G e o_s y n_c h r o n i_c i t y

Merry Christmas! Even though today was a regular work day in the Orthodox world, and Orthodox Christmas will be on January 7, wherever else it is celebrated, today's the day.

We waited until 15:35 before the electricity - off for nearly 4 days now - came back on, enabling me to connect to the internet and the blog again just in time for this special day. Another timely thing was the arrival of some more books - chiefly on teaching English, plus Roger Penrose's hefty 1100-page physics magnum opus, The Road to Reality. These, plus some fabulously unavailable fresh root ginger, were all the gift of a recent new American friend whom I had introduced to Ushguli and Svaneti while he was working on his Georgian-based doctoral thesis. TG and your wife, thank you so much for the gifts - perfect timing that they arrived on Christmas evening!

Some more cellphone photos:

Bottom, the view from my bedroom window west.

Middle, one of my three school-age English classes. (Not all the rooms have electricity, but several that do have radiators as of September. Others have wood stoves.)

Finally, top, some crazily tilting icicles, sent off on wild angles by the shifting snow above them on the roofs.