My week: August 28 ed.

This was a very international week, with what I'd call a varied cultural program. Oh wait; every week is mostly like that and I find it grand.

I met with my tandem partner and she suggested that each speak our target lessons the whole time. I'm almost always tired when I visit her because it's after a long day of work and my brain is just about kaputt by then. However, I acquiesced and can agree that it was a good idea.

Want to give your brain a workout? Speak your second (or third? I'm not fluent in Spanish so it probably doesn't count) language while your tandem partner speaks her third language, which is your first language. Then correct her 3rd language's grammar using your 2nd/3rd language and get teased when switching back to your first language since it's difficult to keep all the languages and grammar straight when you come from a monolingual background.

Later in the week, I attended a cooking course/cultural night presented by some Georgian students (from the country, not the US state). They played Georgian Youtube videos of traditional songs and dances for us; I especially liked the guys performing prancy type dances (I should've asked for the technical term).

The gals taught us how to make a stew, meat dumplings, bread, salad, stuffed eggplant, sauces, dessert, and more. The event was listed as lasting for seven hours, which I thought was a typo. Well, cooking all those items took 5.5 hours since it was all made from scratch; even the grape juice was pressed from grapes. My friend Ay. and I arrived after work and were completely exhausted by the time the food was done. We did enjoy ourselves though, and heartily ate from the feast.

I asked the Georgians if they'd normally cook like this and they said no. While these are national dishes, some of them are only made at holidays, such as a walnut/honey toffee-like concoction.

A feast of Georgian food

Meat dumplings

I was invited to two back-to-back potlucks on the weekend. One was from a colleague and the other potluck was from the friend of one of my German friends. I enjoyed both of them very much and there was some very tasty food, as well as some German speaking.