Even Barbie..

What I like About My New Job

This little alley and the branches leaning on the passengers in a hurry

The green door of my office, my cool coke zero in the fridge, what I am doing here and the empty feeling and of course the air conditionner(worshipping it in fact)

Most of all, this feeling of being into something quite new..

Do Talk To Strangers

What can one do with PO SE LENE phrase?

Po se lene means what is your name in greek.

The fisherman in the early morning I was leaving the city.

Sonia and my Theodora.. my sweet Theodora, I met her in the church, oh how I love her, she gave me warm hugs and she brought me fruits and home made cookies to my hotel room the next day. And a special gift from her bedside table.

And Sonia, I heard her calling my name and waving me when I was leaving the hotel.

Maria the pretty poet

Eleni the architect at the very left, Kiki at the very right, we met while waiting for the bus..

Oh those handsome bus drivers of Alexandropolis.. always very nice with you. This is Stelio, one of my favorites. Great guy, standing my crazy attitude. He even let me publish this.

These are my friends in the bus, from left to right Eleni, Nectaria. As I couldn't go to the covent to buy my broken bracelet Nectaria promessed me to buy it for me and send it over to Istanbul

Singing With My Brother

I made a long way to the summerhouse outside the city to visit my parents. My father was happy to see me. He showed me the new terrace, we sat down there outside in our old bamboo bench forgotten in the rain. We chit chat than shared a peaceful moment of silence, staring at the view. I thought of my old days there, my teenage summers, the evening falling with my opera arias in the radio, the breeze from the open balcony, my water colour painting. I tried to avoid looking in the balconies of the neighbours that passed away. I wanted to be there, timeless, with my father. He asked me: " Are you bored?". I said: "No".

Getting ready to drive back, my brother called me saying he wanted to show me something. We went to the car and he played a tune there in silence. Beatiful lyrics and a naive melody, then I heard his voice accompanying the very famous singer, very excited, I turned and asked him whether it was his lyrics. In fact the song was his. I envied him.We had the same faith lately with my brother, work problems and a broken heart. Last time I saw him he was crying all the time.And now, I found him having lost more weight than I had. Every member of the family was critisizing him lately of misbehaving. He has always been less for life, for guarantees, for conventions. But the song was so beautiful..I, who have been among the gang to critisize, melted. Melted in the song. In what he has done of his awful mornings. In what I decided to stop in my life: this pain for two carried by one....From Greece, I was back with cds of Xaris Alexiou, Antonys Remos and Marinella. I was thinking of how it would be hearing them live. This morning, I saw in the newspapers that Xaris Alexiou will join Yeni Turku in their 30th anniersary concert tonight in the openair theater of the city. Well I was more than lucky. My brother had tickets and we were delighted to have back our songs of the 80s, 90s, the ornamented songs of Yeni Turku. At the end of the concert, was my dream come true: Xaris Alexiou on the stage.

I had a priceless day in the time machine.With my brother..

On our way home, I learned that he was working on a screenplay and that the song he composed would be the title song for the movie. I asked the title: "Men Cry As Well"

Back to Work

I got up, went to the bathroom. Opened my eyes and saw what I have achieved: I still have a home.
I dressed upPut on my fragrance and make-up. And when I left home, I was sorry for my cats but when I heard my high heels clacking in th doorway, I felt.. happy..regained.. back!
Hande, Pelin, Oya, Gokhan, my mother and my sister were the ones that were physically with me in these awful days in the flat. Graces of my life.. I have always been grateful for them.
I saw him in my dream last night he saw me and ignored me in the crowd, I saw his hand dyed with henna.he is getting married with someone else now.And I thought when ı was looking in the mirror this morning putting my mascara on, how happy I was and how would it be for us, if he would have stayed with me, with which with bond we would have been attached forever through the days we would have been through.
The unique truth now is that I am here sitting in a cafe with the other plaza workers, waiting for the office to be opened, knowing well the grace, the grace of my precious ones. And not being able to have my tea and my pastry, I am so used to home made food now, must have lost the habit of cafe food somewhere..
I have just called mom and thanked her. She said that I was a strong girl and that there will be harder days in life.
At the end of my first day at work after 5,5 months, happily I left the office.
Walking down the street with bankers, asked my self what differs today from the others, what have I had now, the prompt answer : My Rails !

Reckoned Me

Back

Here I am back in Alexandroupolis. I have been introduced to the place by my ex and have been here 3 times with him. I am now here to rewind and erase him from those memories , to take back what will be left of him. An spritual sharing of goods in an emotional divorce

With this better reason than the Great ALexander, I came to conqueer the city of Alexandroupolis and a small town called Makri, my small church in Agia Paraskevi, our hotel room, Kathy, our greek speaking tv, Anthony Remos, Marinella, the small monastery, my bracelet from the monastery that broke up the day he broke up with me, our small restaurant in town, our wine, our grilled calamary..

But I am having more than this..

Getting Away

Getting away, meter by meter, swimming in the sky,

flying above the sunflower fields ..

Getting there..

The sunflower fields reminded me the old song of YeniTurku with the beatiful lyrics of Murathan Mungan

Let the windows open

Let it rain at night

Let our sunflower dreams

Be soaked with the sound of the rain

We used to be kids

We used to be bright stars then

Although we can not return to back then

We have the springs that we ran after

Constantinopolis-Alexandropoulis (Istanbul-Dedeagac) 6 hours of a very pleasant journey with Varan Setra buses with a break in Tekirdag having the famous meatball lunch, costs you 60YTL(around 30 Euros) with return.

Ba-Bye Home !

I have a new job !

On the 5th of March, 2 days before my birthday, I lost my job in the economical crisis. At the very same day, my significant other dissappeared. The addiction took him over, took him away from me.
I was told first that it was not a seperation then knew it was so. There are more than one reason in such acts but I know it well that if I would not loose my job, this wouldn't happen there.

Having lost my job and my love, I had my family, friends, my health left, with the risk of moving out of my home that has been my dream for years. I was blessed by having the best landlord ever that consolated me and told me he doesn't need that money of the rent until I will arrange something.

I spent 4,5 months job hunting, staring at the ceiling, trying to find a solution and understand all this.

A month ago I saw this on a mall's entrance, stopped, stared at it and smiled..

It says : "DON'T LET ANYONE LOOSE THEIR JOB
If we stop shopping, he will loose his job !
It is the production, recruitment, consuming that keep economy up.
The economy in fact dies if it stops.
We will not surrender to the crisis!
We will go out to the market place, we will choose the one that carries Turkey's work!

We will support our country
Let the unemployed find back jobs, the ones that lost their jobs be back to their work, don 't let the shutters be locked forever!
Come on Turkey, first to produce then to consume what you have produced!

Lest Turkey smile!
If there is crisis, there is also solution."


This photo was taken on 7th of March. The day I felt the most miserable on earth. I thought about it and I mean it.
There was a dinner with my 27 years long girls gang, their husbands and my family. The boyfriend did not show up.

This photo means a lot to me.

This photo and the days I lived in the last 5 months I lived..And the ceiling of my living room.

This photo will explain the meaning of the photo in my previous post.

And what these girls mean to me.. As if I was a tree and they were my leaves.
I would have cold and would feel naked as a tree in the winter season.

I am starting my new work on Monday !..

A Very Special Celebration

Her pregnancy and my new job..

Sour Cherry Madness - My First Jam !

Oya just moved to her dream house. A beautiful house with a beatiful old garden with fruit trees. She was so generous about sharing half of her sour cherry harvest with me and a great family dinner and a breakfast in the garden with the girls and her mother who cooked the breakfast jam the night before.
Having learned the technique from her mother I took the boat to come home and dreaming of cooking my first jam today. I invented my own recipe combining the basic technique of cooking jam with my previous sour cherry brandy experience. Here is my recipe:


Sour Cherry Jam My Way


Ingredients:
Sour Cherries 1 kg
Caster Sugar 1 kg
Lemon juice 3/4 of a juicy lemon
Ground Cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon
Ground Nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon
Ground Cardamom 1/4 teaspoon
Butter 1 tablespoon

1- Wash the sour cherries, remove the stems and pit them. Pitting them will let the juice out in the sun.
2- Put them in a casserole with a lid, covering the whole fruits with caster sugar.
3- Leave the covered casserole in the sun for 6 hours. This helps to take the juice out of the fruits and melt the flavor with the sugar.
4- Boil the mixture adding the spices. Once boiled, cook for more 30 minutes in low heat
5- Add the butter give it a good stir.
6- Add the lemon juice and cook for the last 3 minutes.
7- Remove it from the heat and wait till it cools down to put it to your jars. To my experience, the mixture thickened more after waiting over night in the jars and was the most delcious jam I have ever tasted.

Now for my sour cherry brandy I use same ingredients apart from lemon juice and butter. After waiting for 12 hours in the sun. I add the spices but this time I do not use ground spices but the cinnamon sticks and nutmeg nuts for instance. I bring the mixture to a boil then let it cool down and add brandy - half of the amount of the sour cherry syrup. If you obtained 1 liter of syrup for instance, you will need 500 ml of brandy. I put the drink in my favorite bottles and let them in a cool place for at least one month then serve my beatiful drink to my joyful guests.

I learned the recipe of the Sour Cherry Brandy from Ilhan Eksen's beautiful small book "Multicultural Istanbul Cuisine - Cok Kulturlu Istanbul Mutfagi" where you will find the very old generation of Istanbul from different cultures(jews, muslims, greeks, ottomans..) racounting their childhood days in Istanbul and telling about the food and drinks of the occasions.

The jars by the window and on the photo above are for the Sour Cherry Liquerfrom the same book where you put the whole ingredients in jars -without pitting or boiling them and let them under the sun for 2,5 months then add alcohol and water to the jars, you find the details in the book.