Just had to share....

I love tomatoes.....especially those delicious ones you can typically only get during the summer....yum yum yum! In fact, during the height of tomato season, I will practically eat a tomato salad daily. This past summer was kind of blah for farmer's market tomatoes unfortunately. I think last winter was relatively mild but lingering and the summer didn't heat up quick enough. So you can imagine my surprise when the tomatoes I picked up this week from the grocery store were delicious. Red, flavorful, easy to slice pieces of heaven for my sandwich...in the middle of winter! I can only imagine what this summer's tomatoes will taste like. I only wish I had gotten more than 3 at the store.

My daily sandwich: croissant (it was a french grocery store I went to), fresh sliced mozzarella, lettuce and these heavenly tomatoes!

I also have had some surprising yummy, but new flavored Pringles with it....sour cream and dill flavor. Not sure if those are stateside yet, but if you like dill you should totally try them out.

Georgian Christmas...And a Reminder

Today is Georgian Christmas so to celebrate, Mason and I went to Carrefour to pick up a few things for Deb (and we also got a new tv for the family). While walking around the store, over the PA they played "Wind of Change" by the Scorpions. For those who don't know, the song is about Glasnost, the end of the Cold War and the fall of Soviet Union. Listening to the lyrics, I realized it was just over 20 years ago that Georgia declared her independence from the Soviet Union, and the people here began their path towards democracy.....

THIS is our new home!

"THIS is our new home!" is what Clarissa said the other day as we unpacked our UAB (air freight....limited to 700 lbs, we had 681). She had asked when we were going to go home a number of times the past few weeks when we only had the items we had put in our luggage. The magic of being re-united with her beloved toys (and other household items) made the lightbulb come on that we are in our new home.

So what beloved items made the cut while we wait for our HHE (household effects....they come via boat)....which are set to arrive tomorrow (yes, our UAB and HHE both arrive on Tuesday....because UAB was smaller it cleared customs and was delivered. Our HHE is waiting till Friday because New Years Day was a holiday as is Georgian New Years Day (today) so the embassy was closed. (BTW....UAB should take 2-3 weeks.....ours took 4....it relaxed in Germany for 3 weeks while we pined for it, but I digress). So back to the topic....what beloved items made the UAB cut.....I will make a quick generalized list so in 2 years when I go to pack out for our next post I can remind myself what really made a difference and making our house into our home.

1 - More clothes.....after 4 weeks of wearing the same 7 outfits or so in different combinations we have a little more variety.....Clothes were a last minute we have more space I'm throwing more stuff in....so I also have a few more pairs of shoes....so the brown dress pants that were in my luggage that do not go well with black heels or tennis shoes can now be worn! The kids now have snow pants, boots, and toboggans for when it snowed our 4th day here....oh wait.....

2 - Bedding! Glorious bedding! The pillows that were in our welcome kit are equivalent to a double sized airplane pillow....so not very supportive or comfy....but better than nothing. So we have new pillows we got during the college dorm sales.....so nice! Also, the kids now have twin size beds (a first for both) so they both got a new set of sheets/comforter/mattress pads. Their bedrooms look much less institutional white now! I got a foam mattress topper, mattress pad and sheets for us.....its amazing how much better we all sleep now (and when our king size bed arrives....ahhh, it's going to be heaven).

3 - Computer and such. We have an iMac that we used our original shipping packaging that went in the air freight box....it survived just fine. We also packed our printer and data back up device (we had a small USB drive that had a data copy in our suitcases but this device does regular back up and multiplicity stuff in case a drive fails (what I caught before my eyes glazed over from Richard's computer lingo). We also have some basic office supplies....like staplers and tape for my craft loving but been on withdrawal children to go to town with.

4 - Kitchen supplies.....aaah, grown-up toys (at least for me).....so I tended to pack mostly plastic things since they are lighter weight and better for the kids to use in case they drop something...we would rather not break the welcome kit plates. So a handful of kids plates, cups, our britta pitcher, Mason's lunchbox (1st day of school next week!), some plastic leftover storage containers, then my favorite Pampered Chef cooking gadgets (mandoline, cheese grater, batter bowls, measure-all cup, mini muffin tin, scrapers, tongs, garlic press, whisk, etc), some food items (goldfish and cosmic brownies for the kids, Starbucks coffee for Richard), some spices/baking supplies (we had homemade buttermilk biscuits for breakfast today.....so good!), some oven mitts (I have burnt myself so many times over the years just using those little square hot pads), some dish towels, our cloth napkins, dish drying mat/rack, my favorite recipes cookbook....you get the idea....a little bit of everything that makes things so much nicer till my beloved Kitchenaid mixer gets here!

5 - Toys and other kid things.....the most important probably being the WiiU! (those santa gifts can now be played....like Sing Party....oh Santa why do you torture us so!), larger variety of movies (more kid movies), a princess storage box for said movies, a trunk of dress up clothes, a doll stroller (the most desired object when boxes arrived and it was in the 2nd box I opened....yeah, I'm that good!), play food....decorated wooden cupcakes for all, kiddie table and chairs, legos, books, a few more dolls and stuffed animals, a handful of board games.....

6 - Some toiletries and such....our consumables shipment/some new HHE things we picked up in DC are set to arrive mid/late January.....so some more toothpaste, body wash, deodorant, etc were tucked in there to keep us from being the stinky family until then. I did forget to put in some laundry detergent....I brought some in my suitcase but there was leaking issue.....so while the plastic bag contained the spill, we have run out....luckily our housekeeper was able to direct me towards a decent sensitive skin brand.....while I have had some issues, Clarissa (the other sensitive skin person) seems to be doing fine....they do sell some recognized brands here (Pantene, Johnson & Johnson) the brand name is in English, the other information is in Georgian.....I don't want to buy the dry hair shampoo....I would be slicker than a 50s heartthrob.....not good. Plus cost-wise it is a little more expensive. I had thrown in a package of pull-ups for Clarissa at night time.....with all the moving I hadn't been pushing big girl undies at night, but most nights she is dry (the first night she slept through 3 am while getting over jet-lag she wasn't).....so now that her waterproof mattress pad is here....big girl panty time....she's doing great....now, what to do with 1.5 packages of pull-ups.....run them down and return them to Target....oh wait.....

I think that is it.....we will be reunited with things we packed up in July in the morning.....then the work of getting all that put away......I think besides the bed, I'm most excited for our kitchen island. We've decided to put the transformer on the bottom portion, then when we need to use a non 220 appliance, we can just roll the island to an outlet, plug in the transformer and then we have a workspace on top of the island to use.....we shall see if that works out okay.

Odds and Ends...

• We are closing in on our fourth week here in Tbilisi. I'm slowly getting settled in at the job, and I think Deb and the kids are getting settled in at the house. I feel bad for them, I go somewhere each day, while they are stuck at home. Plus, up here in Z-town it is somewhat far away from anyplace. So to get to the store, we have to hitch a ride or take a cab (taking a cab isn't that expensive, it is like 5 Lari or so to get to the local Goodwill - a German supermarket) until our car gets here.
• Some of our neighbors let us borrow one of their cars this weekend while they are out of town. Deb went to Goodwill yesterday, and today all four of us went to Carrefour at the Tbilisi Mall. I drove, and we survived. Granted it isn't a far drive, but you do have to be aggressive and defensive at the same time while driving here.
• Carrefour was CRAZY today. We ran in to a few coworkers and the common consensus was it was the craziest people had ever seen. This week you have New Years, Georgian New Years and Georgian Christmas so I'm sure most of the crowds were there doing their last minute shopping. Mason got a little overwhelmed by the crowds (and lack of personal space). The big plus about shopping today was we got our Diplomatic ID's on Friday. By having those, we no longer have to pay VAT on purchases (which is something like 14%). It does save us some money and makes shopping a little cheaper.
• After our shopping, we walked around the Tbilisi mall and had lunch at a Burger King there. One thing Deb and I noticed about the mall was it seemed a lot of people smoked inside of it (in fact, Deb went to the restroom and two women were in there smoking. They quickly went in to stalls - I guess smoking was not permitted in the restroom - Deb said there were quite a few no smoking signs in there). I've found that smoking is a lot more prevalent here than in the US.
• Burger King wasn't bad, though I thought the burger was a bit dry. However it was nice to eat a piece of "America". And I was reminded that Europeans typically don't have ice in their drinks, but the soda was cold so it was fine.
• One thing that has been wearing on us is our UAB shipment. UAB is Unaccompanied Air Baggage. We were allotted about 700lbs of UAB, and we have items such as good pillows, good sheets, our iMac, Drobo etc. Well it has been sitting in Cologne Germany for close to 3 weeks now and no movement. Our UAB was suppose to have been here last Friday, then on Sunday then no one knew. I finally reached out to transportation in DC to find out what was going on, and quickly heard back. They were annoyed that the shipment hadn't arrived yet (they were told it was suppose to arrive on the 20th and had not been notified it had been delayed). The transportation company replied that due to heavy volumes it had been bumped was suppose to arrive yesterday, the 28th. 10 years working with a shipping line has had it's advantages, as I've found the shippers tracking website and have been monitoring the shipment. It is still showing in Cologne. I'm hoping that the site hasn't been updated and it has actually arrived in Tbilisi, but I think it hasn't. I'm going to have to send another email tomorrow inquiring on the status, and if it's not here yet I'm not sure what I'm going to do. We have ocean freight that has already arrived in country and I'm partially expecting it to be delivered here this week. That's pretty sad that ocean freight may beat air freight.

Santa Claus and Tovlis Papa

Merry Christmas!

Tovlis Papa (or თოვლის პაპა in Georgian) is Snow Grandfather, a Christian gift-bringing figure in the Caucascus area of Europe (well according to wikipedia.....) and you know who Santa and we are......

Christmas has come and gone in our household....but the country of Georgia celebrates the orthodox Christmas on Jan 7.....so it's the holiday season that doesn't end......well at least not until next year. It was quite surreal to run to the grocery store on Christmas day and everything was open and like any other day....

I will try and resist de-Christmasfying the house until at least the Georgian Christmas (that should allow some late straggling gifts that have been sent to arrive and be opened around the tree as well), but it will be tough given I've taken the tree down on the 25th before...lol. Now if only some our belongings (such as the UAB shipped 3 1/2 weeks ago....meant to take 2-3 weeks) will arrive and it will feel just like Christmas being reunited with our belongings.....the joys of this new adventure.

House Tour

Made It!

After what seemed like a series of flights that would never end (adding to the fun getting very little sleep on the flights) we have finally made it to Tbilisi.  We left a week ago last Sunday. Tbilisi doesn't have many flights, the primary way of traveling here is via Munich. However, if you go that way you get the joy of spending somewhere between 9-13 hours in the airport since the Lufthansa flight in to Tbilisi doesn't leave until after 9pm Munich time (and gets in to Tbilisi after 4am!). However, the great people at the State travel office found a flight on KLM/Delta that would only give us a 3 hour layover in Amsterdam! The rub is we would have to leave on a Sunday since Georgian Airways (our connecting flight to Tbilisi) had only 2 flights a week between Amsterdam and Tbilisi - Friday and Monday. So we opted to leave early and depart on a Sunday....

Well just over a week ago, a winter storm descended on the Northeast and snow and ice started to fall in Washington DC. We kept an eye out to see if our flight would be delayed, but we lucked out and it wasn't (whereas quite a few other flights that day, and then later that week quite a few of my classmates who were departing to their respective post got delayed due to the storm). Deb's dad picked us up from the Oakwoods and took us to Dulles. We had to get a cab to take some of our luggage and Mason rode with me in the cab. We had a total of close to 13 pieces of luggage, which made for an interesting check in....

We arrived at Dulles. We were dropped off at the Delta entrance but then had to ferry all our luggage to check in with KLM. We knew we were over our "free" allotment of luggage and were going to have to pay for the extra pieces (State authorizes 2 pieces of luggage per person, so we should get reimbursed for the 1 extra piece per person). However, we still had to pay for it all. The lady with KLM started to argue with me about our amount of luggage and I wasn't sure if she was trying to talk me out of taking them?! I finally had to say "look, I'm going on a two year work assignment. Unless you are going to ship them for free I have to take this luggage and I'm fine paying with it!". Total tab before reimbursement, $975!

Since we had some time to blow before our flight, Deb and I had some free United lounge passes we decided to use. It was nice to get some snacks and drinks and charge up our various iDevices before boarding the plane. Soon enough, it was time to board the flight. We knew our flight was going to be full, and since we had 2 carry on bags per person, the KLM gate agent gate-checked some of our bags free of charge. We did have one casualty as a result - we had Deb's laptop in one of the bags (outside pocket) and now the lcd panel no longer works, probably as a result of getting thrown around by the luggage handlers. The employee checking our bags told the kids there would a surprise onboard, which prompted Mason to ask the first flight attendant he saw on the plane for it (which she had no clue what he was asking for). Once the doors were shut and the plane was being prepped for departure, the flight attendants did come by with a little goody bag for the kids. It was a drawstring bag with a finger puppet, some colored pencils and activity pages (trip passport/diary type thing). Due to the previously mentioned weather, departure took a little longer than usual as the plane needed to be de-iced.

The KLM flight was relatively uneventful. We all enjoyed watching the flight tracker. After we ate, Deb tried getting Clarissa to get some sleep and made a pallet for her on the floor. Just as Clarissa fell asleep the flight attendant came by and told Deb that Clarissa couldn't sleep on the floor. Getting picked up woke Clarissa up and caused her to have a complete meltdown, crying kicking and screaming. I decided to switch places with Deb and let Clarissa sleep on my lap - Deb was at her wits end, mad at the flight attendant for causing her to wake up Clarissa, tired and unable to do anything to calm Clarissa down. Clarissa fell asleep in my lap, and Deb got some dozing (along with Mason, who had made Deb his bed). Oh, personally I got a little ticked at the lady sitting in front of Mason. As soon as we were airborne she reclined her seat fully right in to Mason's lap. Then once we started our descent in to Amsterdam, she told the flight attendant she needed to sit in the front of the plane because she needed to be the first off or she'd miss her connection. So when she went up front, she kept her empty seat fully reclined (which the flight attendants didn't fix when they did their final walkthrough before landing).

We got in to Amsterdam. First stops were to grab some breakfast and brush the funk off our teeth. Schipol has a kids play area, so we let the kids run around there to burn off some energy before we caught our next flight. Interesting thing was you go through security again at each individual gate. Luckily we hadn't brought any food but the partially drank bottles of water had to be abandoned to get on the plane.

Our next leg was on Georgian Airways - which was interesting to say the least. The plane wasn't even 1/4 of the way full, so Deb stayed with Clarissa and Mason and I had our own rows. Only one of the two bathrooms on the plane was in operation, and the working bathroom, appeared as though it got skipped on cleaning when the plane was turned around (time wasn't an issue, since the plane was parked and unloaded before we ever arrived). There were "liquids" on the floor, and they kept running out of toilet paper (I think the last hour or two there was none in it).

When they served "lunch" you really didn't have a choice. Mason and Deb had some pasta with a couple saucy meat like chunks to the side (even though vegetarian had been ordered), I had some couscous and a meat like substance. I ate it all because I was starving, I don't think Deb and Mason ate much of theirs. Clarissa and Deb fell asleep and slept most of the flight, Mason slept a good portion of it. I didn't get any sleep. After a 4-5 hour flight we prepared for landing in to Tbilisi. We came in over the snow covered mountains and landed in our new home.

Some embassy staff and my office sponsor met us at the airport and helped us through Customs. Georgia takes a digital photo of everyone who comes through, and Clarissa decided she didn't want her photo taken. We finally got through customs and claimed all of our bags. We had checked Clarissa's car seat and put it in the car (Embassy staff won't drive a child who is not in their car seat). Clarissa decided she didn't want to be in the car seat and proceeded to have meltdown #2. We finally got her buckled in and started to make our way to our new home. Which will be a post of its own!