My letter to Amsterdam

This week it is exactly one year ago that I left Amsterdam for Alanya. I had a one way ticket for the 8th of November. I remember the feeling so well. I felt a lot of mixed emotions. Happiness, excitement and relieve mixed with sadness, fear and doubt. After years of resistance the decision of leaving Holland and moving to Turkey was taken within minutes some day in April last year. Without a single question on my mind. So I took the steps that followed with great conviction. I quit my job and ended my rent. I cancelled my registrations, contracts and memberships, I told everyone I know and started to pack my boxes. So far I felt mostly really happy to be stepping out of the routine and into a new adventure. And I was so much looking forward to start living together with Bülent and by that ending the long distance relationship status.
But the closer I got to final, the harder it got. Not to let go of my old life, my routine, but more so to let go of my and friends and a certain future fantasy. Everything felt so much more intense in the light of my goodbyes. The conversations with friends got deeper and more emotional. The dance classes felt like therapy. And Amsterdam looked like a jewel. How could I let go of those things that have become a part of me? I stayed at Tamila’s place the very last week because I had already given up my rent. I will be forever grateful for her support in those days. Boy did we cry a lot and hug a lot too and then laughed about ourselves. Suddenly I felt trapped into some kind of vacuum, it was the weirdest thing. Looking back would bring tears to my eyes while looking forward made me smile and my heart beat faster.

But that last week helped me to let go a lot. I remember walking through the streets, already homeless and feeling it. It was a stormy week, as it usually is in November. Winds always carry change. They lift things, swirl them around and relocate them. And when they’re gone they leave behind a new landscape. This is the natural progress of change manifesting itself. It also brought up my eternal question of home again. Where was my home? Wasn’t it this city? I have made it my Wahlheimat over the years, my home of choice. It had grown on my like a great fitting jacket. And now I was giving it all up again. Wasn’t I? Or maybe not. Maybe this old jacket of mine had paid its service. Maybe I just needed to take it off an put on a new one, a lighter one, because the season had changed.
It was time to move on. Like I had done before. And with that always comes a bitter sweet goodbye.
A piece of a dialogue from ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ came into my mind from Liz’ imaginary dance with her Ex.
But I’ll miss you.
- So miss me.
But I still love you.
- So love me.

So I decided I don’t want to let the missing part holding me back anymore. These feelings are proof of how much you really care, which is a wonderful thing. So I just go ahead and miss and love all I can, knowing it won’t kill me.

Amsterdam has written such an important chapter in my book. I got my first 'real' job in that city when I was 20. And after travelling through Australia and working in Alanya for two years I decided to go back to Amsterdam for University and to get settled there. It will always have its place in my life, regardless where I am. And the more I age the more I begin to understand that maybe my book wasn’t meant to be written in one place anyways.

Hiding from the rain and storms in those few days left, I remember sitting behind the big windows of my favorite Espresso bar and composing a goodbye letter to Amsterdam. Here is what I wrote: 

November 4, 2010

Dear Amsterdam,

I’m leaving in three days.
So I’m saying my goodbyes. 
Goodbye and thank you for having made the past 7 years as memorable as they were.

Thank you for letting me live in the beautiful and safe neighborhood of Oud West, in a small but very comfortable apartment with a nice view. I loved having my own shiny dark green front door in this city. You must have known that number 5 would bring me luck.

Thank you for accepting me into the class rooms of your prestigious University. The lectures, classes and  professors, the viewings, the books and my fellow students at that time gave me what I call my ‘Academical Awakening’ and they have made my world bigger in so many ways.

Thank you for letting me learn, work and party with some very nice people at AT5. This preview into the world of television had been inspiring, challenging and fun all together. 

Thank you for offering me an awesome job in publishing. Signing a contract with Penguin Books was a great idea! I loved working with my wonderful colleagues, in a beautiful office on Herengracht, my trips to Paris and learning about the world of international publishing and literature. I’ve learned so much in those 2,5 years. And I took some very unique experiences and so many great books with me that my shelves are stocked for the years to come.

Thank you for introducing me to the world of Bellydance. Discovering my passion has been the greatest gift. Sharing this passion with the girls and being teached by Kaouthar is something I will always take with me. I will cherish the love and knowledge for this dance and her life lessons like a treasure.

Thank you for all the interesting events, encounters, festivals, and parties. For long picnics at Vondelpark and your great variety of shops, cafés, restaurants and cocktail bars. I will remember those countless, countless coffee and lunch dates and drinks at night with my friends. And shopping days that almost always turned bad days into good days and good days into great ones.

Thank you for never letting my bike get stolen. For boat tours on the canals and the beautiful views from the little bridges of the 9 Straatjes when bicycling on my way to work every morning. I loved those little streets in the morning when shops where about to open, people and students on their bikes everywhere and only a hand full of early tourists straying around. The air is filled with morning light,  the smell of baked bread and fresh coffee and new energy for a day at theoffice. Thank you for your museums, your concerts and fairs and for being the coolest city to be at on Queensday, on new year’s eve and during World Cup Football.

Thank you for your incredible diversity of people, nationalities, languages, food, music, education, religion, job opportunities, fashion, architecture, movie theatres, creative and artistic minds and last but not least your constantly changing weather situation. You look so beautiful when the sun comes out and people almost start to celebrate it. The rainy days made me appreciate the sunny ones even more and made Appeltaart  met slagroom en chocolademelk taste so much better. Thank you for accepting everyone into your city, regardless where they’re coming from, and for always stepping up for minorities. Thank you for setting up the Amsterdam Vluchtstad Foundation, offering writers, poets and journalists a safe haven to write about subjects they are being threatened and persecuted for in their own country.

And thank you most and fore all for bringing my amazing friends into my life! They are truly special people and every single friendship is one of kind. And I’m convinced that the fact that we all live and love your city has made it all the more fun to share the experiences. I will carry them in my heart wherever I go. And as long as they continue to live here, I will always come back.

Thank you Amsterdam. For being and giving all of the above and much more. It’s been an adventure, a great pleasure and a privilege to get to know you and to spend a few years of my life here. 

You had me as a young woman growing up and finding her way. Exploring, celebrating and struggling through life. You had me as a student, a dancer, a biker (a sometimes risky and reckless one, with either a coffee to go or an umbrella in one hand), a dreamer, a hard working employee, and as an admirer. You have seen me looking my best at weddings, birthdays and job interviews and you’ve seen my worst, including very frizzy hair days after a heavy rain shower. You’ve seen me the way I have seen you.. at your best a beautiful, colorful city, with life running through it like a wild river. And at your worst with very cold, dark and wet winter days that would stretch for weeks and months. And with rude waitresses.

You had me in my twenties. 
You had me in my happiest moments and my saddest ones, in my highs and my lows. 
You had me as a citizen until now and you will always have me as a visitor from now onwards.

You had me in love. With life. With the city. With my friendships. And with one man on a distance all along.

That’s where I’ll be going next.

So long my dear Amsterdam. 
May you always stay this way.

Yours truly, 
Katharina

During Football World Cup 2010

View on my neighbourhood, the Jordaan

Here's a song that I used to listen to a lot while sorting out my stuff at home and downsizing my belongings to 30 moving boxes. It's the goodbye song of the dutch band Krezip. I love her voice. 

(video removed, but you can youtube it) :) 

I'm happy to report one year later that I am still living and loving my life in Turkey. I'm so glad I took that decision. And living together with Bülent is one of the best things I have ever done in my life.

So don't be afraid to go ahead and change things in your life.  Be brave, take your chances and do what you believe in and always remember that without change there would be no butterflies.

My trip from home to home

This week exactly one year ago something interesting happened in the world, and in my own life.
I was in Alanya for one week to see Bülent. The season had just started. And just like now, only a handful of early tourists were visiting us in the restaurant, enjoying some food while sitting in the sun warming up their bones after a long winter at home. We had lots of free time together and I remember wishing I could have booked two weeks instead of one.

My wish was about to come true. On the day before my departure my mom called me to tell me that a volcano in Iceland had erupted and that Schiphol among other airports in Europe might be closed for a while. What? They are closing all airports just because of some volcano in far away Iceland?? Little did I know then how serious the situation would become and what the consequences would be in the days that followed. I called my boss to let him know that I was unable to get a flight back to Holland but there was no need to explain. This volcano with the unpronounceable name Eyjafjallajökull was on everybody’s tongue. I kept checking the news a couple of times daily for new updates but pretty soon it became clear to us that airports would stay closed for at least a week. And for this entire week all of Europe was under the spell of one single volcano that suddenly woke up after a 200 years sleep. Bad news for millions of tourists and travelers everywhere. Many of them had to spend night after night on cold airport floors..waiting to go home. With every day that passed people became more nervous, desperate and angry. But all they could do was just wait until this volcano would finally calm down and the winds would blow away these big clouds of ashes.

And while all these countless of travelers desperately wanted to go home, I slowly, and for the first time in all those years, started to realize that maybe I already was home. I had no desire to go back. Bülent and I had talked about ‘our situation’ so many times in the past but it never got us anywhere. A bird may fall in love with a fish but where would they live? Moving to Alanya was not what I had in mind for myself. For a while we planned that Bülent would sell the restaurant and come to live with me in Amsterdam. But as much as I liked the sound of this, this idea only raised more questions and doubts. So we kind of left the puzzle for what it was.. we learned to carefully maneuver our way around it without running in circles and getting lost in frustration and uncertainty. Looking back this ‘we’ll see’ attitude got us pretty far, but I admit it was hard to make any plans for a future together. Nevertheless I happily pushed the ‘ignore all’ button in my mind and we both continued doing what we love to do. After all, our love had proofed to be strong enough to handle the distance. So after my graduation from University three years ago, I signed a permanent contract at Penguin Books. I liked the way things were going in my life at that time. I loved the job, the city and my apartment. I discovered my passion for belly dance and I spent a lot of  time with my friends. Bülent was with me during the winters when the restaurant was closed and I visited him throughout the rest of the year. All was well.. for a while.

But last year something changed. Somehow, for me, the sun set on Amsterdam. I had enough of working 9 to 5 in an office week after week and having to calculate every single day off. I wanted to do something completely different but didn’t know what and how. At the same time I needed to move out of the apartment but buying a new one, with a huge mortgage and a million obligations wasn’t for me either. I thought about signing up at University again but had no idea how to finance a full time study in case I would have to buy a house. I felt pretty lost, not knowing anymore which direction I was heading to. And most of all; I missed Bülent! Because of my limited holidays I sometimes didn’t see him for several months and I hated it.

And just like that, this second week of April 2010, while I was waiting for this Icelandic volcano to calm down so I could go home, I found myself sitting alone on the balcony asking myself: could it be that I already was home? After all, wasn’t home where the heart is? I have my love here, a house and a bed. Our friends are here and through the years Alanya has become like a second home to me. Could it be that everything was much simpler than I thought it was? The more i thought of it the more it started to make perfect sense to move here and start living together. How come I had never seen it this way before? Looking back now I think I really needed the time and the experiences that I gained in the past couple of years to even get to this point. But now the right moment had come to close one chapter and start a new one. Suddenly it felt so easy and natural to imagine what it would be like. And the idea to get out and away from my situation in Amsterdam and into a new life, together with Bülent, felt exciting. In that moment I really wanted to move to Alanya. Of course, these questions of ‘what the heck am I going to do there for myself’ knocked on the door again... but this time they came alone, without their bad companions called fear and confusion. And maybe the whole ‘how’ of things isn’t my department anyways. All I have to worry about is to make a decision, to make a move and take my chances. And everything else would follow from there I told myself. The bird, who fell in love with the fish, will fly into the water and learn to swim. She will surf on the waves of the waters that are home to the fish. And the fish will swim to the surface to be close to his beloved bird and help the bird to stay safe. The little bird will learn to dive and she will teach her dear fish to fly and they will enjoy their new life together. There, on the line where the sky meets the ocean they will meet half way and create a new home together..

That day I wrote down the following words in my notebook:
Change of time, change of place. Change of job and change of case. I’m changing my poem, changing the rhyme. Changing the meaning of the entire line. Change of the outcome, change of plan. I’m changing my mind because I can.

At the end of the second week all smoke and ashes had settled down. And things were not the same anymore, everything had changed. The skies had cleared up again, as had my mind. I booked a new flight back to Amsterdam and took action right away. I quit my job and told my landlady that I would move out soon. I told my contacts for the real estate and mortgage that the plans were cancelled. All this was easy. The hard part was telling my friends about my new plan. Some were very surprised, some said they’d seen it coming. They were happy for me but of course they were not happy at all about me leaving. My family, who already lives abroad, agreed that it would be best for us to move in together. We had talked about me moving there a couple of times before. But the fact I was really going to live in Turkey now, and in Alanya, raised some concerns about my future. I can’t blame them, and some of the concerns are mine as well.  

Change can be a scary thing. I mean really scary. But I believe that if we are willing to reconsider our convictions and review what’s best for ourselves from time to time, we feel more at ease with the changes that we go through. And sometimes, when we are brave enough to take it by the horns and just run with it, we might even be able to grasp a piece of the endless field of possibilities that lies within the change. And that feels fantastic. For the rest, it’s mostly just about taking it one step at the time and keep breathing. And smiling too.

1 year ago...

This week exactly one year ago something interesting happened in the world, and in my own life.
I was in Alanya for one week to see Bülent. The season had just started. And just like now, only a handful of early tourists were visiting us in the restaurant, enjoying some food while sitting in the sun warming up their bones after a long winter at home. We had lots of free time together and I remember wishing I could have booked two weeks instead of one.

My wish was about to come true. On the day before my departure my mom called me to tell me that a volcano in Iceland had erupted and that Schiphol among other airports in Europe might be closed for a while. What? They are closing all airports just because of some volcano in far away Iceland?? Little did I know then how serious the situation would become and what the consequences would be in the days that followed. I called my boss to let him know that I was unable to get a flight back to Holland but there was no need to explain. This volcano with the unpronounceable name Eyjafjallajökull was on everybody’s tongue. I kept checking the news a couple of times daily for new updates but pretty soon it became clear to us that airports would stay closed for at least a week. And for this entire week all of Europe was under the spell of one single volcano that suddenly woke up after a 200 years sleep. Bad news for millions of tourists and travelers everywhere. Many of them had to spend night after night on cold airport floors..waiting to go home. With every day that passed people became more nervous, desperate and angry. But all they could do was just wait until this volcano would finally calm down and the winds would blow away these big clouds of ashes.

And while all these countless of travelers desperately wanted to go home, I slowly, and for the first time in all those years, started to realize that maybe I already was home. I had no desire to go back. Bülent and I had talked about ‘our situation’ so many times in the past but it never got us anywhere. A bird may fall in love with a fish but where would they live? Moving to Alanya was not what I had in mind for myself. For a while we planned that Bülent would sell the restaurant and come to live with me in Amsterdam. But as much as I liked the sound of this, this idea only raised more questions and doubts. So we kind of left the puzzle for what it was.. we learned to carefully maneuver our way around it without running in circles and getting lost in frustration and uncertainty. Looking back this ‘we’ll see’ attitude got us pretty far, but I admit it was hard to make any plans for a future together. Nevertheless I happily pushed the ‘ignore all’ button in my mind and we both continued doing what we love to do. After all, our love had proofed to be strong enough to handle the distance. So after my graduation from University three years ago, I signed a permanent contract at Penguin Books. I liked the way things were going in my life at that time. I loved the job, the city and my apartment. I discovered my passion for belly dance and I spent a lot of  time with my friends. Bülent was with me during the winters when the restaurant was closed and I visited him throughout the rest of the year. All was well.. for a while.

But last year something changed. Somehow, for me, the sun set on Amsterdam. I had enough of working 9 to 5 in an office week after week and having to calculate every single day off. I wanted to do something completely different but didn’t know what and how. At the same time I needed to move out of the apartment but buying a new one, with a huge mortgage and a million obligations wasn’t for me either. I thought about signing up at University again but had no idea how to finance a full time study in case I would have to buy a house. I felt pretty lost, not knowing anymore which direction I was heading to. And most of all; I missed Bülent! Because of my limited holidays I sometimes didn’t see him for several months and I hated it.

And just like that, this second week of April 2010, while I was waiting for this Icelandic volcano to calm down so I could go home, I found myself sitting alone on the balcony asking myself: could it be that I already was home? After all, wasn’t home where the heart is? I have my love here, a house and a bed. Our friends are here and through the years Alanya has become like a second home to me. Could it be that everything was much simpler than I thought it was? The more i thought of it the more it started to make perfect sense to move here and start living together. How come I had never seen it this way before? Looking back now I think I really needed the time and the experiences that I gained in the past couple of years to even get to this point. But now the right moment had come to close one chapter and start a new one. Suddenly it felt so easy and natural to imagine what it would be like. And the idea to get out and away from my situation in Amsterdam and into a new life, together with Bülent, felt exciting. In that moment I really wanted to move to Alanya. Of course, these questions of ‘what the heck am I going to do there for myself’ knocked on the door again... but this time they came alone, without their bad companions called fear and confusion. And maybe the whole ‘how’ of things isn’t my department anyways. All I have to worry about is to make a decision, to make a move and take my chances. And everything else would follow from there I told myself. The bird, who fell in love with the fish, will fly into the water and learn to swim. She will surf on the waves of the waters that are home to the fish. And the fish will swim to the surface to be close to his beloved bird and help the bird to stay safe. The little bird will learn to dive and she will teach her dear fish to fly and they will enjoy their new life together. There, on the line where the sky meets the ocean they will meet half way and create a new home together..

That day I wrote down the following words in my notebook:
Change of time, change of place. Change of job and change of case. I’m changing my poem, changing the rhyme. Changing the meaning of the entire line. Change of the outcome, change of plan. I’m changing my mind because I can.

At the end of the second week all smoke and ashes had settled down. And things were not the same anymore, everything had changed. The skies had cleared up again, as had my mind. I booked a new flight back to Amsterdam and took action right away. I quit my job and told my landlady that I would move out soon. I told my contacts for the real estate and mortgage that the plans were cancelled. All this was easy. The hard part was telling my friends about my new plan. Some were very surprised, some said they’d seen it coming. They were happy for me but of course they were not happy at all about me leaving. My family, who already lives abroad, agreed that it would be best for us to move in together. We had talked about me moving there a couple of times before. But the fact I was really going to live in Turkey now, and in Alanya, raised some concerns about my future. I can’t blame them, and some of the concerns are mine as well.  

Change can be a scary thing. I mean really scary. But I believe that if we are willing to reconsider our convictions and review what’s best for ourselves from time to time, we feel more at ease with the changes that we go through. And sometimes, when we are brave enough to take it by the horns and just run with it, we might even be able to grasp a piece of the endless field of possibilities that lies within the change. And that feels fantastic. For the rest, it’s mostly just about taking it one step at the time and keep breathing. And smiling too.

Every journey starts with a single footstep

Here's a thought for today:

Baby steps are crucial. They set the course and determine the direction into which you’re heading. Be aware of their great importance, regardless how small they might be in the beginning. So whatever it is you are after, do take that first step. And then another one. Keep walking. First slowly if you need to.. but keep going. Walk pass the hills of doubt, fear and insecurity until you come to the fields of endless possibilities. Once you get there you will know what to do next. From there onwards your steps will be more confident, more determined and surely much bigger. And you will smile when you think of that first baby step again.

There’s a reason why you seek this journey.

And it’s most definitely going to be worth it to find out.

Dialogue with my future self

This quiet Sunday afternoon I went for a few glasses of çay in the local ‘Tea Garden’ with B and two friends. We talked about how everyone is worried about the decline in tourism, be it for restaurants, boat tours or shops in town. Europe has been diagnosed with ‘Crisis’ and we can all feel the symptoms of it. What to do about it?  What about the future? Will we need to find new ideas and new concepts? We have to create new opportunities. But how do we do that? And how can we turn things around and make the best of it?

I went home with these questions ringing in my mind. Going online I visited Erin Gate’s inspiring The Elements of Style blog and I stumbled upon a post, written by her boyfriend Andrew Gates a while ago. Reading his advice put me back in focus, back in the here and now. At the end of the post I was telling myself:  ‘You need to stop worrying so much. Everything is going to be ok. Things happen for a reason. Seriously, stop worrying!’

So here is his awesome piece of advice, which I wanted to share with you in case you ever feel like turning to your ‘Future Me’ for a reality check.

10, 20, 30, years from now…or more…I am going to reflect on my life. I tried to put myself at that point and ask what will I think. I was going to regret not going with the start-up. It was clear. Granted, that didn’t make the choice any less scary, but I knew what I needed to do. I continued to think about the “Future Me” and what I would think of the present me.

And Future Me had a bit of advice. He said that we are living in a home, eating applesauce, wearing diapers and all I have are my memories. Don’t screw them up. Spend time with your friends and family, because those are my favorite memories. Stop spending so much time on the little stuff, you can barely remember that anyway. Travel more, you will love Africa. Take a few chances, but not too many that you look like a moron (and you are approaching that level so be careful). Enjoy your successes and indulgences, you will see that guilt is a waste of time. Do things for others without the need for acknowledgment or reciprocation (you will get both in spades anyway). Be happy for others who are more fortunate than you, help those that aren’t, respect both equally. Do things you normally wouldn’t do every so often, those are some fun memories. It is okay to cook and do the dishes, but make sure you say thank you when someone does it for you. When you get here (the future) you don’t want to have settled.

Smart guy. I hear he is handsome too.

We could all benefit from calling our Future Me’s every once in a while. We need that reality check of how most of this won’t matter even a few months from now, much less years. We need to live a little more for the moment.

That doesn’t mean go crazy. It doesn’t mean bounce your last check (ahem! parents and in-laws). It doesn’t mean shun stability and responsibility. It doesn’t mean pack up your shit and move to Nepal. It means to do things you will be happy to look back on. That may mean taking the stable job for some, or going with the start-up for others or even leaving it all behind and going to Nepal for a few months. Life isn’t black and white. There is no need for you to be stable or reckless…you can be somewhere in-between. You don’t have to married by 28. You don’t need to have kids before you are 35. You don’t need to have your career all set by the time you are 40. Life is different for everyone and very few of us live up to the expectations we set for ourselves or other set for us (and those that do probably feel unfilled in some way). Take life as it comes, change it as you go, and stop worrying about where you are now…just enjoy that you are here and moving forward. It takes some people a few years, others a life time. We all get there.

You are a fluid and ever-changing person who is at times scared, happy, sad, bored, worried and excited. Perfect…that’s how you are supposed to be. Think about the future, think about what you want to look back on, and then stop thinking about the future so much. Re-live the good times in the past. Learn from the bad ones and move on…they are not you anymore. Forget the really bad ones. They serve no purpose anymore. Realize that life is both what you make of it, but more importantly how you want to approach it. You can get bogged down with your own shit or you cannot. The choice is yours.

Permalink: http://www.elementsofstyleblog.com/2011/09/deep-thoughts-by-andrew-gates.html

Coffee and Lokum for your walls

It's winter (at least on the calender) and that means renovation season for us, as there is still a lot of things we want to change and redecorate in and around the house. So we picked up the work with having the walls of two of our bedrooms painted. I discovered the ‘Osmanlı Renkleri’ collection from Marshall. A new palette of delicious colors, divided into the four themes Turkish Delight, Berlingot, Sherbet and Coffee, that refer to the magnificent interiors of villas and palaces during the Ottoman empire. I fell immediately for the names of those fruity and spicy colors like Lemon Lokum, Cinnamon Berlingot and Coffee with Musk. I had to have those colors, to create this warm and luxurious feeling, that the Ottomon style is so well known for, within our own four walls. We chose the warm Sesame Berlingot for the guest room and the deep Coffee with Cardamom (Kakuleli Kahve) for our bedroom. Here's a little preview. More pictures with the final results at some point in the future..

Pick a flavour

\

Lokum / Turkish Delight:  powdery, innocent colors of cream, pistachio green, pastel lemon yellow and soft pink to add romance and a scence of luxury to the room.

Akide / Berlingot: comes in vibrant colors of Sesame, Mint, Orange and Cinnamon, adding the intensity and warmth of oriental spices to the room. 

Şerbet / Sherbet: reflecting the colors of nuts, fragrant flowers and ripe fruits like almonds and cranberries on the walls, adding a rich and dreamlike feeling to the space.

Kahve / Coffee! My favorite. Deep shades of Cardamom, Musk and Amber turn your room into a warm and comforting space that makes you want to stay in bed forever.

Those colors look amazing in traditional rooms as well as in contemporary, modern interiors. I also dig those traditional and symbolic patterns and motifs, looks interesting.

Images from Marshallboya.com

Project Bathroom

You might be wondering what's been keeping me busy and away from blogging the last few weeks.
We decided to renovate the bathroom, something we've been planning to do for a long time. Because summers were always busy and the winters we passed in Amsterdam.  Up until then we tried to look through the horrible green tiles, ignoring the old toilet and sink as much as we could and pretended it didn't matter that we had to jump into the tub to take a shower while being closed up in a hidious box with decorated glass. Also we had this small extra room with a 'hole in the floor' toilet wich we never used (below with pink tiles).

But no more. So we decided to roll up our sleeves and get rid of it all. We got help from Levent, B's younger brother who manages a villa project for a construction company in the back hills of Alanya. He brought he's men over and they started to drill and hammer and destroy the room the best they could. It felt sooo good to see those ugly tiles come off the walls and everything being removed within one afternoon.
In that first week we were pretty optimistic. One more week and we would be done, we thought. Meanwhile B was staying at his parents home and I became Elif's room mate for a while. But then, somehow, everything went backwards and I could swear the project was jinxed. The wrong tiles arrived, one order didn't come through so we were waiting for nothing, one Usta (constructor) got ill another one didn't get allowance from his chef to leave the construction site, our neighbours downstairs complained about a leakage caused by the drilling, the bath tub was wrong, etc. Two weeks turned into three and three weeks into four. Meanwhile the house was a complete mess, covered in dust and debris.

Our patience was heavily tested. But we kept cool as much as we could. And serving tea, lots of it. I repeted my mantra whenever I felt we were on the edge of dispair: it's gonna be worth it! But from time to time B opposed with saying:  actually the green was fine too, it wasn't that bad.

We moved back in a week ago. I spent three days on cleaning and organizing, with some help from sweet Elif. There's no way I would have gotten through this without B being the calm and cool man that he is and Elif's support, our crazy laughs and her home cooked dinners at the end of days. Now we really love the results and every time I enter the room in the morning I'm thinking: this was so worth it.

These pictures only show the work in progress. There are still some details we need to take care of so the final result will follow in another post.

Before

Work

After

Before

After (not completely finished yet)

De-cluttering

I'm gonna be honest with you: you have too much stuff.  I know you do because most people do and I'm a lot like you. Is there a bunch of clothes hanging in your wardrobe that you haven't worn since the turn of the century? Are your drawyers stuffed with junk and you are afraid that they will explode in your face when you open them so you prefer to keep them closed? Is your old suitcase filled with bags and shoes and things you don't even remember? Check your kitchen counters, I bet they hide things that you have no idea off.

I was forced to face my clutter some two years ago, when I moved to Turkey. I had to downsize my belongings into 3 cubic meters of moving boxes. Less was ok too, but no more. And downsizing was not one of my skills at that time. Pulling out all the things I was hiding in bags and boxes, on shelves, under the bed and inside my drawers nearly overwhelmed me. The idea of moving into foreign territory made me clinch on to every single item I owned. Suddenly there was this deep sentimental relationship I felt with my old stuff. How the heck was I going to decide what to keep and what to let go off?

When I shared my hopeless state of being with a friend, she advised me to read Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. I didn't think a book is gonna safe me but I was in a stage where I would have followed any advise so I immediately bought the book. And I read it in 2 days. After that I was unstoppable. Clutter moved through my hands and into boxes and garbage bags in no time. And I filled up my station rent-a-car 4 times with things I donated to a charity organization. There were moments when I was even tempted to get rid of everything, and leave the country without even a toothbrush. Luckily, I have some very cool stuff that I really,really love and cherrish and use. And there is no way I could find similar things in Alanya so I'm happy I kept it.

But once settled in in our new home in Alanya, we were still missing some furniture. So there was a couple of boxes I couldn't unpack. We decided to keep them in extra bedroom 'just for now'. And quickly and sneeky this extra bedroom turned into our storage room, where more and more things got dumped 'just for now'.  Next thing we knew friends brought some of their stuff because they were moving as well, we kept some stuff for the restaurant in there, my mother in-law placed some boxes there because of lack of space in their own apartment and so on. Because that's what happens: clutter attracts clutter.

But this room started to make me extremely nervous. And unhappy. And irritated. And so I grabbed Karen Kingston's book again and reminded myself of why I should never ever create new clutter in my home again. Because getting started and deal with it is hardddd! But I'm telling you, this book is extremely motivating. I read a bit of it one evening and I couldn't sleep so excited was I to get started with room the next day.
The room looks great now, the negative energy around it is completely gone and I'm in the process of turning it into our home office space. Having a real work space, separated fromt the living room, will surely have a positive effect on my work life as well.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because a clutter free space can change your life. Changing the space you live in will change how you feel will change how you live will change who you are. It's a very profound process.

Clutter holds a lot of old, stagnant and negative energy. Getting rid of the old stuff creates a new, open space in your life where fresh energy can flow through. This can have a major effect on your fysical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being. You don't have to do all at once. Even a small de-cluttering project can have a big effect on you.

Here's a tip from me: if you don't absolutely love it or use it donate it. Because someone else will love it more than you. You can make someone else happy with it. And this thing whatever it is that you posess deserves to be appreciated. It's ok to posess some things you like but don't use, but never, never, never let these things begin to posess you. If they tie you down, get rid of it. Let. it. go.

Repeating the following mantra may help: i will never use this, I will never use this, I will never ever use this. Proceed to the give away pile or garbage bag. Repeat.

Let's begin the clutter-free project. Organize that one corner, drawyer or box that is full of junk before end of this year. Do it. And watch what happens. You will thank yourself for it. If you need help, get your hands on a copy of the book first. Start a de-clutter revolution of your own and pass it on to your friends and family. Everyone should have a chance to know and to benefit from a clutter free life.

Good luck and keep me posted on your progress!
If you have a tip of how to de-clutter your space please share it with us below.

I'll be writing more on what you can do to change your personal space and attract what you love in another post.

For now I'll be sending a lot of clean and clear vibes your way tonight.

And off to the kitchen... that rice pudding has been on mind all day since I woke up this morning. It's all that I want to happen for now.

Two years after moving date I still had some unpacked moving boxes. Now, I'm in no way proud of showing you my clutter. I normally would never do such a thing because it's embarrassing and it's ugly. But I'm doing this because I love you. And because I want you to understand that you are not the only one who is hiding clutter in your home. I want you to take a good look at yours and then get rid of it once and for all.

More annoying clutter just sitting there. Stagnant energy. Uglyness to the eye. Chaos to the mind. Away with that! ASAP please!

My poor books had to put up with this mess for way to long. I made it up to them by giving them a better place in the room and organzing the shelves.

Progress. We f.i.n.a.l.l.y. got rid of the stuff that wasn't ours, organized everything else, had the floor re-done with new laminate and the walls painted in a fresh virgin white. Aah! What a relief. I can see the home office plans happening in here.. bare with me. More updates soon. Oh, and please don't judge me for that lamp.. I know it's hidious. But it has been hanging from that ceiling long before we moved in and I couldn't decide what to replace it with yet. Now that I will start to use that room more, I will make the lamp situation a priority. Promise.

You’ve gotta love ‘Türk Tatlıları’. Turkish sweets, like honey-and-nuts-baklava cut into little golden pieces or those colourful Turkish Delight cubes with aroma’s of roses, mint and orange. Displayed like jewelry on a silver plate they flirt with anyone who passes a patisserie. Served with a small glass of nice and strong black tea or a tiny cup of ‘Türk Kahvesi’ they can bring your sugar level from zero to one hundred within a few bites. Not very healthy but irresistible. Just make sure you drink a big glass of water along with it. Maybe this is the point where I should admit that I have a weak spot for anything sweet and delicious. But even though I love to discover all these fantastic sweets that Turkey has to offer, I sometimes would love to trade all these stuffed, sticky pastries for a good old classical muffin. My favourite is plain or filled with blueberries. They are mild and soft and just the right size to eat cake for breakfast without a bad conscious. Or enjoy them with some really good coffee in the afternoon. It’s a pity that American Bakery is hard to find around here. But in order not to crave what you can’t have, I decided to make some myself. I went online to check if domestic goddess Nigella Lawson (who I can watch for hours) would have some good recipe.  And Nigella wouldn’t be the Calorie-Fearless Cooking Queen that she is if she wouldn’t have come up with this one: Bakalava Muffins! How great is that! The best of American Bakery and Turkish sweets combined! Of course I had to try it.

So here we go:

BAKLAVA MUFFINS

For 6 big muffins (but I got 10 out of it)

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

For the filling:
-          100 gr of chopped walnuts
-          75 gr brown sugar
-          1,5 tbl spoon of cinnamon
-          45 gr unsalted butter, melted
-          a little salt

For the muffins:
-          210 gr plain flower
-          2 big tbl spoons of baking powder
-          75 gr cristal sugar
-          1 big egg
-          45 gr unsalted butter, melted
-          1,75 dl yoghurt
-          0,75 dl milk
-          a little salt

Honey for the finishing touch.

1) Mix all the ingredients for the filling.

2) Mix the flower, sugar, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Mix the yoghurt, milk, egg and melted butter and give it a little stir. Add this mix to the dry ingredients and gently mix everything. Remember to do this very lightly, it doesn’t need to become super smooth this will make the muffins too heavy or compact.

3) Fill the muffin cups with 1/3 of the dough. Then add a layer of the walnut filling and cover with another layer of dough. Place the muffins in the oven for 15 minutes until they’re golden brown.
Let them cool off a little and sprinkle with honey before serving.

4) Enjoy!

Because 10 is just a few too many for the two of us, I brought them to the restaurants and had the guys try them. They are my test panel whenever I bake something. They love to try pretty much everything but still remain very critical since everything gets measured against the high, very hard to match standards of their mothers home cooking. Safe to say these baklava muffins passed the test and I even got a ‘ellerine sağlık’. I love that expression. It means ‘health to your hands’ and you can wish it someone who cooked or made something delicious.

If only there was a recipe  to combine cultural and political differences as joyfully as we do with the culinary ones.. surely the world would be a better, more delightful place to live in. And maybe we could come up with a special expression for someone who succeeded in doing so too. Maybe we would wish someone something like ‘sağduyuna sağlık’ (health to your common sense). I’m just saying.

Turkish Delight. by David Crowder Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aF7ibfbX_M

    

Elif's sarma

First of all let me introduce you to Elif. Since I met her early spring this year, Alanya has become an even sunnier place than it already was before. Getting used to living in Turkey has definitely been a lot easier and more fun with a new friend like her in my daily life. Elif is funny, intelligent, well behaved, ‘clumsy-dumsy’ (in her own words) and very beautiful. She’s European and Oriental. She’s ‘Copenhagen chic’ combined with Turkish charms. She’s a believer and social butterfly. She’s milles fleurs and polka dots and she makes people around her smile.
I’m not surprised anymore when I hear that an old man, a total stranger, follows her to her office only to ask her politely if she would be interested to meet his handsome single grandson. Or when the taxi driver compliments me on my kind and beautiful friend after she got off. Or when a police car stops at the bus stop she’s waiting at late at night to escort her home safely. All very normal anecdotes from Elif’s life around here.

One of the great things about her is that she can always understand both sides of a European – Turkish relationship. And because she is Turkish herself she can explain to me a lot of things from a girls point of view and make everything complicated sound simple again. And we love to laugh together about the cultural differences and misunderstandings that are inevitable in our situation and make fun of them in a good way. So I learned new things and new ways of thinking from her for which I’m really grateful.
And she can teach me a lot about Turkish Cuisine too. So far my experience has only been based on tasting and enjoying the food. But Elif can actually make it. And she knows some nice traditional dishes. She’s committed and passionately about cooking, the way it was passed on to her by her dear mother and elderly sisters. No scales, counting and measuring in grams, ounces, tablespoons or teaspoons for her. And forget about using only half the vegetable or fruit. Smaller quantities are measured in çay glasses, if anything. ‘You can feel it. And if you want to make it a little stronger or make a bigger portion, just add a little bit more’ is what Elif has to say about that. So this is why I decided that if I was ever going to learn how to cook real Turkish food, I wanted to learn it from her. It’s the way most women still learn to cook in this country.. not through expensive cooking books, fancy magazines  or celebrity chef tv shows. But by passing on the knowledge and the skills to each other.

We started our cooking sessions a short while ago. The first thing we made was Kısır, one of my first favorite dishes in Turkey. And it’s great for summer. It’s similar to the Moroccan Couscous. It’s fine Bulgur mixed with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, spring onions, pepper, paprika powder, salça, parsly, mint, lemon, salt and olive oil. You serve it with fresh yoghurt (or cacık), turșu and sometimes with börek and you can roll it up in long leaves of lettuce and eat it with your hands. Yam! It’s great for picnics and as a side dish as well.

Last week we thought we could do something a little more difficult. Something like Yaprak Sarma. The announcement of our plan to the guys brought us remarks of respect and delight. Clearly everyone loves Sarma here. But it’s known to be a lot of work and nobody makes it better than their own mother. Murat never misses the chance to remind me about his mother’s Sarma that I was lucky enough to taste during her visit from Adana. “Kat, do you remember how we ate the Sarma my mother made when she was here? How was it?” His eyes lit up as he suddenly thought of his mother’s cooking while answering his own question: “Ooh it was so good, she makes it really the best değil mi?” It was 7 years ago but yes, I still remember. And I agreed with him that it was the best Sarma I’ve ever had.

We reserved all afternoon for this event, just in case. Little did we know then that we were going to need it. Sarma is grape leaves filled up with a spiced rice mixture or with bulgur or minced meat if you like (sometimes it's also called dolma). But we went for the classic rice filling. We found fresh leaves on the marked. They have a natural sourness and it tastes even better in the end. The rice mixture was easy. We fried chopped onions and the rice in a pan with olive oil and later added some salça, herbs and salt. We put the leaves into boiling water for about 10 seconds just to soften them. Then we brought everything out to the balcony table and got ready to roll! It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon when we started. Little did we know then that 3 hours later we were still sitting there.. filling up every leave with 1 tablespoon of rice, while we had a pan of almost 1kg rice in front of us. It took forever. And with every leave my respect grew for all the Turkish women making Sarma by themselves. It’s fun to make it with Elif because we never run out of subjects to talk about but I’m not sure I will ever make more than 10 pieces if I would have to do it alone.
By the time the first pan was full, we started cooking the Sarma in a mixture of water, oil, salça and salt. And we got on with the second pan. It had gotten dark already and we lit the candles on the table. As the second pan slowly got fuller the Sarma rolls got bigger and bigger.
But something wasn’t quite right with the cooking.. the rice didn’t cook properly. Elif said that it normally takes 30 minutes to cook them. But it stayed raw for the longest time and so we kept adding water every now and then.. and with that some salt.. and some other things. And so another hour passed with waiting and adding and adding and waiting. Surely this wasn’t the way it was suppose to go but we had so much fun over it. We were patient, but also starving by the time they were done and I made a promise that I would eat anyone’s homemade Sarma more slowly and thankfully next time. But they tasted delicious and we ate a lot of them. Elif took a little bag of it home. We had made so much that I brought Sarma to school the next day to share it with girls during lunch. And to the restaurant for the guys the day after that (they liked it!) and still I had more left over's for the next three days that followed. I'm adding a few pictures of our Sarma marathon below to demonstrate.