It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It was an exciting day here at the Sheraton!  There was a huge International Bazaar in the lobby from 10AM until 6PM.  There were so many amazing things to taste, buy and look at.  Lots of art, jewelry, crafts, pottery....and on, and on.   I guess the bazaar is held every year on the first Saturday of the month and brings in lots of people.  Most of the proceeds go to charity.

What was really cool is that most countries set up a booth and sold country-specific items.  We bought vodka from Estonia, sushi from Japan, some coconut cakes from France and some chocolate from Lithuania (are you sensing a theme?!)....oh, and some Trader Joe's peanut butter from the USA table.  We also bought a few books for the kids and a really cool oil painting from a Georgian artist named Levan Mosiashvili.  We hung it on our wall in the hotel room and it already makes the place feel homier.

Our new painting--sideways! 

Jake had lots of fun.  He was able to see Santa Claus, but wasn't too keen on the idea of actually touching him (although he was very tempted by the candy).  The Sheraton has been working all week on making a huge gingerbread house, so that is also cool for him to run around in.  All of the staff are getting to know him and he generally feels like a rock star.  It is going to seem awfully boring to him when we finally move into a house :-)

A view of the gingerbread house.

The bazaar today was really amazing and made me more aware of the variety of people that live in Georgia.  What I also realized today is how many people I know here already.  As I walked around I probably stopped and talked (or said 'hi') to at least 20-30 people, which was fun.   It was also great to introduce Jon to some of my new friends so that he can get to know them as well.  

Some recent art work by Jake.  Love the hands and foot reindeer!

Well, off to try the chocolates...yum.