decorations

sorry i haven't written in awhile but, frankly, i just haven't felt like it.  in any case, carrying on:


the next day, we headed to the store to pick up some christmas tree ornaments.  i wanted our tree to make us feel christmassy and put us in the holiday spirit, but we weren't intending on spending tons of money on something that will just wind up in the dumpster when we leave.. or right after the holidays, for that matter.


we ended up finding some cheap, but cute, ornaments that are basically just glittered styrofoam spheres with  the "ornament" attachment at the top.  after lunch, we decided to go ahead and decorate, and started to put them up.  in years passed, when decorating with my parents, a trend emerged where we would notice that a good lot of the ornaments wound up at the top of tree, where mister benjamin must have found comfort decorating at his own height.


a few ornaments in, i guess benjamin became lazy, because he decided to just have a seat on the couch next to the tree and decorate from there.  i suppose not much has changed since the days of the tree-top-decorating, because by the time he was done, all of his ornaments were on the left side of the tree.  i felt like my mom as i went back through the decorations later, moving them to more acceptable branches in spots where decor was lacking.  


after checking out the tree and deciding we could really use a few more decorations, i turned to the pine cone collection sitting in the closet from our first trip to the park.  by pulling out some ribbon from my craft drawer and tying it to the tops of the pine cones, i created about a dozen more ornaments that we added to the tree.  our final masterpiece was hardly anything to be ashamed of!

i moved a few more ornaments from the left after this photo was taken... funny how you wind up taking after some of the most laughed at traits of your parents, don't you think??


xox k

christmas tree!

growing up, my parents always took my sister & i to a tree farm about an hour's drive from our house, where hundreds of acres of land are covered with thousands of various pine trees... blue spruce, douglas fir, fraser fir, white pine... you name it.  basically, you park at their "home base," collect a tag with your name written on it to mark your tree with once you find it, and then either start off on foot or catch one of their tractor-drawn trailers to the different fields, segmented based on the type of tree you're looking for.


after hours of trying to find the perfect tree and bickering over the angles and bare spots and shape and so forth, we would always manage to find one (or two) that we agreed on, tag it, and cut it down.  the tractor guys come back around and pick it up to bring it back down the hill, where they drill the hole for the stand and put it in the baling machine to wrap it up in twine.  they even put it in the van or on top of the car for you while you're inside drinking hot cocoa and eating cookies.


fast forward back to the present... and on friday, i saw an advertisement for a sale on artificial christmas trees at the super home store (it's really not that super... just saying).  on saturday, i mentioned to ben that i thought it'd be a really nice thing for us to get so we can still feel a part of the holiday season while we're both away from our families.  don't get me wrong, benjamin is my family too, but i've never been away from home for the season before.


we make the trip down to the store and check out these "trees" (i've never had a fake tree before).  the ones that i deemed acceptable were about 130-200 euros... so $180-300 basically.  not gona happen.  the cheapest one was 20 and not so cute, and thaaaat's the one we bought.  i'm not cheap, but can't really justify spending tons of money on something we're going to throw away in a month.  we proceeded to find lights, and then were out the door.


we get home, and i set up the tree... paying much more attention to it, i'm sure, than the guys who put up the ones in the shop.

by the time i was done, it actually looked like a christmas tree!


....almost.


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

thanksgiving shenanigans

i had told benjamin that i wanted to wake up very early on wednesday morning to head out for the thanksgiving dinner groceries in order to be back in the kitchen cooking by about noon.  


mind you, i had asked him on monday to let his team know that we were planning on doing thanksgiving and to try to find out how many people wanted to come join us, namely the americans, since i totally thought they should all have a place to celebrate the holiday!  fast forward to wednesday, and i still had no idea if i was cooking for 6 or 20.  i guess being italian, it wasn't a huge deal, since i was going to cook for an army regardless of how many people decided to come enjoy it with us.


on my part of the menu was stuffed celery, stuffed mushrooms, bruschetta, my grandma's stuffing, mom's delmonico potatoes and swiss string beans, and baked stuffed chicken with a ricotta, parmesan, mushroom, and spinach stuffing.  eboni had another entire feast planned to bring, as well.  we did the groceries, came in way under budget for what we expected (yay) and headed home so i could get a move on.


first things first meant that i needed to open a bottle of wine.  not sure how things get done in most homes, but in ours, it's with significant amounts of alcohol consumption ;)  my christmas music was on blast, the oven was heating, the stove was fired up, and my glass was full... time to get busy!


i must have emailed my mom 20 times that day with questions about the recipes and how to do things best, what to substitute for things i couldn't find, and so forth.  i also must have sent ben to the store about 3 more times after we got back from our initial shop.  woops!  at the end of the day, though, i felt great about what i'd done.


i went to sleep that night having already made the potatoes, string beans, mushrooms, and chicken, and then used the extra stuffing to make fried patties with a little bit of spicy thai sauce mixed in - kinda like a crab cake minus the crab.  that left the bruschetta, celery, bread stuffing, and gravy for thanksgiving day. 


no problemo, right?


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 go with the flow kinda day

sunday was amazing.  benjamin had the day off, and we slept in pretty late.  when we woke up, we looked outside and it was gorgeous (it had been cloudy the day before). because it was already about noon and we hadn't even showered or had breakfast, we ruled out any big extravaganzas.

without any plan in mind, we hop in the car & head out for a coffee.  we order our coffee "for here," and go find a seat.  coffee shops in europe are much more restaurant-like than they are in the states.  there are tons of outdoor seating areas with couches and coffee tables around, some in the shade, some in the sun.  if you order your coffee "for here," you are served with big mugs just like you'd snuggle up with at home, and when you're done, you leave your dishes on the table and the waitress comes to clear them for you after you've gone.

we must have been sitting there for an hour, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the briskness of the chilled breeze; much longer than it took us to finish our drinks.  the two of us were so baffled, though, as for what to do next!  it was a gorgeous day, but there wasn't enough time to do any real exploring, and we had just been to old nicosia yesterday.  

we wind up heading down there again for another wander, regardless of the fact that we've done this a million times now.  i'm livid with myself for not bringing passports with us so we could have a wander around the turkish side, as i'd promised myself i would not forget them the next time we headed that way (in my defense, we didn't know that was the plan).  

we start off on a stroll through old nicosia, and decide to explore the streets less traveled, if you will.  what began as a right turn where we normally would have continued straight or turned around led us into all kinds of desolate back street areas where people live high above the street in old buildings very much in need of renovation, or at least a paint job.  it was like time stopped somewhere between 1960-1970 and kind of was just at a stand still.  it was both beautiful and devastating at the same time, and i couldn't decide if i would love to live there or hate it.  one building would be adorable and quaint and show so much character, and then the next would be missing the windows and tagged with graffiti.  so bizarre!

after a bit, we head home because i have to start cooking something to take over to eboni & kevin's for dinner.  they had invited us all over, kyle too, which ended up being a really great night out of the house.  we got there for about 7 and left after midnight, following dinner, chatting, and card games that turned into drinking games that turned into lots of laughs.

it was a lovely end to a great, completely unplanned day, and i wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again!

xox k

on the border

on saturday, we decide to take kyle into old nicosia to show him a bit of what this place is all about.  we parked in "our" lot, and headed across the street into the quaint little area we are so beginning to love.

after wandering down the main strip a bit, we continued past the part where we've typically turned around. things changed in style from the clothing shops and restaurants we had come from to more of a souvenir shop type feel.

i looked across the street and saw a "police station" tucked into the corner of this tiny little nook in the cobblestone streets.  it was such an unlikely place for a police station, not to mention it seemed kind of pointless - like what are they going to do in an emergency?  i decided i had to take a picture.  i pull out my camera, and just as i'm about to lift it to focus for the picture, i look literally 5 meters in front of me and realize we're standing at the greek/turkish border.  guess the police station makes more sense than i thought.  if i had taken the picture, i probably would have been in big time trouble.

i explain the border to kyle, how it's the last divided city in the world, and that the two sides despise each other.  at first, i was under the impression that only E.U. passport holders could cross the border, but i'm now reading things that insinuate that i might be able to as well.  at one point in time, the hatred was so intense between the two sides that if you were, at any point in time, on the turkish side & had the stamp in your passport, you were no longer allowed back to the greek side.  ever.  to this day, they do "passport" stamps on separate pieces of paper, rather than in the passport itself.  i wish we had our passports so we could have tried to cross the border!!

...next time.

xox k