10 Months Later...

As I passed the 10 month mark of my runaway adventures this week, I realized an important lesson I left off of the list last month in my post, about 9 Things I Learned in 9 Months on the Run ... So, here you go - Lesson 10.

Stealing a first kiss on this bridge at midnight, with the city lit up before us... smooth... real smooth.

10 - Write about everything.

Street mussels - the perfect snack for a night of drinking with friends!

I've known I should learn this for quite some time. In my (failed) endeavors to become a historian, I utilized journals and field notebooks of soldiers as the primary sources of my thesis research. I've thought for years that someone who has lived an extraordinary life should document it, even though they may not think the life they've led is anything special. You never know when someone, somewhere in the future, be it a distant relative, or a curious student, will want to know what life was like for you. Seemingly boring, everyday details can be something intriguing, even vital to a historian's research, or simply interesting to future generations of your family.

He left me here with a long goodbye kiss, and a broken heart.

I've finally learned this lesson with such pain, and quite a bit of regret. I began to realize how important writing about your experiences is while reading The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk here in Tbilisi. Those of you who know me, know I don't read much. I reluctantly would try to do reading for my classes, but often would just skim through the books and hunt down a good synopsis. However, this book I read more intensely and quickly than any of the Harry Potter books... I can't even remember the last time I ACTUALLY finished a book. (I apologize to any of my professors who may stumble upon this entry and realize that I was a total sham.) Anyway, this novel takes place in Istanbul. A lot of the content is incredibly relate-able to my experiences there, since some things haven't changed, even 40 years after the beginning of the story takes place. Memories came rushing back to me not just of my experiences in Istanbul, but of other moments all along my journey since I left as well. Many of the settings are places I frequented, which made me nostalgic for those streets, the humid heat, the smell, the sounds of Istanbul - what's more? It makes me nostalgic for the love I found there. (I know, the L word... it's a big one, right? You're intrigued to know more now, aren't you? Well, tough. You'll have to wait...) That love opened up a door to a completely different part of life that I hadn't been experiencing before. A door that was opened at precisely the right moment, in the most enchanting setting I could imagine. I couldn't have dreamd of, or written a better scenario than the one that played out on its own.

It gave me a case of the feels. I literally fell asleep with it every night. 

Anyway, now that those feelings - which were so strong immediately afterwards, that I never thought they would leave, and actually wished I could rid myself of - have faded, I wish I had something more substantial I could look back on. I know that I have to live in the moment, but sometimes, much like our narrator in this book, I wish I had something to conjure up those feelings of love, and magic, to comfort me when I need it. I wish I had descriptions to go along with all of my photos and videos to try to describe what all of my other senses were experiencing. Especially as I experienced the grandeur of Istanbul (and some other places) for the first time, and again for the first few weeks of my return, I wish I had documented those sensations better. In addition, I wish I had documented the intrigue accompanying each person I met, particularly the ones that would later go on to become large parts of my life. I wish I had written down every detail of our time together. Not just with my love in Istanbul, but also the friends and loves I've been lead to since.

Here I doomed our happiness.

One of the most beautiful things about this book - it's inspired me to go back and try to write down everything I can remember about those loves. Not to look back on in agony over how short lived they were, or to relive the details, but because they affected how I experienced the city. Some places in Istanbul drew me to them, leading me to reminisce and smile, while others I began to avoid, so as not to awaken the pain resting within me from a love lost. Places that I simply spent time in with no true intention, or even desire to be there, became extraordinary because of the company kept... doesn't each fantastic experience deserve to be preserved? Just as some people bring home souvenirs from traveling to remind them of where they've been and their experiences there, I've begun collecting places. Certain cafes, or street corners where life was simply perfect, even if only for a brief moment.

In the book, our narrator describes the happiest moment of his life, and that, sadly, has a negative connotation. It means that the rest of his life could not possibly be better. That moment is gone, in the past, and everything was only downhill from there. In a sense, I have to agree with him. I don't have a definitive happiest moment in my life yet, so there's hope that I still have yet to experience that quintessential happiest moment. However, sometimes, if you realize in a moment of happiness, just how incredibly happy you are - that's the end of the happiness. Whether its because you suddenly fear that happiness can't be genuine, or the possibility of losing that happiness, it has become doomed. Don't think about how happy you are. I know it can be tough, especially when it's an overwhelmingly happy moment. Just be happy.

The Munich wintertime skating rink - one of the places where life was simply perfect, even if only for a little while.

So here's my advice:

An amazing site to come across the night we met.

Take the time to write, maybe a little before you go to bed, or when you wake up in the morning... what is the day like? Sunny? Cold? Hot? Dry? What smells and sounds make this place unique? Trivial, seemingly mundane, things will help complete the overall description of your experience, as well as accent the more monumental moments. Sensory memory can be a wonderful thing. Some day, you may smell or taste something that sends you back to that time, but it's even better if you can distinguish just which place and time it brought you back to. I've heard from people who have traveled extensively that in some places, everything just starts to blend together - you can't really distinguish where that memory took place. It's something I've begun to fear will happen to me one day, something I fear has already begun because I haven't adequately documented my experiences.

Take the time to type a private blog, jot down notes about something interesting or special about how your day has gone, hold on to little pamphlets or wrappers and make a scrapbook later with a description of what made that so special, or straight up journal about your travels. It's even cathartic to physically write down the little or private things that you don't want, or think the public will want to read. It's good for you to get these thoughts out somewhere, even if no one ever reads it.


Think about what you've done in your life, and what's going on in the world around you. No other person is leading your life. No other person will. Especially if you travel. You want to capture the fascination and excitement of your trips, so one day someone (even you, yourself) can look back on them, and appreciate all that you experienced. Think about it. Fifty years from now, wouldn't it be nice to read about that fateful day in some far off place, when you met the greatest love you've ever had? How the air smelled and felt? How their eyes mesmerized you from the moment you met? How you just wanted to be close. How butterflies fluttered in your stomach when your hands accidentally brushed up against each other as you walked down the street - that spectacular moment when your hands sought each other out, latching on and lacing fingers without any reason, as if they were magnets drawn together out of natural force? Don't you want to remember the things you learned about yourself? How each love left you more confident and helped you realize something more about what you want, nay, what you deserve, in a relationship? It's so easy to back track and think that someone is fantastic and treats you well in the next relationship, when you've completely forgotten what you loved about your previous relationships. This advice goes for places as well as people. Months after returning or moving on from a place, you may not remember it as it truly was. You may gloss over the negative aspects of a place and remember it as being more enjoyable than it was, then if you return there, be disappointed. The contrary can happen as well. You may look back on these writings and realize that a place was even better than you recalled.

He looks proud, right? Such a lovely grandchild to have!

Writing will give yourself, and people who care about you a better record of who you were, and of everything that contributed to the person you became. You never know if you're going to have a niece, nephew, grandchild, or great grandchild who is absolutely fascinated by you, because you are part of them. They may like to know what led you to become the person they one day knew, or who their parents knew. They may be a little too young, or too shy to try to ask you directly, but if one day they have something you wrote to read and learn a little more about you, I'm sure they'll appreciate it. Like I said before, you are part of them. Which brings me to part of the reason why this post is a week later than I had intended to publish it - I want dedicate it to one such person in my life. The first man in my life - my grandpa. I hope I made him proud with my adventures, even though they kept me away from him for a lot longer than I had intended, and prevented me from being there in person to celebrate his life with the rest of our family. I still love learning more about what made him the man I knew, the man I love, the man who will always be a part of me. Тебя люблю навсегда.

One of those farewells you sense is going to be your last, but hope with all your might it won't. Unfortunately it was.

Cooking Lesson: Eggplant with Tomatoes - Баклажан с помидорами (Bahklahzhan s pomidorami), აჯაფსანდალი (Ajapsandali)

Most of y'all know how much I LOVE to eat, and some of y'all know I LOVE to cook just as much. In fact, I find one of the best ways to enjoy a new culture is through it's food and beverage traditions. So, of course, once I fell in love with Georgia, and Georgian food (my favorite by far!) I HAD to ask my host mom to teach me how to cook one of my favorite meals! Not only was it great for me to learn how to cook a new dish (especially since it didn't appear in the Georgian cookbook I purchased before I left), but it was also a great opportunity to learn new vocabulary in Russian, and most importantly, to bond with my host mom! Моя грузинская мама <3

Unfortunately, the photos for this entry aren't that great, I couldn't quite stop and get them as clear as I would have liked, because cooking was more important than taking photos. Yes, I suppose I could make this dish again, and take super nice photos before posting this recipe, but I'm sure y'all would rather see the result as guided by my Georgian mom more than the bastardization it's turned into since I can't always find the proper ingredients or feel like taking the time to do everything exactly as she taught me. Some photos I took tonight, as I made a different dish, but other than those (which for some reason are STILL not as clear as I'd hoped) all of the photos are from the day my Georgian mom taught me & Sasha how to make this dish

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I mentioned in my post about homesickness that I started making the dish my Georgian mom taught me on a regular basis, well, this is it! This is what I make when I need to feel a little bit of Georgia, a little bit of home, a little bit of love. I hope y'all give it a try, it's not hard, and it's incredibly tasty! (Especially the day after... and the day after that... and the day after that!)

So, here we go... my 1st cooking lesson:

Look at that... you KNOW you want to try it... do it... I dare you!

Eggplant with Tomatoes, Баклажан с Помидорами (Bahklazhan s Pomidorami), აჯაფსანდალი (Ajapsandali)

A lot thinner than back home, right?

Slice eggplant, fry, then cut into about 1 inch strips... about 1/2 kilo, or 1.2lbs (or once you're comfortable with the recipe, however much eggplant you feel like eating. Remember, it's the star of this dish) anyway, that's how mom does it, long slices cut into 1 inch strips, but I find that to be a pain in the butt, so I just slice it the easy way, rounds, then once they're fried cut those into half or quarters, or slices (depending on the thickness of the eggplant), if you want to be certain that you get all bitterness out of the eggplant because you're scared you don't really like eggplant (I tried cooking with eggplant before I liked it... I didn't know how to prepare it... it turned out SO bad that I didn't even give it a try again until I lived in Batumi) simply add some salt, pop it in a colander for about 10 min, let it start to turn brown as the salt pulls all that bitter taste out of the eggplant, then rinse it, and fry it. (Or if you like your food really salty, don't bother to rinse it, you'll simply need to adjust how much salt you add later on.)

Brown it as much as you want, just don't burn it!

Frying will present itself with issues. You're best (and healthiest) bet is to use a REALLY good nonstick pan. Eggplant will absorb ALL of the fat/oil/butter you put into a pan to fry it. Use a good nonstick pan, and NO fat. It will stick a wee bit, but not enough to cause a pain in the butt upon cleanup, especially if you don't salt the eggplant beforehand, it will come out fairly easy. Not only is it healthier, but its also easier and easier. If you have to use some sort of fat to keep it from sticking to the pan, use it sparingly, otherwise you'll go through a TON of olive oil, butter, whatever. Let it turn brown, flip it, and let it turn brown again. Once it's cooled, slice it. You can do all of the frying hours, or even a day beforehand. It'll make throwing the rest of the dish together super quick!

Yes, it looks slimy and gross, but it tastes great!

Chop 4 small onions, fry in some oil - OR if you REALLY like onions (like I do) add more.

 

You could just use 2 larger onions if you want.

1 Red bell pepper (or whatever pepper you can find that isn't a spicy pepper) sliced.

Make the slices as small or big as you want.

Some Coriander/cilantro, sliced (cilantro DOES have a different taste from coriander, but sometimes you can't get fresh cilantro, so you have to settle... (yeah I didn't like cilantro until I lived in Georgia either)

I STILL forget that basil is purple around here when shopping!

Basil sliced - did you know that basil can be purple!? I didn't!

Yeah, just add everything to 1 bowl for later.

4 tomatoes use a grater - or you can be lazy af and just chop it up. I hate cleaning the dadgummed grater afterwards, so I've begun to just chop up the tomatoes as small as I can, and making sure that all of the juice ends up in the pot.

Try not to scrape your fingers too much.

4/5 cloves garlic - again, if you REALLY like garlic (like me) add more!

Simply not enough garlic imo...

Add 1 spoon of tomato paste to the onions once they're golden brown. If you don't know how to make onions beautifully golden brown, how do you survive!?! (Put butter/oil in warm pan, add onions, stir occasionally over low heat, you don't want to burn them! This step takes time - go prep other stuff)

Browning onions takes time - go chop something for a bit.

Then, add the tomato goo to onions too, sit on heat for 5 minutes, and bring it back to boil.

Goo beautiful Goo! You'll never buy premade sauce again!

Grate garlic (or if you hate cleaning the grater - chop it as finely as possible, the flavor won't be as strong, but it'll still be there).

Chop a hot pepper - jalapeno - do NOT mix this up with a pobalno... they look the same, but don't taste the same. You want this to be a bit spicy... or if you really like spicy food (like me) add more! MORE! MOAR!!!

This was when I realized that my knife skills need serious work.

Add hot tomato mixture to pot with sliced/chopped eggplant, then put it back on heat for 5 min. This is an unnecessary step to me, but that's how my host mom did it. I usually just add the eggplant to the hot mixture, stir it up really good, and let it sit on the burner for a few minutes. 

Next, lower the heat, add garlic and hot pepper. 

Then, add a little water if needed, it should be thick, like a stew.

Finally, add everything else, and then salt more if need be. 

Don't forget the secret ingredient! Love. Always cook with love. I'm not even kidding about that one.

Right before serving, add the cilantro, red pepper, and basil. (Because we threw all of that into the same bowl in a previous photo, remeber) The freshness of the herbs will be noticeable even when served as leftovers. Serve with some fresh bread, preferably a hot bread boat, just purchased from the window down the street. (Sorry to everyone in the US, that's just not a thing there, is it?) Some fresh cheese, and even homemade wine are great accompaniments as well!

Viola! Enjoy! Приятного аппетита!

And there you go! My favorite dish. I know what you're probably thinking too --- EWWW EGGPLANT! Well, so did I. In fact, when my Georgian mom asked me what food I don't like to eat during my first few days there, I said olives (which I now LOVE) and I would have said Eggplant, but I didn't know the word in Russian. HOW HAPPY AM I THAT I DIDN'T KNOW THE WORD!? Georgian (and even Turkish) food is full of this wonderful vegetable, and dude, it is delicious! The reason you probably don't like it, is probably similar to why you don't like mushrooms - the texture. Well, that's really because people in the US just don't know how to prepare these food items to make them appetizing. Go try this recipe. If you're concerned you're doing it wrong, contact me, if I'm awake and available, I'll walk you through it - heck, I may even be making it at the same time! The texture, you get over when it's made properly. Why? Because it just tastes SO FREAKING GOOD! You want to sneak more veggies into your diet? Here's the perfect dish for it. It'll introduce you to a good way to prepare eggplant, then, the next thing you know, you're sneaking it into your pasta sauce, and replacing your pasta with squash. I mean, really... store bought pasta is just gross, the Vegetti (yeah it sounds nasty/naughty) was a WONDERFUL invention and totally worth the $10-15 you spendon it. Either learn to make flavorful pasta on your own, or replace it with squash or zucchini, you don't need those extra, flavorless carbs. That's my pasta/carb rant... I know ONE of my friends would be proud, since he's always pressuring me to turn part of this blog into a guide to clean eating while traveling. Sorry guys, but I eat whatever is tasty when I travel, it just so happens that the tasty foods when you travel to the places I go, somehow aren't as unhealthy/detrimental to you as they would be back in the US.

Of course cooking, just like meals, are best enjoyed with good company! <3 

So... there you go! Finally a post from my time in Batumi! An interactive post at that! Try the recipe, tell me how it worked out, tell me how you liked it, tell me about any other Georgian dishes you want me to learn, and teach you how to make! (Yes, I fully intend to ask my Georgian mom to teach me more recipes when I finally go see her.)

Моя грузинская мама! My Georgian mom - isn't she cute!?

Home Sweet Home

I've had a request to give a tour of what my home and neighborhood were like in Bishkek, so I'll do my best...

In my first post about Bishkek, I mentioned how freaked out I was when I realized how far out of the city my neighborhood was, as well as a little bit about our house, and well... that icky discovery in the bathroom... but let's start from the beginning...

A map of Kyrgyzstan, with the places I spent time in marked. Note Kazakhstan is VERY close to Bishkek.

Here's Bishkek, a little closer... notice how far away from the majority of the city the pin marking my house is?

I wasn't kidding. 5 streets and you hit farmland.

See... I wasn't exaggerating when I said I was living pretty far out there. Only 5 streets away from fields, and nowhere near the city center.

Welcome to my 'hood - Рухий Мурас (Rykhii Muras)

This cute little ass passed our stop regularly, bringing produce to town.

All of the land out here was farmland just 5 years ago. My host parents built our house on their own. I think it's incredibly sweet. One weekend, when my host aunt was babysitting me (yes... I told them I wasn't afraid to spend a weekend alone, that I've lived alone before, and can totally take care of myself, but that whole hospitality thing...), she told me about how they met. It seems like the start to a cheesy rom-com -  it was on Independence Day at Panfilov Park. I haven't told you all about that park yet, but really... it's where all the youth go on warm summer nights to go have fun. It's basically an amusement park, but you don't have to pay admission fees to get in, so you can just wander around and enjoy the lights and sounds and buy tickets to whatever attraction interests you. Anyway... It took a few years for them to finally decide to get married, with both of their families pushing them toward it. They married for love. Something that's normal in Western culture, but not always the normal practice in other parts of the world. In Kyrgyzstan, as in Georgia, "bridenapping" is still a very common thing.

I was trying to give y'all a tour, not a history lesson, wasn't I? Sorry... so... where was I?

This house was our marker to get off the Marshrutka.

Yes, our relatively new neighborhood on the outskirts of Bishkek. There's 1 paved road taking you all the way to the fields. At the end is where the marshrutkas and buses line up waiting to start their next run, take a quick break, or grab something at the store. There's a sidewalk on one side of the street, but there are absolutely NO streetlights that far out of the city. All other roads are rough, dusty, gravel roads. Gotta watch where you're walking at all times, or risk spraining an ankle and eating dirt. Needless to say... I never tried to wear heels while I was living out here... or to go for a jog... it would have ended badly...

My host dad playying with Beksul'tan & some neighborhood kids.

Our house is completely finished, and there's a little store next door at the front of the wee complex the neighbors built. The house across the street... not so finished... but there's enough of a roof for the owners to live... in the summer, electricity doesn't really matter that much. There's SO many hours of daylight, and there wouldn't be air conditioning in the house anyway. Most people know how to cook without it as well. What about plumbing you ask? Well... in that area, it's still common, nay smart, to have an outhouse. BELIEVE ME on that one... Things I wish I had discovered sooner... we went for like 2 days without water once... my hair... was so nasty...

My host mom watching my host dad & brother play with neighborhood kids

Our house doesn't look like anything all that special from the outside. Pretty standard. The fence/wall facing the street is a bit decorative, as you can see in this photo. We have a code gate to walk through, and a larger gate next to it for the car to enter the driveway. You walk into the complex, and there's a wee front yard with a tree, and a few plants my host mom put there on the right. Trash is on the left, and eventually my host mom started putting leftover food in that area for the cats that wound up living in the yard... pets are not very common here... animals in the house? Yuck. Vaccines are also pretty expensive (not so much for a foreigner, but for a local, yes), so you do have to worry about strays living in your yard, especially if you have kids, you never know what they have and could pass to your child if they get scratched.

Our wee front yard and stoop

Anyway... the carport is to the left of the house. The stoop is fairly small, but you always have to be sure to leave a pair of sandals out there. Like a normal Muslim household, we don't wear shoes inside. Which I like. I'm a walk around barefoot kind of gal. So, take your shoes off either before or as soon as you go in, and stash them by the door, or put them in your room, and keep a pair by the door for walking around outside, which in the summertime will be every time you want to eat something. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in the summertime, my family eats all meals outside. Why heat up the house more by cooking inside? We've got a separate eating/cooking area out back. Pretty clever, if you ask me.

A bit tight, but well equipped!

So... after you take your shoes off and go inside, there's a little foyer, with shelves to place your shoes, and places to hang your coats, then there's a wee corridor leading to the bathroom, which I didn't take any photos of. Sorry. Besides the rag instead of TP discovery, the bathroom was pretty standard. Toilet, sink, washing machine, and a shower, but not the kind of shower we're used to, this was more like how you buy a whole hot-tub and put it in your house somewhere. You buy the shower unit, and pop it somewhere in your house. You have to step up to get into it, which wouldn't be ideal for the elderly, but it was still nicer than quite a few showers I've experienced in my life.

To the right once you enter the house, is another door (it seems the hall with the bathroom, extra storage room, and the foyer were additions after the house was already finished), once you go through that, you have the kitchen to the left, which as I've said many times, we rarely used while I was there. It did have all of your standard kitchen appliances, a nice fridge, a separate tap for drinking water, and even a proper oven... something I've had to live without since I left... Now and then, if it wasn't too hot out, we'd have some tea and a snack in there, or you'd catch visiting family members lying on the benches, taking a nap, or watching TV, because it was so much cooler on the 1st floor.

Fancy A.F. right?

Straight ahead is the mystery door... I didn't know what was behind it for about a month... I wasn't very big on snooping around, even though I was curious. I sort of always felt like I'd get caught and get in trouble somehow. Well, at first, I thought maybe another family lived behind the mystery door, it was a really nice door to have installed inside the house. Eventually I was invited beyond the mystery door, and what did I learn? There's a formal dining room in there! Like, seriously fancy, can seat at least 20 people with a long table and the nice china, etc. That's also where my family slept at night in the summer. I was really confused for the first few days when I realized that I was the only person sleeping upstairs... I had no clue where everyone else was! Anyway, the first time I was invited in there was for a formal dinner, when family came into town as part of a holiday. After that, my wee host terror began dragging me in there to play at night, if he wasn't in a mood to tear apart my room instead.

Doesn't look uncomfortable at all... better than springs stabbing you.

It may seem weird that the whole family sleeps down there in the summertime to you, but really, it makes sense. It's a lot cooler in that room, because it's on the 1st floor, and doesn't receive much direct sunlight. Plus, in many parts of the world, it's still totally normal for entire families to sleep together until the child has hit puberty, or even later. My wee host sister last year in Batumi slept in bed with her parents, even though she was about 10. That's not because I stole her room, either. That was just normal. So, in traditional Kyrgyz style, thick blankets get laid out on the floor, pillows for heads, and another blanket or sheet on top. Mom, dad, daughter, and son, all sleep together on the floor. Even though I had my own room, and a proper bed, I'm sure they were far more comfortable than me every night.

A stash of traditional, brightly colored, thick Kyrgyz blankets for sleeping.

A nice little nook for the computer, no?

To the right of the mystery door, was a wee den area next to the stairs. A desk with a computer was under the stairs, and opposite the staircase was another couch, sometimes the kids would sit and watch videos on the computer, from there, or play with toys in that area as well. Once you go up the stairs is a big window, one of the few windows in the house that would get direct sunlight. It lit up the second floor landing. You make a left as soon as you get to the top, and the first door you see is my host parent's bedroom, which was mainly just used for storing their clothes in those hot summer months.

Plenty of space to play, or just lounge about!

To the left of that was another door, leading to the living room. Couches, a TV, and plenty of floor space in that room, perfect for slumber parties (my host sister had quite a few with her cousins) or for little Beksul'tan to run rampant in. The last room up there was mine, originally Beka's. It was equipped with a desk, and a ton of those thick Kyrgyz blankets, since that seemed to be the best place to store them, and a normal twin bed. The decor? Kinda perfect for trying to make me feel like a kid again. Brightly colored dolphin sheets, and Disney Princess curtains.

It was actually a pretty comfy bed, Lotso approved!

The view from my window during a RARE sun shower.

From my window, I could pretty much only see the neighbor's house, because the carport was next to my room, but that came in handy at times as well. Now and then, I'd hear my name called from their kitchen, and they would tell me Racha was looking for me, or invite me over for tea and dessert. These were the kind of neighborhood interactions that you think only exist on TV. Just outside of my room was an armoire, in which Beka, my host sister, cleared out some space for me to put my clothes. So... Yeah, that's our quaint little house.

ALWAYS pack extra flipflops!

Outside is where things start to get different from what we're used to... so, head downstairs, put your flipflops on, and walk through the carport (which is where my family's Mercedes was stored) There's a couch at the end of the carport, up against another building. A nice place to sit outside, under cover, to avoid the stifling heat inside. On the left perimeter of the yard was a long building, which I just assumed was storage for a while. in the right far corner is the extra cooking/dining area. The rest of the yard - a beautiful garden. Well... it would be even more beautiful once everything my host mom had planted was ripe. The roses were beautiful from the very beginning though.

I loved walking past these flowers every day!

The backyard as seen from the living room.

That storage shed turned out to not just have storage, as I discovered one day when I was left alone and started snooping. There was also a banya in there. OMG A BANYA!? My dream house will have a banya. Until you've experienced banya, you have no clue how refreshing it is. It's not just a sauna, or a steam room. It's a form of bathing, that stimulates the senses and leaves you feeling relaxed and refreshed. Further back was more storage for wood etc. and then another little building... THAT was where the outhouse was hiding! WHY DIDN'T THEY SHOW ME THAT!? Seriously. The days when we didn't have any water or someone was already in the bathroom when a case of CASE  hit, that would have been really nice to know...

The backyard as seen from the carport - the garden and summer kitchen

CAS/E by the way is a gem of a term I learned from a girl I met at my hostel here in Tbilisi. Central Asian Stomach/Evacuations is what she called it. Once you've traveled in Central Asia, you'll understand exactly what that is. Raz walked from Cornwall, England to Istanbul, bought a bike, and has cycle-toured all the way to Bishkek, so she knows all about CAS... I've got to throw a shameless plug out to her blog, and hopefully one day soon, her book. Meeting someone as fearless as her, just further inspired me to keep writing about these adventures, and to find some new ones, because the world really isn't such a big, scary place. So, give Raz's blog a look! She's been to some of the places I've been to, but has definitely had a unique experiences, and a different perspective as well!

You probably don't want to see what it looked like under those floorboards...

And lastly, we come to the extra kitchen, and dining area. Basically, it was a rough storage shed with a microwave and hot plate, and a kettle, with a big hole in the floor, so stuff could be stored underneath... yeah... a hole dug in the ground under the floorboards, not some sort of finished storage room, literally a deep ass hole... So... now you know why a permanent state of traveler's sickness, or CAS took hold... Food storage around these parts, isn't that great. Plus there was just a lot of meat, potatoes, noodles, and fat. CASE was standard. I have a stomach of steel now, I swear. But I digress...

This is where we had most meals, and spent hours of chatting over tea.

Next to the extra kitchen/storage shed was the spare dining room. Really casual, but many hours a night were spent in there, just drinking tea and chatting with my host mom. This is also where the big stove for making large, celebratory meals is located. In the photo, it's on top of the pink tiles. You put the heating elements in one of those doors on the side, and the big pan for cooking is on top of that, in this photo, they have wood covers on them to keep them clean. I never got to see it in action, but that is where dishes like beshbarmak and plov would be made when you're expecting a lot of guests, and as you've seen from that formal dining room, they certainly can accommodate a lot of guests.

One of those days when the hole was handy.

I've mentioned before that the neighborhood was very social. Very much an "it takes a village" kind of environment. I met our neighbors on the first night I was there. I met other people living nearby shortly after, and pretty much everyone recognized me, even if I hadn't met them yet. There was even a big hole in the fence separating our houses, which came in pretty handy a few times, when Racha locked herself out of the yard. It was big enough for an adult to climb through. It also meant that we could just go downstairs and chat through the hole, if we didn't feel like changing out of PJ's and walking around the neighborhood. Evening strolls weren't uncommon, which was really nice. I joined my host dad in playing with other neighbors and kids on the street a few times. I think I even got engaged at one point... I'm not entirely sure that the engagement is broken off, actually...

Overall, once I got used to it, it was a great place, full of great people. It actually came to remind me of where I grew up in New York. On a dirt road, where everyone in the neighborhood knew who I was. Where neighborhood kids played in the streets, and parents socialized. It's a good way to live... I guess I'll always be a bit of a country girl... Hopefully I'll be walking down those dusty roads again in the near future. Now that I've actually pulled off returning to a country that I never thought I'd go back to, I really believe that I will make it back to Bishkek one day. I know it won't be the same, the neighborhood, and my host siblings will all grow, but I can't wait to walk past that yurt, see those mountains, smell that dust again, and smile fondly.

I got to see those mountains every day, reminding me how special this place is.

If I hadn't lived so far from the city, I wouldn't have been lucky enough to see sunsets like this on a regular basis.

I wasn't kidding about the yurt in the neighborhood either!