home, sweet...home

So I survived my round-the-world journey back to the Black Sea shores, the in-Georgia leg taking about as long as the to-Georgia leg (or maybe it just seemed that way since time actually slows down when one enters the vortex of the much loathed Tbilisi-Batumi marshutkah), with only a minor cold and a couple of postcards from Vienna gained en-route. The volunteers who greeted me at the airport made sure to give me a reality check by handing me two half-finished Kazbegi beers in the arrivals terminal and arranging a taxi that broke down immediately, forcing us to switch to another taxi-driver who had no idea how to get to Old-Rustavi and took us on an hour-long tour de apocalypse down a cratered road that I'm pretty sure crossed into Azerbaijan for a while. But no worries. I'm back safe and sound. For about an hour on the marshutkah ride across the country we followed a huge rainbow that stretched across the mtkvari valley in eastern Georgia. It was amazing. It was like being welcomed home. Of course, after the rainbow came the rain, and the rain didn't stop until this morning. As Austin, who also returned from America this week, said "My favorite part about coming home is always the cold, the rain, and the no electricity... that and the speed at which my soul begins to wither again."
It's that time of year again... The time of year when I spend my days either curled up in bed or by the woodstove downstairs trying to stay warm, reading, playing 'snake' on my phone, staring at the wall. The time of year when the students don't show up to school when it rains, and it rains almost every day. The time of year... Well, anyway, you know what I mean. The highlight of my week was delivering the pen-pal letters from America to their ecstatic recipients at school. My host-family is well. Nanuli has almost completely recovered from her surgery, but she is still on crutches. The mandarinis will be coming in soon. I should hear if I got my grant for the English cabinet this weekend. I miss you all. And cornchips. Somebody send me some corn chips.