I Hate It When...

The NY Times beats me to the punch! I always have big goals for my updates here, but I slack off way too much! I meant to write about our visit to Beijing and Xi'an back in October but it never happened. I meant to write that the nice people we met on the Great Wall gave us super tips about fun places to visit in Beijing, such as Pure Lotus, a fantastic Buddhist, vegetarian restaurant, with fabulous atmosphere, beautiful presentation,

great tableware and really funny names of dishes on their giant menu. I felt totally behind the times when I opened up the nytimes.com travel section to see the 36 Hours in Beijing article where they wrote just about the same thing.

At least they didn't also mention the Red Capital Club, another place we were directed, a bar/restaurant where Mao and his buddies used to hang out, furnished with old Communist relics, where all the drinks had names relating to the bar's theme. From the Club, the Maitre'D put us in a cycle rickshaw, where the driver took us through streets of the old hutong to the Red Capital Residence - the related hotel, where you can go into the courtyard, slip down a rabbit hole and end up in an former bomb shelter, where you can have a drink and watch old Communist propaganda films in the background. If you're heading to Bejing, we highly recommend an evening at one (or both) of these places.

Help!

Once again, too much time has passed since I've posted, but I have an excuse...I have been working pretty much full time since we returned from our fantastic trip to Krabi!

I will update more soon, but now I'm writing with a favor...I have been taking a photography class and we have to print up and turn in for critique 6 photos, covering different categories. They are: Portrait, Night, Motion, Macro (super close up,) Landscape and Architecture. I think. Anyway, I've posted some that I thought might be fitting in each category to my Picasaweb page

If you are reading this and have lots of free time, please take a look and either post a comment here, email me or post a comment on my photo page if you have any thoughts on which one, if any, in each category I should print? (I know there's only one now in Macro, I need to do some more work on that one)

I have looked at them so many times that none of them are looking good. Also, if there's any other picture that you see that's not in one of those recent albums, please tell me. And if there's a photo that anyone else has taken that you think I should co-opt and use instead, definitely tell me!

Thanks!!!!!!

Krabi (or Dear Jenna and Chris, Though you have different ideas of the perfect destination, we have created a place that is, individually, the dream location for each of you. Please come. Sincerely, Thailand. And Nature)

Chris and I were both really looking forward to our trip to Krabi, but for different reasons. Krabi is known as one of the world's premier rock climbing destinations, and also has beautiful beaches and plentiful spa/massage amenities. It is also very inexpensive and has great food. Based on these things, there was pretty much nothing to not like about this place. But we ended up liking it even more than we anticipated!


We stayed at the Railay Bay Resort in the area called Railay Beach. The hotel was great, overall, but our room wasn't quite as nice as some other places in the resort. It was a huge place though, and you can't get to this beach by car, so comings and goings were by longtail boats. We were welcomed to the hotel on our arrival by this sign
possibly the first time I've ever been welcomed visually (well, technically it was Chris, not me) to a hotel before...

This is me sitting at the restaurant hotel, with the beach in the background

and this is Chris enjoying himself on the rock

And my favorite (of the 6 massages I tried in our four days in Krabi - each one cost between $6 and $10USD for one hour) masseuse, Mama

The rest of our photos are here

Krabi, Thailand - Thanksgiving 2007

We really did not want to leave Krabi and we can't wait to go back!!

Best. Taxi Ride. Ever.

I have been nothing short of amazed by the service of the taxi drivers here in Singapore (once you're actually in the car. Actually hailing a cab is another, long and frustrating, story.) In contrast to what we experienced in Turkey, and on occasion in the US, they are honest, friendly, helpful, chatty, informed, well-spoken and really interesting. They also (with few exceptions) speak perfect English. Usually I will end up chatting with the driver, sometimes even if I'm just in the mood to stare out the windows and listen to some music.

Today was one of those days. I had just gone all the way to the East of the island to see Chris and 3 friends compete in an all day (11 hours to be exact) group mountain biking race in Tampines. After doing my share of cheering and picture taking (photos to come) I decided to leave and take a bus ride home. Unfortunately, taking a bus from there to our place would likely take 2 hours and my bladder wasn't sure if wanted that long of a ride on the bus. So after a good, long walk to the bus depot, I changed my mind about public transport and hailed and hopped into a taxi. I had about 5 minutes left on the Grey's Anatomy I started watching on my iPod and really wanted to sink into the back seat and focus on George and Izzy's problem, but I had a feeling it wasn't going to happy when I got into the car and in an oddly loud, yet friendly voice, my driver said:

"Lady, where you from?"

Me: The US

Driver: Yes, Yes, where in the US?

Me: (this is a departure, as I normally just say "New York" since everyone knows NY, but it just popped out of my mouth) Connecticut....Near NY

Driver: Ahhhh, Connecticut. Hmmm...Let's see. Greenwich (green-witch)? Cos Cob? Stamford? Westport?

Me: (shocked) Um...Yes, Greenwich (Grenich) How did you know that? Have you been?

Driver: No!!!!! w...w...w...yahoomaps...com

Me: Wow, that's really amazing.

Driver: Let's see...Connecticut. That is I-95 anddddd....Merritt Parkway, yes?

Me: Yes. Wow.

Driver: Now, what does the Merritt Parkway turn into? The Taconic-no, that's not right.

He couldn't come up with the Hutchinson Parkway, but knew right away when I said it. This went on and on - with my College, knowing exactly which highways went by this small town in upstate New York, and continued on with more knowledge of Connecticut. Just by studying maps online. I was shocked and awed for the whole trip home.

After he finished regaling me with tales of Northeast USA roads, we moved on to a conversation about politics in Singapore versus the US (in Singapore, the government is like a 'farm family father. He wants to tell the son what to do all the time, but the son is 42 years old. Sometimes he wants to say "piss off" but he grudgingly says okay to the father', and in the US, we actually tell the "father" to piss off) and the pros and cons of the tight hold the government has on the people (a little less freedom and a lot more safety.)

I didn't get to finish my show, but I had yet another amazing taxi ride in Singapore. I have really learned a lot from the cabbies here!

Oktoberfest and China Part II

Before I continue to update on our China trip, I thought I'd just share a fun story about Oktoberfest. Chris participated in not one, but two competitions! One was eating and drinking, and one was a tag-team Erdinger drinking competition, more of a marathon than a sprint. Chris and 3 of our friends were victorious and won us free drinks for the rest of the night and an Erdinger "Oktoberfest" set, complete with 2 glasses, 4 beers and coupons for free things around Singapore. Here are photos of the victorious group before and after their win!






Now...Onto China...

After a restful day/night at the Simatai Guesthouse, we moved on to hike the portion of the Wall between Simatai and Jinshanling, about 5 km. We had been told by several people that it is difficult and steep at the beginning of the hike and then it calms down, but I didn't get that at all! I felt like I was climbing up stairs and downstairs, and upstairs and downstairs, and...you get the idea. For about 5 hours. It was fun though, and the views were beautiful. I did feel a bit dumb though - we brought Chris' daypack and left our other bags in the car. However, we didn't really measure out how much that would hold, versus what we wanted to bring with us. It ended up that I had to carry a shopping bag (brought from home, but it happened to be a Duty Free bag) on our whole hike - I got some weird looks for that!

This is the scary bridge he had to cross to start our day:



and some of the ups and downs...



We had alot of people following us, trying to get us to buy 'beer, soda, water, postcard, t-shirt?' - all said in rapid succession. But, being used to hawkers from our time in Turkey, we were able to shake them off pretty easily. We had been told that we'd find our next host through his wife, who'd have my name taped up to her stall of 'beer, water, etc...' and we were very unsure about whether or not this was actually going to work out. But sure enough, we walked into the nicest, most 'together' tower we'd seen that day, and there is a woman, smiling like crazy, with my name on her table.






She served us tea, on our 'terrace' where we hung out for the afternoon, looking at the wall in all directions.

Eventually, her husband arrived, at just about sunset, and walked us into town to his home/shop/restaurant for a fabulous dinner!

Some shots from dinner:





After the humongous dinner (including, among many other things, a plate of dumplings for each person!) we took the 20 minute walk by flashlight back up to the watchtower, shared a bottle of wine on our new friends' watchtower and took our walk home along the wall to our home, where Mr. Sun had set up our beds for us and we went to sleep to get up at 6am for sunrise.

After seeing the beautiful sunrise, we walked down to meet our driver to take us into Beijing. We got stuck in a ton of traffic on the way home, but had some time to relax before starting on our whirlwind tour of Bejing and Xi'an...to come...

China...Part I

I had planned to write about our amazing China trip as soon as we returned but, as I actually had to work a bunch, and I had 1,211 pictures to sort through, it kept getting pushed back, but I'm here now...

Our trip had an auspicious start as soon as we left Singapore. We were so responsible and booked our flights months ago, while we were still in Turkey. On the way to the airport, we were chatting with our taxi driver who also had plans to go to Beijing that same week. It turned out that his entire trip, with a full tour, cost about as much as one of our airline tickets. We also did not have a nonstop flight to Beijing. This turned out to be to our advantage...After the short leg of the flight, we had a layover in Kuala Lumpur. From there, we had about 6 hours to Beijing. I was disappointed to find (since I am so large and need alot of space) that I was stuck in a middle seat on the plane. While we are sitting in our tiny, cramped seats, someone comes back and softly asks to see our boarding passes. He tells us that they'd like to give us an upgrade to Business class "but separate seats. Separate. You won't be able to sit together." By the first "sep-" I had (sophisticatedly) shouted "OK" started crawling over Chris, likely elbowing him in the face to get a move on and continuing "yeah, yeah, we see each other all the time." Let me make sure to give them a plug...We were flying Malaysian Airlines, my new favorite airline...And the flight attendants were so nice that they actually asked someone else to move so we could end up sitting together. While one person was putting our bags in the overhead compartment, someone else was handing us glasses (glass glasses. Not the plastic stuff that cracks if you accidentally bite down onto it) of champagne so we could have a pre-take off flight. Chris was so exhausted from all of his hard work at school, so he fell asleep immediately after takeoff. I, on the other hand, love feeling important and pretending to have a luxurious life, so I stayed awake for most of the flight, taking advantage of more drinks "keep 'em coming" might have been my exact quote to the amused flight attendant, the best chicken and beef satay I have had to date, and the personal video screen filled with movies and television shows. Oh, and when they served us food, they set our tray tables with LINEN. We should not have to eat off of mere plastic tray tables, surely not! Basically, it was the best flight I've had since the "NY to Orlando upgrade of 1993" and has led me to the undeniable conclusion that: Coach is for suckers.

Anyway, back to the actual visit to China. The trip was partially to visit China and partially to visit with Chris' parents who were in Beijing as part of a longer trip around the country. We had planned to be with them on their tour from Sunday to the following Saturday (we were arriving early on a Saturday morning,) but visit the Great Wall of China on our own beforehand. Being the over-researcher that I am, I contacted about 5 different companies that do hikes of the Great Wall with a one night camp out on the Wall, nearly signing up with one, before I inadvertently realized that we actually weren't meeting Chris' parents until Monday so I decided to start organizing a 2 night trip on our own. In subsequent research, I came across a guesthouse at the Simatai section of the wall, along with contact information for a man in the US who created the website for the Chinese owners (who didn't speak much English.) I decided to contact this guy, who ended up being an invaluable resource when planning the trip. I'm not going to put his name on here, but we'll call him J, because I don't want him to have to be harassed by anyone else! Basically, he called the owners in China for us, to organize our stay and also organized a driver to bring us from the airport out to the Wall, hold our luggage while we hike, and take us to our hotel in Beijing 2 days later. For our second night's stay, I had contacted the (also invaluable) tour company representative that Chris' parents were using for their tour, and asked if she wouldn't mind contacting a man who I had read about online as someone who rents out a watchtower on the Wall and provides dinner and breakfast to his guests (and who also does not speak English.) As we were going to be hiking along the wall, I wasn't sure how we would hook up with him or figure out which watchtower belonged to him. I was told by the tour agent "his wife runs a stall on the wall, and she'll have your name taped to it."

There were so many loose ends here, I wasn't really sure if it was going to work out, but never one to like failure, I had my fingers crossed and...It couldn't have turned out better! The driver, who I was warned (there's a theme here) didn't speak English, actually brought his college-aged, English speaking niece along for the 3 hour trip, just to make sure we could figure out all the details about where he should drop us off, when and where he should pick us up, and if there was anything else we needed. She gave us her phone number, so we could contact her for any reason, which we did when we decided we wanted an earlier pick-up time on our final day (after 'roughing it' for a few days, a girl needs a couple of hours at the Silk Market...More on that later)

We arrived at Simatai at about 9am on Saturday morning and, in the pouring rain, started our walk. After following the "walk along the river and take a left at the first watchtower" type of directions we got from J and thwarting some would-be Wall-escorters/postcard-hawkers, we arrived at the Simatai Guest House to meet our friendly hosts for the night - "You're the Americans!" he said as we walked up to the place. After finally getting some sleep on the beds (wooden planks with 1" thick foam stapled to it) in the Guesthouse, we awoke in the afternoon and had some amazing sweet and sour chicken, fried rice and homemade (and delicious!) noodles and a couple of beers. After our first meal in China, and after the rain cleared and we realized we could see the Wall extending as far as we could see, from our patio, our host offered to take us on a walk (he did speak a little English) up to the Wall for sunset. It was awesome.

Here are a couple of pictures from the Guesthouse and our sunset hike. We are heading out to Oktoberfest today, so I can't write more but I will update the rest of the trip in the next day or so...

I meant to post these pictures from the Singapore Zoo...I was lucky enough to get paid to help out on a school field trip here. Pretty much the coolest zoo I have ever seen. In some of these photos, the animals were literally a foot away or less - no bars! Apparently the primates are intimidated by the local monkeys so they stay in their little areas even though there isn't much built to keep them there. These aren't terribly well edited so feel free to fly past the multiple White Tiger shots or the many, many Baboon ones...




We're off to China today, to visit the Great Wall, Beijing and Xi'an and to spend some time with the Emersons! I'll update this with lots of stories and photos when we return!

As promised, here are some initial photos of our new place. Most are from outside, but a few from inside the apartment. More to come...

It has been a busy few weeks, especially with work (even I have been working most days!) but made slightly less busy by both Chris' and my long weekend trips falling through! Note to anyone who needs it: You need a visa to go to India. Who knew?

But we have been doing lots of fun things as well...First of all, Chris took part in an amazing race, called the Coastal Challenge. It looked incredibly tough to me, but Chris had a great (full) day!

Here are some pictures of the finish line (the only place I could watch any part of the race, because the locations were top secret) and Chris and his race partner/co-worker Phil finishing the race, triumphant!



More photos and stories to come soon...

Singapore...the land of little monkeys (though I have yet to encounter one,) lots of heat and MOCHI, the inspiration for the new name of our blog: www.mochimadness.blogspot.com

We have been here now for awhile...Well, Chris for longer than me, but even I've been here for over 2 weeks now. We are absolutely loving it - our condo is great, the school is fabulous and the ease of doing just about anything is amazing! More to come, including photos and mayyyybe even a 360 tour, just like on the real estate sites, if you're lucky and if I'm feeling bored, I mean motivated, but now that we're not in Turkey anymore, we're going to change the name of our blog.

Tonight, I decided it should be Mochi Madness - Mochi (which admittedly doesn't sound appetizing on Wikipedia,) for those of you who have not tried the delectable little treat, is the ice cream dessert that we have been mildly obsessed with since arriving here (and I'll be honest, the obsession actually started at Whole Foods back in Greenwich...) It is single serving, so you don't fill yourself up, easy to eat in it's own little package, and just delicious. Chris actually vetoed the blog name Mochi Madness, but...since I'm the one who actually writes this thing, I decided my vote should count twice...

So, for now, until Chris writes a little something, I mean, gets a second vote, I mean, notices...the new address for our blog is www.mochimadness.blogspot.com - Although, if you're reading this sentence, you're already here :) so, welcome! And go try some Mochi!

Beautiful photos from the best hellish trip I've ever been on...

More details from the trip to come, but for now check out some great pics from the trip:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bluecruise2007

The Home Stretch

We're counting down to our last few days in Istanbul, before a short Blue Cruise, before heading home (yay!) The movers came the other day, whirling through here like a tornado, shoving our clothes and everything that wasn't tied down into boxes that all seemed to be for

"knicknacks."

If the movers' exuberance and lack of English speaking skills weren't enough, I stepped out onto the balcony to check out our moving truck, where I immediately noticed that it was similar (identical) to the trucks that bring fruit and veg to our Monday market. The picture below left is one of our belongings, the one below right is of our street as I am writing (as it is Monday) - notice the similarities for yourselves.

We are both excited to come home and then move on to our next adventure, but a little bit sad to leave such a unique and interesting home. The other morning, quite unusually, I woke up with the 4:20 am call to prayer. The call to prayer is the sound that initially terrified me about moving to such a 'foreign place' when heard incongruously in my Greenwich apartment through the a telephone call with Chris, and the sound that now is so normal that it can fade into the background of our lives here, but can also be a main focus, depending on the day/time (ie if you wake up at 4:20 in the morning from the sound.) It is something that if we ever hear outside of Istanbul will immediately transport us back here.

One thing we are going to miss is the great feeling we get when actually making ourselves understood in Turkish. Living in an expat-free neighborhood (with the exception of the 10 -15 of Chris' coworkers who also live in our building or surrounding blocks) you really get a chance to practice your Turkish, and today I actually made 2(!!) appointments over the telephone, completely in Turkish. I was so proud of myself, I had to call Chris immediately and tell him (update to follow on whether the appointments I THINK I made, were actually made...) Of course this progress is all just in time for us to leave.

I thought, as I'm a little hopped up on caffeine and I have all day to finish packing, I would make a quick list of top things I am going to miss and not miss about this place (I haven't yet decided how long each list will be...)

Top Things I Will Miss:

Lahmacun - As I have only discovered this fine culinary treat recently, I feel I have to eat it as often as possible..Once a week? Definitely not enough! We will be eating this tonight...

Inexpensive and quality beauty treatments and other services: Hemmed pants (original hem), 3$! A suit jacket and trousers for Chris, completely taken apart and taken in, 45$! Eyebrow threading, 6$! It's amazing...

The thrill of making myself understood in Turkish (on the rare occasions it happens)

Travelling in Turkey: Cappodocia, wow.

Ciya

The unique and extreme friendliness, helpfulness and hospitality of the Turkish people (with the possible exception of taxi drivers)

Crossing the Bospohorus on the ferry

Top Things I Won't Miss:

The amount of paperwork and silly things necessary in order to get things done (Chris is currently on full day 3, in attempt to get ownership of his car removed from his passport)

The bizarre rules that accompany much of your daily life ("Yes, you can put more money into your savings account. But you must wait until the day of the following month that is the same as the original day you opened the account or you will miss a full month's interest." Um, what?)

The dirt. Never before have I been a "take my shoes off as I walk in the door" kind of person. But I can't bear to wear shoes that have been on the stray-dog strewn streets in here.

The smoke. Everyone smokes. Everywhere.

Being stared at incessantly, every time I leave the house, unless I am in a full turtleneck/long pants combination.

Being screwed over by nearly every taxi driver in the city.

Crossing the Bosphorus (or going anywhere on) the bus: Hot, windows closed, armpits everywhere. It's not nice.

In that vein, this is my all-time favorite Time Out Istanbul article. It perfectly sums up public transportation here. Before you read it: A dolmus (pronounced domush) is a van that seats about 8 or 9 people and follows a loop all day/night. They are very convenient, as you never have to wait long for a bus, and they are cheap, less than $1 for a ride, but as you'll see, the dolmus, and really you can substitute any regular bus, are not always the plush, relaxing ride you might hope.

After re-reading my list of the things I won't miss, I realize I probably sound negative about Istanbul. I don't feel that way, it's an amazing place, but you definitely have to take the good with the bad!

Tonight, however, I'm going for some inexpensive beauty treatments, going out for Ciya and Lahmacun and then taking the seabus (fast ferry) out to the airport to meet Chris' friend Jessica, our final visitor, so it should be the perfect Istanbul night. Let's just hope our taxi ride home doesn't screw it up!

Unrelated:

I didn't get a lot of responses for what to re-name this blog when we move (next week.) If I don't get any more ideas, I will have to go with my father's suggestion: http://www.jennaandchrislivinginsin(gapore).com/ and we all know I don't want to do that :)

Larry, Moe and Curly Work the Border Once Again

I have been meaning to update for awhile (again) as things have been busy here with finishing up work and entertaining visitors (life's tough, i know)...But the one thing I have meant to write about for awhile, because it's amusing, at least to Chris and I, is the latest "border fiasco" that took place when we went to Kalymnos a couple of months ago...

Getting to Kalymnos requires about 2 days and several transport changes...First, we flew down to Bodrum, in the South of Turkey, and then had to take a ferry to the Greek Island of Kos and from there, another one to the less touristed island of Kalymnos. We flew to Bodrum one night, stayed in a hotel and headed to the ferry first thing in the morning. Because we were taking the boat to another country, we (along with the other passengers) had to navigate x-ray machines, metal detectors, passport control and customs agents before getting on the boat. This being Turkey, it was more haphazard than was really necessary. First, as we were going through the metal detectors, there were children on one side of the detectors, handing large wooden boats bearing the names of local beloved football teams to their parents, around the metal detectors. The guards at this post were merely raising their fists in the air and shouting in agreement "Galatasaray, woohoo!" Let me clarify the size of these boats - they were at least two feet long, definitely large enough to hold large weapons and/or many, many drugs. After passing through this checkpoint, we then were able to decipher (despite the lack of any signs telling us about this) that we had to head to another, slightly out of the way building to visit passport control. After getting our passports stamped for exit from turkey, we got in line to get on the boat. Well, first our visiting friends showed their passports and moved onto the small ferry. Then I showed my passport, with no problems. Chris was behind me in line, and as the humorless and stereotypical customs agent flipped through his passport, he stopped at one page, looked up at Chris and said "Where is your car?" In Turkey, foreigners who own cars have that information stamped on their passport, I think so that they won't abandon the car in the country and disappear forever (which seems to me to be less of a problem for the government, who could just reposess the car than for the owner who would be out their money and a vehicle, but that's just my opinion.) As Chris was the owner of lovely Renault Spring (and still is, if any foreigner you know in Turkey is interested...) this fact was stamped in his passport. He incredulously looked at the customs agent and said "It's in Istanbul" to which Customs replied "You cannot leave the country without your car" which was of course in sharp contrast to our Bulgaria trip, when we couldn't leave the country WITH the car." There was an exchange in which we explained that we lived in Istanbul and flew down to Bodrum, and besides how would we get the car on the small boat. I was getting frustrated by the lack of sense of what this man was saying, and started to get a bit, well...mouthy. As Chris, who has much more experience with this sort of thing than I do, later informed me, you want to be polite and deferential to these official and things will generally work out much easier. Of course that didn't occur to me at the moment though, when, after asking if we understood what he was saying, I replied "I understand the words that are coming out of your mouth, but it doesn't mean it is making any sense" and "Does that mean that any who ever wants to leave this country via an airplane has to find a way to take their car with them." At one point, after we had been pulled out of line, waiting on the back ramp of the boat, unsure of whether the climbing trip that Chris had been planning and looking forward to for months would actually occur, Customs said to him, absolutely deadpan "These are our RULES" - it was all very intimidating and infuriating, and also of course mildly amusing. About twenty minutes later, once every other person had made it onto the boat, Customs called over his buddy, who looked like any tourist, and certainly not a customs boss with his big belly, comb-over and gray Member's Only jacket, who took a look at the passport, grunted and said "It's okay. They can go," we got on the boat, to the stares of all the British package tourists and sailed off to Greece.

The best part is that we thought we were being very funny once on the boat, saying "Yes, like we're supposed to bring a CAR on this tiny ferry (who's bottom floor had enough room for the passengers' luggage and a couple of plastic chair,) haha..." When we walked back downstairs to get off the ferry, we saw that there WAS in fact a car that had been driven on before we departed. It was a VW Golf-type thing, and was barely on the back the boat, being held up by the boat's raised ramp, and had a few suitcases resting on the hood...

And one more quick customs note: Greek Ouzo and Turkish Raki are very similar, anise flavored drinks. Also, there is no love lost between the Turks and the Greeks. Both of these facts came into play when we arrived at the port in Greece, and while waiting in line for passport control, saw signs hanging all over that said "Yeni Raki (a popular brand of Raki) is not allowed to be imported into Greece for health reasons"

Besides the initial passport problem, the rest of the trip was amazing and our photos, which I can't remeber if I have previously posted, are here...

Next up, a report on our evening living like the rich and famous...

I know I haven't updated in awhile and I will, but...I just wanted to say a super special

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

to my cutest, sweetest mommy and to Chris' super mom and of course to all of my friends who are celebrating Mother's Day for the first time this year with their little munchkins. These sentences deserve exclamation points, but unfortunately my computer decided that today the "number row" wasn't going to work, so there you go...

Coming out of the (over-cluttered, environmentally unfriendly) closet

In honor of Chris' birthday (yesterday, April 19th...I'm a bit late I know, but feel free to send him lots of birthday wishes!) I thought I'd post this as a bit of a birthday present for him.

After about 2 years of harping on about the environment, my wasteful ways, etc...I think Chris has finally done it. He's turned me into a(n) ... (budding) Environmentalist! Happy Birthday, Chris!

In honor of that and because Earth Day is coming up soon (Sunday, April 22nd - I'm a bit early for that, but we'll be away on the actual day) I thought I'd post a little Public Service Announcement on how YOU TOO can start on your way to becoming an Environmentalist (and know that I probably sound extremely hypocritical as I'm just beginning to turn over this leaf myself...)

I read this article in Real Simple* the other day (Thank you to Ed and Theresa for helping me get my magazine fix over here!) *and yes, I know...magazines = paper waste = bad for environment. Like I said...a BUDDING environmentalist - i'm not all the way there yet!

I saw the website Greener Penny this morning on Daily Candy (I know, my mentioning Greener Penny is doubly hypocritical, as the site is about both the environment AND cleaning!)

Also in Daily Candy, these ideas for reducing your carbon footprint.

Oh, and one more thing...This month's Vanity Fair (thanks mom and dad for THIS magazine hookup!) is their green issue and is Carbon Neutral, which made me feel better about it!*

*See above asterisk

OK, the PSA is over, but if you have a chance, take a look at these sites. The more Chris tells me about how we're really screwing up the poor planet for ourselves down the road, the scarier it becomes (and yes, I know you've probably been beaten over the head with this in the media in the States now and I'm wayyy behind the times) I just wanted to throw my two cents in. If I can change (or at least start to), anyone can!

Unrelated and Fabulous!
I love and miss my former coworkers at Armstrong Shaw for many reasons, but the latest being that I received a big box from them (more specifically Terry, Lisa, Joanne and Robin) the other day, containing an adorable felt Easter basket, more candy than I'm going to be able to eat for the rest of this year (and still remain on my Bridesmaid Dress Diet) and a Colony Grill (yum!) T-Shirt. I took a picture of all of this beautiful candy - including Tootsie Rolls, Hershey's Hugs and Caramel Kisses, Mike and Ike's, the ever-controversial Peeps and numerous other delightful surprises - but am having some technical difficulties uploading. I'll try again when we get back from Cyprus next week. It was the best package I've gotten in a long time, and my neighbors, students and I are all enjoying and partaking in it! And I'm pretty sure that candy is always good for the environment :) Thanks guys!!!

Kalymnos, Greece: Land of over-enthusiastic hotel owners, free coffee-givers and lots and lots of rocks...

Due to my lame internet connection, over the past 3 days, I have successfully uploaded 43 of my 113 Greece photos online. Hopefully the rest will be up soon, and they'll be located here.

In the meantime, you can see even better pictures, taken by our friend Ed, here ...

We had a great time with all of our visitors over the past two weeks, and a super time in Greece, where the people were above and beyond the nicest I have met anywhere.

Some examples are...
George, the most enthusiastic hotel proprieter I have ever met. He ran up and down the stairs of his hotel, Melina's Apartments to show us each and every available room so we could decide which we wanted.

Panos, the above mentioned free coffee giver. Our first morning on the island, we stopped at his place so my caffeine addicted self could get a fix. He has a restaurant, which we later learned was the 'go to' restaurant for all the climbers on the island, which also had the description "coffee bar" painted on the outside wall. I went in and asked for a coffee to go. After an "Of course, dear, why not?" He ran across the street to the minimart and bought some styrofoam cups to take the coffee on the road. While waiting for the coffee, we decided to take a taxi to our climbing destination (or "Crag" as I learned it is called) of the day so we had coffee at Panos' place while we waited for the taxi he called. 2 minutes into the coffee drinking, a large bottle of water showed up on the table, along with a huge plate of delicious homemade cookies. We, of course, were thrilled, and when our taxi arrived, asked for the bill. "No charge!" Panos replied, "It doesn't cost me anything to make coffee!" We were shocked, and ended up going to his place for breakfast (always free, and the last day had delicious pound cake instead of cookes) and dinner (always included a few free beers and dessert!)

Everyone we met was so much fun and so nice, it was like a magical land of the super friendly!

I'll add more detail in the next day or so, but now I've got to get back into the swing of work and prepare some lessons!!

I LOVE working part time!!

After we got back from our January break, I decided to start working part time. This decision was based on several reasons, one being that I need to study for my GRE's (which has been a truly humbling process) and another was that I was feeling way too burnt out in relation to the small "salary" I was receiving at the end of each month. It has been great. I am still working 6 days a week, either giving private English lessons or working at my regular job, but just a couple of hours each day, for the most part. It's been great. I have a whole day I can use before I go off to work. Sometimes, like today, my private lesson students will cancel, and I feel like someone gave me 4 extra hours for free! Granted, I lose out on a good bit of money, but these days, time trumps cash. Anyway, these days are usually spent catching up on emails, studying for the GRE's (lately math, which leaves me feeling slightly depressed), doing some yoga (which makes me feel slightly better) and reading(which I also count as studying, because I highlight, look up and create a spreadsheet of words 'I will soon know' - trying to put a positive spin on my limited vocabulary. I have also used the time to cook and bake. Today, after a 3 month hiatus (beginning on Christmas day when I broke our blender) I decided to re-enter the hummus making world (no, it's not common to find it in stores here, so if we want it, homemade is the best bet.)
It's gorgeous out today, and it's a Monday, which means Market Day in our neighborhood, so to prepare for my cooking session, I went out and did one of my favorite things, which I never had a chance to do while I was working all the time....The European-style shopping trip: First stop: Ekonomik Market, a small grocery store/mainly produce market, where I bought broccoli and yogurt. I plan to use the broccoli tonight in my new favorite dish to cook- Lemon/white wine/olive oil marinated artichoke hearts and broccoli over penne (look mom, I'm eating veggies!!) We'll buy the artichoke hearts fresh at the 'real' market, but I like to go with Chris because conversing with the (super friendly but English-free) market guys on my own about how much everything costs (and the fact that they always try to give me fruit makes me a little nervous. Next stop, the Sarkuterie, another little shop (the name of this type of store is based on the other word that sounds like it "Charcuterie" - the Turks have co-opted alot of words like this, like Taksi, Kuafor, etc...) that sells meats and cheeses (nothing international though. White Cheese or Yellow Cheese are the choices) and where I bought my can of chickpeas. Next stop, the Zeytin (olive) store, because we're nearly out of olive oil. These shops are always tiny and sell different kinds of olives and olive oil (sometimes house-made) and sometimes olive oil soaps, etc. I bought a small Poland-Spring type bottle filled with olive oil for 5ytl, about 3USD. From here I spotted the friendly gypsy lady on the corner, from whom we usually buy flowers. I bought a gorgeous bouquet of all white flowers (I'd post a picture but for some reason I don't see my camera around here...) She wanted15ytl, about 10USD but I talked her down to 10YTKL (approx. 7). I'm not sure if that's still a bit high, but I figure she probably needs the money more than I do, and on a nice day like today, flowers are a must! After visiting the gypsy flower seller, I went to Bag (pronounced bahhhh) my FAVORITE bakery and bought a delicious bread, sort of corn-bread-like, but not so heavy or sweet, and a bunch of cookies. I love shopping in this neighborhood, because the proprieters are all soooo nice to the teachers. We are the only foreigners who live in this neighborhood and I think they think we're amusing and/or they feel sorry for us. I asked for 10 cookies today, and the man weighed and priced them and then discreetly put about 3 or 4 more in the bag. After Bag, I decided that I really needed nail polish remover. So I stopped into the grocery store and picked up a bottle of that for 85 kurush, about 50 or 60 cents. For some reason, the combination of the cool enough for a fleece yet warm enough for sandals day, the friendliness of everyone around me and knowing that we'll only be here for a little while longer, has put me in a really good/slightly nostalgic for something I'm currently experiencing mood...Then I came home and tried to cook (by cook I mean make some hummus). I'll digress for a moment and share the fact that Chris has taken to calling me the Swedish Chef, a fair statement due to the fact that I can just LOOK into a kitchen and food and cooking utensils will be everywhere. Again, I wish I could find my camera because in the middle of making my hummus, I looked around - a blade from the blender, covered in hummus, was on the floor, tahini was spilled all over the counter, as was some exploding hummus from the blender. I mean, I don't know how it happens. It's sad, really, but I'm just not sure how to help myself! Regardless of my messy kitchen behavior, I think that my time cooking has started to pay off - My peanut butter M&M cookies are my new addiction (I had to stop making them, actually, because I need to be in a bathing suit in two weeks, and it wasn't really working out to have them in the house) and Chris actually eats just about everything I cook! Which is generally more complicated than my "cheese and crackers" or "bowls of cereal" or even "containers of ice cream" of the past! I highly recommend that everyone works only some of time...It's amazing what you can accomplish!

And this reminds me...

We're going to need a new name for our blog, now that we won't be in Turkey any more!

Any suggestions???

After we left Paris, we had a relatively uneventful flight to Boston (barring the fact that the Charles de Gaulle airport is an absolute nightmare - something that was confirmed both leaving the country and travelling back through on the way to Istanbul) and were so delighted to be back in the US, with people who spoke English to us, and Dunkin Donuts on nearly every street corner! I was delighted to see a television (HD with DVR no less - Thanks Will!) and to catch up on my favorite shows! The first night we were there, we were pretty jetlagged and went to dinner (at a pub - where the waitstaff talks to you in English! and there are multiple, good beers on the menu!) with Will, our gracious host for the week, and his fabulous girlfriend Christine.
Over the next couple of days, I was lucky enough to spend time with many of my favorite people:

Freshman year college roomies reunited (and with babies - cutest babies ever by the way, not that I'm biased - wow!) It was such a special treat to be all together again!






Leigh and Gretchen, at an all day magarita/mexican food/shopping drinks party. I missed the mexican food and the margaritas nearly as much as I missed these two fabulous ladies!







My cute family, who I was hoping to surprise, but had to settle for a run of the mill "Come to Boston, please, I'm here!" reveal.









Chris' parents, brothers and their girlfriends:









and Chris' friends of whom I have no pictures...

It was a really fun trip. It made us realize just how much we missed home and made us think that we really were ready to go back, despite Chris spending so much time at job interviews during the two weeks, until...The morning after our big get together with our friends, Chris decided he should really just go on one last interview. Would be rude to cancel, and all that...And he ended up really liking the school, the director, the principal, the location and the job. SO...After a couple of hours of speedy internet research and lots of talking, we decided that next year we are....Singapore bound! After more internet and book research, and alot of talking to friends who know, we are even more excited for this next phase. I'm excited because Singapore has: Chinese, Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Japanese food all over the place, is close to Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, etc. etc. and is equatorial, which means warm weather year round. I'm also excited because, while Chris beat me, by a long shot, in the visitor department this year, Singapore is close to so many amazing travel destinations that I think I'll be able to put up a good fight for the title next year...My calendar is open and waiting!

Writing about our France trip has turned into a long project for me...This will be my last post about it. We drove to the Loire Valley and stayed at a lovely B&B, La Maison Blanche, in the town of Amboise. Amboise is on the Loire river and is, as are all of the towns around, really quaint and smelling of fresh bread everywhere. After being deprived of great cheese here in Turkey, it was wonderful to be able to walk into any grocery store, or even quickie mart and find some artisanal French cheese, wrapped in paper with an AOC label. The second night we were Loire (the only place we stayed for 2 nights) we just got a bunch of bread, cheese and wine and stayed in for dinner. We actually discovered possibly the best goat cheese we'd ever had, in some small grocery store, but of course we don't remember the name, nor is it likely that we could ever find it outside of the Loire. The first night we were in Amboise, we went to dinner at a place our lovely B&B proprieter recommended. It was a perfect recommendation called Les Ramparts. The website is in French, but you'll get the idea. It was tiny, maybe 10 or 12 tables, and they had a great multi-course menu, along with local and fabulous table wine, that cost maybe $50 or $60 total. Unfortunately, that night I was feeling ill (I think my body was confused by being back into contact with such good cheese!) and I couldn't finish my meal or (shock of all shocks) my cheese plate. The waitress (owner?) was so concerned that I didn't like the food. It was all very sweet. Anyway, back to our B&B...It is owned by a lovely woman named Annick, who is so chatty and friendly. We had breakfast in a lovely room with windows on a whole wall, overlooking her wooded property. When the WiFi that we were supposed to have in our room turned out to not work, she gladly opened up that room to us, at any time, so we could organize the tickets we needed to buy for the rest of our trip. Also, she has 2 horses and 2 adorable dogs, Snoopy the Golden Retriever and Taylor (like Elizabeth) the deaf Great Dane. They were the best part of our stay! In and around Amboise, we did some wine tasting, visited Chateau de Chenonceau that was really beautiful, situated over a river. The most impressive part of the chateau was the kitchen, or kitchens, i guess. Really understated, gorgeous light coming in. Definitely a kind of kitchen you'd want for yourself! The rest of it was quite nice too, but that was the most impressive part to me. We also visited Clos du Luce, where Leonardo DaVinci lived his last years and where he died. In the basement of the chateau are models of many of his inventions and then there is a big park, with life size models. You can actually test them out, it was really cool! After the Loire, we visited Versailles, which of course is amazing, but almost tooooo big to walk through and stay interested the whole time. The gardens are great too, but it was kind of a rainy day. We got the idea of it though and then got back in the car, drove to Paris, where I unfortunately directed Chris to drive right through the center of the city, which he claimed was far worse that driving in NYC and even Istanbul, the city in which I cringe, with eyes closed, every time I'm in a moving vehicle. From that awful Arc du Triomphe experience to finally arriving at Gare du Nord, to drop off the car and catch the Eurostar, took us on a long journey through the city. We got to go up to the Montmarte area, which we weren't able to really tour once we got back to Paris, so that was a positive, and we got to see "everyday life" in Paris...or something like that, to make me feel better about my poor navigation. Anyway, we got to our train just in time to go to London to see Tamar and Pete and for Chris to go to some interviews for next year. While poor Chris had to dress nicely and sit in interviews all day, I was lucky enough to spend time with Tamar, and do some all-important shopping and the most important...wedding dress shopping for her! It was a really special weekend. After a whirlwind London trip, we got back on the Eurostar (at 5am, I believe) and headed back to Paris for a few days. We stayed in the Latin Quarter, in an apartment for which we had high hopes but was really just so-so. The best parts about it were, a) we were two minutes walking distance from Notre Dame Cathedral and a relatively short walk or Metro ride from everything else we wanted to see and b) we were in close proximity to one of our new favorite restaurants, Les Papilles (the photo in this article is in that restaurant). It is in a small gourmet shop and there's not menu, just a set meal for the night. That night we had a creamy carrot soup, which I never would've tried before, but it was amazing. Then a curried chicken dish over penne, a cheese course (certainly) and an unbelievably good orange creme brulee! The best part is that the store stocks some food but is mainly a wine shop and when you get there, you can stroll and find a wine that looks good to you (or rely on the suggestion of one of the owners, because you have no idea) and they tack on a 6 euro corking fee, to the shelf price of the wine. He selected a reasonably priced Bordeaux that was so delicious we were practically holding the bottle over our mouths to get the last dregs when we were finished. I'm going to try to remember the name of the wine and I'll post it back here if i can...The rest of Paris was just doing the regular touristy stuff - Louvre, Eiffel Tower, some shopping, etc etc. It was lovely but I think both of us were excited to get to the last part of our trip, Boston, to see friends and family, and for Chris to again sit in interviews all weekend...Boston leg of the trip to come...

So in the last post, I left off with us heading to Brittany. Due to my keen detective skills, I was able to re-find the website of the place we stayed in Cancale, La Metairie du Vauhariot. As with all of our B&B's, we found the proprieter charming and the surroundings fantastic. This is Chris standing in the impressive stairwell, and this is where we had breakfast. Cancale was a really cool town, although like most places we visited, nearly empty in January. The food was amazing and (again, I'm guessing this is due to the off season) we had a 4 course meal, including 10 oysters apiece, wine and of course a cheese plate (!) for about $30 or $40! I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, but it's a cute little place on a corner and it looks like this inside. The waiter/owner (I think he was the owner) loved Americans (imagine that!) and loved Vegas! He was telling us about his yearly Vegas/LA trip and how this year he was going to take his head chef. It was really sweet and the food was fabulous! Many of the restaurants we found in France served this great dish of steamed mussels, but in a creamy, rather than clear broth. The one we had here was the best mussel dish I've ever tasted, although I'm sure the cream made it entirely too unhealthy.
After we left Cancale, stopped by the medieval walled city of St. Malo, for a little visit before driving directly South through Brittany (Cancale is just to the East of St. Malo - at the very tip of the peninsula) to Vannes. St. Malo is really amazing - the whole city is really enclosed in walls. It was fun to just walk around in the narrow, winding streets and to walk on top of the wall around the city. I can't find my photos of it just now, but the walls go along a beach area and at one point, there is a pool ON THE BEACH. With a diving board! We had great, cheap paninis here before our drive South, proving apparently that if you're French, anything you cook will be good.
It took us a few hours to get to Vannes, where we stayed in a sort of boring, but convenient and parking lot equipped, Comfort Inn kind of place. The town was nice; a University town, again with the cobblestone and the cozy little streets - but we thought that if we had to do it over again (and in the same time span - 1 night in each place) we might skip it, as it wasn't too different from the other places we'd visited and it was a good drive to get there. The serendipitous thing about Vannes is that there was a new/used CD store in the town and in it Chris found a years old cd by a little known (I don't actually remember who she is) (not French) artist that he and his friend Will (who we would be staying with in Boston later during this trip) used to listen to during their cross country adventure about 5 or so years ago...So that part was really fun :)
After Vannes, and after driving along the coast that looked surprisingly like the coast of Maine, we left Brittany and headed into one of the great lands of wine...The Loire Valley. More to come...

Once again, I've been terrible about updating, but we recently (does two weeks ago qualify as recently?) returned from a great 2 week trip, including Northwest France, London, Paris and Boston. It was really fun and an absolute whirlwind of food, drink, friends and, for Chris, job hunting, but I'll get to that part later. Our trip began in a most non-Bulgarian way. Our flight actually DEPARTED EARLY from Istanbul! I really couldn't believe it. I think our bags were the 3rd or 4th on the conveyor belt once we landed in France, and we picked up the rental car and got out of the city with only one wrong turn! No multi-hour waiting and doing nothing, no people trying to smuggle cigarettes into France. It almost felt wrong. But in a really good way. We stayed in a standard roadside hotel the first night and then left that morning for our first destination - Normandy and the DDay Beaches. Going to these sites was something Chris was really interested in, and I just kind of went along for the ride. But I ended up being surprised about how powerful and moving it really was to see where these battles took place (we went to Omaha beach) and the accompanying cemetery.
After we did our historical siteseeing, we stayed for our first of several nights in fabulous B&B's. (note: We stayed at a bunch of great places and a couple of mediocre places. I had wanted to give all of the information about them but, sadly, a few days after we returned, my entire Yahoo Mail account was somehow emptied of all it's information. No more email addresses, contact information or emails. They have all been deleted. Of course Yahoo said there was nothing they can do. So there you have it. All of my reservation information is gone. I've been trying to retrace my steps as far as where I found these places online, but to no avail. If I find information on the places that aren't at the top of my head, I'll post them later. In the meantime, I hate Yahoo.)
Anyway, we stayed at this great B&B the first night. Part of the house dated from the 1700's and the hosts were a lovely husband and wife. The husband didn't speak much English, but managed to point us in the direction of (and make reservations for) a fabulous small restaurant called Chez Francois. It was tiny, with a big fireplace where they cooked all of their meat, and as we would come to expect, had a great wine list, all for about under 20 euros and fabulous!

New update: France Photos are now HERE...

On our second day, we went to Mont St. Michel which is one of the neatest things I've ever seen. It's this huge abbey/island that you can see from really far away and from the parking lot.
The best thing about our trip was that, while it was pretty cold, visiting France in January, we were nearly the ONLY tourists around! Literally, at Mont St. Michel, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in France and is apparently mobbed with tour buses for most of the year, there was one other couple who happened to be in the same area of the Abbey with us through most of our visit. Right as we were leaving, we saw a tour group come in, but luckily we were on our way out.

Mont St. Michel sits at the corner of Normandy and Brittany, so we headed into Brittany after we left the island. Our first stop was Cancale, which is known for it's oysters, where we stayed in another great B&B.

This is my first installment of the trip, and I'll update more, and hopefully make our photo album really fancy, later...

I forgot to mention...We're going to France next week: Brittany, Normandy, the Loire and Paris. My job is to plan Loire and Paris, and Chris will do the others. If anyone has any great ideas for these places - restaurants, sites we must see, a great place to stay in the Loire (we're set on that front for Paris), SHOPS I MUST VISIT, please leave me a comment here and let me know! THANKS!!

New Years Part II:

I am so lame, I know. I try to keep up with my posts on here but ridiculous things like "work" and the like are always getting in the way. Anyway, before I end up waiting until NEXT new years, I thought I should post about the rest of our trip to Bulgaria, which was made even better (I think) by the trials of getting there.
Since the snow was minimal (although it didn't seem too bad to me, on the bunny hill, on my first day skiing in at least 5 years, Chris and Nam weren't too fond of skiing over rocks and grass on their fancy skis and snowboards) we spent alot of time at the nearby hotel's spa, sitting in the sauna and getting massages. There are certainly worse ways to spend a vacation. After we finally settled into our hotel and spent a little time on the first day at said spa, we hit my new favorite restaurant, Pitsina Kruchma. DuWane and Chris knew of this place from last year's visit, and the owner of the restaurant recognized them too. The hospitality at this restaurant and in much of Bansko (much unlike the hospitality of the Bulgarian customs agents) is Turkish-like in how at-home they make you feel. When we walked in, the place was nearly empty, but the "best table" was in front of the fireplace. It had a 'reserved' sign on it, but the owners' daughter came over and told us, "My mother wants me to tell you that you guys should sit here by the fireplace, but that our friends from Sofia are coming in a few hours. I'm telling you this not because we want you to move, but because they will join you. They're all very nice." And sure enough, after an AMAZING meal - they have these potato-cake things with ham and cheese and all crispy on the outside, and surprisingly good domestic wine, not to mention HUGE portions (after Nam finished this dish, he started in on the half of my garlic and cheese stuffed fish that I couldn't eat!)

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- the friends from Sofia arrived. We had already had a couple bottles of wine and, as for how the night progressed, I think the photos can tell it better than I can:

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(that's the owner I'm dancing with...)
You get the idea, it was a perfect night and the perfect antidote to our hellish travels!

The next day was our one day of skiing, and it was also New Year's Eve! While on the slopes, Chris and Nam met an American couple, Lori and Dave, who are doing the International teaching thing, like we are, in Cyprus. They said they approached Chris because he was the only person on the mountain Telemarking, and I'm so glad they did! We met up with them that night - I felt terrible that we said we'd meet them before midnight, but due to the dinner we ended up having (see below), we finally got to the bar at about 1:30...

For dinner that night, we wanted to go to a traditional Bulgarian Mehana, much like the night before, but they are really working over the tourism thing, and while our first night's meal cost us about $12 apiece, all of the restaurants wanted at least 50 euros, and sometimes more, per person for a meal. So we found a pizza place that was completely empty and not doing the prix fixe thing, and went in. Another serendipitous find, as the food, both my pizza (wood fired) and the guys' food (all Bulgarian stuff) were wonderful! The waiter

From New Years 200...

was a really nice guy and told us that he'd give us a free bottle of champagne if we stayed through midnight. We were having such a great time that we decided to do that, and were again, were so glad we did, as I've never experienced a New Years quite like it. The owners' of the restaurant and their family were all dining next to us, cheers-ing us (Nazdrave in Bulgarian) and dancing around, lighting sparklers. Then we went outside to watch the fireworks displays, which were great, but not as good as the show of one of the owners or perhaps a family member, who was shooting off a gun to ring in the new year

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After that, we took a bunch of pictures:

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and watched DuWane get beaten by a stick (I guess it's Bulgarian tradition that kids make 'wands' from sticks and decorate them and go around whacking people with them for good luck)

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Then we left to meet our new friends who, thankfully, waited around for us!
We had a great night that night, and the next day just walked around Bansko (I won't fully detail the disaster Chris and I had trying to find lunch. It was like the border crossing part II. Suffice it to say, it took four hours and we ended up with crepes. Great crepes, but crepes.)
The next day, the four of us and our new friends set off in search of some thermal springs that Lori had heard about. It turned out that it's a pool in a hotel that has the mineral water, and not some natural, gorgeous spring, but we grabbed a few beers and hung out in the warm water for hours. Here are some pics:

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We're all very coordinated...
Oh, I forgot to mention the weird parade we saw while waiting for our 4 hour crepes...Men walking around covered in animal skins pounding drums...Sounds strange. and it was. But it was very cool looking too.

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and my favorite...

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The next day or so progressed about the same way, kind of lazy, good food, good wine, it was nice. When we left to head back to work, we took one bus to another bus to the border and it took only about 7 or 8 hours to get there. When we got off the bus and got to the car, Chris sort of walked ahead of us to make sure it was there. I see him throw down his bag and curse loudly. I walk around to see what the problem is - there's a boot on his car. I was afraid we'd just have to drive back with it, a la when Homer Simpson got booted in NYC...thump...thump...But Chris, as determined as I've ever seen him, walks over to the tire, kind of shimmies the boot, and it pops right off. Fine Turkish construction if I've ever seen it...If there's anything I regret, it's not taking that boot with us. But I did take a photo for posterity:

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Oh yes, and one other thing. I'm not sure if it was mentioned in Chris' summer details about Bulgaria, but apparently Bulgarian women are the most beautiful women on the planet. This is the first thing his friends told me about when I asked about their roadtrip this summer. And I'm not kidding. Anyway, the Bulgarians must take some pride in this. It's been awhile since I've been home, but I seem to remember that the "women" signs for bathrooms in the US are nowhere near as "developed"

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Compare:
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