Pol Sakartveloshi: It's Summertime

So... I haven't updated you all in a while, but it's not my fault. I have been so pleasantly distracted by visitors from abroad that I haven't had the time. The summer has been flying by, and, lucky for me, having visitors is the perfect excuse to get out of work (he he). It has also be a good excuse to explore my the remoter corners of my Caucasian homeland. So a quick rundown for those who haven't seen me lately: Matt visited Tbilisi for a few days in May and we went to Davit Gareja (a remote monastery in Georgia) and Moscow. Matt got to reminisce about his days in the USSR, and I got to see the heart of the former empire at the Kremlin. Lotten came for 3 weeks and we went to Armenia. The coolest part of Armenia was the beekeepers who live up in the high mountain meadows in the summer with just a trailer and a tent and maybe a horse and their bees. They keep bees. Anyway, Lotten did some reportage for Swedish Radio from Georgia, so I got to pretend I was helping her with that.
THEN, in July, Jim and Walker came. That's when things got really wild. Not really, but we did some epic hiking in the Caucasus (which rule). They had survived, remarkably, their weeks together in Europe and a bus ride across Turkey, so Georgia, despite its inherent stress-inducing chaos, may have been something of a respite. Beau and Amy were my most recent stumrebi (guests), and they did me good by entertaining my host family, who absolutely loved them, with noble attempts at speaking Georgian and random facts about Americana (which I nobly attempted to translate). For proof of the excellent time I have been having, check out the pics. And a note to those of you who haven't visited me: fall and winter are a great time to see Georgia, too!