christmas day

this christmas was very different from the usual, to say the least.  growing up with a big extended family has always meant HUGE christmas eve dinners with like 5 courses followed by a late afternoon christmas day dinner just as big.  to go from that to ben & i sitting at the kitchen table in our sweats enjoying our meal just the two of us was ... a change.


we had decided that just because it would only be the two of us didn't mean that we wouldn't enjoy a really nice meal with traditional dishes that kind of signify christmas at home.  i decided on caesar salad, bruschetta, scalloped potatoes, garlic string beans, smoked salmon with garlic toasts, and pork roast.  yes, for the two of us.  at least there was one thing that wasn't different than our past christmases!


some of the cooking i had gotten out of the way the night before, so the majority of the day we spent on skype with our families which was amazing.  we watched them open the gifts we had sent, and spent awhile just chatting like we were actually there.  it was great.


finally, we decided to eat... i set the table and put all the food out, and then realized there was no way we were going to make a dent in the food!

benjamin was very excited about his pork roast!! don't worry, he didn't actually eat the whole thing right then & there!

i can't lie, though... i was pretty excited about my food, too!! ..and that i didn't have to get changed to sit down for dinner ;)

an hour later.... well, you get the picture.

...looks like our first christmas dinner was a success!


xox k

baby's 1st birthday

christmas eve was nina's first birthday!  at 12:30, we were going to have a get-together at gloria jean's coffee.  personally, i've never heard of celebrating a child's birthday at a coffee house, but it just goes to show how integral coffee is to europeans!  


ben's back had been bothering him for a couple days, and he got a text from his assistant coach saying he needed to go to the trainer for treatment... at 12:30.  we decided that he would drop me off at gloria jean's and then head for treatment, and come back when he was done.


when i got there, i was the only person who's first language is english.  of the 7 of us, 3 were fluent in greek and 4 in serbian (one speaks both, and i can only pick out a few choice words in either).  i can't lie, it was pretty interesting trying to act interested in conversations that were only taking place with bits and pieces here and there that i could actually understand and contribute to!


finally, eboni, kevin, and irie showed up, so the problem dissipated as the conversations turned more towards english.  ben got back about an hour later, and the group of us spent hours in the shop while irie, nina, and semina (the 2 1/2 year old daughter of another couple that was there) colored on placemats, played with dora, and jumped up and down.  

tell me they aren't the cutest?? finally, we all decided it was time to head out.


at the end of the day, it wasn't quite the christmas eve i'm used to, but no complaints here for a great afternoon expanding my comfort zone and enjoying the company of our newfound friends!


...someday, i swear i'll learn greek.


xox k

i want a buppydoggggg!! (nicosia street festival)

two days later, i decide i really don't want to wait much longer to get a puppy.  benjamin & i look into what it would take to transport one into england and the states from cyprus if we were to get one, and figure out the logistics regarding when the quarantining is necessary and how to fly with the puppy and so forth.  we decide that it would definitely be doable, and i start looking online to find a shih tzu, because that's pretty much the only breed i want.  


i grew up in a house with a shih tzu, scooter, who we had for 17 years until he passed away last spring.  scooter was absolutely amazing... one of the best things that's ever happened to my family.  my sister recently got a shih tzu, who is equally as amazing, and i feel like i am just way too attached to the breed to get a different kind.


as i'm searching for various pet adopt agencies and shelters, i find out that one group will be at a street festival in downtown nicosia in an hour or so and try to convince benjamin that it's a great idea to go.  i won... as usual :)


we get there, and find this festival to be pretty awesome!  apparently, it's an annual christmas street festival, and the streets are all lit up and lined with vendors giving free samples of coffee, hot cocoa, liquor, food, chocolate covered marshmallows... you name it.

we start navigating our way through the crowd, searching for the puppy booth.  meanwhile, we pass a christmas tree that is totally right up my alley, covered with shopping bags!!

a bit further up the street, and a man in stilts literally almost knocks me over after he sends a little boy in his stroller through his legs.

we find the puppy section, and are a little disappointed by the lack of selection in the puppies they brought with them.  to top it off, most of the pups looked really run down, dirty, and almost sickly.  this was definitely not what i had in mind, and as much as i love the idea of rescuing the little guys, i can't stand the thought of winding up with a big mess of a medical veterinary bill.  after playing a bit with an ADORABLE baby german shepherd (which obviously didn't fit our under-20-pound restriction for the plane), we head back to the center of the festival and benjamin enjoys a nice marshmallow coated in chocolate fondue from the fountain at the breast cancer awareness tent.

at the end of the street, we notice a group of men in uniform with instruments.  apparently, nicosia is under the impression that they can somehow try to copy the macy's thanksgiving day parade or something, because these guys started marching down the street playing carols followed by dancing girls with umbrellas as props.  competing with new york city??? i dont thiiiiink so!  in any case, it was worth a laugh :)

at the end of the day, we didn't leave with a pup... but it was definitely an experience that i wouldn't have wanted to miss out on.


i knew getting a puppy would make our life better!  we didn't even get him yet and he's already leading us to fun exciting things to do!!


xox k

benjamin's brilliant idea

on a beautiful thursday, mister benjamin proposed that we walk to the discount store, where we get some of our grocery staples for less than they charge at the big supermarket.  the store is about a 5 minute drive, so i figured it'd be about a 45 minute walk and it was really sunny and bright out, so i obliged.  we decided it would be a nice way to get in a little fresh air activity plus pick up a couple things we needed from the shop.


we set off walking and are having a good time chatting with each other and picking up on the details of the surroundings that you miss when passing by at 40 kph.  we cut through an adorable little neighborhood with ivy covered houses and fruit tree lined yards, and wonder why his basketball team thought it would be better to put us in a new build rather than a quant little cultural place like these.  it reminded me of the scene in under the tuscan sun when you see the adorable home she stays in and you just get that feel of what it must be like to really live there.  i can't really describe how different this block felt from ours, despite the fact that we had hardly walked a mile to get there.


we get about halfway to the store and kyle, our roommate, drives up.  he's headed away from our apartment, yells out the window that he made a wrong turn headed home, makes a left, and keeps driving.  benjamin & i look at each other like "ummm shouldn't he be turning around?"  he was home when we got back, and we never asked how he managed to get there.


a little further up the road as we're passing the bakery, eboni drives up.  she's headed to the discount store, too, and asks if we want a ride.  we're about halfway there, and enjoying our trip, so we tell her we'll see her when we get there and she carries on her way.  at this point, i'm thinking to myself, how cool is it that we're in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home, and as we walk to the store we're stopped by not one, but two of our friends passing by?  it was like we'd been living here for years and people recognized us passing on the street and stopped to see what was going on... except not.


anyway, about 20 minutes later, we get to the store and eboni is just finishing up her trip.  apparently our way of doing things wasn't necessarily the time-saver way, but we were enjoying our afternoon so it was fine.  we grab the groceries we need: some juice, cereal, soy milk, wine, eggs, chicken... what be it, and head to check out.  the cashier rings us up, we pay, and we go to put the groceries in...... the........ car..... that we dont have.  apparently the two of us are such dip-shits that we never stopped to ponder the fact that once we got to the store, we would then have to trek the 45 minutes back to the house with whatever groceries we acquired.  i was super motivated about lugging this shit back to the house, let me tell you.  


fast forward about 25 minutes and we get back to the intersection with the bakery.  now benboy wants to stop for bread and pitas.... ummmm are you kidding?  k babe, you can add those bags to your load, then.


we get the bread and are back on our way past the various neighborhoods, the trees, the church, etc.  things just aren't quite as beautiful and enjoyable when your arms are permanently marked with the lines from grocery bags weighing down on the skin of your elbows and your fingers are numb and red from the handles of the ones you've been carrying over your shoulder like santa's big red toy bag.  


we get back to the apartment and ben apologizes for his idiotic suggestion of an afternoon passtime.  my answer?  "no booboo, that was fun.. i'd definitely do that again!" 


please don't make me eat my words...


xox k

a tuesday

tuesday was... a tuesday.  nothing really out of the ordinary to report, just a nice, lazy day with my boyfriend.

we ran some errands in the morning, and then came back for a bit of r & r.  as if my entire life isn't r & r... ;)

we sat down together and enjoyed a nice lunch, caught up with our families for a bit, and then as the sun began to set in the late afternoon, we snuggled up on the bed with a nice sigh of content.

and there we were, lying in the dimmed light together.  george winston "december" was playing softly, reminding me of home.  church bells were ringing in the distance, the faint sound of a child crying was echoing from the next apartment, and the ticking of the clocks were signaling each second gone by, coaxing us to sleep.  in that moment, life was absolutely perfect.

...and it still is.

xox k

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