Of external hard drives and military parades - Week 1 in Georgia

I'll have to edit this post later when i get my pictures on the dang thing.

So, 2 days ago the president of Georgia had his re-inauguration. The election was, in point of fact, mildly sketchy but he's backed by the US and it was nowhere near so bad as Kenya so, he gets to be president of a pretty major country at age like 35 or something. I've got to get busy.

So, lexi and I bundle up to go see the inauguration speech. Hangin' out in front of parliament, and there's like 4,000 people there tops. Also: tanks.

On the road up there were just gobs of military vehicles. Dudes in camo with the tight boots. I also came close enough to a Spetznatz guy to reach out and touch him, and would have if he wouldn't of responded by breaking my face off. Lots of american assault rifles. It was a trip.

So there were a lot of words about how times are tough in georgia, and then some marching, and then we headed off to go talk about radio shows with Pam. We ended up doing lunch over a "rosy dessert wine" and checking out the dry bridge market.

Oh man, if only i had more money. Talk about soviet Kitsch. Only like, real. For 75 bucks I could have picked up a pocket watch with hella military 1918-1988 on it. If it had been 1985 i probably would have. Instead i found a real cool cigarette case - now all i need is a flask to match.

The next day, I studied Russian in a coffee house in downtown Tblisi. I've got 25 characters out of 33 figured out. Also, we took my external hard drive full of stolen movies and broken dreams to "big" John's computer guys. Apparently it had humidity, which was secondary to the goddamn broken USB port. Whatever. I picked up a new case, which now works very well except the Mac's in the house refuse to believe in a folder named "video" or "audio". Anyways, the russian is coming along pretty well for just me and a book, and i'm starting to draw a bead on the way the alphabet works. I can write my name, for instance.

We went and saw "The Fort", which is this huge battlement overlooking the city. Lexi is quite the tour guide, and I spent a ton of the day taking pictures and looking like a foreign goofball. the food here is amazing. Someone out here said hey lets fry mashed potatoes in a pastry and then sell it to dan for 50 cents. It is excellent.

Lexi is sharing the house with 3 other fulbrighters. Kate i don't know, but she went to a Jesuit college so she's got to be of fair stock. She's in greece for 3 weeks or something. Quite the thing. Michelle is pretty nice, though sometimes bumps shoulders socially with Lexi and I - still, she liked the omlette i made for breakfast this morning so she can't get all bad. She is, however, riddled with disease. Dysentary and missing bacteria and all that stuff. Scary.

They have a cat named Monster, with whom I have a very simple relationship. The cat jumps on the table, I throw it off. Repeat forever.

Today lexi has real work that needs doing, so I'm staying in and playing Dan - Master of Tech Support and blogging. Later today I'mma update my Flickr page and post fantastic pictures of the city here.

Sorry the timezone shift has meant I've missed a couple of people on AIM lately - Dad and Zach specifically. I'll buy you something nice.

Ok, Bye!