Tbilisi at Christmas, Part II. Or: Shiny things that are fun to look at.

Let's blow through these, shall we? I'm sitting at my brother's laptop, in London, at it's 1 o'clock in the morning, and we have to get up preposterously early to visit the Tower of London tomorrow, and Let's Just Get This Dose of Holiday Cheer Out of the G#ddamn Way Already. Cheers!

...Ok, ok, I didn't mean to be cross with you just then. It's just that I am tired. Seriously, though, Happy Holidays to everyone who reads this blog, whether it be due to interest in me, or interest in Georgia, or interest in the lyrics to "Misha Magaria" (megobaro, swori vebgverdze ar xar - "Google"Si naxe isev!). Merry Christmas slash other religious holiday, and a Happy New Year to you and yours. kargi axali weli yofiliyos. Sen da Sens ojaxma kargad iyaviT, da janmrtulad iyaviT, da bedniereba axal welSi gisurvebT. didxans sisowxeles sul Tqvens. gilocavT Soba-axal wels.

Interesting non-Christmasy note: there are two ways to type Georgian words on a Latin keyboard. One way is just to type how they sound. The other way is to type them the way you'd type them on a Latin keyboard in a Georgian font, with certain Georgian-only sounds being put on certain other letters in the keyboard, and upper-case and lower-case Latin letters being used for different Georgian characters. I tend to use the second method, because it's better practice for when I have to type in Georgian. So do not think that the above Christmas greeting is how those words SOUND. But any Georgian reading this should be able to understand it, unless I have totally screwed up my spelling or my grammar - most Georgians can read English characters, because they use these characters on the internet and in their cell phone text messages. My first week at work, I spent like three hours creating a phoenetic alphabet chart to help my coworkers learn the English alphabet. That didn't turn out to be necessary. They all send each other, and me, text messages that look like the one above, with capitalizations in funny places because of which Georgian character is assigned to, for instance, the lower case "t" vs the upper case "T" on a normal Latin keyboard. The possible knot, as far as understanding of my holiday message goes, is the strong likelihood that I've made spelling and grammar mistakes. I'm not very good at this language, yet. Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone.

Happy holidays.