day in larnaca & CHARLIE!

on saturday, feb 4th, charlie was coming!!!  we had spoken with stasa & cico and decided that we would all spend the day in larnaca, since we were picking up charlie around 7:30 or so.  cico told us about a salt pond down there where we could see flamingos, and i told him that i didn't have too much faith in this idea of his.  we planned to meet at second cup, the coffee shop, and follow them down with nikola too, and that was exactly what we did.

when we got there, the flamingos were pretty far away, but they were definitely there.. i apologized to cico, who was like, "come on kim, would i let you down?"  eh.... here's the picture of the flamingos.. you decide for yourself ;)

feeling a little let down, stasa and i decided to be our own flamingos.  it seemed like a good idea at the time..

from there, we headed to the mosque across the street to have a look around.

according to the sign at the entrance, "the building of the mosque in its present form is dated around the 18th century.  it is built over a tomb which according to tradition belongs to umm haram, foster mother of the prophet mohammed.  it is the main muslim pilgrimage site of cyprus and among the most important holy places of islam."  not too shabby, eh?

from there, we headed over to a semi-main area of larnaca, where there was a beautiful beach with a restaurant on the sand, etc.  we stayed for a few minutes, and then moved on to what i guess is the larnaca main street.

after having coffee and lunch with some of cico and stasa's friends from serbia, we spent the afternoon wandering around the streets and exploring the larnaca marina.

we walked by a children's park with a mini roller coaster, merry-go-round, etc, and being the 5-year-old that i am, i thought it would be fun to hand out in fred flinstones' car.

the best part of all of this is that as if it wasn't enough of an amazing, day, we still had yet to pick up charlie!  somewhere around 6:30, cico, stasa, and nik figured they would head back up to nicosia, so ben & i hopped in the car to head to the airport.


because we were a little bit early, we grabbed a coffee from one of the little shops in the waiting area, and decided to play hangman while we waited.  that's one of my favorite things about ben.. whenever we don't have something "real" to occupy our time, we so easily revert back to our child-like tendencies and find something to amuse ourselves with :)


before we knew it, charlie's flight was on listed on the board as having landed!  in true childhood form, i was jumping up and down with excitement, eagerly awaiting the minute when she would walk through the doors.  fiiiinally, she did, and we decided to sit for a coffee before getting back into the car to head back north.

somewhere along the journey, the subject of food came up (are you really surprised?).  ben & i had decided to hold off on groceries until she had gotten here so that we could all go together and plan out what we'd eat for the week,  so we figured that rather than trying to cook up something with the scarce supplies that could be found at the house, we should head to butcher's grille for a nice dinner out.

by the time we got home, everyone was pretty exhausted from a busy day: charlie with her travels, and ben & i with our excursion through larnaca.  we got home, and hit the beds... hard.

nothing like a week full of excitement to look forward to in the morning!

xox k

it's a feast!

thanksgiving morning, i woke up at 9:30 to get back to work.  mister benjamin had morning and evening practices like usual, and i figured it would be a good opportunity for me to maximize my time by doing a bulk of the work while i was home alone.  turns out it was also convenient when i needed him to stop at the store again on his way home! ;)


went to town slicing the bread for the bruschetta - was going to finish it later so the bread wouldn't get soggy or stale or anything.  moved on to prepping the celery for the stuffed celery, pending ben being able to find spanish olives in the store. otherwise, i'd use this celery for the stuffing and wouldn't need him to get the extra that i'd asked him to pick up.  can you see my thoughts at work?  emailed momma mac with a few more questions about the dinner, namely what to warm up first and what could wait until further along in the process.


that was when i found out that i'd messed up.  apparently she doesn't pre-cook everything, she pre-prepares it, then cooks it the day of.  my heart dropped when she sent that.  big time.  the last thing i wanted was for everything to wind up dried out and overcooked when it was time for dinner.  i was convinced that i'd ruined my first thanksgiving.  with her help, we sort of trouble-shot the situation, and i was feeling positive again.  she even said, "lots of times, the leftovers are better than the first time," and that's pretty much what mine were going to wind up being: a whole ton of untouched leftovers!  momma mac always makes things better.


by then, ben got home with the things i needed, and we were on to finishing the stuffing.  he wanted to help, so i told him he could cut up a bowls-worth of onions and another of celery for the stuffing.  this turned into a project, though, because i then had to show him the easiest way of quickly cutting onions, then explain the easiest way to dice up celery, etc.  it would have probably been easier to bang it out myself, but the whole cooking-with-my-boyfriend thing was way too good to pass up, especially when he was so eager to help!  there we were, sleeves rolled up in the kitchen, preparing our first thanksgiving meal: it couldn't have been more perfect.


by about 3, everything was set & ready to go, with the exception of being warm.  i put the dishes on the table, and wondered to myself where the food that eboni was bringing was going to fit.

the boys left for their evening practice, and i got dressed and started getting out silverware, etc.  


when he got back, he told me that "the team is coming." umm.... all of them?


sent benjamin to the store AGAIN for paper plates, cups, and so forth, since we had nowhere near enough to feed an entire team on!  he was back just before people started coming, and it worked out just fine.


in the end, there were 12 of us... hardly the entire team, but all of the americans were there and it made me happy to be able to provide a thanksgiving meal and evening at least for the ones who would have typically celebrated it if they were home.  it was breaking my heart to think of people sitting alone in their apartments on thanksgiving.  did i mention it's my mom's favorite holiday?  this is what she would have - and has - done, too, so it made it even better to put it into practice for our first thanksgiving.


eboni & kevin showed up with tons more food, and we had to scramble big time to fit everything on counters and in places where people could easily access it.  we were running around like crazy trying to get things warmed up in our tiny single oven (i now fully understand the importance of double ovens) .. by the time we pulled out the final few dishes from the oven, the ones we'd put in first were back to room-temperature.  there was really no way we were going to win, so we wound up telling people they'd probably have to microwave their plates.  it is what it is, right?


towards the end of the night, i excused myself to skype back home to the family and friends that were at my parents house, and spent a bit catching up with people from there that i haven't seen in ages.  while i was chatting, our guests in the other room (mister benjamin was with them.. i didn't just abandon them!) decided that it was time to head out.  i'm pretty sure we ran out of alcohol, and that if we hadn't, they probably would have kept the party going.  


went back into the kitchen to tidy up, and realized that all 12 people hadn't managed to eat even half of the food we had made!  ended the night enjoying the company of my amazing boyfriend and a wonderful feeling of contentment after having successfully pulled off our first thanksgiving dinner!


leftovers for a week?  yes, please!!


xox k

girls day out

monday, eboni & i decided it was time for a little shopping extravaganza.  she & irie picked me up around 5 and we headed to strovolos to the mall of cyprus to have a look around for some more wintery type clothes.  both of us did really sucky jobs packing and weren't very prepared for the fact that there is, actually, a winter season here (barely).  basically, what it means is that during the nights, it gets chilly, and during the day you can't quite get away with shorts and t-shirts anymore.  who knew.

i had packed way more sun dresses, shorts, and tank tops than i had sweaters and long sleeve shirts, so naturally the only logical answer for the predicament was to go buy things! 

the mall of cyprus is great.  it's only two stories, and there aren't tons of stores in it, but the ones that are there are fun, stylish, clothing stores, mainly for women.  jackpot.  we're wandering around the shops and i'm thinking how i could literally wear just about everything i'm seeing.  i've found that clothes shopping in europe is so much more fun than it is in the states.  the stores are filled with amazing styles and it's so easy to get caught up in the fact that these are things that nobody back home will have and wind up buying everything you see.  i had made a mental note not to do this, but it took some serious strength.

as we walk in, we pass a little sweets stand and eboni stops to grab some baklava, because i told her she had to try it.  if you haven't, do it.  such an amazing greek pastry, with honey and pecans and amazingness.  honestly, don't pass it up.

we get to shopping.  eboni gets irie the most adorable little beanie hat in the first store we go into, with the ears that come down lower and have strings that either dangle or tie under the chin - so freaking cute!  we're wandering into various stores, picking up a few things here & there, and being girls.  before we know it, we're being kicked out of a store because the mall closed.  woops!

i get home and mister benjamin's not back from practice yet.  bummer, cuz i really can't wait to show him what he bought! ;) 

xox k

a whole lot of rain... and wine

so apparently as much as it "never" rains here, when it does, it really does.  from the time kyle got here on sunday morning until pretty much friday, the skies were gray and it was raining on & off.  rain, for me, has always made for a lazy, relaxing, do-nothing type of day... and this entire week was pretty much just that.  


every morning i would wake up, look outside from the bedroom & decide that the day was forfeited to the rain.. i mean come on, how much fun can exploring be when you're soaking wet, cold, and cranky?  it'd be one thing if we were staying local, but to really adventure out means long car rides, and i wasn't motivated by sitting on the ride back soaked to the bone like a wet dog.


finally, come thursday, i'd had enough of sitting cooped up inside (as was my choice) and decided to see what eboni was up to while the boys were at practice.  turned out her & irie were just sitting at their apartment hanging out, and so i grabbed a bottle of wine & headed out for the two minute journey walking to their house.


"nim! nim!"  irie's excited to see me, but can't quite grasp the "k" at the start of my name... which i love.  ben's more of a "enn" too.  irie isn't even two yet, but knows all of our names and can put them to our faces.  she's literally better than i am at the names of the guys on the team (maybe not quite but i'll give her that one).


anyway, first things first was to pour a couple glasses of wine, followed by about five house tours given by irie.  "momma dadda room, irie room, momma dadda room, irie room.  oooh noooo!! wa wa! oooooh noooo!! ooooh noooo!!!"  i guess eboni had mopped the floors earlier, and irie was telling me that the floors were wet so be careful (wa wa is water).  i'm sure they had been dry for a few hours by now, but hey... can't be mad at the girl for trying to keep me safe!  she's way too smart for her age, i swear.


we sit & enjoy a bottle of wine and an adorable little girl, and before we realize it, kevin's home from practice.  i was like, "you're home early!"  wrong.  evidently, hours had gone by & we didn't even realize it.  


ben calls from downstairs to tell me he's here, (i had asked him to pick me up there on his way home), but there's still a good bit of wine in my glass, and i'm not about to waste it.  he & kyle come upstairs for a bit while i finish, and we introduce kyle to irie.  a few minutes later we head out because it's way past dinner time and everyone was pretty hungry by then. eboni & i decide to hook up the following morning for a grocery shopping & coffee date before the fourth basketball game.


we leave, and i feel great to a) have gotten out of the house and b) have someone other than ben to have meaningful conversation with.  it's actually amazing to have someone that i get along with so well here too, especially since she's done the same leave work behind, go abroad with a basketball player, enjoy life thing too.  some of the conversations we had that night will be with me forever, i just know it... and i love that.


note to self:  do this every night while the boys practice.


xox k

85th anniversary for apoel

wednesday night, we were told we had to go to a dinner for the 85th anniversary of apoel (the club ben plays for).  in reality, we weren't very excited about it - except for the free food - but decided to make the best of it.

we get there, and the place where they're throwing the party is beautiful... i'm excited now! ;)  i really have no idea what they were saying when they came over the system to speak about the club and stuff, because it was in greek, but the food was amazing, and we had a nice night out socializing with the other players on the team and their families.  we sat with kevin, eboni, and irie, and another guy on the team named ogo.  

after eboni & i had ordered our second glasses of wine, ogo decides he's going to try it.  just to preface, ogo isn't a drinker.  moreover, ogo is definitely not a wine drinker.  he goes to get a glass of wine.... this is after his first sip.

he was like, "it's a terrible taste, but... i want more."  decided he was going to finish the glass.  i'm not sure whether or not he did, since by then, i moved on to playing with my new best friend, irie.  not sure what was up with the face-making, because she loves cameras and seeing herself on the screen once it's been taken.  second thought, maybe that's why the silly face.

this one was taken after we'd been bouncing around, dancing, jumping up and down, and flying through the air.  it was a really late night since the dinner began at 9, and she was just about to fall asleep in my lap.

beennjaminnnn???  i want onnneeee!! 

xox k

aphrodite's rock, paphos

sunday the 6th is another day off, and we decide to hook up with kevin, eboni, & irie for a bit of an adventure.  i had read about aphrodite's rock, and the pictures on google images looked absolutely breathtaking.  i knew it was a longer drive than the majority of the trips we'd been taking, but i figured it'd be worth it if we got to spend the majority of the day down that way.  i think it was about an hour and a half to aphrodite's rock, and another half to paphos from there.  we get in touch with the crew in the morning, and decide we'll set off at 12:30.

we decide to take separate cars in case irie gets sleepy or something & they need to leave early, and we set off.  about an hour into the trip or so, there's an exit for a scenic route i read about online, and we decide to head that way.  granted this way was probably much lengthier, but it wound up being gorgeous.  we pulled off the street a few times for photo opps, but mostly trekked our way through rolling hills, in and out of the view of the gorgeous mediterranean coast.

we've been traveling on this scenic road for quite awhile, and i start to get nervous that i've navigated wrong.  normally, i wouldn't care, but i feel like with the others in their separate car behind us, i really want to get it right.  just as i start to get really anxious about it, we pull into another lay-by to check out the view, and we realize we've found it!!

i had never heard the story of aphrodite until i became interested in checking out this part of the beautiful cyprus coast, so for those of you who, like me, haven't heard it, here's the short version.

greek mythology has it that aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty. apparently, she was born at this very place when she emerged from the sea foam a fully grown woman and was escorted to shore on a shell.  the story says that if you swim, nude, around her rock (the middle of the three in the photo above), you will remain young & fertile for eternity.

we hung out at this vantage point for a bit, enjoying the scenery before deciding to head down the hill to check it out.

everything about this place was just gorgeous!  i loved the way the sun shone above the rock as we came down the hill to the beach.

from up above, i was almost disappointed in the prominence of the rocks... i had anticipated them being huge and really pronounced along the shore, and they were beautiful, but they weren't.  when we got closer, i finally got my "wow" moment.  look how small those two people walking in front of the rock look!  every bone in my body wanted to climb it, but the sign on the side that said not to wound up getting the best of me.

the view of the beach with the rocks behind us, looking towards paphos.  the beach was amazing, filled with beautiful beach stones that ben decided to collect.  he filled his pockets with huge rocks to the point where i thought his shorts were going to fall down.  i still have no idea how they stayed up... there were seriously a lot of rocks in there ...rocks that are now sitting on our bedroom floor collecting dust.  personally, i chose a few smaller rocks with the idea that maybe they'd make nice pendants (which they are proving to do quite well), and i found a piece of sea glass!  it's the first and only piece i've found since being in cyprus.  again, what a lovely pendant it has made.

eventually, irie has had enough of throwing the rocks into the water (i'm pretty sure this was one of my favorite things to do when i was little, too) ... actually, it is still one of ben's favorites, which is probably another reason why he & irie get along so well!  we decide to head out and make the remaining half our trip to paphos to see what that's all about.

we get there just in time for the sun to begin to set, and it's absolutely beautiful. this coastal area of paphos is soo picturesque.. i'm really not sure why i decided to not take out my camera as we were driving through, (since i'm a firm believer that one can never have too many photos), but for some reason i didn't.  these were taken along the sea-walk, as we were heading to find a place to eat.

we stumble across a cute restaurant with a large open-air area (where i took the picture above from, actually), and decide to eat there.  the menu looks amazing, and believe me, it was.  all of the food i've had since i've been here has been outstanding.  i'm beginning to feel extremely lucky that there isn't a scale in our apartment!!

another beautiful day with great company... what more can a girl ask for?

xox k

an oven & a game

don't think i mentioned this, but when i got here, benjamin told me that the oven was broken.  apparently, the light would go on inside it but it wouldn't get hot no matter how long you left it on for.  i'm a huge fan of cooking, and really enjoy stuffed peppers, mushrooms, apples, etc, that are made in the oven.  because mister benjamin is not typically a moron, i took his word that it was broken.  

we had been on top of the assistant coach, who handles arrangements like these, to make sure that the fixer upper guy came to look at the oven and get it working again.  evidently, the team paid the guy at the beginning of the season for all of the minor things he would have to do to maintain the players' apartments, which, in my opinion, was the the wrong way to go about it.  add to that the fact that everything here takes at least 2 weeks to get done from the time when you start really nagging, which we hadn't begun to do yet.  it got to the point where ben finally told the coach that if the guy didn't come over in the next week, he was going to go see him personally and tell him to come fix it.  he was here four days later.  sometimes ya just gotta take matters into your own hands.

anyway, the doorbell rings and the guy is here to have a look at the ac unit in the living room, which hasn't been working properly, or at all, for that matter, and the oven.  he fiddles with the ac for a bit & decides that it's not something he can fix and he'll have to call the company themselves to come check into it.  he then goes to the oven, and turns it on.  let me repeat: he goes to the oven, and turns it on.  benjamin, in all his glory, didn't turn the oven on the right way and concluded that it was broken.  we have been living, at this point, for three weeks without an oven that i was under the impression was not working.  amazing.  

i decide to skip the part where i explain to ben how to work an oven, because i can't believe that at 24 he still couldn't figure out how.  i'm being a bit of a prick here, really.... the reason he didn't get it to turn on right is because there's a safety feature built into the timer dial on the oven so that you have to put the timer to a certain setting in order for the temperature dial to activate and heat the oven.

i start going to town making stuffed peppers for dinner that night, deciding that since he has a game, we will be able to come home & just pop them in the oven for dinner!  soooo excited, you have no idea.  plus, we've been eating stove-cooked meals for so long now, that i think anything out of the oven would have been phenomenal! 

time comes around to head for the game, and we do.  i sit with my favorite new friends, well, my only new friends really (they'd be my favorite anyway), eboni & irie.  i spend most of the game obsessing over how freaking adorable she is.  seriously tell me you don't want to put this little one in your pocket!!

benboy has a great game... lots of minutes, points, rebounds, blocks, blah blah blah... all that basketball jazz.  to top it off, they win.  i'm a really really happy camper when it's all over, as is he.

we go home, pop dinner in the oven and enjoy a very yummy meal, if i do say so myself.  it's been yet another amazing afternoon & evening with my boo!

xox k

catching up

so, here it is: my first blog.  i can honestly tell you that i never saw this day coming, but in lieu of the way my life course is taking me at the moment, it seems the only logical way to keep track of thoughts, adventures, sanity.


the last month or so has been absolutely off the wall insane.  rewind back to mid-september, and i had quite the itinerary planned.  by then, i knew that i was headed to cyprus, and that i was going to be there for a pretty long time.  naturally, this left only one logical response: see as many people as possible in the short period of time i had before i set off! and so it began...


on sunday, the 18th, i was done working at the beach & we were all closed up for the season.  my flight out of the states was booked for october 6th, so i still had about two weeks.  can't really remember, but odds are that i pretty much slept all day on monday.  tuesday, i met up with my grandmother and spent the day at a chinese buffet and grocery shopping... favorites for 91-year-old mima.  wednesday, met up with ann, my aunt-ish, to check in and say bye, etc. thursday i was in rhode island for girl's day with lianna, so we did the whole mani/pedi/sushi thing. the weekend was completely for katie's bachelorette party with all of my alpha delta pi girls in boston, which was wayyy too much fun for one weekend! on monday, i flew to oklahoma for a week with my issy (that's my sister, alix, for those of you who don't know). landed back in providence the following monday, spent three days at home with the family & my maya... did the whole goodbye dinner thing, and then took a train from new london to boston logan airport on thursday evening to catch a plane to london. spent the weekend in london with charlie, ben's sister, who would be my soul mate if she weren't a girl. ben was the next best thing. finally, monday the 10th i flew from london to cyprus and met up with mister benjamin where the story begins.


more to follow as we play catch up.....


xox k