FINAL DINNER!

May 19, 2009

Day 36

 

            So after a relaxing day at the beach for the art and architecture class, culture and literature class, and the student teachers sad last day at school, we slept in to catch up on the much needed sleep.  Some people went out shopping for their last minute souvenirs.  Others stayed in the Hostel, relaxing.  I stayed in my pajamas until we had to start getting ready for the FINAL DINNER.  My room started getting ready around 3:00pm.  At 4:00, we all gathered in the hallway to give Michelle a surprise.  Michelle was taken to “shop” for Jess’s sister.  What Michelle did not know is that she actually picking out her own gift.  We decided to get her a gift because Michelle has been awesome this entire trip.  She got us into museums for the Russian student price; it was great!  She saved us a lot of money to use for extra things we wanted to do.  Then, Michelle gave us all gifts for weaseling our way into her heart.  We got different magnets with pictures of the city.

After the gift giving, we finished getting ready so we could leave for dinner.  As we were waiting outside of the Hostel waiting for the rest of the people, Jill got pooped on by a bird.  There was not a lot of it, but it landed in her hair.  She went in the bathroom and took care of it.  We walked to the bus stop and took the number 5 bus to get to the restaurant.  We ate at a Georgian restaurant.  The food was amazing!  I wish we had a restaurant like that back in the States.  There were sixteen courses all together.  The courses are supposed to come out one at a time, every twenty minutes.  However, if we had done that, we would have been there all night.  So there were at least 10 courses set on the table when we first sat down so that it would be easier.

            There was salad on the table along with bread, a kidney bean dip, chicken dip with hazelnut, some type of eggplant-wrapped thing, pickled cabbage, and a plate of pickles and garlic stems.  We were also served cheesy bread that comes out looking like pizza.  Georgian dumplings came out next and one of our tour guides, Mike, showed us how to properly eat the dumpling.  You are supposed to bite the top off and drink the broth that is inside and then eat the dumpling.  After the dumplings, we were served chicken and potato-fries.  Pieces of lamb and beef were served afterwards.  Another serving of cheesy bread was passed out.  Then we were asked if we wanted tea or coffee and chocolate or strawberry ice cream.  Dinner was great!!  We ended around 11:00pm.

            The dinner was hilarious.  We gave the tour guides their gifts and they went crazy.  Shannon and Angela bought whiffle bats and balls to give them.  They looked at them as if they had no idea what they were.  Dmitri acted as if his was a saber and Nik was doing crazy stuff.  Michelle bought them lobster claw harmonicas.  Nik tried to play the harmonica, but he ended up just getting red in the face.  Dmitri joined along with him.  A few minutes later, Nik took the lobster claw, pretended as if it was his hand, and took a sip of his drink.  This night was epic!  It was better than all the other nights because all the tour guides were there except Peter.  It was sad that Peter could not go, but being able to sit with all the tour guides at the same time was awesome.

We had to catch the bus and rush to change our clothes to go on the boat tour.  Since the bridges go up for the night, we had to hurry to make it so we were able to watch the bridges go up.

 

Jess M.