The summer is over and I’m heading back to New York in a little over 24 hours. The past few months have been an amazing experience. I really didn’t know what to expect this summer, and I must confess, it has exceeded all my expectations. I arrived in Tbilisi without really knowing if I had a job or what I would do. My plan of action was to travel around, enjoy the culture, maybe drink some good Georgian wine, and generally live the lazy expat life. And while I did manage to get some traveling done—I got to go all over [View Full Entry]

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First off, let me tell you: I'm done traveling. I've worked the past 4 out of 5 weekends, and when I wasn't working, I was in Azerbaijan. So, this past weekend was my first weekend off (except I did eventually end up working Saturday) and I greatly enjoyed spending the week planning my vigorous schedule of pajama wearing and travelblog typing. I’m only telling you this because you need to understand how only the most exciting of adventures could seduce me out of my pajamas into my travel shoes. And this adventure was none other than operation “Stalk Stalin’s Great Grand [View Full Entry]

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Because I’ve managed to see Georgia East to West to South…I decided it was finally time for me to see the North. There aren’t many safe places to see up north…especially since Svaneti jumped on the bandwagon of separatist states last week. But Kazbegi is one of the last remaining bastions of safe tourism, and it was definitely worth visiting. Besides, everyone in the US kept calling and telling me that Russian troops were invading, so I thought I’d go and check out the border…ya’ know…see for myself…just kidding mom! We went to [View Full Entry]

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One of my more interesting jobs this summer has been with AmCham’s Custom Project. We’ve been working on how to create a manual for Georgian researchers to time customs procedures at checkpoints along the border. One of my duties was to travel with some of the Customs team to checkpoints and assess how long it takes for goods to get through the customs process. Honestly, the work isn’t all that exciting. But! I did get a free trip around Georgia! On the first day we went east to Red Bridge which is on the Azeri border. Dato, our Armenian driver, was [View Full Entry]

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Hello all. Sorry it has been such a long time since my last blog. Life here in the T-bizzle has been hectic, but in a good way. First off: you’ll be happy to know that the AmCham-US Embassy Independence Day party I coordinated went very well. The whole event took place at what is known here as “Turtle Lake,” and about 1500 of Tbilisi’s finest attended. I ended up being in charge of Pepsi, Nestle, Borjomi Water, FirstAid, and Security—yeah, I definitely know how to throw a shin-dig. Despite my several heart attacks due to trucks breaking down, ice deliver [View Full Entry]

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Just one more thing to add to the list of ridiculous occupations on my resume, I am officially a published journalist for the Tbilisi national English language daily, The Messenger. Yup, all around Georgia, Expats are sipping their morning Kazbegi beers and saying to themselves, "didn't this girl say she used to live in a barn in Kansas...that's so weird!" In my opinion, the article itself is horribly embarrassing. It's a shameless plug for two NGOs-- somewhat akin to buying an article in exchange for them taking me to cool places. But the editors at The Messenger seem excited, mostly b [View Full Entry]

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Ya’ know how I was saying that each of us were waiting for the other shoe to drop…that Georgia had been too good to be true? Well, I wasn’t being entirely honest with you. See, the apartment that was arranged for us was possibly the crappiest, nastiest rip-off in all of the Caucasus...and getting out of it has been somewhat of an ordeal. There were tears, Paul almost died, but in the end we achieved victory. Ok, here’s the story: Before we’d even arrived in Georgia, all of us had heard what a crappy place our apartment was to be. We [View Full Entry]

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In true Georgian fashion, Murman (Dana’s boss) called us Saturday morning to tell us we were expected at an outdoor café to celebrate Gogi’s son’s baptism in a few hours (Gogi is Jenik’s friend and also the kind man who picked us up at the airport—his nieces and nephews are the ones who keep stealing us to go sightseeing). Murman couldn’t remember the name of the café, or what street it was actually on, but he told us it was near the hippodrome (apparently that’s the word for horse arena) and by a fence. So we got dressed, flagged down a [View Full Entry]

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It just occurred to me that I have yet to tell ya’ll about my work—somewhat odd as that is what I was actually sent here to do. Believe it or not, I’ve been a working fool. When I came here I didn’t really know if I had a job or what I would be doing…I figured that worse comes to worst, I could just hang out, sightsee, and drink good Georgian wine on Columbia’s dime…but alas, internships have definitely worked out. My full time gig is at the American Chamber of Commerce. There I’m helping to write and edit articles for [View Full Entry]

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This afternoon we hiked up to Narikala fortress which sits atop one of the hills overlooking Tbilisi. The hike wasn't particularly long, but it was steep and the day was hot. I managed to get a nice sunburn on the way. Somehow or another there were Georgian women making the trek in spike heels. I must confess, I was somewhat intimidated by them. The Narikala fortress has been home to Arab emirs, Georgians, Turks, Persians, and Russians. Apparently the Russian imperial army used to store its ammunition in the Church of St Nicholas, which is inside Narikala. In good Russian fashion, [View Full Entry]

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