Skiing is difficult

After finishing most of the books I brought with me, I just finished reading a translation of a Georgian epic poem Kate got me for Christmas. It is to Georgia what "The Canterbury Tales" is to England, "The Divine Comedy" is to Italy, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" are to Greece, and "Con Air" is to the US. Its title in Georgian is "V e p k h i s t q a o s a n i", which roughly translates to "The Knight in the Panther's Skin." The translation is from 1968 and differs a bit from the copy my fellow English teacher has, and I had initially worried about influence from Soviet censors, but that proved silly and I enjoyed the poem overall. It does lose a little in the translation. Like the Georgian original, it's arranged in quatrains, but apparently in the original, the last word of each line of a quatrain would rhyme, often to three or four syllables. (I don't know how to reproduce this in English effectively, so I won't try.) It also has some pretty strong Bromantic themes.

One possible cover page

Its author is Shota Rustaveli, the preeminent Georgian poet. He wrote in the 12th and 13th centuries, when Georgia was at its height of power under King David the Builder and Queen Tamar. The three of them are very important figures in Georgian history, with streets and plazas named after them in just about every major town. Rustaveli seems to be the biggest of the three - the main street in Tbilisi is named for him, as is the country's biggest cinema and the secondary street in Zugdidi. There's pictures of him throughout my school.

"Hey Shota, it's your birthday/We gonna party like it's your birthday" is just one of the many terrible puns I've come up with since my arrival.

Kate and I took another trip the first weekend of March. Our destination was Bakuriani, a town outside Borjomi in southern Georgia. Borjomi is known for the salty mineral water bottled from the town's springs, water that's sold throughout Georgia and people either love or hate. Bakuriani, however, is known for being one of Georgia's two premier ski resorts. It once hosted training facilities for the Soviet  Olympic Ski Team and is the hometown of Nodar Kumaritashvili, the Georgian who died at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The Georgian government is helping develop it to  build the country's ski tourism industry.

Southern Georgia should not be confused with Georgia Southern University, nor with South Georgia, seen above. If you see penguins or whaling vessels, you're at the wrong one.

I had never skied before, and my first time out was an adventure. I rode a gondola up that provided amazing views of the Caucasus mountains and rocked back and forth in the wind. I then struggled with my skis on the mountain, falling dozens of times in the two and a half hours it took me to travel down the 2.2 km course. (Most of that was spent at the top getting lessons on stopping from Kate and waiting for the wind to die down a bit.) But I persevered, and the second time down went much smoother, although my face still made itself familiar with many patches of snow on the mountain.

My third time skiing was on another, much larger mountain that was probably too technically challenging for me. Instead of a gondola, it had a chair lift that required me to keep my balance on skis as I went up the mountain (something that was easier than I expected). The top provided spectacular views of the Caucasus and Bakuriani, which hopefully Kate will share soon. It was much steeper than the first mountain, and I walked much of the way, but managed to ski a good part of the lower third.

Bakuriani also included watching a donkey wearing sunglasses pass me on the street and a snow tube course that was far scarier than any of the skiing I did. We found a lovely home in Bakuriani to stay at for very reasonable price. Our neighbors at our homestay - Levan, Gocha, and Jaba - provided some great hospitality, treating us to two dinners and inviting us to visit if we're in Batumi.

Presumably, this is what Jaba's house in Batumi looks like

I realize that in an earlier post, I said the vowels are the same as Spanish. That's not completely true. A, I, O, and U are, but the Georgian E is closer to the E in the words "bet" or "let".

Additionally, I may have mentioned before a few words in "Megrelian". That's the first language of my family and many other people in Samegrelo (literally, "The place of the Megreli", just as Saqartvelo means "The place of the Qartveli"). Most speak Georgian as well (and a large percentage know Russian). Megrelian is related to Georgian, but is definitely not a dialect of Georgian. It and Georgian are probably as close as English and German or Spanish and French.

Next up: Pictures actually relevant to the text!

Stats:
7 - number of different types of domesticated animals I've walked by on my way to school over the last seven weeks (cat, dog, cow, pig, chicken, turkey, horse)
8 - day of March on which most countries, including Georgia, celebrate "International Women's Day"
2 - questions (out of 3) I understood on a recent Georgian "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". They were (roughly)  "Which Pope Gregory established the Gregorian calendar?" and "How many African countries does the Equator pass through?"

Vocabulary:
so reg - where are you (Megrelian)
kata - cat
ghori - pig
drosha - flag
kudi - hat
kalatburti - basketball
pirdapir - straight/straightforward

Phrases the authors thought were important to include in my Georgian-English phrase book:
"He stole/covered up some money for me."
"Piss off."
"What a hottie!"
"Beer is bad for you."
"Good heavens!"