#yes this is based of tbilisi

[thayoqu]

sorry for being late 😭😭 anyway happy borthday to the best boy

#ygo #gx #judai yuki #pixel #yes this is based of tbilisi #no i did not confirm which way is west

[casualjellyfishcycle]

Unveiling Grigol Robakidze University: Your Gateway to Studying MBBS Abroad

Introduction:

Are you aspiring to pursue your dream of studying MBBS abroad? Look no further than Grigol Robakidze University in Tbilisi, Georgia. Renowned for its excellence in medical education, Grigol Robakidze University offers a comprehensive curriculum, state-of-the-art facilities, and a conducive learning environment for aspiring medical professionals. In this article, we delve into the intricate details of Grigol Robakidze University, covering everything from its address to syllabus, fees, and official website, ensuring you have all the information you need to take the first step towards your medical career.

Grigol Robakidze University: A Beacon of Medical Education

Grigol Robakidze University Address:

Nestled in the heart of Tbilisi, the vibrant capital city of Georgia, Grigol Robakidze University boasts a prime location conducive to academic excellence. Located at the university provides easy access to students from around the globe.

Exploring Tbilisi:

Tbilisi, with its rich history, cultural diversity, and breathtaking landscapes, offers students a unique blend of academic pursuits and cultural immersion. From exploring historic landmarks to experiencing the city's culinary delights, study mbbs abroad Tbilisi has something to offer for everyone.

Grigol Robakidze University Tbilisi Syllabus:

The curriculum at Grigol Robakidze University is meticulously crafted to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of medical sciences while emphasising practical learning and clinical exposure. The syllabus encompasses a wide range of subjects, including Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Pathology, Microbiology, and more.

Practical Training:

One of the highlights of studying at Grigol Robakidze University is the emphasis on practical training. Students have access to modern laboratories, simulation centres, and teaching hospitals, allowing them to hone their clinical skills under the guidance of experienced faculty members.

Grigol Robakidze University Fees:

Concerns about tuition fees are common among aspiring medical students. However, at Grigol Robakidze University Fee, affordability meets quality education. The university offers competitive tuition fees, making it an attractive option for students seeking value for money without compromising on the quality of education.

Scholarship Opportunities:

Grigol Robakidze University also provides scholarship opportunities for deserving students based on academic merit and financial need. These scholarships alleviate the financial burden on students and enable them to focus wholeheartedly on their academic pursuits.

Grigol Robakidze University Official Website:

For prospective students seeking detailed information about Grigol Robakidze University, the official website serves as a comprehensive resource hub. From admission procedures to curriculum details, accommodation options to extracurricular activities, the website offers valuable insights into life at Grigol Robakidze University.

Virtual Campus Tour:

Explore the university's campus virtually through interactive maps, videos, and testimonials, giving you a glimpse into the world-class facilities and infrastructure available at Grigol Robakidze University.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What are the admission requirements for international students?

International students are required to submit their academic transcripts, a valid passport, proof of English proficiency, and any additional documents specified by the university.

Is accommodation available for international students?

Yes, Grigol Robakidze University offers accommodation facilities for international students, ensuring a comfortable and safe living environment during their stay in Tbilisi.

Are there opportunities for clinical rotations during the course?

Grigol Robakidze University collaborates with leading hospitals and healthcare institutions, providing students with ample opportunities for clinical rotations and hands-on experience.

What extracurricular activities are available for students?

From student clubs and societies to cultural events and sports activities, Grigol Robakidze University offers a vibrant campus life, fostering holistic development beyond academics.

Can students avail themselves of internship opportunities?

Yes, students have the opportunity to participate in internships and elective rotations both locally and internationally, enhancing their practical skills and global exposure.

How is the faculty at Grigol Robakidze University?

The faculty at Grigol Robakidze University comprises experienced professors, clinicians, and researchers who are dedicated to providing quality education and mentorship to students.

Conclusion:

Embark on an enriching journey of medical education at Grigol Robakidze University, where academic excellence meets cultural immersion. With its comprehensive curriculum, affordable fees, and prime location in Tbilisi, Grigol Robakidze University stands as your gateway to studying MBBS abroad. Take the first step towards realising your medical aspirations and shape a brighter future with Grigol Robakidze University.

#grigol robakidze university official website #grigol robakidze medical university #grigol robakidze university tbilisi syllabus #grigol robakidze university

[studymbbsaborad]

LOW COST MBBS IN OVERSEAS FOR INDIAN STUDENTS

Georgia, a country at the intersection of Europe and Asia, is a former Soviet republic that’s home to Caucasus Mountain villages and Black Sea beaches. Capital and largest city of Georgia is known as Tbilisi. Georgia has become one of the popular destinations for MBBS in abroad for Indian students at low cost.

In India today, everyone is highly aware of the state of the healthcare system. While there are more cases of health problems every year, there aren't enough registered doctors to treat them, which results in a very low doctor-to-patient ratio.

 Accordingly, there is a fundamental need to fix this issue, but it cannot be resolved right once due to the dearth of suitable seats in India. As a result, the motivated students are unable to realise their ambition of becoming doctors. They are anticipating travelling abroad to pursue their goal.

 However, the issue of reasonable charge structures, which should essentially be feeted in their budget, comes up again at some point. because if it can't be resolved, the scenario will be similar to studying for the MBBS in private colleges in India once more. Therefore, it is now simple and inexpensive for you to fulfil your dreams while living overseas.

 Yes, hopefuls, you may now choose your universities based on your own interests in studying abroad at reasonable costs, so you can relax. Where fees are not an issue, your desire will come true.

[talesofsorrowandofruin]

Hi! How are you? I submit 7, 5 and 20 for the meta asks :DD

Thanks! :D

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?:

Gialma from the Death series, Irímé and Mirio from The Power and the Glory, and Darejan from Like Snow on Hungry Graves. Gialma and Irímé have the most in common with me, while Mirio and Darejan have to deal with their relatives' drama.

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?:

I think my writing style has not enough descriptions and too much padding, and quite a few critiques I've gotten on Critique Circle agree.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?):

I amused myself by including references to real-world history and languages in The Power and the Glory (example: Ahalál is the name of Ilaran's home kingdom and is also Hungarian = "a" means "the" and "halál" means "death", so its name is basically "thedeath").

There's also a pretty complicated background reference to Georgian history that needs a lot of explanation:

First, I decided to set Like Snow on Hungry Graves in a fantasy version of Georgia. So I researched Georgian names and decided to name the protagonist Rusudan after a 13th-century queen of Georgia. That led to me reading more about the real Rusudan, which led to me reading about her husband Ghias ad-Din.

Second, I needed to increase TPATG's wordcount. I decided the best way to do that was for Lian to talk more about his past.

Third, I made a note of Ghias ad-Din's story, planning to use it as inspiration for part of LSOHG. So when I needed inspiration for Lian's past, I saw that note and decided to loosely base Lian's past on it. Result: well, I added this footnote to the chapter which sums it up:

[2] This bit is very loosely inspired by real-world history. The Kuarajmë Empire's name is inspired by the Khwarazmian Empire. The emperor mentioned is inspired by Jalal al-Din Mangburni, the invasion is inspired by his 1225 invasion of Georgia (the country in Europe -- or Asia, depending on your point of view -- and not the American state), and Lian's role is equally loosely inspired by Ghias ad-Din, who really did defect to the Khwarazmians and then redefected to the Georgians (though unlike Lian he probably didn't set out to be a spy). Tëflisë is inspired by Tiflis, an old name for Tbilisi. And yes, most of this is an excuse to use the research I did for a completely different WIP.

#ask #ladydawnxx #writing #my writing #my characters #my WIPs #WIP: necromancer #history

[vavuska]

AUGUST 27, 2020

Fashion and Eurocentric standards of beauty

Armine Harutyunyan is a 23 years-old armenian artist and fashion model, who has been included in the list of the 100 sexiest women in the world. This list proves once again that beauty has no standards.

Her appearance made discuss because she doesn't have european features

In the spring of 2019, Armine received an offer to take a photo on one of the streets of Berlin, after which she was invited as a model by the Gucci fashion house and took part in the casting of the Milan White Fashion Week Spring/Summer collection on September 22 2019. Armine walked down the runway with a dress inspired by straitjacket.

In my country, Italy, the Gucci's fashion show in which models dressed in outfits ‘inspired’ by mental illness, inspired a discussion about the commodification of a serious social issue, no one in that occasion talked about Armine Harutyunyan and her appearance.

The firestorm happened after her nomination in the list of the 100 sexiest women in the world.

She became the first Armenian model to appear at a fashion show of a famous brand. In November she opened one of the exhibitions at the 2019 Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Tbilisi.

She modeled Dalood, a Georgian brand “for girls not interested in showy street style kitsch.”

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tbilisi is Georgia’s premier fashion event offering an international platform for designers from the region to seamlessly connect with media and buyers.

The Mercedes-Benz fashion is committed to building a bridge between designers, artists, photographers, fashion and art experts, journalists, fashion and art personalities from around the world.

In this occasion Armine Harutyunyan was criticised for not being conventionally attractive enough to participate in the fashion industry, much less a Gucci runway show, by Georgians.

But the criticism was not only limited to the young woman’s appearance, it was also deeply charged with anti-Armenian animus, a deeply rooted issue in Georgian society.

HERE FIND THE ARTICLE:

Born into an artistic family in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, her grandfather Khachatur Azizyan is one of Armenia’s most celebrated living artists. Instead of painting however, Armine is an illustrator and graphic designer. It’s also pretty cool to note, that while her mother is a doctor, she also participates in exhibitions too. In fact, she is so supportive, that when Armine was deciding between medicine and art herself, she told her daughter to pursue her creative side.

While she was in Berlin to see her favorite band perform, a fashion scout spotted her and asked to exchange contacts. The fashion scout followed up with her a month later, informing her that she has been casted to be part of Gucci’s show. Seeing an Armenian model walk Gucci’s runway was an exciting moment for Armenian community. It is rare for us to see models that doesn't fit Eurocentric beauty standards. Armine’s beauty is incredibly refreshing, and she certainly stood out during the show.

For so long and still to this day, women have been constantly criticized for their physical appearance based on misogynistic ideas of femininity and the racist idealization of Eurocentric features.

This affected black and asian women too: mainstream beauty standards are represented through White models, as well as the majority of Black women portrayed in the media who most often possess Eurocentric features (e.g., fair skin, long straight hair, thin lips, small nose).

In China and other parts of Asia, women use skin-whitening cream and walk around with umbrellas on sunny days to keep themselves as close to white as possible. Also, in many East Asian countries, a surgery to give women “double eyelids” has become a popular practice, taking away from their own natural, cultural beauty to make them meet the standards of white beauty. In Lebanon, 1 in 3 women will endeavor in some kind of plastic surgery. In India, light-skinned women are considered more attractive than dark-skinned women. Japan even invented a tool to thin one’s nose without the hassle of surgery.

(On the other hand we continue to see the colonial exotication, sexualization and objectification of “exotic” non-white women by white men.)

Yes, Armine Harutyunyan is not “beauty” for the Eurocentric standards you are used to, but showing that her kind of beauty, even if is seen as “exotic”, is rapresented in media and — more important — is accepted by western fashion industry is important not only for Armenian girls but for all the girls who have features similar to hers.

It is truly ignorant for people to not realize exactly how large this problem is within our society. Native American, Asian, Latin, African, Middle Eastern: All these cultures are so beautiful in their own unique way, and to just ignore them in favor of “typical” beauty is racism. Our society needs to realize that supporting Eurocentric beauty standards is just another insidious form of racism that has continued to dominate our mindset.

(Another issue is about how a lot of men online have said that “they won't fuck her” or similars, showing how women on the media are still seen as sexual objects: this is the other face of cybersexual harrasment, in which the same guys feel perfectly comfortable on telling women what they will do with their bodies.)

https://equalityarmenia.org/f/armine-harutyunyan-becomes-first-armenian-to-model-for-gucci

Some examples of Italian sexism, misogyny and they obviously don't see the whole point: making acceptable also not Eurocentric kind of beauty X

#Armine Harutyunyan #gucci #fashion industry #fashion #fashion week #fashion model #whitewashing in fashion #body positive #body postivity #beauty standards #racism #sexism #intersectional feminism #everyday feminism #inclusive feminism #feminismisforeverybody #Feminism #femininst #Italy #italian politics #politica italiana #italian #eurocentric beauty standards #eurocentrism #vavuskapakage #body shame #bodyshaming #bodyshamers #hate speech is not freedom of speech #hate spreech

[letterboxd]

Life in Film: Levan Akin

“Someone told me, ‘You are one person when you make the film, another when it’s over’. And that’s really the case with this film, it’s changed me fundamentally.” —The writer and director of And Then We Danced talks to our London correspondent Ella Kemp about masculinity, queer love stories, Georgian cinema and the ever-quotable joys of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.

Love stories come and go, but few have the golden warmth of Levan Akin’s dance-romance, And Then We Danced, which has captivated Letterboxd members enough to garner an impressive 4.0 rating out of 5. The film follows Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani), a dancer who has grown up training at the National Georgian Ensemble, and is moved to examine the structures and traditions he exists within when the charismatic Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) arrives at the company.

Akin was born and raised in Sweden, the son of a Georgian family who emigrated in the 1960s. Following the attacks at the 2013 Pride parade in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, the solidarity among the country’s gay and queer communities became more urgent. Akin was moved to turn away from the big-budget Swedish TV productions he has made a name directing, in order to connect back to his roots for this project. But And Then We Danced isn’t solely a political commentary—it moves and feels freely.

Akin’s film gives audiences a long-overdue education on traditions far outside Hollywood: we see the rigid rules of Georgian dance, the way a body is taught to bend and extend and survive, and how spontaneous feelings have no place in that education.

If the film, told from such a unique perspective, also feels somehow familiar, it’s because Akin, who wrote, directed and co-edited, is a magnanimous cinephile. He’s been watching and understanding love stories since he can remember, and speaks of them with immense enthusiasm. There are years of wisdom and observation in the details of And Then We Danced. Every time I admit to him I haven’t seen a film he mentions, he looks sincerely happy for me that my world is yet to experience it.

Answering our Life in Film questionnaire, Akin shares memories of ABBA as a national treasure, the first film that blew him away in cinemas as a child, and why Tarkovsky could have done with being a little more queer.

This is quite a departure from the scale of your television projects. What drew you back to Georgia and those difficult circumstances? Levan Akin: I come from a background of making bigger projects, and this wasn’t obviously what a person like me should be doing next. I did a lot of Swedish TV, but I had grown tired of working the way I did. I started working for [Swedish film and commercial director] Roy Andersson when I was 22 and then I went into TV—I never went to film school. I applied twice and I didn’t get in! I was brought up in the SVT [Swedish public broadcasting service] way of making TV series. You have a script, you break it down, sometimes you write it yourself, sometimes you don’t, you do the shot list, you work with the actors, you block the scene and you move on and that’s all fine and good.

But after my previous film I was very tired. I was 36 then, and had sort of forgotten why I was making films. I had seen this Pride parade, the one where they were attacked in Georgia in 2013, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I went to Georgia and did some research with my own little camera, and it very organically developed into this film. I never sat down and thought I’d write a story about this dancer. I used what happened around me, and I found a lot of real people. We often weren’t allowed to film in places a lot of the time—we made up stories about what we were doing. We had to have bodyguards, we’d lose locations on a day’s notice. It was insane, so I couldn’t plan out the movie like I would normally.

I wanted to make a very classical story, a very universal story and have the motor be [Merab’s] first love for Irakli and that setting him free. And then I filled it with things that happened while I was working. I’ve never worked like that, but I think it’s the best film I’ve made, and it’s really been a rejuvenation of my creative energy. Someone told me, “You are one person when you make the film, another when it’s over”. And that’s really the case with this film, it’s changed me fundamentally.

One character in And Then We Danced says, “Georgian dance is based on masculinity”. What are the defining traits of masculinity in Georgia? The definition of masculinity is so different in different cultures. In Sweden, where I live, if two men just hug too much or walk arm in arm, it’s considered super un-masculine. It’s like the whole thing about how young boys fight each other because that’s the only way they can be close in Western society. Whereas in Georgia, you can sit in someone’s lap and it’s not considered gay or un-masculine. Over there, traits like being very poetic, being a dancer, being a good singer, things that might be feminine in our culture are considered very masculine.

I thought that was interesting for the film because the regular story might have been, “I want to be a dancer but my family doesn’t want me to because it’s considered to be a feminine job”. Whereas here it’s the opposite, it’s, “I am a dancer, and I can’t be gay”.

Why was it important to use dance as a narrative vehicle to show these changing identities? What they say in the film is that Georgian dance has evolved. It’s based on old folk dances from different regions of the Caucasus, other Caucasian countries too, as well as Georgia. The dances from Batumi have a lot of oriental influences, originally even more than now. And the Kintouri dance was originally created by a queer group of people who lived in Georgia 100 years ago, and they were people working in service jobs.

Men wouldn’t take those jobs because it was considered unmanly, so the ones who worked in those jobs were gay guys or queer, some were even trans. They developed this dance and it’s sort of like a Paris Is Burning. Everybody knew they were gay. That’s what the teacher says in the film, when he says “they were softer but we made them harder”, because then these dances were appropriated by three big ensembles, and they did alterations to them.

Levan Gelbakhiani in ‘And Then We Danced’.

How did that influence the message you ultimately wanted to share? The film is about finding your own place in a traditional society, and not letting anyone tell you what your traditions ought to be, or how you ought to define yourself, to be accepted as a Georgian. That discourse is all around us now. I’m really frankly tired of people telling me that, for instance, I’m not really Swedish because my parents came from Georgia, and I have a Muslim background. Also, Georgia is 90 percent predominantly Christian Orthodox now, so a lot of Georgians think you can’t be Georgian if you’re not a Christian.

There are two major contemporary music cues in the film—ABBA’s ‘Take A Chance on Me’ and Robyn’s ‘Honey’. How did those two come to be? During the Soviet Union, there was an ABBA concert on TV and I think that was one of the only one Western pop concerts that was broadcast in Soviet. I think it had to do with Sweden being social democratic, and we had sort of a good relationship with the Soviet Union so they thought, “Ok, we can show this, at least it’s not American”. It would be on every New Year’s Eve and it would be like a tradition.

So when the Soviet Union fell, ABBA had a new market with new people who also loved ABBA. So ABBA is actually very popular in Georgia! Of course ABBA is super-expensive to [license], and we had literally no money when we made this film—it was a very hard shoot. But one of the producers of the film is the son of Benny Andersson of ABBA… I figured if he likes the film, for them it’s not a big risk. I thought, I’ll try it in the rough cut and either he’ll like it and say yes or he won’t—but he loved the movie, he was crying afterwards.

Levan Akin.

I’d also taken a risk with Robyn because that album had just come out, and we all love Robyn. We just hoped she’d like it and accept it, because we couldn’t pay her very much. Thankfully she did, and also we actually got help from Jen Malone. She’s a music supervisor and she’s so talented, and she’s the one who does the music supervision for [bands including] Euphoria, Creed and so on, so once she also got in touch she made it work for us. I’m eternally grateful to Jen.

[The following answers contain spoilers for several of the movies mentioned by Akin.]

And Then We Danced has many beautiful dance sequences. Which specific dance scenes, or dance movies broadly, inspire you? I love The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as a whole, and it has dancing in it, so that’s an easy one. In Dirty Dancing, I love the last dance, I can watch it over and over. It’s an amazing scene in every way. I also love the scene in Ex Machina where [Oscar Isaac] is dancing. It’s so nice, and so sexy.

I don’t know if there was dancing in it but I really want to mention this film—I love The Diary of A Teenage Girl. Marielle Heller is a genius. And Bel Powley and Alexander Skarsgård, they’re just so good in those parts. He was incredible! That should have won all the Oscars. In my films I never have clear antagonists, even if there are characters antagonizing the main character. I love them all, there’s no clear moral compass, everyone is just trying to do their best with the circumstances. It’s the same with this film. I love that you understand and love Alexander Skarsgård, and the guilt Minnie must have been feeling. It’s just so sensitively directed, with such a precise feeling of how to not veer in any one direction. If anyone is just shaking somewhere in that film, let’s put it in this ranking!

There’s this amazing documentary made by a Swedish documentarian, Martha & Niki. It’s about two friends who are dancers, two black girls from Sweden. Their friendship is really complicated, and they’re competing in a special dance, and you just follow them as they’re touring and competing. One of the girls is from Uganda, if I remember correctly, and another one is adopted, so they also have very different social backgrounds. I saw it in cinemas and I was just sitting and crying.

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in Bound (1996).

What are your favorite on-screen gay love stories? Brokeback Mountain. I saw that movie in New York in 2005 and I was so shocked. I just thought, “What the fuck have I just been through”? The ending… Nowadays, I would never want to kill off a character in a gay movie, but then, it’s so vague that you don’t even know what happens to them. It breaks my heart, it still does.

I really enjoyed God’s Own Country. I thought it was really moving and touching. Josh O’Connor is a revelation, and the other guy [Alec Secareanu] is amazing too. They have great chemistry. It’s just so delicately made.

I also love the Wachowski sisters’ Bound. I remember when I saw it, oh my god. Back then, seeing that was really something. I love Jennifer Tilly, what a star!

In terms of a movie that gay communities really love: Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion. I’ve seen it literally a thousand times, I just rewind it and watch it again. It’s so amazing. When we were younger, 50 percent of the lines we would say would be lines from that film. It’s hilarious. It’s such a great story about friendship. If you haven’t seen it, congratulations, you have so much to look forward to!

And how did I almost forget My Own Private Idaho?! I saw that as a kid in the 90s, and it’s just so amazing. River Phoenix. What a movie.

Could you give the Letterboxd community a primer to some great Georgian films? I love My Happy Family, a film by Simon Groß and Nana Ekvtimishvili. They’re a directing couple. They did another film called In Bloom; about a teenage girl, it’s sort of autobiographical I can imagine, as it feels very lived. It’s about a Georgian girl in the 90s. Both films were at Sundance—My Happy Family was there three years ago and I think it won an award. [It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, and was Georgia’s entry for the 2013 best foreign language Academy Award]. Netflix bought it, so it’s on there now.

My Happy Family (2017).

It really shows this thing in Georgia where there is no private sphere. Families live together inter-generationally for life for many reasons—financial ones for sure. It’s the story of this woman who lives with her mother, her father, her children, everybody is in that house. She decides that one day she wants to move into her own apartment, and it’s the most shocking thing anyone has ever heard of. She says she just wants to sit alone and read books and have her own space, and everyone is so provoked by that because that can’t happen in Georgia.

There’s another Georgian film I love called Street Days, by Levan Koguashvili, which came out in 2010. It was one of the first new-generation movies in Georgia showing the reality of Georgia the way it was then. It’s the story of a man who is struggling to support his family, but he’s also a drug addict. It sounds really bleak but it’s made with such dark humor.

To go really far back to the directors working through the Soviet time, there’s The Wishing Tree by Tengiz Abuladze. So many shots from that film are so, so beautiful. It’s set in the rural parts of Georgia, and it’s about a young girl who falls in love with a boy, but they can’t be married because she has to marry an older person because it’s better for the family. And the boy she was in love with was killed by the husband. She goes insane, because she keeps thinking about it all the time; she’s talking to his ghost. This old woman in the village hears her and thinks she’s cheating on her husband, so they decide to do this ritual where they stone her. It’s so sad and so beautiful, and there’s a woman in the village who’s like the town fool but she’s the only one making sense. It’s so poetic.

Sergei Parajanov is another of my all-time favorite directors—I love The Color of Pomegranates and Ashik Kerib. He’s a great surrealist director and has inspired many directors since, such as Tarsem Singh and Mark Romanek, who did a lot of music videos in the 90s. Madonna’s video for ‘Bedtime Stories’ was really inspired by Parajanov. He worked a lot with tableaux, and it’s so queer. [Parajanov] was gay and he was imprisoned for it many times. He was very close friends with [Andrei] Tarkovsky and he attributes his artistry to being inspired by him, saying that Tarkovsky released his creativity. They were close, but they’d also fight a lot. One time Parajanov told Tarkovsky, “You can never be as amazing a director as me, because you’re not a homosexual”, which is funny!

Finally, what was the film first made you want to be a filmmaker? I love that question. It feels like I’m closing a circle because I think the movie I’m thinking of has some similarities with my movie. It’s Some Kind of Wonderful, [written] by John Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch. It’s not one of the most famous John Hughes movies but it’s one of the first ones I saw in the cinema. I think I was seven years old, I went with my older sister who was eleven at the time.

Mary Stuart Masterson and Eric Stoltz in ‘Some Kind of Wonderful’ (1987).

It’s a love triangle between Eric Stoltz, Mary Stuart Masterson and Lea Thompson. Stoltz plays this working-class kid, he lives on the wrong side of the tracks, the classic perspective that’s always in John Hughes movies. He’s in love with the popular girl in school, Amanda Jones. She is also from his part of the town but is dating the rich guys. He’s really in love with her, and his best friend is played by Masterson, she’s called Watts but her nickname is Drummer Girl, and she’s a tomboy. When I was little I thought she was a boy who was a gay character. I didn’t understand that she was a girl because I’d never seen a girl like that as a kid. It’s just a great movie, it was a love triangle before love triangles were boring. I don’t know if it consciously made me want to direct films, but it was the first film that I saw that that stuck with me.

We didn’t have a lot of movie culture in my house, my parents emigrated to Sweden in the late 60s. My father read a lot, but we didn’t come from any culture. The films I’d find were the ones you could rent in the local store. Mostly American movies. The more highbrow stuff came later when I was older and could search them out myself.

‘And Then We Danced’ premiered in Director’s Fortnight in Cannes last May, and has won several prizes at other prestigious festivals since. The film is currently showing in select cinemas on the east and west coasts of America, and opens in UK cinemas on March 13.

#levan akin #and then we danced #dance films #dance movies #georgia #georgian cinema #tibilisi #lgbt #queer cinema #gay cinema #gay filmmaker #swedish film #swedish cinema #ella kemp #dirty dancing #letterboxd

[welofi]

weloficast vol.74 x DJ Windows 7

Weloficast vol.74 w/ DJ Windows 7

W: Hey, Javier! Tell us about your relationships with music. What role does it play in your life? At what point your love of music boiled over into creativity?

J: Music is what keeps me alive, we have a strange connection since childhood with different paradigms that disorient us from the subjective beauty of musical art, and it is interesting because it seems that music is also a social construction, which defines semantics and ecology. Music makes us emphatic, emancipates us, dates us from some event, makes our skin bristle, irritates us, makes us cry, hurts us, makes us laugh, makes us hate, separates us and also unites us. Our species gives meaning to this reality, and the construction of mine revolves around music, it's something that won't change for a long time.

W: When did DJ Windows 7 appear?  In fact, you played quite a different music at first using your real name.

J: I like to think that my art is a holistic construction of personal events and the immutable mirror of my ephemeral path on this earth, DJ Windows 7 is a building built from love experiences, travel, personal problems, economic and social problems, illness, failed interpersonal relationships, fleeting friendships, and an endless number of events that fade into my memory, but last forever with what I do.

“Lo-fi House is well where it is right now, latent but not dead, an eclectic genre that does not store stadiums, but can know your soul”

W: What do you think about all this mess with lo-fi house? How is it going with the local scene?

J: In my natal it seems a bell of Gauss, reason why I knew recently Baltra and Demuja were in a bar of for the center, there are brotherhoods that are dedicated entirely to the House and in the ventilation of the same they meet me, but to be honest, the Lo-fi House is well where it is right now, latent but not dead, an eclectic genre that does not store stadiums, but can know your soul.

W: Is there any connection between your education specialization (philology) and music? Maybe you are planning to mix them in your future job or it will be in some other field?

J: I would love in the future to be able to make oratory in connection with my music, or to start writing independently about the stories of my tracks, I think I could strengthen the abstract core. On the other hand, I'm fascinated by dialectics and philosophy, I'm very attached to science and research, I think it's a side that as artists we should not neglect.

W: You send us a very interesting essay “The all behind the music”* about the nature of dance. Tell us a bit more about it.

J: I usually write when I find inspiration, when events merit it, I really would have liked to write something more formal, since only the thoughts passed by and I unite them, as such I am not schematic, I do not try to hierarchize what I write, I like the spontaneity of my art and so I am for any work that I develop, I hope you liked the essay.

* available below

W: Any future plans (releases, collabs)?

J: I finished two good tracks at work, I'm in mastering, hard work to buy a small synthesizer, something I can take everywhere, I would start my live sets on the street, maybe I did not comment, but I manage to survive playing the guitar in the streets, so yes, music has control of my life and so far continues to give me incredible experiences. On the other hand, next year I hope to have my first dates in Mexico and if possible outside my country as well, it is an honor to be working for different labels, some indecent and others that give me their full support.

W: 5 tracks that sound fresh for you now.

J: It's always difficult to answer such ambiguous questions, but there it goes:

Slim Hustla - Outer Streets Inner Peace

jamesjamesjames – Bladee

CBS - Szmynthaus

DJ Windows 7 - Cruda Vida

DOS - Need U

I appreciate the interview. Going this far isn't easy for me.

Text: Yuliana Kondrashova

Cover: Artemy Garibaldi

The all behind the music:

Until it does some time thought that by nature the musical art had to generate in the misfortune and in the poverty for emancipar the cruelty, attained to affirm my premise with the experience; but I darse of something: the music is an abstract construction of our reality, and with this want to say that a construction has to do with good foundations to prevail by always, and do not say it by security, but along all this cimentación have found me with far friends (the others for the psychology), that lost in the agony and despair look for to give him a solution to his situation partner-economic with the music, bad time for them because the art does not go of this hand.

The musical art is not a ballast, represents the union of entes ranged inside a same be, likewise if it lacks sustantividad will lose the essence of the truth to deceive to others, memory very well that Manuel Valls Gorina in his book Introduction to the music admired to the music like a spiritual creation of the human activity, therefore all music had a sense and an end, that is to say “has to serve for something”, until this point seems me interesting rescue the main chimaera in function of what competes us today: the dance.

What is the dance? Some time ask it? Why we do it? It is a reaction that produces dopamine in our body?

It seemed that we do not darse, only we do it, and by cultural construction move the foot when listening a kick  very high, if we could think it our brain does not prepare the back conviction, that is to say, do not know when this kick will appear, but when it goes out out of nowhere have a hormigueo in the stomach that us bank to explode in frenzy, now very can have substance in the music of dance?, clear that have it and will follow it having, but this depends on the first construction holística spoken in the main paragraphs: the artist.

In spite of being despised by many and loved by more next, the music of dance can arrive until where deserve  and propose, with this would like me join the two previous variables; the spiritual power of the artworks and his impact in those who appreciate danzar and breathe an intrinsic connection with the artistic creator, therefore the intersubjetividad is present and can not despise it by the fact of not being able to palparla, in given cases, if it is not that in the majority, in this life can become better feel that possess, no only applies to the musical field; we have based our modern life to the properties and the wish, and to his step forget the most important of the human construction: the art and what the same lodges in our experiences.  

The impact of the music of dance has gone further of our borders, and has been with us by almost but of a century, to part to do us vibrate and burst in paroxysm represents a culture of social power and the explosion of the communities in inconformidad; we notice it in Chicago, live it in Detroit and follows us surprising in Tbilisi.

The generate culture of dance represents the purest of the human being, because it does not arrive to limit  by the laziness or the penalty, manages the leaves of the simplicity and encourages to the collective explosion, already think it: if there is something bad behind the life, have to dance.

Javier Perzabal

[uncommon-etc]

Are there any Georgians* on Tumblr?

*Yes, Americans, that’s Georgia the country, not Georgia the state 

I’m going to Tbilisi next month, and beyond what I’ve been able to find out online I don’t really know much about Georgia. I’d just about started watching the news as a kid in 2008 when the Russian invasion happened, and it was the only time, until recently, that I’d seen footage from Georgia on British news. 

On the rare occasion that I can afford a holiday abroad I tend to go places based on how good their mountains are rather than anything to do with actual human civilisation, but I’m keen for recommendations for places to eat, things to see and which areas have the best Brutalist architecture (the ministry of highways building is on my bucket-list). Please do get in touch if you live in or know Tbilisi well, I’m more than happy to return the favour if you’re ever visiting the UK. 

#georgia #tbilisi #tourism #brutalist architecture #caucuses

[nemnuoc]

Yes I really do need all these goats shirts

Yes I really do need all these goats shirts

Among the Yes I really do need all these goats shirts also I will do this most popular items at Moda Operandi for the summer and fall are a glitter bathing suit by Oseree and crystal-trimmed pumps by the Tbilisi-based brand Mach & Mach. Both are about as sparkly as a garment or accessory could be—proving that luxury shoppers are definitely embracing a happy, carefree sense of…

View On WordPress

[doriscahill]

A Day on Top of the World

Hello dear friend,  have I not told you the story of St Nino Nor my trips to the village Poka and Paravani Lake.

The village Poka is the region called Samtskhe–Javakheti. Javakheti  the southern section sits on a vast plateau.  I lived in Samtskhe region in the fortress city Akhaltiskhe, not too far north. Poka is on or near  the Silk Road train stop in Akhallkaliki.  Yes indeed,  how could this slip through the cracks in all my writings not to mention this so very important fact! 

During my service  in Georgia  many journeys led me here. The New Silk road and this section is rebuilt by Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan Governments. It is  a 500 mile train track, notably by-passing Russia.  Generally, the ancient road was never  contiguous, or the imagine road in my dreams and  books, rather a network of roads. Comprising various routes from  all over Asia reaching remote corners of  Europe and Russia. Georgia's  is strategic located,  providing non sea based distribution of all types of staples and goods and hosts the  shortest route. Outside Akhalkaliki the new train station gleams. This particular excursion is northeast, 24 miles from that point. Note, the train is still not open to passengers with plans to open May 2020, meaning it only open to  trade since October 2017. 

The Lake is the largest in the country of Georgia. Its base elevation is 7000 feet. The lake is volcanic lake. And it's most accessible side the St. Nino  Monastery and the village Poka, primarily Armenian descent and with a  declining population of 1200, the last 2014 census.

To get there you need to plan from Alkhaltsikhe, my work site. Note, I have no car. A tourist or traveler would take the local Marshrutka,  (short is Marsh  and its Russian word  bus or shared taxi). However,   you'd not think it a bus, in Georgia these are older large vans. Repurposed the interiors are  stripped out, then  refashioned with various airplane seats that are well worn, no air conditioning, mostly nor heat and poor air flow. Crammed with villagers, some un-bathed,  holding sacks of goods from the markets. That can be fish, potatoes and even mail or boxes. Postal service is slow....

The Marsh, for short,  leaves  in the morning. This only  takes only you the town of Ninostzminda, a migration breeding ground for storks. Depicted below, HUGE nests sit atop electric poles or any building chimney will do. Storks mate for life!

The ride is two hard hours, rough. Anticipate, a BUMPY cliff side highway with portions awash from severe winters. The road follows the Mtkvari, then Paravani rivers, steep fast flowing in sections with  jagged rocks,  until the plateau.  Motion sickness is common, plan  for weak stomachs. Each trip I took  child or tourist  would have issues. On reaching Ninostminda  one negotiates a taxi ride for  half hour further to the lake.  Plan well to make the return if coming this way, you’ll only be able to  spend only one to two hours at the lake itself. No worries its well worth it. 

We get up early (me and Brittany) another Peace Corps volunteer in living at our site town Akhaltsikhe. She’s a volunteer teaching English and I volunteer in  economic development for both  agriculture and tourism. Complimentary skills and personalities  she became a great travel mate.

Our boots on and day packs on our backs, we meet up at the Smartie, a Georgian 7 Eleven before catching the Marsh.  We purchase  pretzels and champagne. We brought empty water bottles and small towels plus other critical supplies. We have lots of time to get our tickets. The Store is across the street from  the Marsh station. Only a few minutes necessary,  to uncork our bottle.

The bus station is dank and moldy; beauty long faded. The kiosk was functional  iron grates  faded green paint matching the interior walls. We negotiate our ticket and find a bench. No, we are not winos, but  she's afraid to uncork and one needs to sit. Me, uncorking a bottle, is always my job. I remove the foil, untwist the 4 wire-cap, then  place a my towel a top. With a counter turn and pull, it pops. A lift away hand and it bubbles over, we fill our water flasks, giggle, toast, then sip away. Its time to go!

We reach the plateau outside Akhalkaliki and pass the enormous new rail station standing in the middle of no where The Railway Baku-Tbilisi-Kars.  Iron poles, expansive electric lines, tracks with multiple cars. The building is has an Guggenheim Museum type architecture in the large with multitude of  windows to bring in light. On this trip, it  would open for distribution only months later and eventually carry passengers between Turkey-Georgia-Azerbaijan.  The idea is busloads of tourists can visit, and the rush is on to develop it. Well, not too much of a rush. 

We get to Ninostsminda and are told when to catch our return by  our driver. We explore the main street and get some fresh oven flat bread. Best eaten hot, it tastes like pizza dough without toppings. The photo below depicts the circular stone oven used to heat the dough and traditional racks used to place the cooked bread on.

In addition to Georgian, Brittany speaks Russian which is the second language in the Javakheti  region. First is Armenian, then a  little Georgian, virtually no English. There is no need to speak English. Many Americans think everyone speaks,  silly. It's a huge problem to not speak native tongue, so if you don’t bring a guide.

Her  Russian is rusty, but we get a ride with local driver at the cab stand.  He's pumped,  it's a days wage 10 dollars to take us to the lake, wait,then bring us back. His 70′s  maroon sedan with wood panel comes with bald tires and matching seats with broken springs. He sports un-washed button shirt and jean's with a traditional cap on his head. He skin is tanned and his broad smile shows gold capped stained teeth. No worries, dentists are costly, but  cell phones work well, even in remote areas;  98% coverage  unlike US with swathes of drop zones. You get used to this look, care worn He chain smokes the entire ride, smoking is common. 

We drive the  high plateau towards the Lake Paravani. The weather is cool with brilliant blue skies and cotton ball clouds. This portion of  main road is in better shape than the ride in, but during the winter it is closed. If you continue on it, it takes you to Tbilisi, the capital or mother city. My route from my site city in Akhaltsikhe does not close, however winter is a dangerous time to travel here and above 6,000 feet. You can easily get stuck. We caught a good weather day,  a slight nip;  early fall. Its common to see a turn of the century horse and cart or the herding of sheep.

You felt like your riding on a cloud as you see the river that leads to the lake and huge smooth bald snow cap mountains in the distance. We reach the lake. We only need to transit this long dirt road into Poka and get a farmer to agree we can cross and walk his land. There are dotted mud and grass roofed homes made of cinder blocks, some have tin roofs.

Of course, its bathroom time, and the friendly farmers pointed us to this trail between the house and hay in  high stacks. At the end corner is the  outhouse. Its a tall narrow shack, no odor, a center hole is cut into boards and  dug deep. Just be sure you pack  baby wipes in your sack, which we did. 

We walk to the waters edge and meet a fisherman. He babbles to us about his little fish; the mornings catch in a milk blue crate. We see the St Nino's Monastery in the distance with its cross. On this day we do not visit, but walk the waters edge and yard nearby.

We  photo shoot the scenery and scavenge the area for rocks. We  stop, sip  our champagne, snack on more bread. Paravani is a volcanic and lake.  It is easy to  find obsidian,black glass-like lava rock. Love at first find. Plus pumas stone in both red, gray and black was strewn along the waters edge. My sack got heavy quickly. 

On my first return to the US I was overweight to fly and through out 5 pairs of shoes to get the rocks back to my home. Two pumas stone sit on the edge of my tub for scrubbing my feet bottoms and obsidian on my dresser.

Our driver returns us to Ninostsminda where our marsh driver is waiting. We finish our champagne,  then curl-up into our crammed seat, lean on each other to sleep. 

I returned to the monastery other times. but no trip was as glorious as this. I had hoped to recreate that feeling of the weather that day, the rocks, the driver, the champagne, but it never happened. 

#Peace Corps Georgia #peacecorps #peacecorpsgeorgia #peace corps

[awsinstancescheduler]

AWS Instance Scheduler

AWS Instance Scheduler Architecture & Implementation

Instance Scheduler High Level Architecture

·       The AWS Instance Scheduler is an AWS-developed solution

·       Enables customers to easily configure custom start/stop schedules for EC2 and RDS

·       The solution is easy to deploy and helps reduce operational costs

·       This solution can save up to 70% compared to running those instances 24 hours a day

·       The solution deploys Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Lambda, and Amazon DynamoDB

·       The AWS Solutions team communicates AWS architectural best practices and develops standardized, automated solutions for the platform

  Provisioning the Instance Scheduler

 Step1: Download the Instance Scheduler CFT provided by AWS and create stack by uploading the CFT.

On the Select Template page, click on create stack and select the cloud formation template of the Instance Scheduler provided by AWS.

 Step 2: Enter Stack Name

 On the Specify Details enter stack name

Step 3: Specify the Parameters

Scheduler Parameters:

1.     Instance Scheduler Tag Name

a.     Define which tag to associate instances with the Scheduler

2.     Service(s) to schedule

a.      EC2, RDS, or Both

3.     Schedule Aurora Clusters

a.     Yes/No

4.     Create RDS instance snapshots

a.     Yes/No

5.     Region(s)

a.     Specify regions to enable Scheduler. Leave blank for current region

6.     Default time zone

a.     Specify time zone. Default value is UTC

7.     Cross-Account Roles

a.     Specify ARNs for Cross-Account Roles for other accounts. Must exist to allow the Scheduler to start/stop instances in other accounts. Leave blank to set stack for current account.

8.     This account

a.     Yes/No (to enable Scheduler in this current account)

9.     Frequency

a.     Scheduler running frequency in minutes

10.  Memory size

a.     Size of Lambda function run the scheduler. Increase size when processing large number of instances

 Enter Options either yes or no based on the Clients Requirement:

1.     Enable CloudWatch Metrics (Yes)

1.     Send anonymous usage data (No)

2.     Enable CloudWatch Logs (Yes)

Enter Other Parameters based on Clients Requirements:

2.     Log retention days (90 days)

3.     Started Tags

4.     Stopped Tags

Then click Next.

Step 4: Review

It is the review page, where we can review all the parameters entered and finally enable the acknowledgement and click create.

Step 5: Creation of Stack

 ·       Wait until the creation process is completed. It will deploy Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Lambda, and Amazon DynamoDB.

·       Amazon DynamoDB will be used to store scheduler config and all affected instances state.

Step 6: Create Config

·       Go to your Amazon DynamoDB console and click Tables.

·       There will be 2 tables, <stack-name>-ConfigTable and <stack-name>-StateTable.

·       Make changes on ConfigTable (There will be a lot of sample config inside.)

·       A period should be created that defines the times the should run, based on the feedback from Clients.

·       Pick one of the sample Period and click Action > Duplicate.

A popup will appear and everything can be changed here like:

·       begintime, instance start time (24-hour format),

·       description,

·       endtime, instance stop time (24-hour format),

·       name, period name (make it unique),

·       weekdays, days of the week the instance will run.

·       then click Save.

The begin time and end time must be confirmed with the customer.

  Then create a Schedule, that specify when instances should run. Pick one of the sample schedule and click Action > Duplicate.

 A popup will appear and few more options can be changed according to the requirement:

·       description,

·       name, must unique because it will be used as tag value on the tagged resource,

·       periods, must at least 1 period to be used to defines time(s) the instance should run. The previously created period name should be given

·       time zone, [ below is a list of accepted values of the time zone]

·       then click Save.

 The time zone should be mentioned from any of the below values:

   "Africa/Abidjan",

               "Africa/Accra",

               "Africa/Addis_Ababa",

               "Africa/Algiers",

               "Africa/Asmara",

               "Africa/Bamako",

               "Africa/Bangui",

               "Africa/Banjul",

               "Africa/Bissau",

               "Africa/Blantyre",

               "Africa/Brazzaville",

               "Africa/Bujumbura",

               "Africa/Cairo",

               "Africa/Casablanca",

               "Africa/Ceuta",

               "Africa/Conakry",

               "Africa/Dakar",

               "Africa/Dar_es_Salaam",

               "Africa/Djibouti",

               "Africa/Douala",

               "Africa/El_Aaiun",

               "Africa/Freetown",

               "Africa/Gaborone",

               "Africa/Harare",

               "Africa/Johannesburg",

               "Africa/Juba",

               "Africa/Kampala",

               "Africa/Khartoum",

               "Africa/Kigali",

               "Africa/Kinshasa",

               "Africa/Lagos",

               "Africa/Libreville",

               "Africa/Lome",

               "Africa/Luanda",

               "Africa/Lubumbashi",

               "Africa/Lusaka",

               "Africa/Malabo",

               "Africa/Maputo",

               "Africa/Maseru",

               "Africa/Mbabane",

               "Africa/Mogadishu",

               "Africa/Monrovia",

               "Africa/Nairobi",

               "Africa/Ndjamena",

               "Africa/Niamey",

               "Africa/Nouakchott",

               "Africa/Ouagadougou",

               "Africa/Porto-Novo",

               "Africa/Sao_Tome",

               "Africa/Tripoli",

               "Africa/Tunis",

               "Africa/Windhoek",

               "America/Adak",

               "America/Anchorage",

               "America/Anguilla",

               "America/Antigua",

               "America/Araguaina",

               "America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires",

               "America/Argentina/Catamarca",

               "America/Argentina/Cordoba",

               "America/Argentina/Jujuy",

               "America/Argentina/La_Rioja",

               "America/Argentina/Mendoza",

               "America/Argentina/Rio_Gallegos",

               "America/Argentina/Salta",

               "America/Argentina/San_Juan",

               "America/Argentina/San_Luis",

               "America/Argentina/Tucuman",

               "America/Argentina/Ushuaia",

               "America/Aruba",

               "America/Asuncion",

               "America/Atikokan",

               "America/Bahia",

               "America/Bahia_Banderas",

               "America/Barbados",

               "America/Belem",

               "America/Belize",

               "America/Blanc-Sablon",

               "America/Boa_Vista",

               "America/Bogota",

               "America/Boise",

               "America/Cambridge_Bay",

              "America/Campo_Grande",

               "America/Cancun",

               "America/Caracas",

               "America/Cayenne",

               "America/Cayman",

               "America/Chicago",

               "America/Chihuahua",

               "America/Costa_Rica",

               "America/Creston",

               "America/Cuiaba",

               "America/Curacao",

               "America/Danmarkshavn",

               "America/Dawson",

               "America/Dawson_Creek",

               "America/Denver",

               "America/Detroit",

               "America/Dominica",

               "America/Edmonton",

               "America/Eirunepe",

               "America/El_Salvador",

               "America/Fortaleza",

               "America/Glace_Bay",

               "America/Godthab",

               "America/Goose_Bay",

               "America/Grand_Turk",

               "America/Grenada",

               "America/Guadeloupe",

               "America/Guatemala",

               "America/Guayaquil",

               "America/Guyana",

               "America/Halifax",

               "America/Havana",

               "America/Hermosillo",

               "America/Indiana/Indianapolis",

               "America/Indiana/Knox",

               "America/Indiana/Marengo",

               "America/Indiana/Petersburg",

               "America/Indiana/Tell_City",

               "America/Indiana/Vevay",

               "America/Indiana/Vincennes",

               "America/Indiana/Winamac",

               "America/Inuvik",

               "America/Iqaluit",

               "America/Jamaica",

               "America/Juneau",

               "America/Kentucky/Louisville",

               "America/Kentucky/Monticello",

               "America/Kralendijk",

               "America/La_Paz",

               "America/Lima",

               "America/Los_Angeles",

               "America/Lower_Princes",

               "America/Maceio",

               "America/Managua",

               "America/Manaus",

               "America/Marigot",

               "America/Martinique",

               "America/Matamoros",

               "America/Mazatlan",

               "America/Menominee",

               "America/Merida",

               "America/Metlakatla",

               "America/Mexico_City",

               "America/Miquelon",

               "America/Moncton",

               "America/Monterrey",

               "America/Montevideo",

               "America/Montreal",

               "America/Montserrat",

               "America/Nassau",

               "America/New_York",

               "America/Nipigon",

               "America/Nome",

               "America/Noronha",

               "America/North_Dakota/Beulah",

               "America/North_Dakota/Center",

               "America/North_Dakota/New_Salem",

               "America/Ojinaga",

               "America/Panama",

               "America/Pangnirtung",

               "America/Paramaribo",

               "America/Phoenix",

               "America/Port-au-Prince",

               "America/Port_of_Spain",

               "America/Porto_Velho",

               "America/Puerto_Rico",

               "America/Rainy_River",

               "America/Rankin_Inlet",

               "America/Recife",

               "America/Regina",

               "America/Resolute",

               "America/Rio_Branco",

               "America/Santa_Isabel",

               "America/Santarem",

               "America/Santiago",

               "America/Santo_Domingo",

               "America/Sao_Paulo",

               "America/Scoresbysund",

               "America/Sitka",

               "America/St_Barthelemy",

               "America/St_Johns",

               "America/St_Kitts",

               "America/St_Lucia",

               "America/St_Thomas",

               "America/St_Vincent",

               "America/Swift_Current",

               "America/Tegucigalpa",

               "America/Thule",

               "America/Thunder_Bay",

               "America/Tijuana",

               "America/Toronto",

               "America/Tortola",

               "America/Vancouver",

               "America/Whitehorse",

               "America/Winnipeg",

               "America/Yakutat",

               "America/Yellowknife",

               "Antarctica/Casey",

               "Antarctica/Davis",

               "Antarctica/DumontDUrville",

               "Antarctica/Macquarie",

               "Antarctica/Mawson",

               "Antarctica/McMurdo",

               "Antarctica/Palmer",

               "Antarctica/Rothera",

               "Antarctica/Syowa",

               "Antarctica/Vostok",

               "Arctic/Longyearbyen",

               "Asia/Aden",

               "Asia/Almaty",

               "Asia/Amman",

               "Asia/Anadyr",

               "Asia/Aqtau",

               "Asia/Aqtobe",

               "Asia/Ashgabat",

               "Asia/Baghdad",

               "Asia/Bahrain",

               "Asia/Baku",

               "Asia/Bangkok",

               "Asia/Beirut",

               "Asia/Bishkek",

               "Asia/Brunei",

               "Asia/Choibalsan",

               "Asia/Chongqing",

               "Asia/Colombo",

               "Asia/Damascus",

               "Asia/Dhaka",

               "Asia/Dili",

               "Asia/Dubai",

               "Asia/Dushanbe",

               "Asia/Gaza",

               "Asia/Harbin",

               "Asia/Hebron",

               "Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh",

               "Asia/Hong_Kong",

               "Asia/Hovd",

               "Asia/Irkutsk",

               "Asia/Jakarta",

               "Asia/Jayapura",

               "Asia/Jerusalem",

               "Asia/Kabul",

               "Asia/Kamchatka",

               "Asia/Karachi",

               "Asia/Kashgar",

               "Asia/Kathmandu",

               "Asia/Khandyga",

               "Asia/Kolkata",

               "Asia/Krasnoyarsk",

               "Asia/Kuala_Lumpur",

               "Asia/Kuching",

               "Asia/Kuwait",

               "Asia/Macau",

               "Asia/Magadan",

               "Asia/Makassar",

               "Asia/Manila",

               "Asia/Muscat",

               "Asia/Nicosia",

               "Asia/Novokuznetsk",

               "Asia/Novosibirsk",

               "Asia/Omsk",

               "Asia/Oral",

               "Asia/Phnom_Penh",

               "Asia/Pontianak",

               "Asia/Pyongyang",

               "Asia/Qatar",

               "Asia/Qyzylorda",

               "Asia/Rangoon",

               "Asia/Riyadh",

               "Asia/Sakhalin",

               "Asia/Samarkand",

               "Asia/Seoul",

               "Asia/Shanghai",

               "Asia/Singapore",

               "Asia/Taipei",

               "Asia/Tashkent",

               "Asia/Tbilisi",

               "Asia/Tehran",

               "Asia/Thimphu",

               "Asia/Tokyo",

               "Asia/Ulaanbaatar",

               "Asia/Urumqi",

               "Asia/Ust-Nera",

               "Asia/Vientiane",

               "Asia/Vladivostok",

               "Asia/Yakutsk",

               "Asia/Yekaterinburg",

               "Asia/Yerevan",

               "Atlantic/Azores",

               "Atlantic/Bermuda",

               "Atlantic/Canary",

               "Atlantic/Cape_Verde",

               "Atlantic/Faroe",

               "Atlantic/Madeira",

               "Atlantic/Reykjavik",

               "Atlantic/South_Georgia",

               "Atlantic/St_Helena",

               "Atlantic/Stanley",

               "Australia/Adelaide",

               "Australia/Brisbane",

               "Australia/Broken_Hill",

               "Australia/Currie",

               "Australia/Darwin",

               "Australia/Eucla",

               "Australia/Hobart",

               "Australia/Lindeman",

               "Australia/Lord_Howe",

               "Australia/Melbourne",

               "Australia/Perth",

               "Australia/Sydney",

               "Canada/Atlantic",

               "Canada/Central",

               "Canada/Eastern",

               "Canada/Mountain",

               "Canada/Newfoundland",

               "Canada/Pacific",

               "Europe/Amsterdam",

               "Europe/Andorra",

               "Europe/Athens",

               "Europe/Belgrade",

               "Europe/Berlin",

               "Europe/Bratislava",

               "Europe/Brussels",

               "Europe/Bucharest",

               "Europe/Budapest",

               "Europe/Busingen",

               "Europe/Chisinau",

               "Europe/Copenhagen",

               "Europe/Dublin",

               "Europe/Gibraltar",

               "Europe/Guernsey",

               "Europe/Helsinki",

               "Europe/Isle_of_Man",

               "Europe/Istanbul",

               "Europe/Jersey",

               "Europe/Kaliningrad",

               "Europe/Kiev",

               "Europe/Lisbon",

               "Europe/Ljubljana",

               "Europe/London",

               "Europe/Luxembourg",

               "Europe/Madrid",

               "Europe/Malta",

               "Europe/Mariehamn",

               "Europe/Minsk",

               "Europe/Monaco",

               "Europe/Moscow",

               "Europe/Oslo",

               "Europe/Paris",

               "Europe/Podgorica",

               "Europe/Prague",

               "Europe/Riga",

               "Europe/Rome",

               "Europe/Samara",

               "Europe/San_Marino",

               "Europe/Sarajevo",

               "Europe/Simferopol",

               "Europe/Skopje",

               "Europe/Sofia",

               "Europe/Stockholm",

               "Europe/Tallinn",

               "Europe/Tirane",

               "Europe/Uzhgorod",

               "Europe/Vaduz",

               "Europe/Vatican",

               "Europe/Vienna",

               "Europe/Vilnius",

               "Europe/Volgograd",

               "Europe/Warsaw",

               "Europe/Zagreb",

               "Europe/Zaporozhye",

               "Europe/Zurich",

               "GMT",

               "Indian/Antananarivo",

               "Indian/Chagos",

               "Indian/Christmas",

               "Indian/Cocos",

               "Indian/Comoro",

               "Indian/Kerguelen",

               "Indian/Mahe",

               "Indian/Maldives",

               "Indian/Mauritius",

               "Indian/Mayotte",

               "Indian/Reunion",

               "Pacific/Apia",

               "Pacific/Auckland",

               "Pacific/Chatham",

               "Pacific/Chuuk",

               "Pacific/Easter",

               "Pacific/Efate",

               "Pacific/Enderbury",

               "Pacific/Fakaofo",

               "Pacific/Fiji",

               "Pacific/Funafuti",

               "Pacific/Galapagos",

               "Pacific/Gambier",

               "Pacific/Guadalcanal",

               "Pacific/Guam",

               "Pacific/Honolulu",

               "Pacific/Johnston",

               "Pacific/Kiritimati",

               "Pacific/Kosrae",

               "Pacific/Kwajalein",

               "Pacific/Majuro",

               "Pacific/Marquesas",

               "Pacific/Midway",

               "Pacific/Nauru",

               "Pacific/Niue",

               "Pacific/Norfolk",

               "Pacific/Noumea",

               "Pacific/Pago_Pago",

               "Pacific/Palau",

               "Pacific/Pitcairn",

               "Pacific/Pohnpei",

               "Pacific/Port_Moresby",

               "Pacific/Rarotonga",

               "Pacific/Saipan",

               "Pacific/Tahiti",

               "Pacific/Tarawa",

               "Pacific/Tongatapu",

               "Pacific/Wake",

               "Pacific/Wallis",

               "US/Alaska",

               "US/Arizona",

               "US/Central",

               "US/Eastern",

               "US/Hawaii",

               "US/Mountain",

               "US/Pacific",

               "UTC"

 After that, now you need to tag all of your instances that will be affected by the scheduler. I will use Amazon EC2 as example. Choose an instance, click Action > Instance Setting > Add/Edit Tags

 ·       A popup will appear.

·       Put key the same as the Instance Scheduler tag when creating the CloudFormation stack[Here in this case Schedule is the key], and the schedule name (DynamoDB config) as the value [Here in this case it is India-office-hours].

·       Click save.

Step 7: Testing the Instance Scheduler

To check whether it is working or not, check the affected instances tag. (If the Started Tags and Stopped Tags are set when creating the CloudFormation stack.)

[mrbookmaker]

What is the Plan for Scotland?

I remember after that terrible 3-0 loss to Kazakhstan, I officially gave up hope for Scotland.

It was obviously a harsh thing to say, but I am pretty sure all Scottish supporters felt they had hit rock bottom.

Over the years I have always had a soft spot for Scotland and as a supporter of the Scottish national team, it is easy to be biased and make excuses.

Realistically, this is what sports fans tend to do. It is usually much easier to criticize other teams than your own.

But looking back, I don’t think I have been very bad when it comes to supporting Scotland. And the truth is that we have seen Scotland plagued by inconsistency over and over.

Back in Euro 2008 qualifying, Scotland defeated France both times. Yes, two 1-0 wins. The 1-0 win at Hampden Park was classic.

But the 1-0 win in Paris was just epic because of James McFadden’s blast from far out.

Yet despite beating France both times, Scotland laid an egg in Tbilisi against Georgia and a 17-year-old keeper kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 win for Georgia.

It obviously does no good to keep on bringing up the past, but this time around I feel that manager Steve Clarke needs to select the best players and put them on the pitch.

When I spoke to my Scottish friend a while back, he said that a long time ago Scotland was a good team because its players were playing for the best teams in the top flight of England.

※ Current Odds Date & Time: August 17, 2:00 p.m. (GMT)

We all know that success in every sport is based on the copy-cat theory in that you must copy what the best teams are doing in order to be a winner.

Having said that, Clarke needs to select the players that are playing in the top two levels of English football.

Yes, there are some decent players in the Scottish football system. But when it comes to big games, you have to put your big time players on the pitch.

There should be no problem at the left and right back positions when you have Andrew Robertson of Liverpool and Kieran Tierney of Arsenal.

But a bigger concern comes at central defense.

As for midfield, the talent is sold with Scott McTominay of Manchester United, Stuart Armstrong of Southampton, Tom Cairney of Fulham, and Kenny McClean of Norwich City.

Ryan Fraser of Bournemouth is dangerous on the wing and James Forrest or Oliver Burke are solid options off the bench.

Scotland will host Russia on 6 September and online bookmaker 10Bet has the latest odds.

Currently Scotland is slightly favored with 31/20 odds while Russia has 33/20 odds.

This will be a tough match and I do view Russia as the better squad. But Scotland can surely win if the best players are on the pitch and if they execute and believe in themselves.

Prediction: Scotland 1-0 Russia

【Useful Links】 ・10Bet Profile ・How to Open a 10Bet Account

【Latest Bookmaker Info Sports Article】 ・USA Aims for Three-Peat at Upcoming FIBA World Cup

#Scotland #Russia #FIFA #UEFA #Euro2020 #Football #Soccer

[bulgarianmermaid]

There are places you know you will miss from the first moment you set your eyes on them. Those places feel like home without you even having thought of visiting them let alone living there before. Deep into the Caucasus Mountains, where Georgia ends and Russia begins, at the top of Cross Pass outside Gudauri, you can still find high mountain peaks, desolate roads, rugged landscape, and unexplored wilderness that make my heart sing. High up there, where >5000m peaks kiss the bright blue sky and most people lose their breath, that is where I get found. The wilderness speaks directly to my soul, it calls my wild heart, it urges me to explore. It calms me down, I sleep without a single worry, nothing matters and all our “modern” concerns seem like “first world problems”.

The real Georgia in winter is cold and snowy, rough around the edges, wild and untamable, high in altitude and strong in liquor content. Just how I like my destinations (and my men) ❤ A few places in the American West had such a profound effect on me, an effect so strong I didn’t want to leave, let alone go back to the city. The Caucasus Mountains remind me of the San Juans in Southwest Colorado high up Red Mountain Pass from Ouray to Silverton – a place where I camped without a tent at 12000ft elevation and that experience was the best birthday present I could have ever asked for ❤

Gudauri is the largest ski resort in Georgia hidden deep in the Caucasus Mountains on Georgia Military Road almost all the way to the Russian border. Gudauri Ski Resort‘s base is at >2000m, its highest chair lift reaches 3200m, so with a vertical drop top to bottom on a ski run 1200m, it will surely make your legs shake 🙂 All 75km of groomed ski runs in Gudauri sit above tree line facing the sun and grant you the view of a lifetime every single chair ride. In terms of snow conditions, terrain quality, lift services and variety of ski runs, Gudauri can rival any ski resort in the Alps and the Rockies. Gudauri just added 4 new chair lifts this season and opened a whole new valley on the back side (Kobi) to off piste skiing and riding. Yet you can still have the whole resort to yourself and ski right behind the snow cat on empty slopes during the week.

Since I was in Gudauri for 2 weeks with IntotheWild.bg, we could choose what to do each day depending on the conditions and we rode off piste every time we got a foot of new snow. On the days when Ullr didn’t deliver overnight freshies, we basked in the sun and rode soft groomers. Because when you go to the Caucasus Mountains you get equally spoiled by fresh snow and freshly groomed slopes! Gudauri Ski Resort offers 3 valleys with lift serviced terrain for off piste skiing/riding. In addition, there are multiple backcountry and ski touring routes if you are willing to take a hike for an hour or two and earn your turns.

PC: @intothewild.bg

PC: Veselin Dochev

On our days off from skiing (2 in total for two weeks), we checked the Russian baths in Gudauri (Tsar Bani) for an authentic experience at the highest steam baths in the world and took a shuttle to the village of Kazbegi to visit Rooms Hotel for its signature view which overlooks Mt Kazbeg and Gergeti Trinity Church from the balcony. Only later did I find that Mt Kazbeg (>5000m = >16000ft) is a dormant volcano, no wonder I fell in love with it at first sight!

In Gudauri I recommend staying at Quadrum Hotel (under $100 for a double room, breakfast with a view included). Brand new and built only with natural materials in simple and modern Scandinavian style, it offers a spa and swimming pool, as well as daily yoga classes to meet all your post-skiing / hiking needs and soothe your sore muscles. There is a bar and restaurant on site as well where you can grab dinner as you’ll be exhausted after a day of skiing and unwilling to look for a place to eat down the road in town at night.

  In Kazbegi Rooms Hotel (over $100 for double room, breakfast with a view included) gets my vote for fantastic design, superb amenities, fusion cuisine and incredible service. You’ll notice there are many cheaper options in Georgia but as with every developing country, you get what you pay for, so be careful how excited you get about a budget room, especially if your budget can accommodate a comfier experience 🙂 Remember to book both hotels well in advance as they usually sell out during the main season.

    Considering my obsession with high mountain passes, Georgia Military Road deserves its own blogpost but I’ll try to give it enough attention here before I return to explore it further in summer. Georgia Military Road is one of ONLY 2 passes that connect Georgia with Russia over the Caucasus Mountains. Being a major road artery, the pass is usually well cleaned after a snow storm (or completely closed during one) and is quite busy with semi truck traffic. The highest point is Cross pass (Jvari Pass) right outside Gudauri Ski Resort at 2379m (7815ft). In winter the road works only in one direction in 2 hr intervals as the “tunnels” (actually avalanche barriers) are too narrow for two trucks to pass at the same time. There is a separate lane for summer that allows two way traffic but it is closed in winter as it is too dangerous to drive on that sliver of asphalt on the cliffside with no barriers and vertical drops at most places.

The never ending “tunnels” between Gudauri and Kazbegi are probably the most freakish roads I have ever passed (and to think I was considering hitchhiking there…) There is no light inside, no road markings or directions, the tunnels curve and are very narrow (remember…one way traffic). If I told you there would be light at the end of the tunnel (literally), would you follow me high up in the Caucasus Mountains in the middle of a snow storm, on windy one-lane roads through pitch-black avalanche barriers? And if you did the reward would be one of the greatest views of Mt Kazbeg you’ve ever seen (and a cocktail in the swanky bar at the posh Rooms Hotel Kazbegi)

    Georgia may seem far and off the beaten path to the weekend traveler, yet there are multiple flights daily from Europe to Tbilisi and Kutaishi. We opted for budget travel and I’m SO glad we did! The bus-shuttle-plane-taxi experience gave our trip such a good and authentic start. Since we were coming from Bulgaria, we took the bus to Turkey (6hrs overnight from Plovdiv to Istambul in the coldest night of the year), schlepped our luggage from the bus station to the airport with a shuttle (which took another 1.5hrs), then jumped on a flight to Tbilisi (2.5hrs of crammed leg space) and finished our trip with a taxi to Gudauri (add 2 more hours where we were so exhausted the taxi driver could have taken us anywhere and I wouldn’t have cared as long as he let me sleep 🙂

  The travel was very oriental and interesting, safe, cheap, and by no means difficult. Culture shock abound for my Western friends every step of the way – squat toilets with no paper at the Bulgarian-Turkish border (yes, we had to cross the border on foot at night in the middle of a rainstorm), perfumed alcohol in the bus to disinfect your hands, having to haggle for your bottled water (because you have to haggle for everything in the Middle East), et all. Since we were coming from a place with no snow and going thru a place with no snow, everyone was really interested in us and where we are going with all this snowboarding gear. Some people had never seen snow, most couldn’t even perceive the idea that we were taking a bus to a shuttle to a plane to a taxi to a winter resort in Georgia almost on the border with Russia.

    To get from Tbilisi to the mountains you have to experience the famous Georgian driving on steep and windy mountain roads. My recommendation is to hold on tight and not look at what the driver is doing…prayer also helps 🙂 You thought Istambul driving was crazy, wait till you see Georgia. If you don’t abide to above rules, you’ll die of heart attack WAY before you actually crash. Locals drive these roads every day, your shuttle driver is well aware of what he is doing, save him your backseat driver speech 🙂

    The capital of Georgia – Tbilisi (aka ТиБилЛиСи in Bulgarian) is also called Tiflis in Turkey where I almost missed my flight not being able to find Tbilisi on the dashboard. And while the US has Facebook and Russia has V Kontakte, Tbilisi has Balcony.ge. People observe and share everything from their balconies 🙂 There is balcony architecture, balcony culture, balcony parties, basically “Welcome to the Land of Balconies!”

    Having covered skiing and travel in Georgia, now onto food and wine! What should you try from the famous Georgian cuisine? Basically everything…more than once – Kachapuri (homemade cheese and egg “pastry”), Khinkali (meat or veggie dumplings), Shashlik (meat skewers), breads, yogurt, cheeses, jams, jellies, soups, pickled veggies, spices!!! Based on the cuisines I had tasted before, I found Georgian dishes to resemble a mix of Armenian, Turkish, Russian, and Eastern European flavors but maybe those countries borrowed their spices and intricate preparations from Georgia, who knows…

    Georgia produces both red and white wines grown in a special viticultural region. The red is served hot and spiced on the slopes – a must for this apres-ski loving gal! Two other beverages to try are cognac and chacha. Georgia produces some of the best cognac in the world, I recommend the 5 or 8 yrs old aged varieties. And don’t forget to buy some as gifts for home! Chacha is the local name for homemade vodka / raki / moonshine. It is made from different fermented fruits. Drinking chacha is a Georgian tradition – don’t you dare refuse a toast – and resembles tequila tasting in Mexico. You will get drunk, for sure!!! The supermarket varieties go up to 55 proof while home-made chacha can be all the way up to 85 proof. I was super lucky to try a 65 proof persimmon homemade chacha aged in oak barrels on the slopes. You bet I brought some home 🙂

Last but definitely not least, I couldn’t get over was how sweet, kind, and hospitable the locals were, everywhere! Georgia is still very real, rural in places and rough around the edges at times, but that just adds to its local charm. Go visit while it is an up and coming destination, affordable and a developing tourist market and not yet full of foreigners and skiers. There is just SO MUCH to see and explore in Georgia, I only went to Gudauri and the Kazbegi Region but I will definitely be back in summer to hike the Caucasus Mountains, visit the wine region and experience the famous Tbilisi nightlife!

Svaneti in Summer – PC: @zermatterhorn

Gudauri Ski Resort, Georgia – A Gem Hidden Deep in the Caucasus Mountains There are places you know you will miss from the first moment you set your eyes on them.

#Adventure #caucasus #driving #georgia #hot springs #mountain #mountain pass #mountains #ski #ski resorts #skiing #snow #snow bunny #snowboard #snowboarding #snowstorm #Travel

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph! Can you explain to me the whole amo=love instead of ammunition concept? I see it around a lot, but don't remember it being referenced in Sherlock? Is it just something this fandom made up? Thanks :) have a good day!

Hi Nonny!

Certainly! 

Mary gives us what she thought it meant here:

SHERLOCK: Who employed you?MARY: Anyone who paid well. I mean, we were at the top of our game for years, and then it all ended. There was a coup in Georgia. The British embassy in Tbilisi was taken over; lots of hostages. We got the call to go in, get them out. There was a change of plan, a last-minute adjustment.SHERLOCK: Who from?MARY: I don’t know. Just another voice on the phone, and a code word, “Ammo.”SHERLOCK: “Ammo”?MARY: Like ‘ammunition.’

Ajay explains how he was tortured with it:

SHERLOCK (calmly, quietly): What did you hear, Ajay? When you were a prisoner, what exactly did you hear?(John glances across to him as he speaks then looks back towards Ajay and blows out a quiet breath.)AJAY: What did I hear?(He opens his mouth to form a word but hesitates for a moment before he manages to say it.)AJAY: Ammo. Every day as they tore into me. Ammo. Ammo. 

Then Sherlock figures out “ammo”in this exchange here:

SHERLOCK (over phone): The English woman. That’s all he heard. Naturally he assumed it was Mary.MYCROFT: Couldn’t this wait until you’re back?SHERLOCK (still in the same room in Morocco, although it seems that Ajay’s body has been removed): No, it’s not over. Ajay said that they’d been betrayed. The hostage takers knew AGRA were coming. There was only a voice on the phone, remember, and a code word.MYCROFT: Ammo, yes, you said.SHERLOCK: How’s your Latin, brother dear?MYCROFT (frowning): My Latin?SHERLOCK: Amo, amas, amat.MYCROFT (still frowning as he translates the Latin words): I love, you love, he loves. What ...?(He stops. Apparently he’s got it.)SHERLOCK: Not ‘ammo’ as in ‘ammunition’ but ‘amo,’ meaning ...?(Mycroft raises an eyebrow then starts to straighten up, his face stern.)MYCROFT: You’d better be right, Sherlock.(He hangs up. Sherlock does likewise, and the Holmes brothers start to move away.)

And then followed up here:

LADY SMALLWOOD: This is absolutely ridiculous and you know it. How many more times?MYCROFT: Six years ago you held the brief for foreign operations, code name “Love.”LADY SMALLWOOD: And you’re basing all this on a code name? On a whispered voice on the telephone? Come on, Mycroft.MYCROFT: You were the conduit for AGRA. Every assignment, every detail, they got from you.LADY SMALLWOOD: It was my job.MYCROFT (unfolding his hands and sitting back): Then there was the Tbilisi incident. AGRA went in.LADY SMALLWOOD: Yes.MYCROFT: And they were betrayed.LADY SMALLWOOD (firmly): Not by me.(Mycroft just looks at her. She takes in a breath and sighs it out.)LADY SMALLWOOD: Mycroft, we’ve known each other a long time. I promise you, I haven’t the foggiest idea what all this is about. You wound up AGRA and all the other freelancers. (Slowly, emphatically) I haven’t done any of the things you’re accusing me of. Not one. (Even more emphatically) Not. One.

(X)

So essentially, Mary assumed it was just a codeword for guns, and Sherlock thinks it has to do with Lady Smallwood, whose code name is Love.

Now that I’m re-reading and examining this scene though... They never actually are referring to the PERSON “Amo” are they? EVERYONE keeps saying “the English woman AND a codeword”. IF Lady Smallwood was directly being referenced, why are they NOT saying “The woman ‘Amo’”, or... Love. Why use an obscure Latin word rather than call her what they think the codeword was? 

And what’s even more curious, as I reread the text above... they NEVER SAY IF THE VOICE AND THE ENGLISH WOMAN ARE ONE IN THE SAME. I even went back a bit to clarify the second exchange:

AJAY (savagely): We were betrayed!SHERLOCK: And they said it was her?AJAY (to Mary): You betrayed us!SHERLOCK (firmly): They said her name?AJAY: Yeah, they said it was the English woman.

“They” is referring to Ajay’s CAPTORS, and THEY’RE the ones saying they were looking for an English Woman; NOT necessarily the person who was on the phone. 

THE PERSON ON THE PHONE IS LEFT DELIBERATELY AMBIGUOUS. THE ENTIRE EPISODE.

AND it’s that last bolded bit by Lady Smallwood that has me interested indeed. She has NO idea what Mycroft is talking about. And following the convo, Mycroft looks guiltily down to the table and then to the one way mirror, PROBABLY silently hoping his brother hasn’t figured out the inconsistency here.

So. This has me thinking that Mycroft WAS and IS indeed involved with AGRA / Mary, MYCROFT was the soft voice on the phone (which then could tie back to TGG and the soft voices directing people to Moriarty) and AMMO is indeed the codeword, not Amo. “Amo” is literally Sherlock having Love on the brain... this is the connections he is making, and it just HAPPENED that Smallwood has the codename “Love”.

What’s bothering me about the whole Ammo thing is that they SPECIFICALLY keep saying Ammo SEPARATE from the person they are looking for, and that makes NO SENSE if they are looking for a person. Why Latin? MARY is the one bringing up “ammo” in the first place. I think she definitely betrayed her team, and knows EXACTLY what AMMO is. It’s NOT a person, it was her mission. 

Another thought, was it OMMA? There is a very brief scene where OMMA is shown on screen as well. Could this or AMMO be another acronym like AGRA?

These are all things to think about, and I’ve probably confused you even more, Lovely. Sorry. D: I love when I’m freeform meta writing and come up with thoughts as I write replies to this stuff only to confuse the issues further.

#steph replies #ammo vs amo #sherlock meta #t6t meta #my meta #ammo #amo equals love #lady smallwood #the letter m #my thoughts #Anonymous

[jpopitunes]

Yes I really do need all these goats shirts

Yes I really do need all these goats shirts

Among the Yes I really do need all these goats shirtsalso I will do this most popular items at Moda Operandi for the summer and fall are a glitter bathing suit by Oseree and crystal-trimmed pumps by the Tbilisi-based brand Mach & Mach. Both are about as sparkly as a garment or accessory could be proving that luxury shoppers are definitely embracing a happy. MatchesFashion.com’s Kingham…

View On WordPress

[cook-the-beans]

Tbilisi, the capital city and beating heart of Georgia, located in the Caucasus region is a vibrant place with a lot to offer. The country has borders with Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia and it used to be part of the Soviet Union.

Tbilisi is the largest city in Georgia, located on both sides of the Mtkvari River. Finding your way around the city is quite easy, and the public transport system is efficient and easy to navigate. There are two metro lines, numerous buses, and cable cars that you can use.

Travelling to Georgia’s capital city?  What to do and see in Tbilisi

Old Town

The picturesque and largely intact Old town of Tbilisi is the perfect place to wander aimlessly and get lost in the maze of streets and narrow alleys. Don’t be afraid to get lost, that is the way to make the most of it.

You will stumble in colourful houses, wandering cats and courtyards, amazing old churches including the Sioni Cathedral. One of the oldest cathedrals of the city, beautifully decorated with wall paintings, the Armenian Cathedral of St George and the lovely Anchiskhati Basilica. The oldest church in Tbilisi Old Town built in the 6th century.

Old Town’s main artery is Kote Abkhazi Street (formerly Leselidze) which connects Meidan square with Freedom Square.

Old town old buildings

Tbilisi has colourful old houses but also tired, old buildings with cracked walls and decades of layers of fading and peeling paint. Abandoned places with leaning balconies and ancient wooden doors leading to courtyards.

Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue

The Freedom Square marks the edge of the Tbilisi Old Town, with its golden statue of Saint George and also the beginning of

Take a stroll along the trafficked and famous Rustaveli Avenue to admire the splendid architecture like the Biltmore Hotel, the Georgian National Museum, Rustaveli Cinema, former Georgian Parliament, Kashveti Church and the Georgian National Opera Theater.

Meidan Bazaar

The underground Meidan Bazaar close to Europe Square in Old Town is a charming place for a stroll.

Peace Bridge

The eye-catching Peace Bridge on the River Mtkvari is absolutely stunning, walk across it and look at the city. The bridge is just for pedestrians and is made of steel and glass, linkings Tbilisi Old Town with the new town.

Clock tower

Although it’s quite recent it’s one of the most emblematic structures of the city. An angel comes out and strikes the bell with a small hammer on the hour.

Narikala Fortress and Mother Georgia 

The best to reach the Narikala Fortress (free) is by cable car (but you can also walk). The Fortress is an iconic castle with views over Old Tbilisi. The views are superb from the castle walls which can fairly easy be reached.

While you are there say hello to Mother Georgia (Kartlis Deda) taking a scenic stroll to the right from the top of the cable car. You will see the 20 metres-tall aluminium sculpture.

Cable car and the Rike Park

For some of the best views of the city, the short ride is quite popular to see the city from the top. The cable cars swings from the south end of Rike Park up to the Narikala Fortress across the old town.

Rike Park is a beautiful flowery place with paths, pools and fountains.

Mt Mtatsminda, Mtatsminda Park and funicular

The Mtatsminda Park Is a small amusement park not a highlight for the rides, but because is located on top of the Mtatsminda Hill offering really good views over the city and an exciting ride up the funicular. Mtatsminda Park is the highest point surrounding Tbilisi.

Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi

A beautiful Orthodox Church with a massive golden cupola. the place also offers here good views over the city.

Tbilisi Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden (2GEL ~€0.60) is located between the Old Town and Narikala Fortress and is a great place for a relaxing walk.

Try the local cuisine

Georgian cuisine is vegan-friendly, and there is a decent offer of vegan restaurants.  Find here which traditional dishes are accidentally vegan and a list of the best vegan places in Tbilisi.

Don’t miss out on visiting and shopping at the fresh produce market.

Tbilisi street art

Street art is for what I felt a relatively new trend. Tbilisi hides some beautiful art in its backstreets and underground passways, being the best places the underground passages Hero’s Square and Vake Park and also the Fabrika Hostel.

Tbilisi travel tips – to make you trip easier

How to get to Tbilisi

by air: To get from Tbilisi airport to the city centre, you need to take bus no 37. It runs 24/7 from the airport to the central train station. The ticket really cheap and can be bought on board.

by taxi: you can take a Yandex Taxi – a local version of Uber, popular in many post-USSR countries, just download the app before the trip.

From Kutaisi International Airport: the Georgian Bus does the journey from Kutaisi airport to Tbilisi. The ticket can be bought online or at the airport exit from the arrivals zone. The journey takes around 4 hours.

From Yerevan (Armenia) or Baku (Azerbaijan): the train is the best solution. The station is well connected with central Tbilisi by metro.

Day trips from Tbilisi

Tbilisi can be a perfect base for day trips. The most popular is Mtskheta, the holy city located 20 km away from the capital.

Other places you can easily visit as day trips from Tbilisi include David Gareja, Sighnagi, Gori, Uplistsikhe, Ananuri or Kazbegi (although they definitely deserve way more than a day).

Is it worth to visit Tbilisi? this is a definite YES!! Tbilisi is an interesting capital city with plenty to do and see. A unique blend of cultures, influences and religions.

photography – all rights reserved – Ana Rocha

Tbilisi travel guide Tbilisi, the capital city and beating heart of Georgia, located in the Caucasus region…

#Caucasus #georgia #tbilisi #travel Gerogia #travel Tbilisi