Our Baltic Cruise

We recently went on a Baltic cruise with my in-laws.  It was quite a whirlwind, as we traveled to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Gdansk and Oslo.  The trip started out rough as we missed our connecting flight to Copenhagen and all the Copenhagen flights were booked for the rest of the day.  Luckily, we managed to get on a later flight on standby, so it seemed things were looking better.  That is until we were in Copenhagen and Nate immediately found his bag and as we waited and waited and waited, I began to dread the inevitable--that my bag was missing.  At that point, everything just hit me--the exhaustion, the stress of missing our flight, the lack of clothes for three plus days--and I crumbled in the middle of the airport.


Fortunately, we got all the hard stuff out of the way early, so the rest of the trip was wonderful.  My favorite cities were Tallinn, Estonia; Gdansk, Poland; and Stockholm, Sweden.  


Tallinn was definitely my absolute favorite.  It had such a medieval charm about it.  The whole city was protected from raids by a massive stone wall and you could tell there was so much history there.  One detail that I really noticed was every single building had the most unique, colorful and creative doors I have ever seen.  When Nate and I own a home, we will import our front door from Tallinn.  That's how amazing they were.  Here are a few photos:

{City wall}

{Nate and I in front of the stone wall}

{Alexander Nevsky Cathedral}

{One of the amazing doors}

Next up, Gdansk.  I must say that what truly won my heart in Gdansk was my lunch-- this wonderful, juicy, perfectly cooked polish sausage.  If you know me, you know the way to my heart is through food.  

{Downtown Gdansk}

{the most colorful buildings}

Now for Stockholm.  Somehow it managed to charm us even though it was pouring rain the whole time.

{Stockholm from the ferry}

{Gamla Stan- Old Town}

{Best statue ever- St. George slaying a dragon}

Next post, I'll do a roundup of my favorite trip photos and tell you about our adventures in Berlin.  ~Daughter

Tesekkür Çirali

As you know, we went to Turkey for about a week.  Our first stop was Çirali. It's on the southern coast of Turkey and it's a small rural town surrounded by the most majestic mountains.  Up until about 10 years ago, there were no roads.  But now, it's starting to boom with tourism, which is good because we got to go there, but bad because I think it will become overrun with cheesy tourist joints in a few years.  We stayed at Arcadia and honestly we couldn't have picked a better hotel.

  

{the view from our porch}

{pomegranate flower}

{our beach set up}

{banana tree}

{the coastline}

Every morning we started with the most amazing breakfast of fresh jams, fruits, vegetables and cheeses.

{fresh breakfast}

{tomatoes with fresh goat cheese}

{homemade jams}

While we were in Çirali, we spent a lot of time at the beach.  But we also took a couple of excursions.  We went to Olympos, where there were ancient Lycian ruins that date back to the 2nd century B.C.  

{nate in front of ruins}

{more ruins}

By far the best part of our trip to Çirali was our boat trip.  We had this big boat all to ourselves for a day and we saw parts of the southern coast that we would never have been able to see any other way.  A lot of the coastline was reminiscent of Hawaii with its vast cliffs and mountains.  

On the boat trip, we swam through a cave, which was a little scary but also super fun.  We had the best lunch, which consisted of fresh fried fish, an herb green salad and some of the most delectable fruits, including green plums, which look like miniature green apples but they are really tart.

{olympos castle ruins}

{boat with mountains behind}

{cave we swam through}

{me swimming in the most gorgeous setting}

Last but not least we visited the Chimaera, which is a mythical beast that breathes fire and has the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent.  Supposedly the Chimaera was killed by Bellerophon with the help of Pegasus at the command of King Iobates of Lycia in the mountains near Çirali.  And there the beast lives today beneath the ground.

{the Chimaera}

The mountainside is littered with these fires that continuously burn.  We were told that some people have even snuffed them out, but they spontaneously reignite and no one is really sure how or why.  
And that was our trip to Çirali.  For more photos, check out our Picasa site.  Next stop Istanbul!  ~Daughter.

3200% Too Much...

Last Sunday I tried to make a gourmet dinner. The keyword there is "tried". I went through a ton of recipes to find this gourmet meal, Roast Beef with Coffee Gravy. I woke up on Sunday and hurriedly began the process because I had to meet a friend. I threw all the ingredients in the crock pot and was proud of myself all day. I even bragged to my friend letting her know how great I thought I was.

My confidence, however, was eviscerated when we went to finish the meal. I realized I made a huge mistake. Instead of adding 2 cups of coffee, I added 2 cups of coffee grounds. Whoops! In my defense, I don't really drink coffee, so I don't really know how it works. My husband on the other hand has no defense as he makes coffee all the time and knows the difference between grounds and coffee.

I was so ashamed of my mistake that I didn't want to let you in on it, but he convinced me otherwise. My embarrassment and frustration prevented me from taking pictures of the mess of grounds that we strained from the gravy in an effort to salvage the meal.

But this was the disaster zone. Luckily, we were wired with plenty of energy to clean up after dinner.

And honestly, the dinner wasn't really salvageable. I mean we ate it but I can't say it was very good. The redeeming part of the meal was the fabulous brussel sprouts and the goat cheese mashed potatoes. That part was excellent and I highly recommend both recipes. Goat cheese is a refreshingly, deliciously, wonderful complement to mashed potatoes.

And the brussel sprouts were so good that we couldn't stop eating them! I mean who says that about brussel sprouts?

Daughter.