Oh, Georgia, how I love thee

Georgia. You just can't make this stuff up.

So Georgia has FINALLY finished construction on the new airport. The much talked about airport. The airport that was supposed to open last November. Then December. Then early February. Well. They did open it. And a few days later? The roof started leaking. The official response? Well, we couldn't test the roof to see if it was water-tight because we built it during a dry spell. Then, a few days later, a huge wind storm came through and blew off part of the roof. Ah, Georgia. One step forward and two steps back.

David had to fly to Germany a few weeks ago. He sends me a text message "Wow! I'm flying out of the new airport!" An hour or so later I get another message "Will email you later about flying out of new airport". Turns out that he checked in at the new airport. Waited for his flight at the new airport. But when it came time to board his flight, he didn't get to walk down one of the new fancy jetways (the airport has 4, count 'em folks, 4 whole jetways!). Nope. Instead, David got put on a bus and carted over to the old airport where he climbed the steps to the plane, just like it has always been done. When he came back a week later, they landed at the old airport and then bussed him over to the new airport to pick up his bags. It took a while for the bags to make it over. Really, you have to love Georgia. You have to.


But the best, most hysterically, typically Georgian thing that we have experienced this past month has to be the birthday party. Blaine was invited to a classmate's 5th birthday party, which was held at a local children's entertainment place called Bao Babi. Bao Babi (I might have mentioned this place before, but I'm much too lazy to search right now) is like Chuck E. Cheese, it has a large indoor play area, video games, and they host parties. No big rat, but they have these (I'm guessing here) Aztec warriors called Bao Babi that come to the party. You can also hire Spiderman, Batman, a clown etc. to come and entertain.

Well, this party really topped all others. The mom hired the clown. And with the clown came a Genie. Or a Sultan. I'm not really sure what he was supposed to be. He was a bubble blower. Yes. A bubble blower. He had a bubble machine cobbled together out of old fans and frayed wires. I actually asked one of the other parents there if he thought they were in the middle of repairing the air conditioning or if he thought that the fans were going to be part of the entertainment. His response was along the lines of "this is Georgia...I'm banking on that being part of the entertainment".

But wait, it gets better. The highlight of the bubble-blowing genie/sultan's act was not the big fan blowing hundreds of bubbles here and there. NO. NO. NO. Remember, this is Georgia. The highlight of the act was when the clown came over and lit a cigarette for the genie/sultan. And then? And then he smoked and blew huge smoke bubbles! Bubbles filled with cancer! Fun for kids of all ages to pop and play with!


Don't believe me? I have pictures. And video. Oh yes I do.

SUPRA!

I went to my first Supra last week. A Georgian Supra is a celebratory feast - tons of food and usually wine in obscene amounts - and throughout the feast toasts are made and wine is drunk and everyone celebrates and has a great time. The Supra I went to was exactly like that, except substitute vodka for wine. Lots and lots of vodka.

One of the people that works with my husband, Rachel, is leaving the country this week, so the Georgians in their office decided to hold a Supra in her honor. We all met up and climbed into a rented marshutka. Marshutkas are one of the most popular forms of transport in Georgia, cheaper than taxis or buses, these little vans can hold 15-20 people and they are all over the city and you can always find one that will get you where you need to go. The marshutka was rented because we knew that there would be quite a bit of drinking and therefore, should not be any driving.

We end up at a dacha about 20 minutes outside of Tbilisi up in the mountains. A dacha is a summer house, when it gets hot in the city in the heart of the summertime, the Georgians retreat to their dacha and enjoy the cooler mountain air. Of course, it is not summer here, it is winter, so the cool mountain air? It was more like freezing cold mountain air. The dacha had no heat, just one little portable electric radiator that put out very little warmth. We all kept our hats, gloves, and heavy coats on - well at least until we had consumed enough vodka to warm up from the inside out. Which happened quicker than you would think. I've never been a big fan of vodka. Not really my drink of choice, but when in Rome...or in this case, when in Georgia. I probably consumed more vodka in the course of the afternoon during the Supra than I have in my entire life. After the first few shots of vodka, it's really like drinking water. It doesn't even burn going down anymore. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Our "tamada" or toast master was Sascha, who started the toasts by making the men stand on their chairs and toast to all the ladies present:

We also toasted to Rachel, to the men present, to friends, to family, we had toasts for everything it seemed. During the toasting we were also eating. Oh.My.God. The food. The shashlik - which is Georgian bar-b-q, was incredible. Chicken and pork cooked on an open fire, a fire that was built in a small pit on the cement back porch of the dacha:

Of course, we had more than just shashlik, we had salads, and bread, and khatchapuri - so much food. We did not run out of food. We did, however, run out of vodka at one point in the festivities, so David and Phillip walked to the corner store and bought two more bottles to help keep us warm until the marshutka came to pick us up and take us home.

As you can see, we had a great time:

If you are so inclined go here, scroll down the page and you can read a fairly good definition/explanation of a supra.