Turkey and Georgia

Wh00t! I'm 99% positive that I'm going to Ankara. I missed out last time but there's a new conference coming up that my organisation was invited to. The best part is that this conference will be much more interesting. The other conference would have been helpful but it was on how to build a proper project. This one is much more my style. It's training for facilitators and deals with intercultural education, at-risk youth, mediation, etc etc. All great skills to have. They reserved four places for us, and my boss asked if I'd like to take part. And I think my travel costs will be covered too! I'd fly from Bucharest to Istanbul and then Ankara.

There's also another conference coming up that I would dearly love to take part in. It's in Tbilisi, Georgia (an interest of mine ever since I got my first A at university writing my linguistics paper on the Georgian language) and is about violence against women and also how to get more women involved with peace-making and diplomacy.

Fits right in with my education and training.

I sent in my application and now I'm waiting for an answer back on my acceptance.

Only problem:
Turkey is between January 28th and February 7th. Georgia is between February 17th and the 22nd.

I only find out about Georgia on the 24th of January. I wrote to them and politely asked if they could look at my application form and give me an idea if whether or not I would be in consideration for a place (ie- if I was not what they were looking for, to let me know so I won't get my hopes up). They told me that I would find out on the 24th.

I have three options:
a) If I'm not accepted to Georgia, I simply go to Turkey and come back
b) If I'm accepted to Georgia, I return from Turkey and leave from Romania
c) If I'm accepted to Georgia, I stay in Turkey for ten days and then leave from Istanbul or Ankara

I can stay with my friend Cem in Ankara in the meantime.

So now I don't know what to do. I need a visa for Georgia (not to mention a Turkish visa for Ankara). If I apply in advance, it's 13 pounds. I get also get a visa at the Tbilisi airport for $80 USD. The organisation will send me an invitation (damn post-Soviet bureaucracies!) if I'm accepted. It's not recommended that I get a visa upon arrival. I can get the visa from any Georgian consulate and I'm sure it should be fairly easy to do once I'm in Ankara.

I *really really really* want to go. Imagine, Georgia! It will probably be my only chance to visit a Caucasian country.

So what do I do? Right now, I have a ticket reserved from Istanbul to Tbilisi. Tbilisi (isn't that so much fun to say?) is...uh...somewhat remote and doesn't have flights every day of the week. @^%&^#@#^%$#^%$^#

I want to go!

Now I'm just researching everything possible about the country. I'm on the Georgian parliamentary website. Do I really want to go to a country whose official website is done (badly) in FrontPage?

HELL YES!

I think I have a good chance. I won't be heartbroken if I don't get to go, but it will be the trip and chance of a lifetime if I do get accepted.