Gamarjobat!

Everything is great in Georgia, including the weather. As everyone is sweltering at home, we have been enjoying beautiful 70s weather with occasional rainstorms. If any one remembers my previous blogs, this is completely atypical of weather in Tbilisi and it should be as hot as it is in the states. I am happy to delay that part of Georgia for a little longer but it looks like it will begin to heat up at the end of this week.

Our museum work is going well, and I've looked at almost 200 bones already, so I have gotten a lot done in my first week. We have many more carnivore chewed bones and are on a three day streak of finding human made cut marks! Since we only have a dozen that we have seen so far in our 5000+ bones that we looked at, it is especially exciting.

Over the weekend, we took a day trip to Kazbegi, which is now called Stephansminda, and a Georgian town close to the Russian border and in the middle of the Greater Caucasus mountain range. It was about 32 degrees there and rainy/snowy. Unfortunately we only had a brief glimpse of Mount Kazbek's peak, which is just over 16500 feet in elevation. The clouds were hanging very low, but that was a beautiful sight in itself. Our drive there was really beautiful and we went through a mountain pass that was 7200 feet. Our journey north ended at Gargeti Trinity, which is a beautiful church perched on the edge of a mountain facing Mount Kazbek. We did not spend much time on top since it was so cold and rainy. We drove down the mountain a little ways and found a nice place to picnic. Irakli had packed some pomidori, kitri, puri, atame, kveli, da ghwino (tomato, cucumber, break, peaches, cheese, and wine... See, I know some words). It was a nice 'picnic' out of the back of Irakli's jeep and we headed back to Tbilisi. I was happy to get to see Kazbegi as I had wanted to for the past two years. I am not satisfied yet, however, and hope to go back on a clear and sunny day.

On Monday, we explored some other parts of Tbilisi that I had not seen before. There is a new park in Old town that is near the walking bridge and a new gondola that takes you from the park up to the fortress near Mother Georgia. It was only 1 lari (~60 cents) to go up top and we walked through the botanical garden behind the mountain on our way back down. There is also a 100 or so foot waterfall behind the fortress and in the botanical garden, which was a complete surprise to me. We then stopped and had a beer with a few Germans that were accompanying us, one a botanist that was looking at the pollen from Dmanisi, and the other was a documentary film maker. They were both very nice and had good stories to tell.

We will be heading to Dmanisi just for the day on Saturday, just so one of the new students can see it before she leaves. I will probably be spending more time at the site later in the summer, as the field school starts at the end of July. The field school is a bit small this year and is run through the University of Zurich in Switzerland. There are two American students and two Georgian students. Many other people will be arriving later in the season as well.

We have been spoiled this year with internet in the apartment, so I will try to update my blog more frequently, since I have no excuse to not do it. I also have been able to watch Netflix, which makes my nights a lot less boring.

Also, I have posted pictures of my weekend trip and some other things, so feel free to check them out at the link below.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.599876582213.2052639.185200036&type=1&l=a3b7d85344

I have this grand idea of making an online photo collection through a website other than Facebook, but I have not started it yet. I will post the link if and when it is ready.

I hope everyone is keeping cool in the States. Happy 4th of July!

Nakhvamdis!

Reed