There!

Greetings from Tbilisi!  I arrived here Wednesday morning, completely intact with all of my bags.  This trip is off to a miraculously good start.  

In the airport in Chicago, I had my first authentic deep-dish Chicago pizza and ran into a couple other TLG volunteers, Kelsey and Tom.  Confirmation that this whole program is not a scam!  Or, if it is a scam, we've all been scammed.

Kelsey and Tom

The flight from O'Hare to Attaturk was ten hours long, and I slept through almost all of it.  The people directly in front of me had two small children with them, and I think they watched Happy Feet 2 throughout the entire flight.  Every time I woke up, I saw dancing penguins...

In the airport in Istanbul, I had authentic Turkish delight (without the soul-stealing side effects!) and met up with Danny and John, also Tbilisi-bound.  More confirmation that I either haven't been scammed or I've been taken in by a very clever scam that has also scammed all of these people.

It's blurry, but Danny is on the right and John is on the left

The plane from Turkey to Tbilisi was almost entirely filled with TLG workers.  We were met at the airport Wednesday morning by several ladies from the program and shuffled into marshutkas to the hotel.  

Taking off my shoes and showering when I got here was absolutely amazing, and I'm still rubbing my toes on the carpet in the bliss of freedom.  Because everyone has been travelling and sleep-deprived for so long, we have the rest of the day off before we start training on Thursday.  At this point, I'm afraid that I'll sleep all day and be jet-lagged all week if I take a nap now.  Some other TLGers and I have plans to walk around the Old City in a few hours.

This is the lobby of the hotel where I'm staying.  Poor me...