemats, tablecloths, women’s clothes and jewelry. There is no shortage of things to spend our money on! We have arranged to meet friends for dinner two nights while there and will see more during the day. I want to go to Shilpa children’s Home where I volunteered when we lived there. After Colombo we fly to Bangkok and go to Phetchaburi where we have the use of a house of our friend Nattawan. Phetchaburi is a small town and a much slower pace than Bangkok. We can walk to the end of our street to an internet café that is usually filled with kids playing violent video games and a few who play non violent games. Fortunately the owner makes them use headphones as the noise was intolerable before: sounds of rapid gunfire, grenades, tanks etc. Oy! If their mothers only knew!

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.