I found my copy of "The Georgian Feast" today. I've been browsing through the recipes, trying to avoid submitting job applications, and remembering. It's hard.

Food was such an indelible part of the Georgian experience. It's central to the culture, to the ideal of hospitality, to the Georgian soul. Wine, bread, cheese; simple things that take me back to my smokey house in Akhaltsikhe. I'm reading recipes, and thinking of Inga, spending hours every day cooking amazing foods for us and her family. It's melancholy, in a way that I haven't been melancholy in quite a bit. The anger of the invasion has started to fade; in its place, I find a strangely post-soviet bitterness and resignation to the situation.

When I first came home from Georgia, I was angry. Really, really angry at the entire situation - from the way the Russians set Georgia up, to the way that Georgians completely fell into the trap. Now, reading my book of recipes, I simply cannot shake a feeling of homesickness for a place that wasn't really my home. I miss it. Life in Georgia was awful, and amazing at the same time. It was extreme - boredom, panic, frustration; and also acceptance, exploration, and wonder.

Canada seems so prosaic by comparison. The most culture shock I'm finding is that the price of boneless skinless chicken breast is $6.99 a pound, no matter where I go. That's it. The price of meat. And then I read the recipe for Atcharuli khatchapuri, and I'm back in my town, sitting in the cafe, eating a billion calories of bread, cheese, butter, and egg, and I miss it.

Being a global nomad certainly has its benefits. But now I'm feeling a bit of the cost.

One beautiful Saturday in June, a group of us decided to head out to the beach for a barbeque. This was the fourth time we'd planned to do it since May, and none of the times had been successful so far, due to weather conditions (May had this habit of being sunny all week, then raining all weekend), so we were determined to make this work. We thought we would take the us out to the easiest beach to get to, Mallipo, but as it turns out, our friend Alia's mother drove us, and she took us to a special beach, the most beautiful beach we'd seen in Korea. This beach called Gurempo, which is translated as Cloud (or Mist) Beach, because it usually has a mist hanging over one side. It was so beautiful! We just wandered around, enjoying the beauty (unfortunately, we forgot our camera so all of these photos were taken with my cell phone, and they don't really do justice to the beach):

Back in one corner of the beach, there was a little Buddha shrine area, just tucked in among the rocks and trees:

Wandering along the beach, Alia wrote our initials in the sand:

After wandering along the beach, the four of us (our group minus Alia's mom) started to prepare the barbeque. We collected driftwood for the fire, although Brenden was a little shocked by our selections--it was obvious only Brenden had collected firewood before. We didn't have any charcoal, because we thought we'd be going to Mallipo, which has many shops along it, but instead this beach was really isolated, without even a shop. We noticed three or four other people with charcoal, though, so Alia went up to them and asked them and they had brought it with them. Not to be deterred, she noticed there was a small house there and she went and asked them whether there were any small shops nearby. There weren't any, but the woman offered to give us some charcoal. Now with charcoal, we were in business! Unfortunately, the wind kept shifting, so it was hard to get it started, but Brenden made it work, and he was grilling in no time. In the meantime, while we waited for the sausages and veggies to cook, we snacked on gimbap (the quintessential Korean picnic lunch food, they're like very simple sushi rolls) and fruit and sliced French bread into sandwich sizes, then made sausage and veggie sandwiches. Delicious!

After packing up, we were in for another surprise: there was more to see! We piled back in the car, and Alia's mom made three more stops: at one lovely lookout point and two more beaches. All in all, we had a grand time, and it definitely was my top beach experience in Korea. It made me really excited for Thailand and lounging on the islands, too, which is just a few weeks away (at the end of our vacation).

This past weekend was our last weekend in Korea. Heather came down from Incheon, and had a great time hanging out with the friends we've made here in Korea (and with the friends we already have). Now we're busy packing (we're mostly done with our suitcases), although I had a nasty surprise when I tried to take a box to the post office to mail home today: it's only 9 kilos, but it's too large. They won't ship it, so I have to break it up into two smaller boxes. It's annoying because one thing in the box is very thin but tall, and I'm afraid it will be too tall for the smaller boxes. At any rate, we still have a lot to take care of in the next three days, but on Thursday, we'll be flying out to Hong Kong, and the vacation will begin!

This will probably be our last post in Korea (and we probably won't post while we're traveling), so hopefully we'll see most of you reading this before we write again!

- Carissa

The way we usually blog, it must seem like all we do is travel, but I assure we actually are working, and this time, I actually have a work-themed blog (AND the blog is actually about something that happened today, something I'm sure you can't believe, either). Today (Thursday) was my last day to work with my third grade classes (I have five sections for one class each week, all on Thursday), so I said good-bye to them, which was sad and yet satisfying at the same time. One of the really disappointing things about leaving Georgia when we did was not being able to say good-bye--we left after my first school year, when I had planned to come back for the second year and teach the same students, but I just never came back. Although I did get to say good-bye to one counterpart, I didn't get to say good-bye (in person) to anyone else other than our family in Akhaltsikhe. Here, we will get to say good-bye.

I've also done a project with my third grad class that came to an end today. At the beginning of the school year, in March, I made them booklets with space for stickers. Each month, I gave them a specific set of tasks (usually three, but one month, it was four), and for each task they completed successfully, I gave them a sticker. If they got all the stickers for a particular month, I gave them a bigger, special sticker and a piece of candy. This was a big deal, and they were really excited about it (I don't really give out candy at any other time). I called this booklet their "passport," and the passports became wildly popular in my third grade.

I told them in April that any student who got ALL stickers for March, April, May, and June would get a special prize from me (like those two girls in the picture above). On Wednesday, I put together those special prizes, and I'm proud with how they turned out:

Each student who got all stickers (since my spelling quiz in May was probably too hard, I actually was more generous, and allowed students who were missing only one sticker to get a prize, too) got one little package (which contained candy) plus another special sticker (this time, stickers with positive affirmations like "Excellent!" or "Great job!") and a San Diego postcard with a note from me on the back. It all turned out very well, so I was happy, even though it was a crazy day for a multitude of reasons.

Now for the rest of the good-byes...

- Carissa

Our second Sunday with Brenden's parents was also our last day, so we woke up bright and early to go on a DMZ tour. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures except at designated spots, so we don't have any pictures of North Korea or of the tunnel. But more about that later.

To begin, a minivan picked us up at our hotel, then drove us the staging ground for all DMZ tours. We wander around this touristy area, which has a few small shops (we buy a snack for later), then pile onto a different bus to be taken to the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel.

The 3rd Infiltration Tunnel is a tunnel dug by North Korea into South Korea. Four have been discovered so far (three in the 1970s, but the last one was in 1990). The third tunnel is only 44 kilometers (27 miles) from Seoul and 1,635 meters (just over a mile) long. It's 73 meters (240 feet) underground, and it's quite steep--I wore my sweater on the way down, but I definitely didn't need it on the way up! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures (cameras were required to be left in lockers above), but it was very interesting. The inside of the tunnel is painted black--when asked about the tunnel, North Korea apparently told South Korea they were mining for coal! It feels tight and small going through it with a tour company, but they told us 30,000 troops could go through in an hour.

Outside of the tunnel, there's a visitor's center, movie theater, and several interesting artistic pieces. This one depicts Koreans trying to put the two Koreas back together:

Here I am with Checkpoint Charlie, a small statue outside of the visitor's center:

Inside the visitor's center is the movie theater, and we watched a short video about the tunnel and the DMZ. We were familiar with most of the historical stuff from our trip to the War Memorial Museum the day before, but the main point of the movie seemed to be that the DMZ had once been the symbol of war and division but it was now the symbol of hope and reconciliation. It is true that because of all the landmines in the DMZ, it has served as a nature preserve and several formerly endangered species have flourished there. The last screen in the movie is of butterflies flitting through long grass, and I'm sure that happens. It is also true that this was prior to North Korea's recent round of saber-rattling. Nevertheless, I think the movie's claims of the DMZ being a symbol of reunification is a little overly hopeful, shall we say.

However, that seems to be the dominant theme of the DMZ tour. After the tunnel and movie, we went to Dora Station, a railroad station with tracks that run between Seoul and Pyeongyang. Well, not actually...there are signs stating that tracks run there (see below) and a sparkling train station (see the second picture below), but there aren't actually any tracks, and neither North nor South Korea wants there to be any. Instead, this "rail station" was built as a symbolic gesture towards reunification. Symbolic railroad ties were even signed by the presidents of South Korea and America, although there aren't any actual railroad ties.

All of this confirms South Korea's huge desire to be reunified, and makes it even more achingly clear that it won't happen anytime soon.

After the DMZ tour, we headed back to Seoul, hung out in the hotel for a bit (Brenden and I had checked out, but Barbara and Doug were staying one more night), then ate a quick dinner at the Express Bus terminal before Brenden and I said good-bye and headed home.

- Carissa

After going back to work for three days, it was the weekend again, and the four of us headed back to Seoul. We had a busy weekend planned, beginning at the War Memorial Museum on Saturday. The museum was quite interesting, although we didn't really take photos of the most interesting parts (at least to me). We started by looking at Korea military paraphernalia throughout the 20th century, then the displays moved on to a detailed explanation of the Korean War. Although we knew the basics facts about the Korean War, we didn't know much about the actual progress of the war, other than MacArthur's successful landing at Incheon, and the fact that the two countries are still technically at war. As a result, the section of the museum that dealt with the Korean War was, for me, the most interesting part.

Each section of the war had displays as well as a short video produced in several languages, including English, that had footage of the war as well as summarized the course of the war and major events. The first thing that really impressed me was a short display showing the positions of North and South Korea before the war and now. What is so notable about that was the dominance of North Korea prior to the war in almost everything--population, crops, electricity, industry, and so on--and the complete reversal of that now. The war significantly damaged both economies, but North Korea's recovered more quickly, at least initially, and until 1975 remained stronger than South Korea's. Since then, obviously, roles have reversed significantly, with North Korea's GDP being only 4% of South Korea's now.

The second thing that really impressed me was realizing that although the war lasted three years (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953), it was only in the first year that positions really changed, and negotiations to end the war began in 1951 when both sides realized neither could win the war. After that, it was basically a stalemate for TWO YEARS while each side tried to capture this hill or that hill to be in a strategically advantageous negotiation position, and so each side would postpone negotiations until it got the hill that it wanted. At the beginning of the war, the 38th parallel marked the dividing line between North and South; eventually, after the armistice in 1953, the DMZ would be divided roughly along the 38th parallel again, meaning there was very little change in boundaries after all that. There was some change, in that the line after the war was angled, so some land changed hand (for example, Kaesong, an ancient Korean city was part of SoKo before the war but is now in NoKo), but there was no real net gain for either side.

Third, I didn't realized how lopsided things actually were within the war--by September 1950, 3 months into the war, North Korea controlled all of South Korea except for Busan, located in the southeastern corner of the country. Due to an influx of American bombers and tanks in late August, the UN/South Korean forces had superior forces, but still controlled only Busan. As a result, MacArthur pushed for an amphibious landing at Incheon, a city on Korea's western coast just an hour west of Seoul (in order to understand the importance of this, remember that Seoul was basically at the pre-1950 border between the two Koreas, so Incheon is the farthest part of SK away from Busan). His landing was successful, and Seoul was recaptured easily. Supply lines to the North Korean troops south of Seoul were cut off, so North Korean troops retreated north of Seoul. By early October, not only were North Korean troops north of the 38th parallel (the dividing line between the two Koreas after World War II), but UN troops had crossed over into North Korea. By mid-October, UN forces had captured Pyongyang, but Mao had also decided that the UN forces posed a risk to China, so Chinese forces were mobilized. Two months after the Chinese entered the war, UN forces were forced out of Seoul, although their retreat ended at Suwon, just one hour south of Seoul (and today essentially a suburb of Seoul). From January to May 1951, fighting centered between Suwon and the 38th parallel, and when the UN forces reached the 38th parallel in May, they decided not to pursue action in North Korea, ushering in the two years of stalemate.

Fourth, although I knew North and South Korea technically never completed the peace agreement, I didn't know why or what happened. As it turns out, North Korea and the US both signed the Armistice, but the South Korean president, Syngman Rhee, refused to sign in, resulting in no official end to the Korean War. Of course, now that North Korea rejected the Armistice (about a month ago, in case you missed it, or a few weeks after our trip to the museum), the US is the only party who still supports it.

It was a really sad to be reminded of the futility of this war, a war where both major parties have rejected the outcome, no one gained anything, livelihoods were devastated, and an estimated four million people died.

On that somber note, we exited the Korean War section and entered real-life war-mobiles section, with small planes, tanks, trucks, and motorcycles. A model parachuter and model airplanes hovered in the air over a two story vaulted ceiling. Brenden particularly liked this motorcycle with its little sidecar (even though it's Russian):

After that area, we took a quick trip through the historical military section, devoted to Korean military history prior to the Korean War. A lot of it was quite familiar to Brenden and I from previous museums, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed this circular shield, identified (as usual) only as being from the Joseon Dynasty period, which is sometime within a 400 year period:

After that, we wandered outside to the museum grounds, where some more impressive stuff remained. This is where the large aircraft and tanks were displayed, although my interest soon waned and I found a shady spot to sit down (Brenden, however, was fascinated and took many, many pictures, which he can post at a later date if he so desires, as I'm sure he knows all about every plane, which I don't). Barbara joined me after a bit, and we waited for Doug and Brenden to finish. When they had wandered to their hearts' content, we all walked over to the official memorial area. Below is the official memorial, symbolizing the separation between the two Koreas. A statue of two soliders represents NoKo and SoKo as two brothers, separated by the war, but reconciling.

It was a somber day, but definitely worth it, and a good stop before our final excursion in Korea with Doug and Barbara: a DMZ tour.

Day two in Seoul with Brenden's parents, we started at the National Museum. The National Museum actually has branches all over Korea, but most of them are full of historical things pertinent to that particular region. The National Museum in Seoul, however, not only has historical artifacts and re-creations, but also has sections devoted to Korean art, which we really enjoyed. Here are just a few of my favorite things:

I really liked this piece--look at the detail and lovely colors, and how the gold actually glistens.

This is a horse token, which was carried by secret royal inspectors who would travel undercover around Korea to do secret investigations during the Joseon period (1392-1910). The horses on the medal indicate how many horses the inspector is entitled to take from stations around Korea (five horses, as below, was the highest number).

This is a royal box of the late Joseon Dynasty (beginning in 1897), which contained the great seal:

Everything above was in the history section. After the history sections, we hurried into the private collections section (i.e., mostly Korean art donated by private collectors), then onto the Korean art area. My favorites were the celadon (popular in the 12th century) and the white porcelain vases (popular during the 18th and 19th centuries). Unfortunately, the celadon vases didn't look nearly as beautiful in photographs as they did in person, so I only have white porcelain jars to share. This dragon-and-cloud jar is from the 18th century:

And this one is from the 19th century contains ten symbols of longevity:

We didn't get to see everything at the National Museum because we had other things planned for the afternoon. When we emerged from the museum, there were crowds of parents and their children, doing special crafts and activities. The crowd was actually a little overwhelming, and it dawned on us that it was because it was Children's Day, that's why everyone was there (Children's Day was the reason for our 4 day weekend--parents take their children to do special things on this holiday).

After eating a quick lunch in the museum courtyard, we took Doug and Barbara to Insa-dong, our favorite area of Seoul. Unfortunately, due to Children's Day, the streets were the most crowded we'd seen them (including the previous weekend, when we'd been to the festival for Buddha's birthday). We wandered around, and Doug and Barbara bought some gifts for friends and family back home. We went past the Starbucks in Insa-dong, as we'd done many times before, but had never taken a picture of it before. Since Insa-dong is a traditional area, Starbucks decided to forgoe their normal logo up top and instead spelled out "Starbucks" in Korean lettering.

After Floritopia, we went back to Seosan and rested up. The next day, Monday, we headed into Seoul with Barbara and Doug, and immediately after checking into our hotel, we headed out to a folk village. The folk village is a lovely re-creation of traditional Korean life, complete with traditional crafts (weaving, silk making, pottery, etc), performances (horse show, dancing, weddings, etc), and buildings. The folk village is divided between two banks of a small stream that runs along the length of the whole village, and on each side are streets with lots of leafy trees, making it a wonderful place to stroll and just absorb the atmosphere. Below is a picture of a building (I believe a water mill) along the river:

Here are the equivalent of totem poles in Korea:

Below is a picture of the horse show we watched, twice (it was really that good). We watched this twice because we visited the folk village twice, the second time with Barbara and Doug. The first time we went in April with Heather, it was overcast and looked like it might rain (although it didn't until after we'd left the folk village), so there were very few people there and we had a much better view of the horse show. Unfortunately, when we came back with Barbara and Doug, it was sunny Monday of a four-day holiday weekend, so there were tons of people, and no place to sit (we had planned to eat our lunch while watching the show). At any rate, though, it was a really amazing show, and I'm glad we saw it twice. In addition to the move below, they also had maneuvers where they hung face-down from the horse, did flips on top of the horse, and in general did some pretty cool things.

We also really enjoyed wandering through the different style houses (i.e, merchant's house, peasant's house in southern Korea, peasant's house in western Korea, and so on) and finding little surprises tucked away, like a straw weaving station. We actually stayed at the straw weaving station for a while both times we went to the folk village--the first time, both Brenden and Heather tried their hand at weaving, and the second time, Doug did. Both times, the gentleman in the picture below was there, helping them to figure it out. Although he didn't speak a word of English, he was the nicest guy ever, and we really enjoyed the time spent there. He always had a huge smile like in the picture below!

Brenden's parents came to visit us in early May, and after bringing them to Seosan, we spend a day just exploring Seosan and relaxing, followed by celebrating Will's birthday that night. Their second full day in Korea, we went out to Floritopia, a flower festival on island about an hour away from us. Well, normally, at least, it takes about an hour to go straight there, and we were lucky enough to find that, indeed, because of the festival, there was a bus that went all the way to the festival grounds. Unfortunately, we soon learned that Floritopia is Very Big Deal, and since there is only one bridge (and road) onto the island, the traffic was horrendous, and our quick hour trip turned into 2.5 hours each way. Once we arrived, we were amazed at the size, and we spent 4 hours exploring the exhibits. I was able to use our new camera to capture a lot of close-ups of flowers, and Brenden and Barbara took lots of pictures of the tulips, which were gorgeous (and must have been very, very expensive, given how many of them were there). Below, here are just a few of our favorites:

These pictures aren't from the same day or even of the same place, but these are pictures I really like that don't particularly fit into a story. As I've had a busy day and we'll be having people over for dinner in 15 minutes, I don't really have time for a story anyway. So, instead, I'll just briefly share a few pictures.

The first picture is of the temple behind our house. We live on the edge of a wooded area and across the street from a few temples. This is the main temple:

The rest of the pictures are on the drive from Seosan, our town, to Ammyando, an island about an hour away. On the way, you pass beautiful rice paddies (which, in early May, were just started to sprout). Enjoy!

The last weekend in April, there was a big festival in Seoul called the Lotus Lantern Festival, to celebrate Buddha's birth. Insa-dong, which is perhaps our favorite neighborhood in Seoul (and the best place to buy anything traditional), hosted the festival, and the streets were lined with craft booths and food stalls and filled with people, half foreigners and half Koreans. Many of the Koreans were wearing traditional Korean clothing, like this group of women:

Heather, Brenden, and I had signed up to make lotus lanterns (a free activity hosted by the festival in English!) and Will decided to join us, too. Since he hadn't signed up, I gave him my place, and Brenden and I worked on one lantern together. We had thought these would be mini lanterns, but it turns out, they were full-size, and making them was a lot more time-intensive than we thought they would be. Two and a half hours later, Brenden and I were finished, but it took over three hours for everyone in our group to finish. Unfortunately, the petals are a little tight at the top of the lantern, so we haven't tried to put a candle inside, as it would be a serious fire hazard. Our lantern is below:

After making the lanterns, we wandering around the streets, marveling at the lanterns (these are regular lanterns, not lotus lanterns):

and walked to a park nearby which was in full bloom, with a lovely pagoda and lanterns:

Although not pictured, we also walked around Insa-dong's temple, which was full of Koreans (and the odd foreigner or two, inevitably with shoulders that weren't fully covered or shirts riding up in the back, both things NOT to do in a Buddhist temple). *sigh* All in all, though, it was a lovely day and we enjoyed experiencing a different aspect of Korean culture than what we experience day-to-day.

- Carissa

P.S. I should note that since our camera broke, these pictures are all courtesy of Heather. Thanks, Heather! :)

One more blog about school stuff. The pictures for this blog are actually really old (from February during my winter camp), but I think they're entertaining, so I thought I'd share them. During the winter camp at my school, I had a map day where I split the kids into small groups and had them create maps (again, excuse the photos, as these were taken with my camera phone).

This first map was what one of the girls' groups created. Note how straight and perfect every line is--I was really impressed with their patience (although I think Korean children are notable in this aspect, more so than American children):

The second one was one two of the boys in my class made, although I don't have a picture of the whole map; I took pictures of individual details because those are important. When I asked the boys about their map, they told me a very detailed story, so each of the pictures below tells one part of their story. In the picture below, they explained to me that one of the boys who wasn't in the group, Will (his English name) was hit by a car (top left), with his bloody body on the street in the top right. Below that is another picture of Will on top of a roof, apparently announcing that he's crazy.

Next in the saga of Will, see this picture below, in which a bleeding Will on his way to the hospital is mugged and shot. Although I don't have a picture of it, he does eventually make it to the hospital (trailing blood all over the streets), but dies there.

Finally, in the last picture is Ryan's house (Ryan is one of the boys who made this map). Notice at the bottom right of the map (beneath the house and the lions) is a doghouse. Ryan informed me that the dog was named Will also.

It may be true that girls are crueler to one another in junior high, but in 6th grade, at least in my classes, it seems the boys pick on each other more. Oddly enough, I have all 3 boys (the two boys who created the map and Will) in my regular classes this year, and they seem to get along just fine. Just another day in the life of an English teacher in Korea!

- Carissa

Now for something different...today, I don't have any sightseeing photos to share, just two photos of some of my students (all of them are 6th graders). The quality isn't great--they were taken with my camera phone on the lowest setting, and it was mid-day with bright sunlight--but we haven't really shared any photos of our students yet. This was taken at our "Rocket Day," where the kids made rockets out of soda bottles (you can see one in the second picture). I didn't actually get to see any launched because our launcher was broken, but the concept is cool!

Love,

Carissa

Haemi is the fortress just outside of our town, and we've now visited it a total of 3 times, beginning in February when it was bitterly cold with snow on the ground and just recently in April, when it was sunny and hot. The last trip we went out to see Haemi because our friend Heather came down for the weekend, and we were taking her around to see the important sights of Seosan. We had a fantastic time--the previous two trips had been rather cold, so we hadn't stayed long. This time, the fortress was quite crowded and there was a traditional parade/dance performance going on, children running around, and numerous ajummas (middle-aged/older women, usually identified in spring by their permed hair, track suits, and enormous glittery visors) fanning themselves.

First, we stopped to watch the traditional performance, enjoying the drumming and dancing (and watched one particularly drunk-looking ajumma decide to participate herself in the circle, which was quite entertaining by itself).

Next, we walked around on top of the fotress wall, taking in the view. The first picture below is of the moat (now handily crossed by a wooden plank) and the second is looking down inside the fortress at the various cultural displays (they have replicas of various styles of houses, ranging from working-class to rich, although all are--of course--from the Joseon dynasty period). Our favorite--and as you can see below, the Korean children's favorite also--is the recreation of the jails (and punishment methods). In the third picture, the kids are really getting into it (note: there is a bug in Blogger, and for some reason, it will not upload the photo correctly--it's rotated correctly in real life, but Blogger is importing it incorrectly, so I can't fix it; a Google search shows this to be a known bug that hasn't been fixed yet--sorry).

After Gkotji Beach, my fantastic co-teacher then took us to a resort along the beach. On the way, we wound our way through some fantastic rural beach scenery--lots of old houses, trees, and water! It was a beautiful drive and we had a lovely time. When we arrived at the resort, we were surprised to see a grass lawn, which is really unusual in Korea (I think this might be the first time I've seen it). They had croquet hoops set up, and two girls were playing badminton on the lawn. European-style buildings were arranged around the lawn, and there were some swings down by the water. Past the buildings, after the lawn, there was a lovely walking area where instead of typical stones making the path, the path was composed of seashells. There was a lovely picnic bench overlooking a small lake, and we sat their quietly for a few minutes, then proceeded to explore the rest of the grounds. It was very peaceful, and we really enjoyed our time wandering about. Of all the things we might have expected the resort to look like in Korea, this was not it. It reminded me, weirdly enough, of Trakai in Lithuania (an island with a castle on it near Vilnius--although there was no castle here, the peaceful calm and lovely walking areas around water are reminiscent).

All in all, it was a fantastic day, and one we never would have been able to do on the public transportation system. It was a very different side of Korea, and one that we really enjoyed. :)

- Carissa

In this picture, you can see the cherry blossoms and seashell path:

My co-teacher Lily, Heather, and me sitting watching the water:

I can't believe it, but the school month of May is finished already--Monday will be June 1st, marking one month left in Korea. So much has happened since the last thing I blogged about, so I will be attempting to do bite-size posts over the next few days, just to share a little bit.

Back in April, my co-teacher Lily (her English name) offered to take Brenden, our friend Heather, and me to her favorite beach in our area, Gkotji. So one Saturday afternoon when Heather was visiting from Incheon, we headed to the beach. It's not your typical SoCal suntan, surf, or play volleyball kind of beach, and parts were a bit rocky--however, it had some really cool features, namely, two rocky islands just off the coast. These rocky islands (see just below) are called the Grandfather and Grandmother Islands, and the legend goes that the grandfather was a sailor who got trapped at sea. His wife, the grandmother, eventually turned to stone from waiting so long, and when the grandfather finally returned and saw his wife had turned to stone, he turned to stone also. In our case, we arrived at low tide, which had receded pretty far and created a lot of tide pools and allowed us to walk across the rocks to the islands.

So we had a great time walking around the islands, exploring the tide pools, and of course, we ran into a group of foreigners working in Taean (a smaller town about 15-20 minute away from Seosan), so we chatted with them for a few minutes (here, all foreigners say hi to each other, even if we've never met before, although we obviously don't do this in Seoul).

We noticed a lot of locals crouching down around the tide pools, and it turns out they were scraping oysters and other small sea creatures off the rocks and out of the pools. These friendly Koreans offered us a sample:

After Gkotji Beach, Lily took us on another adventure, but that's a post for another day.

- Carissa

In an effort to catch up once again, this post will at least finish out our travels in March. I probably won't get to April until another week or two, since Brenden's parents arrived last Friday and will be here for another 5 days or so (more on that in the next posts!). At any rate, in March, we went to Gyeongju, which is Korea's ancient capital. A brief history overview: since about the birth of Christ, Korea (both modern-day North and South) was divided into three kingdoms. The Baekje kingdom, the smallest, was concentrated in our region and south of us, and to the east of us, the Silla (pronounced "shil-luh") kingdom reigned, and north of Seoul (modern-day North Korea and parts of southern China), the Goguryeo kingdom was in charge. Anyway, in 668, the Silla dynasty conquered the other two and united Korea, until the kingdom fragmented and returned to a brief period of three kingdom rule again some 300 years later. For almost a 1000 years then, Gyeongju was the capital, first of the Silla Kingdom, then of the United (Korean) Kingdom. As the ancient capital, it has some pretty cool sights, and we were pretty excited about exploring it, along with our friend Heather.

We arrived in Gyeongju early Saturday morning and set out exploring the city first. We grabbed some gimbap (basically sushi rolls) and sashimi and ate a quick lunch in the park around the National Museum (note: Korea has many branches of the National Museum--this is the branch in Gyeongju, so it has all the stuff concerning Gyeongju and the Silla dynasty). They happened to be offering a guided tour in English just after we arrived, so the three of us joined the tour guide and two other American expats and took a 2 hour tour. The intent was really good, but they spent a lot of time in the early stuff, like Bronze Age artifacts. To be honest, unless you're a Bronze Age historian, it all kind of looks the same, whether it was made in Korea, Georgia, or Lithuania, so we would have rather spent more time exploring the later periods, where things really do look appreciably different and unique from culture to culture. With that said, the museum was really cool, and I wish we'd had the time to really slow down and explore the later period stuff in more detail, as they have some great pottery, jewelery, textiles, and so on.

When we got outside, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and it had started to sprinkle, so we determinedly set out on our next sight, the Anapji royal pond garden. It was beautiful, even though the weather was overcast. Korean gardens are very peaceful, always with ponds, and the idea is to look very natural--very different than Japanese gardens, I think. The first photo is from the largest pond there. After the Anapji, we took a dirt road down the way to find the Cheomseongdae observatory, which is the oldest observatory in East Asia (it dates to the 7th century).

We had limited time, and since we'd finished seeing the major sites in town, it was now time for a tour of the two major tombs just outside of town. The second photo is one of those tomb sites, which shows you what typical tombs in the Silla kingdom looked like (not exactly what Westerners expect tombs to look like!).

Sunday morning, we started early as we had two major sights on our "to-see" list, plus we needed to travel back home, about a 5-6 hour adventure. The two sights for Sunday were Bulguk-sa Temple and Seokguram Grotto. Picture #4 is from the entrance to Bulguk-sa, which ended up being the highlight of our trip to Bulguk-sa. We took many lovely photos (you can see more both in my January-March 2009 Facebook album, as well as Brenden's album on Facebook), but the best part was just wandering through the temple complex by ourselves in the quiet. It was very peaceful and beautiful, and we just enjoyed exploring at our pace. The last picture is of me and Heather beside a pond on our way out of Bulguk-sa--I think it captures the essence, the feeling, of our time there. Last, we made our way up to Seokguram Grotto, which has some really amazing sculptures inside. Unfortunately, since they are also very old and very important, no photos were allowed, and the entire grotto was sealed off, so we could only see one side, from a decent way away. Although we could tell it was impressive, it was also very busy, and we couldn't really linger to enjoy it, so it wasn't as impressive as we expected.

Overall, though, Gyeongju was quite impressive, and would have been even more beautiful in later spring (April to May) or in fall. Even though some things were just starting to bud when we were there, it was a great trip, and one that is a very important part of visiting Korea.

In 0our next posts, we will probably skip past April, and focus on the recent stuff--Brenden's parents coming to visit us!

Carissa

I went on a posting spree for a while, making up for lost time (and I still have some pictures from March to share), but we've been pretty busy, doing two things in the past few weeks: deciding where we're moving to when we come back and making plans for this summer. We've also been preparing for Brenden's parents' arrival in May! We're so excited they're coming out to see us, and we've been trying to plan on where to go and what to see while they're here. :) Also, since they are coming, we've been ordering a few things for them to bring with them. :) Unfortunately, one of those things they're bringing with them includes a new camera for us. We loved our Sony W80, but after 2 years, the sensor died, and pretty much everything I read indicated that if the sensor dies, it's not worth it to replace it (unless you have an expensive, professional-level camera). So I spent a lot of time researching cameras this week, and we've ordered a new one, this time a Panasonic Lumix. It's a 10 MP point-and-shoot with wide-angle lens (which we're excited to try out!), and I'm *hoping* it will do better in low-level light than our previous camera (really, my only gripe with our Sony). Unfortunately, anyone who's researched cameras knows that there really aren't any P&S cameras that do great in low light, but we want something portable, and a DSLR just isn't it. We're excited to try out the camera, though, and see what it can do!

Last weekend, our friend Heather came down to Seosan for the weekend, and we showed her the Seosan area--complete with an unplanned, really indirect bus ride around the fields of Seosan. Unfortunately, last weekend is when we realized our camera was dead, so we don't have any pictures yet (we'll get some from Heather). Next weekend, we're going to Incheon (where Heather lives) on Friday night, then out to Suwon (a big fortress) on Saturday, followed by dinner at On the Border on Saturday night, and then back to Incheon. On Sunday, we'll be back in Seoul again for a festival celebrating Buddha's birthday. We'll be making lanterns (there's a class for foreigners!) with Heather and our friends Ahna and David from Seosan, and then just walking around Insa-dong, our favorite area of Seoul. Unfortunately, we won't have our camera for any of that, either, so we'll be depending on others for photos.

This week is an unusual one for me. The 6th graders have a 3 day trip, which started today, and since I teach 6th grade 4 days out of the week (everyday except Thursday), I have today and Friday off from class (but not off from school--I still have to sit in my office all day). Thursday is my day to teach 3rd graders but as it happens, the 3rd grade picnic is that day, so my co-teacher and I will be going on a picnic with 150 3rd graders. In the meantime, I'll be working on lesson plans for my teachers' lessons and bulletin board postings about the English language and American culture.

- Carissa

Our third day in a row of sightseeing, we headed into Seoul, Korea's capital and largest city. We've been to Seoul a number of times, and we've done some sightseeing, but mostly of the people-watching/exploring different parts of the city kind. This time, we went to one of the many palaces in Seoul. This was our first time visiting a Korean palace and, honestly, probably our last. Although I would definitely recommend going to visit a palace in Korea, one is probably enough (and if you only go to one, you should go to the one we went to, Changdeok-gung). Why? Well, for starters, all the palaces were built--or at least restored--during the Joseon Dynasty, just like the temples. The Joseon Dynasty has one basic color scheme--they apparently loved it very much, and decided to stick with it, very much. But to me, it gets a little boring when building after building looks the same on the outside. Korean temples are often very ornate inside, but the palaces seem to have pretty plain walls (except for the Throne Room). Occasionally, there's some cool furniture, but mostly the furniture has all been moved to the National Museum in Seoul, so you can't really get a sense of what it would have looked like inside in its heyday, either.

Anyway, with all the said, I was very excited to go on our tour of Changdeok-gung (the name of the palace) and Biwon (the attached garden, which means "the Secret Garden"). It served as the royal palace and the seat of government for over 250 years (from 1610-1872), and is the best preserved of the royal palaces. A guided tour (which luckily is available in English) is required, and lasts for about 90 minutes.

The richly decorated Throne Room was quite beautiful and was certainly one of the highlights of the tour:

Below is a picture of a private entrance leading from the king's living quarters directly into the garden:

A more modern part of the palace:

The other highlight of the tour was the Secret Garden (and is the real reason why touring this palace should be preferred over touring one of the others). It's quite beautiful, even though it was still in winter when we went, so it wasn't at its best. The Korean garden style is very different than Western gardens or Japanese gardens. Everything is designed to look very natural, so that one feels at home in nature. Although there are many observation platforms in the garden, when walking through the garden, it should feel like one is walking through nature, not a planned garden. In one section of the garden is a Chinese juniper tree thought to be 1,000 years old.

My favorite part of the garden, however, is a beautiful pond with a small pavilion connected to it, and a center island:

Of course, this is a picture in winter, with ice instead of water, but even then, it is calm and peaceful and lovely. In spring, with the water flowing and flowers blossoming, it will be even more beautiful.

- Carissa

Fresh from our "let's-travel-Korea!" kick, the next day after visiting Cheonan, we decided to go to Haemi Fortress. Haemi is our local fortress, just a 20 minute bus ride from Seosan, so since Brenden had the day off and I had a half-day, we headed off mid-afternoon, with our neighbors Connie and Paul in tow (Connie and Paul are the American couple who live next door to us; Paul is retired, but Connie is an English teacher). We made it to Haemi without a hitch. This is a picture of the fortress wall and a watchtower:

Anyway, as soon as we got out of the bus, we realized that not only was it a little colder than we had anticipated, it was also very, very windy at the fortress. We walked across the street and down about five minutes to the fortress entrance, took a few pictures at the entrance, and then Connie and Paul announced they would head back to the bakery/coffee shop by where we'd gotten off the bus, as they had already seen the fortress. We assured them we wouldn't be long, and we basically ran around the fortress, trying to see the major components. We didn't even stop to read most of the information bulletins--and you know how much we love those! We went to the center portion, which was set up like a jail, with each cell showing a different example of torture methods (based on similar exhibits from the Hall of Independence, I assume these were examples of Japanese torture of Koreans). In the middle of the jail yard, there were large cross-shaped benches, with ropes to tie the arms and legs down, along with large paddles used to beat prisoners. Brenden is brandishing the paddle below:

Next, we raced up to the highest part of the fortress, up a long flight of stairs to a large traditional watchtowers. From there, we could look down and see not only the entire fortress yard, but anyone approaching from all sides. We didn't stay long though, just long enough to take a few pictures and race down to examine the stone piles (picture below). They resemble wishing piles I've encountered before--basically, you add a small stone to the pile and make a wish or say a prayer. We didn't stop to add stones, however, as we decided it was time to leave.

We resolved to make our way back there once we're in spring and the cherry blossoms are in season, so hopefully that will be soon!

- Carissa

In the last installment, we went to Cheonan to see the big Buddha. After getting back to the express bus terminal, we went looking for the bus to the Hall of Independence, which is the biggest reason why tourists come to Cheonan (although I should note that on this cold and blustery day, we were the only tourists we encountered anywhere). As our guidebook has been wrong about the bus number to the Buddha, we were not optimistic that it was correct about the bus number to the Hall of Independence. Nevertheless, we saw the bus pull up, so we went up and asked, and sure enough, it was the wrong bus. Now it was time to pull the old ask-a-native trick, so we did the same thing as before. After a few false starts, a woman with excellent English asked us what we were looking for. We told her, but unfortunately, she was unfamiliar with the Hall of Independence (or, at any rate, with the particular bus number). Not to be deterred, she asked a group of teenagers standing nearby if they knew anything in Korean--and, as luck would have it, they did, and the bus had just arrived. So we thanked them profusely, and hopped on.

We had been on the bus for about 25 minutes when we started to get worried. We were definitely outside of the city now, and the weather was turning nastier. We weren't the only ones on the bus, however, though, so we just waited--and then we saw the sign (in English, even!) for the Hall of Independence. The bus even turned into the parking lot--but it never stopped. We left the parking lot, and turned away from the Hall of Independence. There was a stop another 5 minutes along, and we got off there, then trudged back (apparently, we were supposed to push the button for the bus to stop--since this was only my second local bus ride in Korea, the first one being to the big Buddha, I didn't know that). It was a good 10 minutes from the bus stop and through the parking lot to the entrance gate. The entrance gate is sort of like entering a theme park: there's just acres and acres of space (in this case, empty space) between you and the main attractions. As we entered, the attendents smiled at us, surprised to see foreigners coming to the museum.

We arrived at the first main sight: the wings (see below for the picture). These wings represent the Korean spirit, soaring the heavens, and they are quite striking and very tall.

After the wings archway, we had a long walk to the next area, which was a diorama area. More on that below, but here is a view looking back towards the arches, far, far away:

In order to understand the dioramas, I should explain the point of the Hall of Independence. You might think this is similar to Independence Hall or the Liberty Bell in America, but you'd be wrong. No, this museum is basically a "remember the Japanese invasion" museum--as well they should. The Japanese clearly did some pretty terrible things when they invaded in the early twentieth century. Here is a diorama scene of the Japanese soldiers executing Koreans:

After the diorama areas (which were pretty cool), then there was another pavilion, with the Korean flag hanging inside. But we weren't to the actual exhibition halls yet. No, those were still farther away. When we finally arrived, there were 7 exhibition halls. Unfortunately, it was now almost 4pm, and the museum closed at 5pm, so we went very, very quickly through the museum. The first exhibition hall was all about the cultural treasures of Korea, and included a replica of the Turtle Ship, which was used in a battle against the Japanese invasions in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. That was pretty cool (picture below):

Also in that hall were tons of models of various pagodas and palaces, a replica of the inside of the burial mounds, traditional clothing, weapons, and lots more. The coolest thing we saw, however, was the singijeon (also called the hwacha). Funny you should ask what a singijeon is, because just a few weeks prior, we had been watching the Discovery Channel and we learned all about them. On the show Mythbusters (our favorite DC show, and also usually playing about the time we feel like a little bedtime TV) did a show where they built one, and tried to make it work--and guess what, it does work! It was a really awesome episode. Anyway, what it does is fire off up to 200 flaming arrows all at once, although, if you're interested, Wikipedia has more detailed accounts here and here. The picture from the Hall of Independence is below:

So far, that's all the really cool things. Unfortunately, in the early 20th century, the Japanese invasion succeeded (after hundreds of years of trying...), and the rest of the exhibition halls were devoted to the invasion and the aftermath. That part was much sadder and much more serious, and we don't really have any pictures from that portion. This whole part is a big "never again!" reminder for all Koreans. Unfortunately, we didn't really have to the time that we really should have to go there. Overall, the museum was really incredible, and greatly exceeded our expectations. It was really incredible experience, and I would highly recommend that anyone who visits Korea should come here.

As we left the the museum, it was lightly snowing and we hustled back to the bus stop in the parking lot. Luckily, we didn't have to wait long before a bus showed up, and we headed back to the bus terminal in Cheonan. We bought our tickets home, and then went for a lovely dinner at a nice Vietnamese place before piling back onto to the bus. The ride home was uneventful, and we were happy to arrive back at home and go to sleep, satisfied with our wonderful adventure.

- Carissa

On a particular Thursday in February, Brenden didn't have to work for a few days, and I had the day off due to graduation, so we decided to go to Cheonan. It had been a while since we traveled last, and I suddenly realized how long we'd been in Korea and how much I still wanted to see. So we woke up and headed out to Cheonan for a daytrip! The first item on the agenda was a big Buddha statue next to the temple Gakwon-sa. The temple was basically like most other temples in Korea, but the statue was something else. As it turns out, finding the statue would also be a challenge!

We arrived at the bus station, ate a quick early lunch, then looked for bus 102, which our guidebook said went directly there. We found bus 102 on the schedule, but it only left 4 times a day, 2 very early in the morning and 2 at night. However, saw the bus pull up as we tried to figure out what to do, so we went up to the driver and asked, "Gakwon-sa?" He shook his head, so we were on to Plan B: ask a native. The first few people we showed the picture to just shook their heads, but after a minute or two, a nice man told us the bus number in English and showed us the bus stop, across the street. As we walked across the street, the man ran after us to let us know that the bus was coming, so we should hurry up. We made it over in the nick of time, and only as we got on the bus realized we didn't know where to get off. We figured we'd get off when we saw the Buddha or a sign for Gakwon-sa. Neither happened, but after 15 minutes, we came to the end of the route. We asked the driver, "Gakwon-sa?" and he pointed up the road, so we walked on.

We passed a lovely green lake, and then saw the stairs leading up to the temple grounds. After huffing and puffing up the stairs (there were a lot of them, and they were very steep), we saw the Buddha in the distance. It was pretty incredible, even from far away. At 60 tons of bronze, it should be (the ears are almost as long as I am tall). It was really cold (a lot colder than I'd thought when we left Seosan), so we took a bunch of pictures, observed the candles burning, and then went off to explore the temple grounds.

There was a lovely wooded area that might have been nice to explore, but it was too cold to explore, and anyway, it was getting late and we had another destination planned on our daytrip. We hurried back to the bus stop, only to find it would be a hurry-up-and-wait situation on a cold bus stop bench (the bus was there, but the driver was sleeping in the bus, so we weren't allowed inside). However, soon we were back at the express bus station again, and the adventure began all over again! This story to be continued in the installment tomorrow...

But for now, here are some pictures of the Gakwon-sa Buddha and surroundings, beginning with the lake:

- Carissa

At the end of January, we traveled with two new friends, David & Gisela, to Muju, Korea's premiere ski resort. David & Gisela are both English teachers in Seosan, but we also met up with David's brother Mark, who is in the US military stationed here in Korea. None of us had ever skied before, although Mark and Brenden had been snowboarding, so we started on the bunny slope. The slope, unfortunately, was still pretty icy, which isn't great for beginners. Gisela and I went down the hill together (or we tried to stick together), which meant our first run took forever (because if she fell, I waited for her to get back up, and vice versa), plus we had no idea how to get up, so that took a while, too. Meanwhile, the guys did a bit better their first run down, especially Brenden, who didn't fall at all. By the end of the first run, Gisela and I were ready for a break, so while the guys went on another run, we headed inside for a soda break. When the guys finished their run, we all ate an early lunch and headed back to the slopes.

The second run down was much better! After falling down early in the run, I was determined to make it all the way to the bottom without falling. I was a little terrified of reaching the bottom of the hill and not being able to stop, but I was fed up with falling that I decided the risk was worth it. I was determined to get all the way down to the bottom without falling! I actually did just that, and I really enjoyed it. That run was the best run of the day--most people were just leaving for lunch, so I didn't have to wait in line long, and the snow was powdery, just perfect for skiing. The rest of the runs, however, were lots of fun, too, and we really enjoyed our afternoon skiing.

Although we didn't become world-class skiiers in one day, we enjoyed our day. If we live near a ski resort next winter, we might just go for another whirl!

Below is a photo of Brenden and David on the slopes:

- Carissa

This post is a double post - both an update on the present (my health) and the past (our winter camp). I felt much better this morning, but by this afternoon, my stomach felt queasy. I was counting the minutes until five o'clock, and I actually left 3 minutes early today and as soon as I got home, I lay down (both things I never do). I'm feeling better now, but I guess we'll see how tomorrow goes.

The pictures attached to this update are from our winter camp. There's a pictures of two of my students (the girls are giving the mandatory Korean "I'm cute" signal with their hands), as well as my classroom. You can tell my theme was "Department Store." :)

- Carissa

After feeling just generally terrible and a hacking cough I haven't been able to shake for the last 3 weeks, I went to the doctor today. After taking my blood pressure and declaring that normal, they took my temperature, and then sent me into the doctor. She asked me about my symptoms in English, which I was a bit surprised about, and then she conversed in Korean for a bit with Steven (Steven works for our recruitment agency, so he takes us to the doctor or pharmacy or other places we need help at), then sent me to get my chest x-rayed. The x-ray showed I don't have pneumonia, but I do have bronchitis. So now I have some pills and a liquid to take (I am unclear on exactly what any of them do, but I am to take them 3 times a day, after I eat, and the pills might make me drowsy or give me insomnia--good times). On Thursday, I have to go back to her and she'll check on me. So, until then, here's hoping the pills help!

- Carissa

As promised, I have an update (with photos!) of what we've been up to in 2009. Today's update is about Busan, Korea's second-largest city. It's a port city in the southern part of the city and to any readers familar with Georgia who might be reading this, it's like Batumi in Georgia, in terms of importance, serving as a cultural counterweight to Tbilisi, and also the feel of the city. The major difference is that Busan is a real large city, about the size of Los Angeles, so the level of bustle is obviously different. Anyway, we went down to Busan just after New Year's with our friend Will, and had a great time. Even though January can be a bit chilly here in Korea, Busan is the warmest part of Korea, so it wasn't much below the 30s at any point and no snow in sight!

We arrived on Friday evening, found our hotel, and spent a quiet night because we had a full day of sightseeing planned for Saturday. On Saturday, we set out early and began at Beomeosa Temple. It was founded in 678, although it has all been rebuilt more recently than that. It is a large temple complex, and we enjoyed just walking around the complex and exploring at our own pace. As you enter the complex, there are four statues in the entrance hall which are to ward off evil spirits. They are each very detailed and each statue holds different things.

The temple buildings look relatively similar to temple buildings all over Korea, although there was some designs that are later than the Joseon Dynasty designs which are most common. Also, there was a cool set of statues representing "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" that we particularly enjoyed. For more photos, I hope to upload an album to Facebook in the next few weeks. Below is a temple building, representing a very typical design scheme but highlighting Beomeosa's location near Busan, but still quite outside (and seemingly quite a distance away):

Next, we found our way to the United Nations Memorial Cemetery, filled with graves from soliders who fought in the Korean War. In the picture below, you can see how it's in the middle of the city. The small brownish bushes are planted by each grave (and there are no flowers or anything else next to the graves, different than American cemeteries), but this section represents only a tiny portion of the total amount. Twenty-odd countries send troops to Korea, and there are memorial statues for each countries, regardless of the number sent. I had not realized until now what a huge percentage of the losses were American, and how many Americans died in Korea. As we walked quietly throgh the cemetary, an elderly Korean gentleman came up to us and asked us where we were from. When we said we were American, he bowed and thanked us. It was a reminder that even though the Korean War is largely forgotten war for Americans, it certainly isn't here. At the end of the cemetery, there was a long wall (similar to the Vietnam War Memorial in DC) with the list of everyone who died in the Korean War, and it was quite sobering to have the stark numbers become names from particular states and countries.

After the cemetery, we stopped at the Lotte Department Store (the largest department store in Korea) to explore and eat lunch at the food court. As we walked into the food court, we saw a replica of the Trevi fountain in Rome, just hanging out at the entrance to the department store and next to a collection of shoes racks. It was quite incongruous, to say the least, to see this hanging out there:

After a late lunch, we walked around Lotte Department Store, which is MASSIVE. Floors and floors of items were available--it was just ridiculous! We walked over the wine and cheese section, hoping to pick up a good Riesling and lots of good cheese, but there wasn't any Riesling to be found, and all of the cheese was quite expensive.

Brenden wasn't feeling very well, so we headed back to our hotel for some down time. After resting a bit, we headed out again, this time to one of the trendy, nightlife areas of Busan. We walked along the crowded streets, looking for the way up to Busan Tower. We walked up the short (but steep) walkway up the tower, then took the elevator up to the top. Busan Tower is 120 meters tall (that's almost 400 feet), and has a quite spectuacular view from the top.

Above is a picture of the tower. As we walked down from the tower, we saw lots of small shops, and whole courtyard just filled with hanging lanterns, next to a small Buddha statue. It was a lovely area, and we were enchanted with the evening.

After eating dinner, we went to bed early again. Sunday morning, we made our way down beachfront Busan. We went to a small bakery for breakfast, then walked over to Haeundae Beach, the most famous beach in Korea. Although it was mid-morning, it (strangely) looked as though it was just after sunrise. The beach was beautiful, but it was pretty windy and cold, so we didn't stay long. This concluded a wonderful weekend away!

As you've probably guessed by now, Korea has turned us into terrible bloggers. Part of this is that we're able to communicate with people by Skype on a regular basis, part of it is that we're a bit busier here than we were in Georgia, and, well, part of it is that we don't really have much in the way of news. In Georgia, even very small things could be news. In Korea, life is much more modern, easier, and hence, not as colorful. We have been traveling some around Korea, and in the next week, I promise we WILL get some photos up. Unfortunately, I had to reformat my laptop hard drive, so (until a few days ago) all of my photos were sitting on my portable hard drive, and I needed my photo program to restore them. The photo program, however, wouldn't reinstall correctly. I tried about a billion different solutions and finally gave up a few nights ago and bought another license. Now the program works correctly but the restore function doesn't work the way that it's supposed to, so I had to do it the long, hard way. Right now, I've restored photos through June 2008, which is about 12 GB worth. You might think that means I'm almost done. Actually, that means I'm *maybe* halfway done because of the 12 or 13 GB of photos we have from last summer alone, plus everything from Armenia, San Diego, and Korea since then! All this to say, I will work hard on this over the next week, and hopefully by next week, I will be organized to the point that I can sort through the photos from the last few months and post a few of the best ones.

Another reason we haven't written much is that I've been sick, so other than some traveling and teaching, I haven't really been doing much. I was very sick 3 weekends ago and I went home early from school on the Monday after, but I felt much better on Tuesday, except for a cough. Well, that cough has been around ever since, so if it's not gone by next Monday (that is, 3 days from now), I'm going to go to the doctor. To add to the fun, I've been getting chills, headaches, and all-over-body aches, and it doesn't seem to be getting better. :(

Teaching has become pretty routine, although I should say I have a new co-teacher this year, and her English is excellent. She just returned from a 6 month training course in English (one month of which was spent in Florida), and her command is very impressive. She's also only one year older than me, so we have a lot in common. Brenden is also working a LOT more this semester, so between him teaching so much and me being sick, we mostly just eat dinner and collapse at night (in between obsessing about where we'll be in August).

However, the most exciting news in our life right now (as many of you know) is that we have a new niece! Faith Susannah was born a few days ago to Brenden's sister Rachel, and she is adorable. :) We can't wait to meet her in person!

So, yesterday C, Drew, and I took a trip to visit a gigantic brass Buddha statue and a Korean museum. It was sort of a 'well why not let's go right now' kind of trip, but I really enjoyed it. First, to the Buddha.

Christian iconography tends towards the macabre. With the notable exception of the "Buddy Jesus" (with all hatred directed towards Precious Memories), Christian symbols basically celebrate sacrificial love through death. Which is not to say that they aren't incredibly stirring, on many levels, or don't resonate on a personal level. But, they do tend to show, and perhaps linger, on pain. That, and the color palate tends to be pretty drab. Go to any major cathedral, and you'll find somber, dark, and relatively simplistic colors. I'm not denying that Christian iconography can be incredibly beautiful, but it is a bit of a downer sometimes.

Buddhist iconography, however, is pretty much just happy. Buddha, in the Korean tradition, is more somber than the fat and happy buddha that we've all seen in the Chinese restaurants. The Buddha we saw was about 25 feet tall, and weighed about 60 tons (made from bronze). It was, however, relatively bemused, as opposed to 'in pain.' There's a sense of peacefulness from Buddhist iconography that just doesn't really resonate in Christian iconography. We poked around the temple complex, and I took a peek into one of the larger temples that we saw. The colors and patterns are extremely bright; greens and reds are the predominate colors, as opposed to the black and white palate of Christian medieval art. Patternwork covers pretty much every surface; cranes fly, dragons breath fire, and through it all, Buddha sits peaceful. It's quite stirring.

The only Christian building I've ever seen that could come close to the colors of the temple was the cathedral in Buddapest, which borrowed heavily from Islamic tropes. The temple here in Korea was brighter and more vibrant; quite stirring, in fact. I rather liked it, but felt quite awkward about being inside of it. I took off my shoes, ducked through the door, and sort of stood in the entryway. Given that I'm not a buddhist, it felt a bit odd to be inside one of their temples. I'm not familiar or comfortable with the etiquette involved, so I sort of just looked about from my station by the door for about 2 minutes and then left. One lady was praying about 40 feet down from me, which is quite athletic (by which I mean the prayers, of course, not the distance), and I decided to leave before I disturbed her.

After the temple complex, we headed back to the bus terminal and attempted to make our way to a large Korean museum about Japanese occupation. I should note here that our guidebook was completely useless in getting us from point A to point B, and Andrew ended up playing the desparate tourist card of "do you speak English? How do I go here?" twice to get us around. C and I have done it before, and frankly, it's less than pleasant. I was quite grateful that he took the plunge for us on it... Due to the kindness of strangers, we were able to get to both places we wanted to go. I think that's one of the great things about travel; in general, strangers will help you if they can. It's a nice thing to recognize that humans can be kind (but perhaps choose not to be).

Anyway, on to the museum. It felt like an angrier version of the post-soviet occupation Latvian museums. Korea, as it turns out, didn't really appreciate being occupied by Japan for 40 years. the complex was huge (it took us 25 minutes to walk through the entry area to the museum). Quite depressing, overall, and quite the strident tone. Japan has a rather poor relationship with Korea, and it flames up now and then over Japanese revisions of their school textbooks to leave out the history of occupation, or interpretations of treaties, etc. The history is incredibly tragic, and the amount of is pretty staggering. The complex has 7 huge buildings, all detailing a piece of Korean history between roughly 1880 and 1945. There's an incredible amount of pain that the Koreans went through to achieve independence, and it's layed out in pretty gory detail. The Korean story is tragic, and it's heartbreaking that the tragedy still continues to today.

One of the benefits of not living in the States is the easy access to local markets. I really enjoy going to my market - I probably don't go nearly enough, honestly, but golly, it is nice.

I really enjoy being able to choose the vegetables I want, from the seller I want - and then the fun of just walking around looking at everything that's out there. Small, old, Korean women sit on the ground, basically, and have a blanket in front of them with produce from their own farms. It's a cool system. Plus, you immediately get a really good sense of what is in-season, and what isn't.

One of my goals for this year is to consciously consume less meat, and eat more locally. I've become more and more convinced that current consumption modes are unsustainable; I'm trying to be more conscious of my consumption patterns, and one of the main products in unsupportable agribusiness is meat. As a result of that, going to the market, buying local produce, and eating in-season locally produced vegetables seems to make sense. Plus, I get to act all superior without needing all that much change in my own life...

So, I've been rocking the local produce. It's also kind of fun to challenge myself to use a new vegetable in my cooking, and try to expand my cooking ability. I've become somewhat stagnant in the dishes I make; curry, pasta (sauce), stir fry. Rinse, cycle, repeat. So, I've begun to look for more innovative things to do with a microwave, 2 burners, a toaster oven, and roughly 4 inches of usable counter space. :-)

On a totally unrelated topic... after finishing dinner (curry - surprise surprise, but I did try it with cabbage - not a winner, fyi) C and I watched Frost Nixon. I was surprised at how good it was. Oddly enough, I was actually rooting for Nixon. Not because I support him, but because I enjoy good debate and watching him dismantle Frost for the first 4 days was really entertaining. On the denunciation day, I was a bit disappointed - C and I actually paused the movie to complain about the tactics - but overall I was really satisfied. Thinking about the overall thrust of the movie, it just made me quite sad about the state of American politics for the last 30 years. There really hasn't been much in the way of light coming out of the marble halls of power lately... More then anything, it just made me sad. There's a strong sense of resignation and just plain fatigue that you leave that movie with. It's excellent, no doubt. But sad.

So, I've decided that I had/have the flu. Wow, it is not nearly as cool as people say it is. You know, how it's what all the birds are doing and stuff. Ha! No. Not really.

Basically, it makes you feel awful. And if you go to a hospital, you may get the fun of playing IV roulette, where the doctor hooks you to a bag of yellow fluid, and you try to guess what's in it. At the same time, add an unidentified pain-killing narcotic, and attempt to see what happens. Answer: Nothing for 2.5 hours, and then you go home. Good times.

Medical care is always scary, but frankly, not speaking the same language as your doctor adds a bit of 'oomph' to the fun of being in the hospital. I would not recommend it. The good news is that I feel much better now...

Well, I've now taken my first official sick day in Korea. Damn! I had been doing so well - last year, even though I felt pretty bad a few times, I managed to make it to school every day. This time, not so much. I took my bike home yesterday at 1pm, and it was a good thing too, because I had a pretty high fever and started shivering if I was in bed. I think I've slept about 18 out of the last 24 hours. Good times... tomorrow I'm going to try to get a ride with one of the teachers; not only do I not quite feel up to a drive in 35 degree weather, it's also supposed to rain. Ugh!

Korea has been quite the experience over all. It's amazing how different life can be for the first few days, and then how normal life becomes so quickly. When we first got to Seosan, it was incredibly confusing and frankly quite daunting. Now? It's all become so familiar and easy. I guess that's the difference between Georgia and Korea - life was so difficult in Georgia. There was just a constant struggle, for the language, for the food, for the people; here, life is easy and simple. I get up, I go to school, I teach my classes, and then I go home. I can buy western food if I want, I can make Korean food if I want, and I live in my own apartment with beautiful windows and nice heat. Showers every day, and more if I want - what's not to love?!

FYI, I've now tried live octopus. Yep, still wiggling and all, with possible suffocation if it attaches to your windpipe on the way down! Yay! In answering the question of 'how does it taste', I prefer to give the answer of 'how does it feel?'. Chewy. As much as chewy is a flavor, that's octopus. I ended up sitting there chewing for about 5 minutes to make sure the darn thing wasn't going to kill me. It comes in a bowl, and frankly, looks pretty much wiggly. It's kind of disturbing, but I figured that my chances of doing it anywhere else were pretty much zero - so why not go for it? It also comes with a mildly spicy red sauce, which was better than the octopus.

The fish market here is quite a trip to go through. Imagine a normal fish shop, and then imagine that you can go *and eat ANYTHING*. There's pretty much everything there, and it's all alive. Drew and I watched a lady moving a batch of octopi from one tank to another, and wow, they were pretty pissed about it. They were hitting the ceiling of her little tent with ink, and constantly crawling out of the tank. It was so entertaining we actually stood there and just watched for about 5 minutes. Because Seosan is so close to the ocean, we have excellent sea food.

In fact, my school cafeteria always has excellent seafood soup, usually with oysters or mussels. And they're certainly not skimpy on adding them in, either. In America, I found oysters gross; here, they're actually pretty delicious. There's a dish with red chili paste and raw oysters that's especially good.

And to change the topic yet again, I got a call yesterday (in the midst of a fever-induced shiver spree) from a Seosan Deptartment of Education. Aparently, they had been told that I was the best English teacher in Seosan, and wanted me to start weekend classes for students at the Department of Education. That felt pretty good (with the exception of being really sick). I'm not really sure how lucid I was, but I'm going to call again next week and find out more information (when hopefully I can remember everything that occurs in the phone call).

Well, I just checked on the last post for us here: Christmas. If that doesn't say lazy, I don't know what does. Well, maybe not lazy, but certainly busy. C and I have had a very, very, very busy 'vacation' from school over the winter break. Combined, I've had 2 days off that weren't national holidays. C is in the same boat... We've both been teaching at winter English camps, both at our regular schools and at Buchun Elementary. I had two weeks of 3rd and 4th grade, then two weeks of Buchun, then 2 weeks of 5th and 6th grade camp. It's been a challenge.

Oddly enough, I discovered, that, contrary to my expectations, dealing with 3rd and 4th graders is much easier than 5th and 6th. My most difficult classes are ones with the oldest students. I always thought of myself as much better at polishing rather than shaping, but these students are definitely a challenge.

I intended to make one more post with photos from the Europe trip this summer (the Czech Republic was the last country)...but for whatever reason, Blogger won't upload any pics right now. It's not the Internet's fault, as it's blazing fast at my school, so I'm not sure what the issue is. At any rate, it's probably about time we started writing about our present country anyway.

We're in South Korea, in the town of Seosan (pronounced "so-san"). It's about 20 minutes from the beach on the eastern side (yay!), and about 1 1/2 hour due south of Seoul, the capital. It's large enough (200,000 people) that just abo0ut anything we need can be found here, but small enough that we now understand how to navigate it, mostly.

We're really enjoying it so far. The people are very friendly, and life is pretty easy so far. We're adjusting to Korean culture and food, of course, and learning about the Korean school system. The first two weeks, I was teaching 1st & 2nd graders by myself, but now I'm teaching 4th and 6th graders with my co-teacher. My school is very close to our apartment (less than a 5 minute walk), which I'm very grateful for, and I'm sure will be even more grateful for once winter hits. Brenden's school is much farther (a 15 minute drive), but he gets a ride from a teacher who teaches at his school (but this teacher's wife teaches at MY school). Brenden is teaching 3rd-6th graders. It's going well so far.

Koreans love sports, which is great! We played badminton for the first time last Tuesday night, and had great fun! So we've decided to practice on our own also, and badminton is, luckily, a very easy and cheap sport to get into, so we bought our own rackets and birdies and began practicing this past weekend! Additionally, every school has "volleyball time" on Wednesday afternoons for the teachers, so Brenden and I are playing with our respective schools. I was a little nervous before the first game, to be honest, since I really haven't played since high school, but I shouldn't have been. Not only are there multiple levels of players, but I'm actually not half bad. I made a few points and saves in our first match, so I'm looking forward to match #2, this Wednesday. :)

We'd love to hear from you back at home what's going on there! So far, culture shock has been minimal, and thanks to the Internet, it's so much easier to keep in contact with all of you back at home, which has reduced homesickness also.

Since we're now in South Korea, I won't write long blogs for the last week of our summer vacation in Hungary and the Czech Republic, but I will post a few pics. Here's Budapest!

#1: Inside the Opera House

#2: St. Stephen's Basilica

#3: View of the river and a bridge over to Pest

#4: Close up of Church at Jak

We woke up early on the morning of July 9th because it was a special day: the day we met up with my parents and sisters, for the first time in over a year! (Little did we know at that point that we'd be seeing my parents a lot earlier than we had planned only shortly after our vacation...) We collected everything quickly, checked out, and arrived at the train station plenty early for our 45-minute-long train ride from Bratislava to Vienna. The train was nice and empty, and we were told to sit wherever we chose, so we sat down in the first-class section (which had bigger seats and more leg room). We arrived at the hotel, but my family hadn't arrived yet. So we waited, anxiously...and waited...and waited (their flight was due to arrive at the same time as our train arrived; since the airport was a little farther than the train station, I thought we might arrive a little before them, but not a significant amount). Around the two hour mark, we decided to venture out for a few minutes. There was an English-language bookstore across the street, so we walked over there and browsed. I had intended to purchase something, but the cost made me reconsider ($15 for a paperback, $20 for a magazine), so we ended up empty-handed. As we waited to cross the street back to the hotel, Brenden spotted my mom. We rushed across the street and hugged everyone. I was so excited I couldn't hardly stand still.

After checking in and depositing our luggage in our rooms, we ate at a little neighborhood restaurant around the street, where we had way too much fantastic Austrian/German food (lots and lots of schnitzel), then we went out for a tram tour of the Ring. After a complete tour on the tram around the Ring, we got off the tram and began our walking tour. First we saw Mozart's statue, with a cute little music note created out of flowers in front of it. We walked past part of the Hofburg Palace (it's enormous!) and then to the Hapsburg parish church, right next to the Hofburg, the Augustinerkirche (St. Augustine's Church). This church is memorable for a large marble memorial to Maria Christina, Maria Theresa's favorite daughter (and the only daughter allowed to marry for love instead of alliance). I, personally, think the memorial is rather creepy and Masonic-looking, but other people have described it as moving, so I guess it depends on your perspective. The chapel in the church also contains (in an urn) the hearts of 54 Hapsburg rulers. Also creepy, in my opinion, and even creepier when you realize the Ducal Crypt, underneath Stephansdom, also has innards of Hapsburgs, and the Imperial Crypt is where most of their bodies are. I'm not sure what the point was of separating them all out like that.

Speaking of which, after Augustinerkirche, our next destination was the Imperial Crypt. Most of the sarcophagi were pretty ornate. Especially in the early years (1600s and early 1700s), a popular ornamentation was a crucifix next to a skull. Most sarcophagi were rather ornate, and Charles VI's sarcophagi even had a skull with the Holy Roman Emperor's crown on it. Next up was the final activity of our first day in Vienna, the Votivkirche (Votive Church) which was built to fulfill a vow made after a failed assassination attempt on Franz Ferdinand. The church had a beautiful altar and stunning stained glass windows, and was one of my favorites of the trip.

The next morning, we set out first thing to see Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Church), the most important church in Vienna. We climbed up the south tower, which stands 445 feet high, and has gorgeous views overlooking all of Vienna. The tiling on Stephansdom is quite striking, full of lovely green, white, yellow, and black tiles. I think churches should definitely bring gorgeous tiling like that back!

Before we got to our next stop, we made a quick detour to Demel, Vienna's most exclusive chocolatier. We enjoyed the rich chocolate as we made our way toward the Hofburg. On our way there, we visited Roman ruins that were found recently when the city dug up the street to do road repair. More extensive (and interesting) Roman ruins probably lie under the Hofburg also, but no one's going to dig under there! Finally, we entered into the Hofburg complex through an impressive gate flanked by statues of Hercules performing four out of the famous twelve labors. Inside the courtyard beyond the gate, there were eight more statues of Hercules, as well as a large copper statue. One more gate, and finally we arrived at the Imperial Treasury Schatzkammer, which was full of the Holy Roman Empire and Austrian Empire jewels, vestements, relics, and artifacts, as well as the private collection of the Hapsburgs. The gorgeous things inside were immense, beginning with the robes and regalia of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Austrian Emperor, and ending with countless icons and various Christian relics, including “the” Holy Lance. I was most impressed by the various items of clothing, some of which were for coronations only, but others for everyday. And, boy, was some of that everyday wear pretty fancy! In particular, I was impressed by the clothing for babies and toddlers. I have a nephew and two nieces, all under the age of two, so I've seen what babies can do to their clothes. And yet, these Hapsburg babies were wearing richly ornamented and delicately constructed baby-wear everyday. How did they not get totally soiled? The jewels were also quite impressive, although many of the jewelry is impressive for the size of the jewels, but not necessarily their beauty or sparkle. The Imperial Crowns of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire were both pretty impressive, however, as was the 2,860 carat Colombian emerald.

After our busy morning, we ate lunch quickly, and then Brenden and I went off to the Kunsthistoriches Museum (Art History Museum). Mom, Dad, Ari, and Sierra went to a few other, smaller museums, then joined us at the Kunst later on. The Kunst is HUGE...we were there for 5 hours or so, and only saw half of the exhibits, in a somewhat cursory manner. We began in the Picture Gallery with the Renaissance room. After over two hours in the Renaissance section of the Picture Gallery, I headed off to the Egyptian Collection with Sierra, then on to the Greek and Roman Antiquities, while Brenden went to the Coin Collection. We left, overloaded but overjoyed. It was a fantastic museum, and there is still much we didn't get to see there.

Friday we had planned to see the Schonbrunn, and whatever else we could squeeze into our day. The first event was Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church), notable for its richly ornamented inside and beautiful tiled roof. After that, Sierra and I went shopping for an hour or two while Mom, Dad, and Ari went out to Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery) to find the graves of famous musicians (Strauss, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms are all buried there). After meeting up at the Metro, we picnicked just outside of Schonbrunn, then explored the grounds before going on an informative and enjoyable guided tour (normally, I don't care for guided tours because I don't like walking around with strangers at their pace—however, this group was small, and our guide was fantastic, so it was great!). The grounds are huge, and quite beautiful, and the rooms are so opulent and impressive—basically, it's the only rival Versailles has in Europe in terms of opulence. The day was really, really hot, though, so by the end of the guided tour, we were exhausted. After resting back at the hotel, we went back to Peterskirche for an organ concert, and then coffee and pastries at a little cafe, a perfect end to a delightful last day in Vienna.

Altar inside the Votivkirche:

Outside of the Votivkirche:

With the Stephansdom replica:

North tower and lovely tiling at Stephansdom:

Hofburg Palace:

Inside the Egyptian Collection at the Kunsthistoriches Museum:

Schonbrunn Palace:

** Note: We’re safe and sound in America now after being evacuated to Armenia. Sorry for the lack of updates—there wasn’t any real news for a while, and then when things did happen, it was fast, and we mostly just set out a few email updates and called our parents. This is a continuation of our European vacation; after this, we’ll be updating with pictures from Armenia. Next on our plate is going to teach English in South Korea for nine months. We’re applying for visas right now, so we have another 3-4 weeks in California before leaving. **

We began the morning relatively early at the Krakow bus station, where we easily got a mini-bus to Zakopane. Zakopane is the last city before the border, although it's not the end of the line; from Zakopane, we still had to take a mini-bus to the Polish border, from which we could walk over the Slovakian border, then take a bus from there to Poprad, a town which was the major transportation hub in this area of Slovakia. From Poprad, we would take a train to Kosice, our final destination. I had been unable to find exact timetables online, but previous travelers and our guidebook both assured us that all connections were frequent and it was an easy trip to make. We arrived in Zakopane 2 ½ hours later at a tiny station and told that the next mini-bus would be there in 20 minutes. We waited patiently with three hard-core backpackers (the kind who camped and whose plan was to travel until their money ran out) for 30 minutes but the bus didn't come. Brenden decided to check across the street, and—it turns out—that's where it was waiting. We hopped on quickly, and soon, we were on our way. I was worried, though, because we were headed to Lysa Polana, which was not the end destination of this bus, and I was terrified we would miss where we supposed to get off. As the guidebook provided no helpful advice about how far Zakopane was from the border, though, I had no idea exactly how far to go on the mini-bus, either. Luckily, we weren't the only ones who needed to get off at Lysa Polana, so it was easy to get off, and then to walk over the border. When we got into the other side, there was a timetable listing buses between the border and Poprad. The next bus wasn't due to arrive for more than 2 hours, however, so we waited in the rain along with a steady and growing crowd. After that bus arrived, we had a long, winding road down to Poprad, the transportation hub for this part of eastern Slovakia. From there, we caught a train into Kosice, our final destination. We arrived about 6:30pm, after beginning at the Krakow bus station at 8:30am.

We spent two nights (Saturday and Sunday) in Kosice. Kosice is Slovakia’s second-largest city, which has a population of 200,000. It definitely had a provincial feel to it, particularly since we had spent most of our time on our trip so far in the capital cities. It’s very, very pretty, and there is a lovely promenade area running through the main street in town with a number of fountains, benches, churches, shops, and restaurants lying along it.

The first night in Kosice, we ate dinner at a delicious, local Slovak restaurant. The next day, we got a late start and arrived at the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth after church had already begun. So we wandered around the church and over the small chapel next to it, St. Michael’s Chapel. Since it was Sunday, all of the shops (except Tesco) and all of the tourist attractions (except the Archaeological Museum) were closed. So we decided to go to the Archaeological Museum, as it was supposed to be pretty cool. What the guidebook said was that it was a tour through the ancient foundations/sewers of Kosice, dating back to medieval times. That was true. What was also true, however, was that it doubled as an art exhibition which focused on autism (we only knew it was about autism because of pamphlets). I did not really see how autism was being promoted or represented through the art at all—mostly it consisted of portraits of scantily clad women in odd poses, accented by the occasional hanger with the clothing from the portrait hanging. Not only did we not understand how the art wasd connected to autism, we really didn’t understand how it was connected to archeology or to medieval town foundations. It was, without a doubt, the most bizarre museum I have EVER been to. It’s hard to describe in words just how strange it was (check my Facebook album for an example of what one exhibit looked like).

After that odd experience, we decided to check out Tesco (sort of like the European Target) for backpacks, since mine, bought for 20 lari (roughly $15) at a Chinese store in Georgia, had almost completely ripped out after 12 days of use. By ripped out, I don’t mean that the stitches were to blame—the fabric itself was falling apart. This is true Georgian Chinese shop quality at its best… Tesco was a surreal experience. There were four floors, with lots of choice. We actually had about 20 backpacks to choose from, in varying sizes and price ranges. The clothing was—mostly—pretty cute stuff, and I would’ve been in real trouble if they actually carried small sizes because I would have bought too many things. I tried on a red trench coat and tried to convince Brenden that it fit right (even though it was obviously a size or two too big) because it was just so darn cute. But none of that compared to the shock upon entering the grocery floor. The choice in groceries was just plain overwhelming —we wandered around the aisles, dazzled by the choices available to any shopper (remember, we were mostly used to items being safely tucked behind the counter of a shop, so browsing is discouraged). It was an hour of “You know you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer when…” (you’re dazzled by the array of sodas to choose from; you almost buy microwave popcorn even though you have no microwave in your hotel room, nor do you have one back at home; it takes you 10 minutes to decide which granola bars to get for breakfast because you haven’t seen so many choices in over a year; etc ad nauseum). In short, Tesco was awesome, but overwhelming. At one point, we started to hyperventilate just a bit over all the choices, so we left and got some lunch at the restaurant next door: Pizza Hut! Yes, the real deal—and it was delicious deep dish pizza! Normally, I wouldn’t be *that* American, but it’s different when you’re living abroad, and not living the life of an expat overseas.

After lunch, we took a lovely stroll around the town. Nothing much was open (except for restaurants), but plenty of people were out for a Sunday afternoon stroll along the promenade. We had planned for this day in Kosice to be a relaxing day without lots of “must do” sightseeing, and that’s exactly what it was: a low-key, relaxing day. After dinner, we sat in one of the parks along the promenade and watched the “musical fountain” (it plays lovely classical music along with it’s colorful nighttime lights) and the Slovaks hanging out on benches around the fountain.

Traveling in Slovakia often seemed like a comedy of errors, and none more so than the next day, Monday, when we left Kosice for Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, via Trencin. Trencin is a town famous for its castle, and on Sunday, we went to the train station and bought our tickets for Trencin. When we arrived in Trencin, our plan was to buy our onward ticket to Bratislava, deposit our backpacks in left luggage or lockers at the train station, spend 2-3 hours touring the castle and the rest of the town, then head back and arrive in Bratislava early in the evening. The train ride was uneventful, but it unnerved us that stations weren’t called out, so you really had to be looking out for your station, especially since some of the stations weren’t particularly well-signed. When we knew we were in the right vicinity, we went up to stand near the doors, because the train also didn’t often stop for long at many stations, so there was a real possibility of being at the right station but not being able to get off in time. There was a local woman standing also, and Brenden asked her if the next station was Trencin; she shrugged and said yes. So we prepared to disembark and the train did indeed grind to a halt at a station titled “Trencin Teplice.” We got off at a singularly dismal station, but proceeded to the ticket window to buy our ticket. We bought our ticket, but in the process, realized that this was a small station, with nowhere to leave our luggage. We would have to shlep our backpacks with us. So we set off, using the Lonely Planet map of Trencin as a guide. The map was pretty poorly designed and unfortunately, street signs seemed to be spare, but we passed what looked like the park on the map, then continued down the main street, presuming this main street was the same one as on the map. After walking for 10 minutes down the main street and seeing none of the landmarks detailed on the map (and looking at this city, which didn’t seem big enough to be a town of 60,000 people), we concluded we were, in fact, not in Trencin at all. At the very bottom of the Lonely Planet map of Trencin, in tiny print, was the small notation with an arrow pointing downward “Trencin Teplice 9 km.” We had, somehow, gotten off one station too early, and now we were stuck in this tiny town with Soviet-style blocks, no tourist attractions to speak of, and the same options for food you’d find in a village in Georgia. So, we ended up buying cheese and bread at a small market and getting on the next train out to Bratislava.

We arrived in Bratislava and headed out to the Tesco (one block away from where we were staying) because now Brenden’s backpack had ripped and we also needed to pick up some basic necessities like hand lotion and conditioner. Suffice it to say—this was a humongous Tesco (like 4 times the size of the average Target), and we separated to do our own errands, which was a terrible idea when neither of us had a cell phone. I was supposed to find Brenden, but I got lost getting back to him, and when I finally got to where he was supposed to be, he’d left to go try to find me, so we had some panicky moments there. When we finally left Tesco, it was pouring down rain, so we resolved to go to the first restaurant in between Tesco and where we were staying, which happened to be a small little Italian restaurant with great food. J

The next day, we were resolved to do a whirlwind tour of Bratislava. We began by walking along the Royal Road (the old coronation path) through the only original city gate still standing to St. Martin’s Cathedral. We went to a lot of cathedrals/churches on our trip in Europe this summer, and of all of them, St. Martin’s was my favorite. It was beautiful and sacred and ornate in places without being so blindingly ornate that one forgets the entire purpose. The ceiling details were just gorgeous! Also, there was an entire exhibit full of old manuscripts, hymnals, etc that were so beautiful, as well as a crypt open to the public. That was cool! After St. Martin’s, we crossed over a major road (built by the Soviets, of course) to Bratislava Castle. From Bratislava Castle, we had gorgeous views of the river, the UFO bridge (this modernistic bridge that really looks like a UFO), and really, all of Bratislava. However, that was about it—all the good stuff inside the castle was closed for renovations. You’d think they’d try to do these things in the middle of winter, rather than in the height of the tourist season!

So in terms of seeing castles in Slovakia, Brenden and I were now 0-2, so we were determined not to miss the third castle we’d planned to see. Devin Castle is nine kilometers out of Bratislava, and has played an important role in the Austro-Hungarian empire, serving as sort of the border outpost. Besides Trakai in Lithuania, this was our favorite castle. And, unlike Trakai, this one was basically ruins—it was conquered many times throughout the years but never destroyed until the French decided to dynamite it in the 1800s. After a thorough excavation, they were able to excavate the various levels of building and determine what was added when. Parts of it date back to the Roman times. We had a fantastic time exploring and wandering about!

Here are some photos below—for more, see my Facebook album:

Photos:

1) In the High Tatras of Eastern Slovakia, between the border and Poprad

2) Cathedral of St. Elizabeth in Kosice

3) More of the Cathedral of St. Elizabeth

4) Ancient manuscript in St. Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava

5) The ruins of Devin Castle, just outside Bratislava

- Carissa

Georgia update: The Russians continue to be two-faced liars. If you think 'pullout' means 'take more territory and put in more troops,' then Ё* **** м**** [looks like those Russian lessons are coming in handy! Those of you who don't speak Russian, don't try to look it up.]. Russia moved short-range ground-to-ground missiles into Tskhinvali, mainly to menace Tbilisi with a direct reprisal weapon. They also put in more SAM sites, and there are verified reports of Russians mining georgian military installations. Awesome. Ossetians took more territory, by occupying the village of Akhalgori, which is about 25 miles from Tbilisi, and apparently have no intention of giving it back. There simply isn't a pullout now, and it doesn't look likely in the near future. The situation is getting even worse for the refugeee crisis, as there are at least 80,000 IDPs (internally displaced persons) who are in refugee sites across Georgia, often with food insecurity, bad sanitation, and a general lack of hope as to when they can return to what remains of their homes. Transportation continues to be impeded by the Russian checkpoints, and international aid workers have been carjacke at gunpoint by Ossetian irregulars - in front of Russian troops, who apparently found the whole thing hilarious. Indeed. There are also reports that the Russians have had to dig mass graves, as there is no one to process the corpses. The Georgian Orthodox Church attempted to send a team in to South Ossetia to help with the processing, but was overwhelmed with the sheer number of fatalities. Russia continues to be Russia, with all that it implies. Additionally, there's been unconfirmed reports that the Russians are moving towards Borjomi.

Enough of the overall situation - time for me to be selfish.

Well, Carissa and I are learning to wait. That's it, be positive. Yes! Life lessons! Good feelings! Ha!

Basically, we're in a holding pattern until the Peace Corps decides to COS (close of service) us. We're going over resume/interview skills, our Description of Service (which I actually should be working on now, instead of writing this!), and our closing physical. And then, on top of that big pile of fun, is a ton of paperwork. As of now, we're thinking that the COS will take place at or before September 1 - so we'll probably have a date when our service officially ends. There's still uncertainty as to where we'll end up. I may be able to get a job in Georgia helping to manage the relief efforts, or we may go back to SD. I'm going to have to reschedule my GMAT, probably for when/if we get back to America, but we still intend to apply this fall to grad schools, for the next school year term.

I'll let everyone know when we have an idea of what we're going to do, with concrete dates. We're still anticipating our COS date around Sept. 1, but don't know for sure. We're thinking that at the very least, we're going to take cash in lieu, and potentially go back to Akh to pack up some f our things that we really still need (a single bag doesn't get you that far in re-establishing normal life!) and then heading back to the States through Turkey.

As to the question of how we got the one bag we have... Mark and Lisa, our friends from Zugdidi, had their kids in Georgia right before all of this went down. 2 of them went home the day before, and 1, Drew, stayed with the intention of meeting his girlfriend and traveling around Georgia. Well, then the Russians invaded, and everything went to crap. Drew ended up consolidated with us in Bakuriani (before the Tbilisi people came) and was trying to figure out what to do. He eventually decided to go to Turkey, which meant that he had to go south through our town. Carissa and I had begged the PC to let us go back to our site and pack up, but never got the clearance. Then, Drew, our hero, offered to swing by our house and pack a bag for us on his way to Turkey. Despite knowing no Georgian, he got to our house, communicated with our host father Merab, and packed up a single bag. Which is why I now have 3 pairs of boxers, 4 shirts, a pair of dress pants, and a pair of shorts. He also got us our credit cards and my passport, which turned out to be important. Ha!

He gave the bag to Merab, and the Peace Corps was gracious enough to stop the buses we were on for 4 minutes on the bridge in Akh to let us grab the bag from him. Our neighbor Gio showed up in his white Lada (which for me, forever now, will be called the Lada of Justice), Merab hopped out, handed us the bag, gave us back our house key, and said that he'd see us in a few days.

I guess that part of what's making this experience so hard is that we never got a chance to say goodbye to the people who have been so very important to us over this last year. My coworkers, the univerity students, and most importantly, our host family. Merab and Inga have been absolutely the warmest and most generous people possible to us, and we will never forget their graciousnes in opening their home to strangers, and making a real effort to include us in their lives. Our real desire in going back is to get real 'closure' (ha!) with them - it's not about the stuff, it's about the relationships that have been so suddenly severed. If I was at home when all of this went down, it'd would be different. But I wasn't, and neither was Carissa. So we're stuck in this wierd state, which neither of us enjoy, where planning is waiting, and waiting is the plan.

Well, today is 17th, and this all started on the 7th/8th. I'm writing from Armenia, where C and I have been evacuated along with the rest of the volunteers in Peace Corps Georgia. The situation has stopped being violent, but continues to deteriorate.

Russian forces control the major east/west highway, including the towns of Poti, Senaki, Zestaponi, Zugdidi, Gori, Khashuri, and several villages within 30 miles of Tbilisi. There are unconfirmed reports that a railway bridge in Borjomi, about 45 minutes from our site, was destroyed, which would indicate Russian prescence. The Georgian/Russian ceasefire seems to be holding, with the caveat that Russian troops are expanding, not contracting, their presence in Georgia. This is somewhat in violation of the written document, but contradiction is one thing that the Russians do so love to embrace.

Watching Russian TV is quite an experience. My favorite move so far is showing NATO patches on the bodies of Georgian troops, and claims that Georgians had executed entire villages of South Ossetians. Russian media manipulation is a real sight to behold when it's running at full steam. There are just flat out lies being told to the Russian people, mainly to encourage anti-Georgian sentiment and further justify the prescence of Russian troops. It makes me so angry to see this kind of blatant lying.

On the Khashuri front, there are confired reports of Russian troops engaging in looting. It absolutely breaks me to see the occupation of Georgia continuing, and even getting more intense as time goes on.

Whatever Russia says, I have trouble believing. Sure, they've signed the ceasefire. But it doesn't appear that they intend to follow it. They're still in Georgia; they're looting, blowing up infrastructure, destroying Georgian equipment, and frankly it doesn't look like they're going to leave any time soon.

C and I are struggling to decide how to get on with our lives, and what direction that may take.I may be able to get a job working on relief efforts in Georgia, but it's still uncertain. Other than that, we're considering teaching English in South Korea for 9 months. We're still deciding what we want to do, as we are definitely not going back to Georgia with the Peace Corps. In my opinion, it'll be at least 6 months before the program can safely reopen.

I know I posted information pretty hastily earlier, but since Internet time is limited here (there are 10 suites that have Internet access, shared between 80-ish volunteers/trainees and all the PC staff), I didn't have much time to write. Now that I have time on my laptop in our room, I'm going to write a little bit more.

Thanks to Joanna, by the way, for posting the link from the Peace Corps that we were safely relocated to Armenia. We arrived this morning around 1am, after leaving at 11:30am from Georgia, so it was a REALLY long time on the bus, although the main problem was the four hour delay at the border. It seems Georgians outside of the areas with fighting are—in general—pretty calm. I texted about 15 Georgian friends/counterparts to let them know we were being evacuated, and I got many responses back that said something along the lines of, “Have a great trip! See you soon!” This was not exactly the response I was hoping for. The U.S. Embassy is making plans to evacuate all remaining U.S. citizens out of Tbilisi tomorrow (the 13th), but it sounds like things may be getting better.

Georgia and Russia have announced their intention to sign a creasefire, but this isn't the same thing as a peace agreement. Russia has “strong conditions” for a peace agreement; the rumor is that those conditions include Georgia completely out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and out of anywhere they could attack the breakaway regions from (i.e., Gori and Zugdidi), which I can't see Georgia agreeing to. So although a ceasefire seems to be agreed to by both sides, I don't think this means its over yet (you may remember that originally, there WAS a ceasefire agreement that was broken, which is what led to all this in the first place). In the same speech, Mevdevev (Russia’s president) called Georgia “bloodthirsty” and irrational, so not exactly smoothing things over….This is still a huge rally taking place in Tbilisi where Saakashvili made a very emotional speech accusing Russia of still trying to dominate Georgia, and said that bombings continued even after the ceasefire was agreed upon.

- Carissa

This is a summary Brenden wrote up about the situation:

Quick background: Georgia has two breakaway regions: Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both were relatively independent in the USSR time, and then when Georgia emerged in 1991, and there was fighting in both regions until 1994, when a ceasefire emerged with 'Russian enforcement' (IE, Russian troops entered Georgia and made everyone put

away their toys). Russian troops have been in both regions since 1994.

This situation developed very, very, very quickly. Basically, last week there were sporadic cross-border firefights (which, frankly, is common). However, the situation went bad when the Ossetians began to shell Georgian villages. Georgia decided to respond, and deployed troops across the 'ceasefire' line into Ossetia (NOT Abkhazia). The Georgians enjoyed quick success, and ended up taking the Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali. Then Russia decided to get involved. Russia sent at least 150 tanks and the associated infantry units down from North Ossetia (which is in Russia proper) and engaged the Georgians. The Georgians were pushed out of Ossetia, and then the situation went really bad.

Concurrent to the ground fighting, the Russians began aerial attacks on targets all across Georgia, and on many targets nowhere near the conflict zone. Civilian targets, including food warehouses, were hit. Cell phone towers especially were targeted. Hence, cell phone coverage went down over large portions of the country.

The Russians eventually began to emerge from the borders of the conflict zone, and have taken at least 2 Georgian sites; Senaki, a military base by the Abkhaz border, and Gori (at least the main highway), my old training site. It has been extremely discouraging to see places I know with bomb damage, and know that I have friends who

cannot leave safely. Not good. Stoes across Georgia experienced panic buying, and many do not have goods in stock.

Georgia recognized the impossibility of the situation and began to give the 'we give up, please stop shooting' signals. The Russians have seemingly disregarded all attempts at Georgian ceasefire. That take us pretty much up to today - Russia has occupied Georgian territory outside of the conflict zones, and seems likely to take more territory.

Overall, Georgia is screwed. They have no reinforcements from the west coming, and have to entirely depend on diplomatic pressures from the west. We have some hope still, but will entirely depend on how the Russians respond to international pressures.

Georgia's economic situation is pretty bad now - this war reverses decades of progress with tourism and foreign direct investment. Money is fleeing Georgia, and I'm not sure if Russian bombs or the capital flight will do more damage. We'll have to see what happens. I remain hopeful - but I'm in Armenia.

- Brenden

As Brenden mentioned above, we're safely relocated to Armenia. Discussions will be made sometime in the next 2 weeks about what will happen to us--whether we go back to Georgia or to the U.S. It all depends on what Russia does next...

Thanks so much for all your prayers. Knowing that there are people praying for us and for Georgia and the Georgian people helps us keep calmer. We are doing fine, but we're worried about everyone back in Georgia.

- Carissa

As Brenden's note on Facebook said, things seem to be getting worse rather than better. Gori, where Brenden and I lived last summer, was hit by seven more bombs today (there were six yesterday), and the neighborhood of Kombinati (our neighborhood) was particularly hard hit. The bridge between Kombinati and the rest of the Gori is apparently damaged, so you the main east-west highway is closed down (the main east-west highway doesn't actually go through Gori, but since the bridge on the main highway has been uncrossable due to flood damage for several months now, that's the only way across). Georgia's main port city, Poti, and several other towns were also hit last night and this morning. Also, as some of you have seen in news reports, Tbilisi is, obviously, a potential target.

The good news, however, is that Brenden and I are actually going to be together again. They are taking us to Bakuriani so all the volunteers will be together again. They are adopting a "wait and see what Russia does" approach. If Russia stops bombing, we might go back to our sites on Sunday or Monday. If they don't, we might evacuate to Armenia. This does mean I probably won't have Internet access for a while, and although I will have cell phone coverage (albeit spotty) for the next few days, we probably won't have cell phone coverage if we do go to Armenia (I's using a lot of modifiers because nothing is really sure yet). They do have a safe location for us already in Armenia, though, which is good. So keep us in your prayers still--it will probably keep getting worse before it gets better, but no one really knows what's going to happen.

- Carissa

There are more Europe vacation updates to come--Slovakia, Vienna, Budapest, and Prague are still coming!--but events in Georgia have come to head in a pretty substantial way. As you may have seen on BBC or CNN, Georgia and South Ossetia have come to blows again (South Ossetia is the breakaway region just north of Gori). Gori, as you may remember, is where we lived last summer during training. This year, luckily, the trainees are in a different location. Gori is, still, however, on the main road between our site and Tbilisi. There's been fighting and troop movement for the past few days, as happens every few months and we were on Alert, but everything seemed well enough this morning. Brenden and I were in Tbilisi this morning for various work-related reasons, but Brenden left for Khashuri this morning to go to a session for the trainees (Khashuri is on the main east-west highway past Gori towards Akhaltsikhe, our site), whereas I remained in Tbilisi. He was supposed to come back to Tbilisi this afternoon, but at some point after they passed Gori, the highway by Gori was blown up (this is my understanding--this hasn't been reported in English language media yet). So now Brenden is on the Akhaltsikhe side of the highway, which is unfortunate, because he's scheduled to take the GMAT tomorrow in Tbilisi. The highway is out and we're on standfast (meaning we're to stay put), so, conversely, I'm stuck in Tbilisi, while Brenden can't get here. Meanwhile, one of the bombs hit the major cell phone company's office in Gori, so cell phone service is unreliable. However, since I'm at the Peace Corps office in Tbilisi, I should be safe and have Internet access, and although Brenden isn't, he's with the Peace Corps staff. Neither of us are near the border with South Ossetia, so although things will probably get worse before they get better, I'm not worried about our safety.

With all that said, the situation here is worse than it has been in the time we've been in Georgia. This is my own personal opinion (not the opinion of Peace Corps or the U.S. government), but I think this might develop into a full-scale war. I guess we'll see, but keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

- Carissa

More pictures of Poland! For even more, check out my forthcoming Facebook album for Poland. :)

1)At Auschwitz

2)Part of Wawel Castle

3)Wawel Castle Gate

4)Decoration on Wawel Castle

- Carissa

The next five days of our trip were spent in Poland, first in Warsaw and then in Krakow. After taking a night bus from Vilnius to Warsaw, we arrived very early in the morning at the Warsaw station. Then we spent the day exploring the Old Town and New Town in Warsaw, and in particular, St. John's Cathedral and the Royal Castle. St. John's Cathedral is a 15th century Gothic church, the oldest church in Warsaw. After the cathedral, we toured the Royal Castle in Warsaw. It was unbelievable to believe people actually lived in many of the rooms. Many of the rooms were, of course, entertainment rooms, but even so, the walls were so crowded with art and colors (in particular, in the gold room). The gold room was decorated with lots of goldleaf, crystal chandeliers, gold marble pillars, and the obligatory mural of the Greek/Roman gods on the ceiling. We were disappointed that the Warsaw Rising Museum, supposed to be the top thing to see in Warsaw, was closed, but we did walk out to the Warsaw Rising Monument, a moving monument to the insurrection against the Nazis in 1944. More than 200,000 Poles died during the uprising as the Nazis viciously suppressed the uprising and the Soviet army watched from the other side of the river. Warsaw was basically destroyed by the end, so the Old Town and New Town we saw were both rebuilt after WWII, just like most of the rest of Eastern Europe (Krakow and Prague are the only cities we visited that did escape major damage).

After one busy day in Warsaw, we continued onto Krakow. The first day in Krakow, we spent exploring the Royal Way in Krakow, the old coronation walk from the Barbican and Florian Gate to the Main Market Square and past the Square to the Dominican Church, Franciscan Church, the Church of the Saints Peter & Paul, and finally, past Wawel Hill, where Krakow's castle is located. The Main Market Square is Europe's largest medieval square, with the 14th-century St. Mary's Church dominating the square. The highest tower in the church is where the famous trumpeter of Krakow of legend played his trumpet, and the bugle call breaks off the melody to symbolize the point when, in the legend, the trumpeter's throat was pierced by the invading Tatar soldiers. The church itself was grandiose, huge, and brightly colored. I actually found it difficult to concentrate with so much going on inside the church, and actually preferred some of the simpler churches we saw later on in the day.

Our second day in Krakow, we went out to Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Both camps were extremely moving. Probably the most moving part of Auschwitz (where the actual museum is located) were the mounds and heaps of human hair collected that the Nazis took from their victims and then sold to textile manufacturers. Then we took a bus to Birkenau, where most of the deaths occurred. Originally, there were four gas chambers there, but the Nazis blew them up them before the Allies to try to cover up what had happened there. One of them was apparently working until just a few days before the Allies overtook the camp. But what is left is amazing...it has been left almost exactly as the Allies found it, with the crumbling barracks, rail tracks leading right into the camp, huge pits of ashes, and the remains of the blown-up gas chambers. There are a few displays, mostly pointing out a reconstruction of the gas chambers (i.e., which parts are what) and a memorial to those who have died, but mostly, it is empty space, a reminder of what was lost. Birkenau is 175 hectares, which I knew was a large number, but since I had no comparison for what one hectare is, all I knew was that 175 is large. Being there, though, and feeling the oppression of buildings stretching out in all directions, it's unbelievable how large this operation was. It makes it really difficult to believe, as some will claim, that people didn't know what was going on there.

Our final day in Krakow we reserved for Wawel Hill and Castle. We toured both the Royal Private Apartments and the State Rooms, both of which were richly decorated. However, our favorite part were the grounds, and the ramparts and walls which looked like a real castle (whereas the inside looked a lot more like a palace). It was a drizzly, humid day, and we enjoyed walking around the castle, and then once more through the main square, just watching people. We took it easy because we knew the next day might be a little stressful. Unless like previous transfers between cities, there was no direct train or bus between Krakow and our destination in Slovakia, the second-largest city of Kosice. The guidebook said it was easy and connections were frequent, but that didn't stop us from being a little nervous, as we are not the type of travelers who enjoy winging it. Stay tuned for the next update to see how that adventure turned out!

Photos:

1)Old Town in Warsaw

2)St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw

3)A church in Krakow

4)St. Mary's Church in Krakow

Pictures (continued) of the Baltics:

1)State Academy of Arts building in Riga

6)The view of Riga from the belfry of St. Peter's

7)Vilnius

8)Trakai's showpiece fairy-tale island castle

* To see more, check out my Facebook album

The promised blog updates are now beginning! In some ways, it's difficult to summarize a long time like this (27 days plus the time in Georgia), but I'm going to do my best. We began in Tallinn, Estonia (right across the Bay of Finland from Helsinki) and basically went south through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and then over to Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and then back to Georgia. This will be the first installation, roughly the first week of our trip which was spent in the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).

We began in Tallinn, the capital in Estonia. Tallinn is a beautiful old city that has been wonderfully restored, as pictures below depict. As it happens, though, it was cold, rainy, and everything was closed due to it being Midsummer's Night Eve. So we wandered around the Old Town with an umbrella but we couldn't go inside anything. Despite that, we really enjoyed Tallinn and would love to go back. On the second day, we ended up going to a theater see our first English movie in more than a year (Prince Caspian), then ate deep crust pizza, both of which were really exciting for us. :) As it was our anniversary and lots of things were closed (including at least half of the restaurants), we decided to instead celebrate our anniversary in Riga a few days later.

After Tallinn, we went on to Tartu, the second largest city in Estonia. Tartu is a university town, and was a charming town that had a very beautiful Town Square with lots of green parks and interesting statues, in addition to a very interesting museum about traditional Estonian life.

From Tartu, we took a bus to Riga, the capital of Latvia. In Riga, we took several walks around the Old Town and New Town, both of which are quite large. In Riga, things were open, which was good. :) One of the most moving parts of our visit to Riga was the Museum of Occupation, which concentrates on both the Soviet and Nazi occupations, which occurred continously from 1939-1989. This museum was excellent although the English audioguide was almost too detailed. The museum had memorable displays all the details about the occupations and about the resistance movement, in particular. I didn't realize that Latvia had a very active resistance movement until 1957 (we were to learn in Vilnius that this was true of all the Baltic countries). Riga's New Town has, perhaps, the most extensive and best preserved Art Noveau architecture in all of Europe, and certainly in Eastern Europe. We also went up in St. Peter's and got a beautiful panoramic view of Riga. That night, we dressed up and went to the Skyline Bar, on the 26th floor of the Reval Hotel Latvija, to celebrate our third anniversary.

On day 5, we moved on from Riga to Vilnius (capital of Lithuania). In Vilnius, we wandered around the Old Town without a particular list of things that were “must sees.” We did end up seeing everything we wanted to see, except for the Castle (the hill to the castle was closed and the funicular was broken, unfortunately). Vilnius was a little rougher at the edges than either Riga or Tallinn. Probably the most moving thing we saw, again, though, were the KGB Cells. These cells had been restored to what they looked like under Stalin's command during the Soviet occupation. We didn't see much of the other exhibits in the museum (it took us a lot longer to get to it than we anticipated, so it closed too soon for us to see the majority of it), but what we did see was moving. The two rooms that stick with me most concretely are two different rooms used for punishment, one for solitary confinement and one for direct torture. The first was a solitary confinement room where the floor was completely filled with cold water up to several inches (or ice during the winter). There was a very small platform that prisoners had either to balance on or otherwise stand or sit in the cold water. The second room with a room with padded ceilings, floor, walls, and door, and was used for torture. The padding ensured that the victim's screams wouldn't be heard. What was especially surprising was that a notation on the worst rooms indicated everything was changed almost as soon as Stalin died. Although I knew things got slightly better, I didn't realize that it was Stalin's impetus alone that kept the most heinous aspects functioning. The other surprising thing was a map of all the gulags in the USSR, and realizing that there was a gulag just outside of Kutaisi (Georgia's second largest city), although we've never heard anything about it inside Georgia (which, I suppose, shouldn't be much of a shock in a country with not one but two active Stalin museums). The Baltic response to their Soviet legacy is very, very different than Georgia's, which is a theme I will come back to at a later point.

However, our second day in Vilnius we took a small daytrip out to the most idyllic place we visited on our trip. Trakai is a small town just outside of Vilnius with not only an island castles but also a rare Middle Eastern sect, the Karaites. 380 Karaite families came to Trakai around the beginning of the fifteenth century to serve as bodyguards for the Grand Duke of Lithuania, but only 63 Karaites remain in Trakai, and only 280 in all of Lithuania. The strictly adhere to the Torah and reject the rabbinic Talmud, although their script is very similar to Arabic (they study the Torah in Hebrew, however). There was a small historical museum about Karaites and we tried a traditional dish of theirs, kibinai (meat-stuffed pastries, sort of like empanadas), which were unbelievably delicious. But the real reason people come to Trakai is for the fairy-tale island castle. It certainly ranks in the top 2 castles we visited on our trip—it has all the usual castle requirements, like a drawbridge, outer walls, tiny staircases, and the like. Exploring it was lots of fun, and additionlly, they had an archery range where Brenden got to shoot a crossbow. It was a relaxing day, walking around the lake, the castle, and the little tiny town.

Due to the blog's dislike of more than 4 pictures in one post, I'm going to post two blog entries for the photos of the Baltics. The first four pictures are explained now:

1)The Town Square in Tallinn

2)The oldest part of the Old Town in Tallinn

3)The famous “kissing lovers” statue/fountain in front of the town hall in Tartu

4)An example of beautiful Art Nouveau architecture in Riga's New Town (remarkably, this is an old tentement building)

Well, I'm back in Akh. It feels quite the same, honestly, as it did before - I think I'll have a little trouble slowing down the pace of life to match the not-exactly-frantic pace of Georgian business. Some new volunteers have been placed here - Gretchen, a tefl volunteer at the local vocational school, and jason, a ngo guy, at a local business NGO that's actually on my route to work.

It'll be nice to have the new sitemates to keep us company! they're here until wednesday, and then they return to training; they have another month until they're officially pcvs, so they still may end up dropping out or moving on to bigger and better things.

The g8 group has been dropping pretty quickly; i think they've lost 8 trainees out of about 58. yikes.... and C is at least partially responsible for one of those drops [not in the least, but still i like the thought of teasing her about it].

She and I are on the safety and security committee, and she did a lecture about womens' safety in georgia. specifically, one of the stereotypes in some of the more rural areas of georgia is that a] all foreign women are russian and b] all russian women are 'for sale,' if you will. as it turns out, one of the trainees actually was a russian woman from moscow who was a naturalized us citizen, and she took quite a bit of offense at c's lecture. which is sort of like shooting the messenger, but rationality about stereotypes and safety is far too much to ask.

so, apparently she was dissatisfied with georgia in general, and et'ed. i think that's probably a good thing, as she would have had a lot of trouble normalizing into a small village if she didn't recognize that stereotypes exist and actually do quite a bit of harm. but hey...

c's family was here. it was wonderful. and then they left. it was not.

A quick note: Brenden's post on June 16th (our one year anniversary in Georgia) was blog #100, making this blog #101, nice milestones! We're now back from our vacation in Europe and will soon have tons of pictures and blogs to upload about our experience. It was amazing, seeing everything we did, but the best part was spending time with my parents and sisters. It was really hard to say good-bye to them this morning (they flew out about 4am this morning), but I'm so glad we were able to travel with them and show them Georgia, and in particular, where we live. Look for pictures and blogs to come soon!

- Carissa

Well, this is try number 3 for this post... thank you, Akhaltsikhe electricity, Akhaltsikhe internet, and random computer crash! Not that I' frustrated or anything. :-) It's been quite the year. I sometimes think that PC experiences really aren't that intense, but we've been told so many times that they will be, that they become what we expect. The glory of the feedback loop... that being said, however, it does feel like I've had some rather tremendous swings from high to low this year.

It's been an interesting year, and I've learned some new things about business, the world, and myself. I think that fake expositions of lessons learned are one of the most irritating things about blogging - the search for counterfeit transcendent lessons, of realizations writ large, the chance to pontificate before and audience who may or may not care. There's always a chance to showboat on the internet... I don't think the things I've learned are groundbreaking; to me, however, they've been solid lessons worth giving up at least a year of my 'normal' life back in the states. My other blog has a long list of practical stuff, but I thought I would list some of the more esoteric things I've learned from living in Georgia, working in the peace corps, and generally being me.

1) Even if you shrink wrap it, and put it on a Styrofoam tray, 4 pounds of whole cow tongue does not look appetizing. 2) When it is being cut on a stump with a hatchet, no meat looks appetizing. 3) When the (unprocessed) head of the animal being cut on the stump is pointing towards you, you do not want to buy the meat from that particular animal. Corollary: Bone chips do not a good piece of meat make.4) Complex electrical components can be easily repaired with household items, like barbed wire and spit. 5) Any vehicle can become an off-road vehicle, provided one has courage and vodka. 6) Vodka does not, in fact, become better when drunk out of a water bottle. 7) The presence of a smoker determines if a room is smoking or non-smoking. 8) 140 proof homemade vodka is an excellent remedy for stomach pain. 9) If it did not cure the stomach pain after the first try, attempt again. You will not notice the stomach pain. 10) Shocks and springs in vehicles are an unnecessary extravagance, used to extract money from poor people by greedy auto companies. They should last at least 500,000 kilometers or 25 years, whichever is later. 11) Seat belts simply add weight and reduce potential velocity, and should be removed from your vehicle at the earliest opportunity. And if you use them, you will be trapped inside a burning marshutka forever. 12) Books have two important functions: to transfer/store knowledge and to act as reserve toilet paper. 13) If you cannot figure out which language is being used on you, immediately respond to any query with ‘no, thank you, I would not like to ride in your van.’ In English. 14) The distance you will be required to walk is directly proportional to the weight of your luggage. 15) The time requirement of your marshutka ride is directly proportional to the weight and smell of your seatmate. 16) The speed of your internet is inversely proportional to the amount of data you need to send. 17) Time is a “relevant” concept, in that you have an idea of why you think it is important, and that idea is relevant only to you. 18) The importance of the meeting is directly correlated with the percentage chance of it being postponed. Indefinitely. 19) The longer you are at the supra, the higher the percentage chance that you will be the unwilling recipient of a stubbly and passionate man-kiss, from a man who has probably not showered since Yeltsin was cool. 20) If you are a non-smoker, it is not a good plan to smoke half of a pack at once while drinking. You may regret the action in the morning. 21) [redacted] 22) The amount that you want to tell your story is inversely correlated with the vocabulary you need to tell the story. 23) When told exclusively in the present tense, stories loose much of their narrative flair. 24) It is possible, using only dental floss and a brick, to explain the time value of money.* 25) It is possible, using only a ballpoint pen, a brick, your teeth, and courage, to remove the transmission from a 1974 Gaz jeep.** 26) My new motto: Live each day as if tomorrow you will not have: electricity, running water, sunlight, heat, or diet coke.27) I become cranky when faced with difficulty acquiring diet coke. This occurs if and only if I have found diet coke before, and was led to believe it would continue being supplied. If it is not available, period, there is no problem.

28) Traveling by car is nicer than walking almost all of the time, but one does not loose 45 pounds because of hours spent driving.29) The length of your intestinal discomfort is never, ever, under your control. Ride it out. Just ride it out...30) You will miss your family. They are awesome people.31) At one year, going on a vacation is a very, very, very good idea. I was never one for vacations back in the states (thanks dad!) but here, I actually feel like I need a vacation. I'm looking forward to taking it and getting back to work in August refreshed and recharged, ready to go for another year in Georgia...

I miss you all terribly - one more year to go!

* This assumes that both you and your conversational partner have been drinking heavily, and will not be tested on the concept later. ** Your experience may differ from the author’s.

I had a chance to read up on the Xanga page today, and wow, things are going on in the family back home... most of the photos couldn't load, but I did get to see some great pics of the nephew and niece. They're adorable! Makes me wish I was home again...

So, it's been raining here for the last 3 days, and it's getting old. We're close to summer, but for whatever reason, it's been alternating between hot and miserable and rainy and miserable. Personally, I tend to lean towards preferring rainy and miserable, but the weather is always better some other way.

Supposedly, Akh is getting a new power company, and as a result, they've been changing the power lines. Great! Well, not so much. They haven't gotten to our block yet, but we expect them to cut the power to our house for about 10 days. Now, that doesn't seem SOO bad, but it's also really poor timing - right before C and I go on vacation. It means that we can't do laundry - our agitator (not washer, mind you!) runs on electricity, and handwashing is a total PITA. We're not looking forward to it. Plus, I get my hot water for shaving from an electric kettle, so shaving is cold-water-only... and that water is COLD.

Plus, our stove is electric, so cooking is going to be an issue. All of these things that sort of just stack up, the longer you go without power. Electicity is nice. Really, really, really nice.

And, in sum, i'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ready to go on vacation.

Enjoy the pictures...the first picture is Minadze in the spring, the next three pictures are from Brenden's barbeque birthday party (that's our friend Josh in the pictures with the BBQ)!

- Carissa