Disclaimer:

The contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Kvareli in the Limelight

My town of Kvareli has been in the Georgian spotlight recently, after discovering that the government's Department of Tourism and Resorts has chosen it as their next tourist location. They are planning a budget of 30 million dollars towards this project, that will go towards road reconstruction, new restaurants, hotels, shops, etc. The project has started now, with the construction of the new tourism office which is about a 1 minute walk from my house and all the brand spanking new signs all over town pointing tourists to different places of interest; and will be in the works till late 2013 (or so they believe...I'm not holding my breath.) Regardless, this an exciting time for my community and for my counterpart, Alex and I as the Department head has asked us to become directly involved. We are charged with the design and creation of Kvareli's branding, flag, and tagline...and hopefully plenty other things later as well. Very fun stuff.

In addition to this, one of the well known news stations, Rustavi 2, here in Georgia has chosen to showcase the winery I work for and interview Alex to ask about our new tourism company he and I started, Georgian Journeys. Unless you speak Georgian, which I'm sure plenty of you do ;) you won't understand what's going on, but there are some cool shots of the winery where I work everyday and some interviews with Alex (guy with silver hair) and also with Kindzmarauli's General Director, Nugzar, who they talk with at length at the end of the program. Skip ahead to minute 13:12 to see the news clip.

Kindzmarauli winery and Georgian Journeys interview

Teo, the marketing director of Kindzmarauli, and myself
Also, to add to the tourismy awesomeness of Kvareli, the president of the winery Tamaz Konchoshvili and the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili have invested their money and efforts into opening a brand new resort here in Kvareli, which just had it's Grand opening a couple of days ago. All the ministry heads, Saakashvili himself, posh-rich Georgian influentials, employees of the winery, and little ole Peace Corps volunteers such as Katelyn and I were invited. Let me tell you....holy...crap. This place is incredible, and seriously belongs in the upper echelons of society even in LA, New York, or Miami. There was non stop all you can eat food and drink (caviar, roasted quail, shrimp, prosciutto, wine, hennesy, whiskey etc etc etc), fireworks, live music from stars of Eurostar and Geostar...Um...wait, am I actually a Peace Corps volunteer? Haha, I'm definitely not gonna try and jinx it. Below is a link to Saakashvili giving a speech, on the roof of the hotel, about the opening of the resort and promotion of tourism on the behalf of Georgia and Kvareli.

The President and the Kvareli Lake Resort


This is gonna be a fun and interesting next year...can't wait.

Nugzar and his wife Teo
The rooftop lounge of the Kvareli Lake Resort

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

The 2nd 4th

I know I've already stated that it's been a year since first coming here to Georgia like 13 times...but when realizing this is the second 4th of July spent in this country it still surprises me.

It was a great Independence Day weekend though. I made it a point to stuff my face with some classic McDonalds burgers and freedom fries in the morning, then sluggishly make my way over to play softball with some friends who have been setting up games on the weekends to play a team of Georgian girls. The girls are on an official team and wanted practice games to prepare for an upcoming tournament...even though they are in the age range of 12 - 18 years, they were extremely good and we barely won we crushed them...no big deal.

Afterwards, we celebrated with some fried chicken, beer pong, and a night of dancing. BUT! To top off the weekend, Peace Corps invited us to go to the swanky Tbilisi Marriott to hear (and hopefully meet) Hillary Clinton who has been traveling to the Caucasus countries the past week. Sure enough, after quite a long wait (which was done in an air conditioned room...I'm not complaining) she showed up, gave a small 5 minute 'thank you' speech for everyone who has served overseas, yadda yadda. Then, walked around the room to shake hands with anyone who could push their way through. Luckily for me, I towered over everyone else and had a handlebar moustache...so I kinda stood out from everyone else which actually worked, because she looked right at me with a strange eyebrow raised glance, said hello and shook my hand. Pretty cool.

That's my goofy head in the background


Besides not having any fireworks and actually being IN America, I'd say this weekend would be pretty hard to beat for a successful 4th.

Now...if I could only remember where all these states belong, I could truly be proud to be an American. Man, I guess I have been living here for too long.




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