Something I love about Turkey- Kumpir

There is nothing better than a baked potato with the works! and in Turkey, when you ask for the works, you get the WORKS!

A kumpir is a big baked potato that has been mixed with cheese and butter and then topped with a variety of different things. The standard kumpir has got corn, olives, pickles, potato salad ketchup and mayonaise on it.

But who wants the standard? You can do mexican kumpir (with kidney beans, jalopeno peppers, corn, salsa), vegetarian (with assorted veggies), meat (with different salamis and meats) or any combination that you can think up.

I love kumpirs. They are cheap and so yummy. You can get them everywhere in Ankara, they are one kind of Turkish 'fast food.'

When my mom comes to Turkey, she always wants to go and have a kumpir at least once during her visit, she thinks that they are different then a normal baked potato. A kumpir is a meal, and baked potato is a side.

By they way, this isn't my picture, I got it here.

Seven Weeks

Just under seven weeks to go, and with everything that has happened over the last week, I am really just so excited!

French studying is still going, not as quickly as I had originally planned, but I am still learning everyday.

Packing, not so much, but I have started organizing things in my head as to what is staying and what will be coming with us.

House hunting, we have been looking, and we have found a few in the area that we are looking for.

Our plans as to how to get there are going well, we seem to have found some ferries that go the same way as us, when we are going. The new car will be ours in a few days! So we can get use to it before we drive it all over Europe.

Finally, work will be finishing up soon, there are three and half weeks until I am done there. Once work is done, I will officially be a housewife, a badge I will proudly bare!

Alara and Clowns

We learned something new today about Alara, she is very afraid of clowns. The girl who wanted to go bungee jumping with her father is scared of a girl with some paint of her face, and even more so of a boy standing on stilts.

Our local supermarket has just re-opened (thank goodness!), and so to celebrate, outside of the store were clowns, stilt walkers and very loud music, all of which Alara does not like very much.

As we walked into the store, she started crying, and then again as we walked out she was crying. I had to buy her an ice cream scoop to calm her down (don't ask, she wanted a spoon).

Apparently, she was so traumatized by these clowns that when she talked to my dad on the phone all she said was 'clown' (well palyaco because she knows the Turkish word) and then gave the phone back to me. It was his idea for me to write a post about this.

Are any of you or your children scared of clowns?



There was no picture of my scared Alara, or the clowns so I am just posting this pretty picture of her from the other day, under a plum tree, in the park.

Our big news!

Last night, I wrote that I had big news that I was not able to tell, but today, permission has been granted, so here it is...

Yesterday we were looking for a car. Seyfi, Alara (with her friends Tigger and Bear)and I went car shopping, original the plan was just to look, then we found that the Turkish government was offering some sort of tax break (to help generate the economy (I guess). So, we bought a car, it will be ready next week. It's a Citroen C4 Grand Picasso. We've been looking at it for over a year.

You may be thinking, but aren't you moving to Belgium in six weeks? and the answer is yes, and we are going to drive there!

This is going to be great for more reasons than you could know. First, we don't have to worry about the weight of the things we are bringing, so I can bring all my heavy things!!

Second, It is an automatic! Which means I can easily drive it. I originally learned how to drive a standard car, but here in Ankara it is way to difficult for me to use a manual, so this will be a welcome change.

Third, we are DRIVING across EUROPE!!! I2m just to excited about that- It looks like we will drive from Turkey to Greece, get on a ferry to Italy, drive from Italy to Switzerland to Austria to France to Luxembourg and then Belgium (this is what the GPS on my phone is showing me!!)



I'm so excited about this trip! I realize that we are not going to have time to really 'tour' around, but it will still be nice to drive across Europe. Now, I really don't know how I am going to be able to last through these last six weeks!



I realize that it is time for Friday Favourites, but I was so excited about this news that I have decided to postpone FF for one week.

Alara- My little helper

There is so much going on here for our move, stuff that I'm not allowed to disclose at this point in time... (Don't worry, as soon as everything is 100%, I'll feel everyone in!)

So, today I'm just going to write about my little helper Alara. She is the apple of my eye, She loves cooking, baking, dusting and doing laundry. She likes washing vegetables, stirring batters, wiping down surfaces and hanging up clothes. If you ask her to help clean off the balcony, she runs, puts on her rubber boats and grabs a bucket. She just loves to help all of us out with our household chores.

The only thing she isn't into is vaccuuming, if we turn on the vaccuum cleaner, she runs away. Who likes vaccuuming anyway?

Alara and her flowers

Who said that you should 'take time to stop and smell the roses?'

Well, Alara always does this, maybe that is why she is so relaxed and happy. My little girl loves flowers. She especially loves smelling them. Sometimes a walk to the park can take a very long time because we have to stop and smell every flower that we pass, and there are a lot of roses on our way to the park.

Sometimes I get flowers from my work, when I first bring them in the door, Alara says, 'Ah! Mommy flowers!' Just moments later, it's 'Look! Alara flowers!' And she is off running around with a bouquet of flowers.

I love that she likes smelling flowers. She puts her nose right in to the flower, and takes a deep breath in to smell them, and she wants everyone to smell them too, thank goodness she hasn't started picking them yet, or I'm sure we'd be in trouble.

Something I love about Turkey- Cherries

I've written about the pazar in Turkey, and how I love the fresh, seasonal produce that is available here, but cherries need to have their own post. They are a very special part of living here, and there are a couple of reasons for that.

Firstly, you can definitely only get them in season, and that season is now. Cherries are not like strawberries here, in the winter you can get some big, bright red tasteless strawberries for about a month. Cherries on the other hand only come at the end of May and last for about a month.

There is a variety of cherries to pic from, big, dark cherries, bright red sour cherries, middle sized inexpensive cherries, yellow cherries, the list continues. They'll be sure to meet whatever your cherry need may be.

I had never seen a cherry tree before in my life (I'm from northern Ontario), but here, you can find cherry trees every where. The other day, we were walking home from the market, stopped to adjust our bags and looked up to a tree full of cherries. Have you ever eaten a cherry fresh of the tree, so juicy and warm? It is a wonderful experience.

My father in law has a few cherry trees up at his garden. The cherries in the picture are from his trees. I'll miss that tree, and its free cherries.