The world of a multi-processing mom

Creative set of mind..

2011-11-29T12:32:00.000+01:00

I am in a creative mood lately. I finished a pullover that I have been knitting for my daughter. I am nearly finishing a pullover & hat set for a newborn and am planning to sell it :-) I started and nearly finished a sleeveless sweater for my son and made even a hat with the yarn that was left over :-) I have already bought the yarn for making a baby blanket for the baby of a friend that will be born in February. Soon you will find here pictures and maybe also recipes for some of these projects.

On the sewing front: I have to make a dress for my daughter for their annual school theater performance. The paper model and the fabric is ready. I need to buy some ribbon only. There is also a nearly finished skirt for my daughter that is waiting for me to find some free time to do the hem.

But I have other ideas as well. I have a lot of felt at home. Yesterday I found a book that I had bought some time ago, on stuff made using felt. I think soon I will make some felt bags :-) If/when I do realize these projects, I will post here.

So: keep checking this blog for updates and new posts ;-)

PS: Did you notice that I have new pages now? Look up. There is a menu bar. It wasn't there yesterday ;-)

The first quinoa experience

2011-11-02T23:51:00.000+01:00

I believe that what we eat everyday should be varied. I also love trying new ingredients in cooking all the time. Last Saturday when I was in the supermarket, I noticed something new, something that I had never tried before: quinoa, so I took a confection. I had no idea how to prepare it. On the package it was written that quinoa could be used as a substitute for rice or pasta in soups, or could be prepared alone to serve next to meat and vegetables. This evening I decided to cook quinoa and I decided to treat it like bulgur or rice, namely I wanted to make a pilaf with it.... with vegetables.

Quinoa pilaf with vegetables
Sauté a small yellow onion, one carrot and one celery stalk (mirepoix in French and soffritto in Italian) in extra virgin olive oil and add some dried garlic flakes to this sauté. (You can also use fresh garlic, I had the dried one and not much time, so just used that.)
Pour 300 grams of quinoa on the mirepoix and turn two-three times. Add 600 cc warm water.
Add on any dried vegetable you have (or fresh ones, but cut in small pieces/cubes or grated). I had a package of dried squash and spring onions mix and used half of that package (about 50 grams of dried vegetables).
Mix a vegetable bouillon cube. I use the biological one. If you have any kind of stock at home, you can use that instead of water & bouillon.
Add one teaspoon of tomato concentrate. Mix well making sure that the bouillon cube melts. Close the lid of the pan, turn down the stove to medium and leave for about 15 minutes. When you turn off the fire, leave the pan closed for some more minutes before opening the lid to serve.

I served my quinoa pilaf with boiled cannellini beans with some extra virgin olive oil over. It was right on! The mild taste of cannellini beans match very well with the rather sharp taste of quinoa and dried vegetable combination. You should absolutely try this pair.

Cabbage sauté
Tonight I had a very fresh little cabbage right from the garden of my father-in-law and wanted to use it as well. Here is how I cooked it:

Sauté a small yellow onion cut in cubes and a boat of garlic (minced) in extra virgin olive oil.
Cut the cabbage in very fine stripes. You can grate it if you want, but that would give short stripes, I prefer long and thin stripes.
Add the cabbage over the onions while mixing all the time. When you notice that it has lost nearly half of its volume season with salt (and if you like add a pinch of chili pepper flakes/powder) and a dash of white wine. Close the lid of the pan and turn off the fire. Leave the pan closed until serving time.

That ultimate addition to the cabbage, the dash of wine, makes it exquisite. If you don't believe me, take a look at this blog post about the addition of wine while cooking and the difference that it makes ;-)

Croissant with Nutella

2011-10-25T15:55:00.001+02:00

This weekend I baked croissant with Nutella twice, once for breakfast and once as an afternoon snack. It is so easy to prepare these delicious snacks that I wanted to share it here with you. All you need is a piece of round butter dough (here in Italy you find it in every supermarket fresh or frozen, I prefer the fresh one) and a bottle of Nutella.

Cut the dough in 12 equal slices and place a small amount of Nutella at the base of each piece with the help of two coffee spoons.

Roll each piece gently.

Close the ends of each croissant so that Nutella does not run out during baking.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 12/15 minutes.

Let the mini croissants cool down for about 10 minutes. Then cover with powder sugar. Buon appetito!

Octopus..

2011-10-18T12:08:00.000+02:00

This week seems to be very promising on the 'work' front.. I was busy preparing the answers to the exercises that I will be doing with the engineering kids at the university next week when I found an email from my former boss asking whether I would be interested in something new and exciting. I would love that, but right now I cannot work full-time programming.. Especially writing programs in something that I don't really have a grip on. Yes, I can always sit down and get my hands dirty, but I am already doing that in a totally different area, for a totally different architecture. Namely I am learning iOS programming lately and I am really enjoying it. Plus I have the Matlab course at the university that I am assisting.. Plus I am organizing a knitting course.. On the top of everything, yesterday someone asked me whether I would be interested in helping in a project between Italians & Turks as an interpreter, which I would definitely evaluate... And today I found some messages from a dear friend of mine in Skype asking whether I would consider helping her & a friend in putting their web site in shape. Sure I would do that, too! Of course we should not forget about my duties as the mother of two little kids, driving them back and forth, cooking, organizing, cleaning, washing... Nowadays I feel like an octopus, yes that is what I am, a multi-processing octopus :-)

My new knitting course flyer :-)

2011-10-17T16:38:00.004+02:00

Knitting course

2011-10-07T18:53:00.002+02:00

I am hungry. I am foolish. iSad...

2011-10-06T14:18:00.000+02:00

We woke up to the news of Steve Jobs' death this morning. I felt like I have lost someone from the family. Such a brain, such a character......

❤❤❤❤

I remember the first time I had touched an Apple product. I was studying at the university in Istanbul, in late 80s and we were given programming assignments, each assignment on a different type of computer. After an assignment on the CDC Cyber, and one on an 8086 PC the next assignment was to be done on the original Macintosh. It looked like a little rectangular box, with a small screen on it. We were all so excited about using a Macintosh...

That summer while I was doing my stage at the computer center of a major Turkish newspaper I was lucky enough to work on a Macintosh II. It was the desktop publishing era and we were using Apple specific programs like QuarkXpress. Great graphics, lots of colors, working on the Macintosh was fun.

Some years later when I was in Norway I had met newer Apple Macintosh products through one of my boy friends who loved graphics and music, and used Macintosh computers and their specific software in his projects.

I had always seen Apple computers as nice, sweet toys with their limited software bundle, but never thought that they would be appropriate for me to use them. I loved Unix, later Linux. I didn't even use Windows operating system, it was for people that had no idea about computers, just were users. For me Apple computers were also for users only, not for us computer scientists that new the hardware, and the programming and the 1s and 0s of computers... Until (nearly) 5 years ago when I got my first MacBook Pro. It was love at first sight! The operating system, software, design, capacity... everything was perfect. I can do my work, do creative stuff, anything I want. Right now I am writing this post on my new MacBook Pro that I got this spring, and there is no way back, it will be Mac forever for me.

Not only Mac, but I own an iPod nano (must be either the 2nd or 3rd generation), iPod touch and an iPad. I love Apple products so much that I am studying iOS programming lately. I would love to write my own apps. Needless to say our kids are Apple product freaks as well ;-)

❤❤❤❤

Steve Jobs left us too early. May he rest in peace.... And we should all "Stay hungry. Stay foolish."

Knitting course

2011-10-05T16:43:00.002+02:00

I am organizing a knitting course for beginners! If you are in/around Florence, Italy, in October, don't miss it ;-)

Enter to Win DropBox Pro For Life!

2011-10-05T11:31:00.001+02:00

I don't know about you but I am a fan and user of DropBox. Now here is your chance to win DropBox Pro free for life! Just click HERE! Good luck ;-)

Help needed

2011-09-24T17:03:00.000+02:00

I am helping my husband in organizing a Christmas market. We are supposed to get stuff that can be easily sold like small Christmas ornaments for the house, gifts for family and friends. We would like to get most of these things free since the earnings from the market will go wholly to support Dynamo Camp. I am planning to knit some small things like scarves and hats for kids, and make ornaments for Christmas. I am open to ideas of things that can be made (easy and not very time-consuming stuff; probably with patterns/models/explanations) and sold at such a market. We are also looking for volunteers that would contribute with materials (yarn, buttons, tissues etc) and most important of all time. Would YOU help me realize this project by giving me something that you have made? Would you knit/sew for this market? Or would you have some other things that you produce/sell and give us free for our market?

Old blog in limbo, soon to fly off blogosphere

2011-03-23T18:13:00.001+01:00

Dear friends,
I decided to close my old blog Yasemin's corner, but I didn't want to lose all my former posts so I transferred all of them here. For some days that blog will still be available, but soon I will erase it for good.

2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week

2011-03-23T17:44:00.001+01:00

I just found out on Eskimimi Knit that next week is the 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. It means that the bloggers that would like to join this initiative will all have to write on a given topic. You can join the week with your blog in any language. I just gazed at the topic of each day.. Interesting... If I could find time, maybe I could also join... Will see....

Carnival costume: Pippi Longstocking

2011-03-09T10:41:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, fat Tuesday, the kids were supposed to go to school in costumes to celebrate the carnival together. This year I didn't want to buy some fancy costume paying a lot of money just to put in the storage room after using it only once. I decided to dress my daughter as Pippi Longstocking and checked all the clothes she had to see if we had everything we needed. We had colorful stockings, a skirt and a matching T-shirt. The only thing that was missing was a sleeveless dress to wear over. So I set down to work. I found some old linen curtain that we had that could do the work. I went through all the sewing magazines I had, but didn't find a model of a sleeveless dress. I transformed a long casual dress paper model instead. I completed it with a huge frontal pocket and some patches here and there, using only left-over tissues I had at home. I do enjoy recycling ;-) Look at the result of an afternoon's sewing project:

And this is how my daughter was all dressed-up and her freckles made darker with a face-coloring pencil :-)

She (and me) got a lot of compliments yesterday. People were especially wondering how I made her hair stand like this. Well, here is the trick:

A piece of wire/cable that is hard enough to keep the shape that you give it. I put it over the head of my daughter, covered the middle part with her hair and braided her hair all around it. Then cut the part that was sticking out at the end of the braids. It was unseen, totally covered with her hair, which made everybody think "how did she do that??" ;-)

Barnes & Noble limited time offers for your holiday gift shopping

2010-12-08T23:36:00.000+01:00

Here you find a few limited time offers from Barnes & Noble online shop. I hope you find one that fits your needs and helps you keep most of your money in your pocket while you are getting a gift for your loved ones.

1/2 Priced Books: Buy 1 get 2nd 50% off from our Holiday Gift Guide Collection NB: Offer expires on Dec. 15!!
Get FREE MEMBER Express Shipping on qualifying items! NB: Offer valid from Dec. 6 until Dec.17!
12 Deals of Christmas: Visit BN.com everyday thru 12.18.10 for Big Savings!
Wristlet Offer: Buy any Vera Bradley item and get Vera Bradley Wristlet for just $9.95! Check out the Vera Bradley items in BN. Tote bags, wristlets, pen & pencil sets, cases for eyeglasses, organizers, photo albums, pencil cases, organizers, book covers.. All colorful designs..
Childrens Holiday Books: Save up to 45% on bestsellers! Offer valid until Dec. 25.
Save up to 45% off our Holiday Gift Guide! Thousands of deals and gift ideas..
Holiday Cook Book Sale: Buy 1 Get 2nd 50% off! Offer Expires 12/31/10 I am sure you know at least one person who would need a good cook book ;-)

Handmade gifts

2010-10-18T14:41:00.003+02:00

We still have about 2 months before Christmas and it is enough time for those of us that are able, to prepare some handmade and/or homemade gifts for our loved ones. It is always nicer to receive a gift that has been made for us, carefully worked on, instead of a hastily bought and wrapped thing.

For those of you that need to get a gift for a little girl, be it your daughter, granddaughter, niece or just the little girl next door, I have got some ideas. What about a skirt for which you don't even need to buy any materials but use whatever you have at home? Look at the skirt above that I had prepared for my (then) little girl about 3 years ago. This little skirt is entirely Designed & Made by Yasemin. It is an ecological/recycling product. The main material was left over from a dress that my mother had made. The flowers are cut from some material left from a skirt of mine. The beads used were from some toys of Iris. And the ribbon on the rim was on a gift package that we had received ;-) At the house of someone who loves sewing there is always some material that is left over from a former project. The material that I used for this skirt was quite rough/thick, so I had to introduce some folds at the waist to fit it better. If your material is soft, you can even go for an easier model and place an elastic at the waist instead. Then use your imagination and creativity to make the skirt prettier. I have cut out three flowers and placed them somewhere near the rim as you can see in the photo above. Take a closer look at the finishing of these flowers below.

The flowers are fixed on the skirt by hand. Notice that the thread used to stitch each flower to the skirt has the color of the beads that are put in the center of the flower. The colors of the butterflies also follow the colors of the threads used in stitching... :-) The beads that I used in this composition were from a bead set for girls that was given to my daughter at her birthday. Hey, if you don't know how to sew, you can always buy one of these bead sets for girls and make that little girl happy anyway ;-)

Here is another project for you: a summery dress. You need to find some lace, better if it is handmade, even better if it is old, or recovered from an old dress/night gown. You will use the lace for the upper body. Then you should buy/find at home some flowery material that needs to be fitted under the lace. To cover the stitch that you make to connect the two parts get some nice ribbon. Do not forget to buy more than you need, because whatever is left of the ribbon can be used next year when the little girl grows and you need to make the skirt of the dress longer by opening the rim. You can place the ribbon on the line the older rim would leave after it is opened.

What about knitting? Are you good at that? A hand-knit scarf, a hat, warm & soft mittens, a beautiful pullover... These all can be Christmas gifts. Even a new beginner can make a scarf. All you need is some colorful yarn and a knitting magazine/book full of interesting ideas, instructions and patterns. Check the knitting search results on Amazon. I am sure you will find something ;-) And do not forget the tranquilizing effect of knitting on you during these hectic months right before the holiday season.. It is a lovely pass-time.. (You might consider a subscription to a knitting magazine maybe?)

If you don't think that you will ever manage to learn how to knit, or simply you don't have the time for that, why not buying stuff that are hand-knit? You can find these items online as well. Check out etsy.com. On etsy you will not only find knit/sewn items and patterns to make your own, but also all kinds of accessories, quilts, bags, clothing and gift articles.

Give him/her health

2010-09-29T00:19:00.000+02:00

I believe that the most important thing we have in life is our health. Without good health we cannot enjoy all the other things we have. Hence, I would like to begin the list of my Xmas gift recommendations with some technological and sports apparel that would contribute to a healthier body.

Less than a year and a half ago we were at a shop choosing new bikes for our kids. The shop had, placed next to all sizes of bikes, also some treadmills. Since we never manage to go to a gym and exercise a bit, we decided to buy one for our house and chose a model that is in the upper middle price range so that it neither looks like a toy nor is extremely professional. I admit, I was against the idea of buying one, thinking it would occupy a lot of space and after the initial period we would forget about it as we did with the indoor cycling bike. Luckily, I was wrong. I discovered that walking and running on the treadmill can be a lot of fun and a leaner body comes as a free gift.

Do you know someone who could use some exercise? Is there someone around you that loves jogging and you want to make him/her a gift? Do you like running/walking with a good pace, but think it is dull and need to make it more fun? Then read on! I will tell you all about my apparel and gadgets that made the treadmill fun for me.

It is true, treadmill is a very monotonous thing. But here is how you can enjoy working on it (or make your loved one enjoy it):

colorful

Nike's specialty clothing for running

must

running site

Nike Lunarglide

Music

To start running of course you do not need a treadmill. If you have the possibility right outside your house, put on your shoes & suitable running clothes, start the music on your MP3 player and there you go. The world is your gym :-) Hence, if your loved one does not have a treadmill in his/her house, you can always convince him/her to run by presenting him/her some attractive apparel. If that person is tech-savvy and appreciates technological gadgets I have more recommendations.

I am not only a Nike fan, but also a big Apple products fan. If the person whom you would like to buy a gift for, has one of the new generations of iPod nano, iPod touch or iPhone, then you should introduce him to the world of Nike+. These are the products which you should consider buying:

shoe pouch

You don't want to run with music? Then get the Nike+ SportBand, wear it around your wrist, and go! You can see your pace, the distance covered, time and calories burned.

✔ If (s)he has an iPod nano, the gadget to get is the Nike+ iPod sport kit which includes not only the Nike+ sensor but also a wireless receiver for iPod nano.

✔ Lately Nike announced that the Polar Wearlink+ heart rate strap communicates with your Nike+ Sportband and iPod nano so that you can follow your beats per minute.
For me, the nicest thing about Nike+ is that it gives you the possibility to follow your progress in time on the Nike+ site. You become a member of the Nike+ community. Each time you synchronize your iPod/iPhone, iTunes automatically sends your latest training results to Nike+. When you log in to your account, you can choose to share your Nike+ activity with your friends broadcasting on Facebook and/or Twitter. You can set goals, make training plans and take part in challenges in Nike+ community. Using the Nike+ software on your iPod/iPhone, you can decide whether you want to run for a fixed time, fixed distance or fixed amount of calories burned for that training instance.

My last recommendation for training today will be the DVD 30 Day Shred of Jillian Michaels. You must have heard of Jillian Michaels. Well, I had not. But thanks to a dear friend in USA I got introduced to her 30 Day Shred program and I am a witness that it works! All you need is a mat, a pair of dumbbells of about 1 kg each (or two 1/2 liter bottles of water), a DVD player (or your computer) and 20 minutes per day!

Happy training everyone! Do not forget to check my Nike+ Mini here ;-)

What is next?

2010-09-23T22:33:00.000+02:00

As some of you might have noticed I am doing some changes on my blog. It was in limbo for over 2 years and I decided that it was high time to revive it. I started with the design first and it is still under construction (the artist of the picture behind the title is my daughter Iris and, of course, she drew me in front of my laptop). I also wanted to make a change in content. I will not be writing here as if I am writing a diary any more. I will only write about my recommendations for places to see, things to do, books to read, recipes to try etc.

✂✂✂✂✂

Whether we like it or not, soon we will all begin to think about Xmas gifts for our loved ones (and non). I am one of those lazy people that leave the gift shopping to the last weeks and get in panic. This year I plan to act rather early. It is advantageous to begin thinking about gifts now because you can spread the shopping in 2-3 months instead of concentrating all the expenses in a couple of weeks. With these in mind I decided to start with a series of recommendations for gifts.

Come back again soon to read my 1st post on gift ideas! And, hey, if you do not like my recommendations, you can always:

Need a job?

2010-09-20T11:04:00.000+02:00

If you are on the look out for your next job, I am sure you are familiar with many web sites that allow you to register your CV and/or search for jobs. Most of these sites let you apply immediately on line as well.

For people that are computer scientists like me, or are more into engineering, research & development, academical jobs, here is a short list of sites that I myself keep visiting on regular basis. Some of the sites are specialized whereas some are more general job search sites. If you know of other sites that could be useful for me, do leave a comment about it. Thanks :-)

academics.com I found this site recently. It is a German site, however there are job offers from Austria, Switzerland, Sweden as well. The jobs are mostly of academical type, but some private companies advertise, too. Once you register and create a job filter they email the results to your address.

monster.com I think everybody has heard about monster.com.

jobserve I am registered to this site and everyday I receive emails of jobs in UK and USA. This site has jobs from all over the world.

EURAXESS Jobs This is the jobs page of the EURAXESS site, the official site of European Commission for the mobility of European researchers. Research positions and fellowship announcements all over Europe.

matchtech UK based site specialized in engineering, science and construction recruitment.

I will keep adding sites here...

Looking for a lovely home in Florence, Italy?

2010-09-17T10:44:00.000+02:00

Loft for rent

In a silent area, walking distance to European University Institute, cycling distance to the city-center, 2 mins to the bus-stop; loft/open-space apartment, 90msq, restored, big windows that allow a lot of light to come in, big living/dining area, kitchen fully equipped (oven, glass-ceramic cooking plates, microwave oven, refrigerator, dishwasher), storage/laundry room with washing machine, parquet floors, bathroom with marble floor, bedroom with big double bed and bedside tables, walk-in closet, study area; air-conditioned, autonomous heating, satellite antenna, cabling for surround sound system, safe, alarm system; available NOW preferably for long term rental (min. 1 year contract); suitable for single or couple (1 bedroom, 1 bathroom)

I'm mad as hell

2010-09-17T08:50:00.000+02:00

1 billion people live in chronic hunger in the world. Please sign the petition to put pressure on the politicians to end hunger.

Thanks!

Get Firefox 3! Help set a record!

2008-06-17T10:54:00.000+02:00

Have you ever taken part in something big, like setting a Guinness World Record? Would you like to do that now? Then come and click the logo above!

The aim of Download Day is to set a Guinness World Record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours. The date set is TODAY, June 17th, starting at 10AM SF time. All you have to do is to click the logo and pledge, NOW! Then download Firefox 3 during the right 24 hours. You will not only get a great piece of software, but also help set a record, with the tips of your fingers, clicking here and there. Simpler than this it cannot be.

Are you still waiting to click??

Check out here your local time when Firefox 3 will be available for download.

It is wonderful to live in "Chiantishire"

2008-04-27T22:37:00.000+02:00

April 25th is Liberation Day in Italy and is a public holiday. This Friday since we were all free from our obligations of work and school we decided to go out and do something different. We went to Panzano in Chianti, a fraction of Greve in Chianti, on the scenic road from Florence to Siena. It was the day of Festa Della Stagion Bona, the beginning of the "good season" with a procession in historical costumes of the Renaissance, a medieval play and plenty of stands with ready-cooked food. The weather was beautiful. We drove slowly on the road enjoying the magnificent green of Chianti stained by the blue/violet of the irises (one of the most beautiful examples can be seen in the middle of the second collection of photos below) and the red of the poppies, and the soothing music of Loreena McKennitt on our stereo.

In Panzano all the houses were ornamented with red and white flags on their windows, some with stripes, some with Florentine fleurs-de-lis. The narrow streets were full of people waiting for the procession. There were stands of the local artisans and many tables and benches placed in front of the food stands. The main road of the village was going slightly uphill and ending at the Church of Santa Maria (Santa Maria Assunta) (in the picture below). Before the procession the medieval play took place in front of this church and was broadcast through the loudspeakers placed in different places of the village (it was quite loud, actually). Then the procession of people in historical dresses followed by a band started in front of the church, went down to the village piazza and then up the road again to the church. We watched the show that took not more than 15-20 minutes, and after eating some panini and taking some photos, went back to our car.

On the way back to our house we decided to discover where the lake of Castel Ruggero was. It turned out that right behind our house we have an undiscovered (for us, at least) jewel. Walking between the trees you come down to a nice little lake. If we were alone, only me and my husband, we could easily walk down there from our house and pass several hours by the clear water just lying down and reading, or only dreaming...
Today we went for a long walk with our little ones. We went all the way through the forest, then the open fields down to the narrow road that leads to the lake, but had to turn back. Maybe another time we can go until the lake, too....

I wonder..

2008-04-23T15:55:00.000+02:00

... whether most of the Italians have 'bought' their driver's licenses from Coop. From the way they are driving, it seems most likely.
... at what time they get up, the mothers that are all 'made up' at 8:30 when they deliver their kids to school.
... why most of the people don't take their jobs seriously, or why they don't look for a job that they could be serious about instead of the one they are doing just for the sake of doing it.
... if a mentally ill person can ever become 'normal' again after a therapy. Someone that I know says that it is possible, and it did happen, but I have my doubts..
... when real spring is coming. I am fed up with rain.
... when my sweety is going to take me to Paris. I have waited long enough! Not that I cannot go alone, or with someone else, but I want to go with him for the first time. OK, we were at the Charles de Gaulle airport this Xmas, but that doesn't count, does it?
...

... why you are reading this post that makes no sense :-P

Can't foresee tomorrow from yesterday

2008-04-22T10:54:00.000+02:00

It has been over a month that I had last written something here. When I wanted to visit my blog today, I had to type all the address in the address bar of Firefox since it was so long ago I visited my own page the last time that the address didn't remain in the recently visited sites list..

Everything is fine here. I have been on a business trip to a country that under normal circumstances I wouldn't travel to. It was a change. If it hadn't been for the blister on my foot I would have enjoyed it more ;-)

The weather got crazy in Florence. It is raining extremely much mostly during the night and there is sun during the day... Usually, that is. Otherwise it is dark and cloudy all the day like today.. I don't like this weather. It makes me gloomy.. Sometimes I cannot believe that I survived 10 years in Bergen, where rain was the default background of our days for months...

I got back in touch with many people from the past thanks to Facebook these last weeks. It is so strange.. There is one that I had no contact for nearly 30 years.. And now we are writing to each other as if it was only yesterday our roads have separated. There is so much to write about, so much to catch up. I don't even know why we never met again. We were living in the same city for 10 years before I left the country, but none of us made an effort to find the other one. Not that I didn't wonder what that person was doing all these years, I did. But never did anything significant to find its location. Now, reading all the mails that I receive, I find someone that I would have enjoyed to have by my side as a friend... Anyway, it is never too late. I was complaining that I cannot make new friends any more and all of a sudden I found one in a place where I didn't expect to find it.

I am happy

2008-03-19T13:41:00.000+01:00

- I love my new job! :-) Not only because I can do it from home via internet/phone, but also because I have to learn new things all the time, keep my brain working, never be far away from research and my favorite topic high performance computing. I just want to learn more about our products and begin contributing more. I couldn't be happier in another job.

- Otherwise, spring is nearly here. We have more and more daisies in our garden everyday.

- Soon I should buy some new clothes for my daughter since she has grown a lot during the winter.

- Today it is Fathers' Day in Italy. Yesterday Iris and I bought a present for my husband, something he can use in his new fancy clinic :-) Unfortunately tonight my little son is not with us to celebrate Fathers' Day. Since he is sick, he doesn't go to school and he is at his grandmother's house until Friday. But they gave me his presents for Fathers' Day and Easter that he had prepared himself at school.

- Finally we managed to have a party for Sander at home with some close friends, a lot of food and presents.

- The weather is getting warmer and sunny each day and we began going for a walk in the woods in the weekends.

If you were wondering why...

2008-03-03T10:06:00.000+01:00

I didn't manage to write much lately. And I am afraid I won't be writing for some time.

As of 1st of March I've got a job. Until I learn what I am supposed to do and get in the rhythm of working and managing my family life at the same time, I am afraid I will continue neglecting my blog.

Please pray that I find a maid soon, otherwise my house will suffer....

In the meantime, Sander celebrated his 2nd birthday on 28th of February at school with his friends. We will celebrate it again with grandparents and a couple of friends next Sunday at home.

Iris got her first evaluation card ever in her school life and she made us proud. She had excellent in all the subjects and her teacher has written in the comments area that she has special talent for mathematics. You can guess how happy and proud I was on reading this :-) I hope she continues like this all through her school life.

Last week..

2008-02-19T10:50:00.000+01:00

Thursday it was Valentine's Day and our daughter made us the following pictures :-)

This week..

2008-02-19T09:43:00.000+01:00

I am back from a week's vacation at La Villa, Bolzano. We had a wonderful week with sunny days, snowy mountains, good food and lots of relaxation.

I am reading The man who counted by Malba Tahan. Malba Tahan is the pseudo name used by the Brazilian mathematician and author Julio César de Mello e Souza. It is a collection of mathematical problems, puzzles and curiosities embedded in tales. I strongly recommend it to all lovers of mathematics and non, the ones who enjoy solving logical puzzles and stuff like sudoku. You can find more about the book in another blog post here. I intend to read other books of the same author afterwards and I would love to make my daughter read this book in a year or two.

I have to tidy my house and do a lot of ironing.

I noticed that spring is coming. The supermarket shelves are more colorful now with the first strawberries (God knows where they are imported from), and there are already the big bags of charcoal for the weekend BBQ. The first signs of spring for me, however, have always been the daisies in our garden and they are there since a couple of weeks now.

I am very excited about the job offer that I got, but I cannot fully believe it until I sign the contract :-)

Webkinz world

2008-02-06T10:08:00.000+01:00

This is Pinga, my daughter's Webkinz pet. Have you heard of Webkinz? If you don't have children, most probably you haven't, or if you live outside of northern America, again, it is most probable that you don't know anything about this virtual world of kids. I didn't know anything about it until we went to Canada. Our friends had bought a Webkinz pet for our daughter and that is how we entered the Webkinz world.

Webkinz pets are little plush pets that come with a secret code. You go to the Webkinz website, enter your code (entering the code means adopting a virtual pet) and your plush pet becomes a virtual friend. Your virtual friend is given a virtual room that you should decorate using virtual money, Kinzcash, which you should earn in the Webkinz world. There are different ways of earning money. You can go to the employment center and get a job, or you can play different types of games and make money. With your money you can buy furniture, clothes, food and extra room, even a garden for your pet. You are responsible from his health and cleanliness, too. You should give him his fruit and milk everyday to have a healthy pet. You should let him play with some toys so that he is happy. You should also enroll him at the academy and let him take some courses to give him a good education.

That is not all. There is also an area where the Webkinz pet owners can meet and chat. It is a totally controlled chat environment where the kids can use only fixed phrases in their chats.

If you have bought a garden for your pet, you can also plant your own plants, take care of them everyday and harvest your produce when they are ready. You can give this produce raw to your pet or you can buy a grill and cook them!

The members have also a post system. If you know the user name of a fellow Webkinz pet-owner you can send him/her a post or even a gift.

As you see it is a virtual world for kids and my daughter is addicted to it now. The problem is, when she is at school it is me who has to give food to her pet, or take care of her garden, and even go to work or play games to earn some money! :-)

I like the fact that my daughter is using her English while playing in Webkinz world, but I am a bit scared that she is only 6 and already a net-addict. Not only her, the little boy also enjoys watching the pet and the games we play in Webkinz world...

Oh, well, we are a family of nerds.. Nothing to do about it...

Blinis

2008-02-01T12:02:00.000+01:00

Some weeks ago on Sunday I didn't have bread for lunch and it was too late to sit down and bake one. Hence, I decided to make something different that could substitute the bread and I tried a recipe that I found in a magazine: blinis. The name reminded me of the blinis that an Israeli Jewish friend of mine used to make for us in Norway, but the recipe he used was totally different. He used to make thin pancakes, smeared them with mashed potatoes or spinach, rolled them into tubes, placed on an oven tray, sprinkled with freshly grated cheese and baked until the cheese melted. They were very delicious. While surfing the net now, I found out that the recipe I tried is most like the traditional Russian version. You can find many different recipes on the net for blinis. The one I will share with you right now is a fast, and yet, delicious one that saves your day.
The ingredients for about 26 coaster-sized blinis are: 4 eggs, 160 grams of flour (I used wheat flour, however any type of flour should be fine), fresh yeast (I used a package of active dry yeast and it worked fine), 12 tablespoons of milk, some butter and salt. Sprinkle the yeast in warm milk and let it dissolve. Add the egg yolks, salt and the flour. Mix well and let it swell for about 20 minutes. In the mean time whisk the egg whites. When the batter has expanded add the egg whites carefully to the batter. It should be a very light fluffy batter. Heat a large frying pan and when it is very warm melt a piece of butter in it. Drop small spoons of batter in the pan to make small pancakes. Fry the cakes a couple of minutes, turn the other side and fry one more minute.

Blinis thus prepared can be served in different ways. You can smear them with sour cream, top with smoked salmon slices and dill. Or you can smear them again with sour cream and some jam. We ate our blinis opening them in two, filling with cheese and ham.

Nothing new here....

2008-01-24T14:43:00.000+01:00

- Last week it was my birthday. In fact, I had written my last post on my birthday. We celebrated it one day before though. The photo above is the photo of my birthday cake this year. Am I childish? Yes! Am I ashamed of it? Absolutely not.. If we lose the childishness in us and take everything seriously, what is left there to enjoy?? I love celebrating my birthdays with cakes and presents. Not only mine, also those of the others as well..
- Not much is happening here lately. Me and my husband are busy trying to finish my husband's new clinic, cleaning, mounting furniture etc. We will be working on it also this weekend.
- Next weekend there is a carnival party arranged by the kids' school. I need to find some costumes for me, my husband and the little one. My daughter already has a beautiful dress (he dress of one of Walt Disney figures,- I don't remember which one!- I bought the dress last year after the carnival period during the sales ;-) )
- I am fed up with people that are reading strange meanings in to my words. Hey, I am a person who says things straight out! If I wanted to say something mean, I wouldn't hide it in nicer words, I would say it out to your face. I don't understand why you are picking on my sentences... uffff... Some people have nothing to do, I guess... Or they are reading their minds in to other people's words. Whatever...

The Canadian adventure

2008-01-14T11:42:00.000+01:00

We came back from Canada on 3rd of January. After a week's sufferance of jet lag we are getting used to our daily life again...

We had wonderful time over there staying at friends' houses, eating good food, having nice chats, seeing beautiful places and relaxing a lot. There is so much to write about..
Before going to Toronto everybody that learned about our trip was saying "You will love it up there". Yes, I did love it, but to tell the truth I was expecting a more modern city, something more like New York or some other big city in USA. What we found was a huge city, widespread, not crowded (maybe it is because people circulate more 'under' the city than on the streets outside?) although the population is over 2,5 millions, with quite mixed architecture.. You pass through streets with two-storey buildings on both sides, then you turn a corner and you are on a street with skyscrapers. There are buildings in British style on the same street with modern style buildings. The whole city is like a construction site. They are building many new condos in the city center and lots and lots of town houses, twin houses and singles outside the center in the suburbs. You see also many new plazas (little shopping centers) being built near the new housing sites outside the city.

When we arrived, we first went to stay at an orthodontist friend of my husband, who is of Italian origin. They have a lovely old house in the city at Rosedale, that they have bought and restored a year ago. On all the streets around their house you see big stylish houses very well taken care of, all with Xmas lights and decorations. It was like being in a fairy-tale city walking on those streets with the beautiful houses under the snow.
We spent Xmas day and Boxing day with our friend's Italian family. The grandmother made the food for Xmas dinner, after the dinner the kids and the rest of the family opened their gifts. It was so nice and cozy. On Xmas morning there were different types of special Xmas cakes and cookies on the table. After a long and late breakfast, we first went for a walk in the neighborhood, and then our friend took us for a drive in the city. We saw the University of Toronto campus, Chinatown (which was in its usual hustle since the Chinese do not celebrate Xmas, all the shops were open), little Italy (which, our friend says, is not how it was before, now becoming more and more a mixed neighborhood), the center business district of Toronto (mostly Bay street, kind of the 'Wall street' of the city), Casa Loma (a little Spanish castle on a hill in the city; pity that it was closed and we couldn't see inside; we did take some photos outside though), Forest Hill (one of the most prominent areas of Toronto where our friend has his practice by the way). Our tour ended at a Starbuck's cafe at Forest Hill sipping warm cider and coffee.

On Boxing day we did the mistake of going downtown for shopping. All the shops had the 'Boxing day sales' signs and we just couldn't stop ourselves, but it was a big mistake! We went to Eaton center, the largest shopping mall in eastern Canada. It was so crowded that we couldn't move, literally! The funny thing was, about 90% of the people in the crowd were Chinese. You heard more Chinese than any other language. The mall was so big, and so crowded that after a few hours we got fed up and went back home to our friends. We took the subway, got off at the right stop and walked the rest of the way home without getting lost in the dark. Good for us ;-)

The next day after a lazy morning we went downtown and visited the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), the biggest Museum of Canada, and the fifth biggest in northern America. Unfortunately we had very limited time and saw only the natural history galleries and the newly opened James and Louise Temerty Galleries of the Age of Dinosaurs and Gallery of the Age of Mammals, where it is possible to observe many examples of dinosaur and mammal skeletons, birds and reptiles as well as marine animals from the Jurassic to Cretaceous period. This museum deserves definitely another visit.
In the afternoon we said goodbye to our hosts and passed over to the house of some other orthodontist friend of my husband who lives in Richmond Hill. This friend and her family are of Persian origin. Needless to say, we ate lots of great Persian food during our stay in their beautiful house ;-)

On Friday, the 28th of December we went downtown again, this time to visit the CN Tower. CN Tower was the world's tallest building until September 12, 2007 when it was surpassed in height by the (still under construction) Burj Dubai. Because of my phobias I did not have the courage to go up, and preferred to stay downstairs with my friend and my sister (whom I saw for the first time in three years during our stay in Toronto). We were not very lucky with the weather that day, my husband said that it was not possible to see anything on the top of the tower. Hence, I didn't lose anything by remaining downstairs ;-)

Before going home that evening we drove to a house in Thornhill, the Lindsay house, to watch the Lindsay light show. Do click the link and watch the video, it is worth to be seen live though. This family prepares a light show every Xmas since 2000. At fixed hours you can tune in to a frequency on the radio, and watch the light show listening to the music on your car radio. Our friends said that there are queues of cars all around the neighborhood waiting in line to watch the show in the evenings during the holidays.

For the weekend we drove down to Niagara Falls. On our way we paid a short visit to Oakville and I had the chance of meeting Fulya and her lovely daughter. At Niagara Falls our friends had reserved rooms at a hotel facing directly the falls and we had magnificent view. Pity that the weather was not very well, quite cloudy and dark. After a delicious dinner and a drive around town admiring the Xmas lighting we returned to our rooms to watch the fireworks at 21.00. Later me and my husband paid a short visit to a big casino just to see how people were throwing away their money. I feel bad when I enter a casino, seeing all those miserable people attached to a machine pressing button after button, watching the silly lights and figures on the screens, hoping to hear the jingle of money running down the machine, or, as it was in the casino that we visited, the siren and a red light flushing over the machine to announce a winner. Just a quick walk among the crowds of slot machines, roulette tables and a strange gathering of people from all layers of the society we got out in the cold. It was nicer to walk in the freezing night than being inside that casino.
The next day after a good breakfast at our hotel we checked out and went to a nearby town called Niagara-on-the-lake (NOTL). NOTL is a charming historical town whereas Niagara Falls (as can be seen in the pictures above) is a town which seems to be created to earn money from the tourists visiting the falls. At Niagara Falls I got the feeling of being in a huge open-air studio with grand hotels, casinos, attraction sites, movie theaters etc. However, NOTL is very charming with its stylish well-kept houses, horse carriages, parks and little shops. It is supposed to be the loveliest town in Canada. The town is full of B&Bs, and most of the population is composed of old people in retirement (who are turning their houses into B&Bs). NOTL is a major viticultural region of Canada. If you get the chance, you should visit one of the many wineries nearby and taste the world famous ice wine, lip-licking-delicious! :-)
We enjoyed a half-an-hour long horse carriage ride together with our friends and listened to the carriage rider's stories about the town while we admired the beauty around us. The town is supposedly more crowded and lively when there is the Shaw Festival, the only festival of theater that specializes on the works of Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries and plays about his era, but it was very beautiful under the snow as well.

Our last days passed leisurely around Richmond Hill, going around shopping or sitting at home sipping our tea, everyone with his/her laptop benefiting from the speedy wi-fi network that our friends had in their home (we are nerds, don't forget, we travel everywhere with our laptops!).

On new year's eve our hosts held a party and we got the chance to meet their relatives and friends. They were all very educated beautiful people, the kids were all well-mannered.. We had lots to eat and cheered to a new year together.

Our Canadian adventure was a very successful one. We are lucky to have such good friends that welcomed us to their homes and spent their holidays with us. We hope to have them as our guests, too, one day. And we will definitely go back to Canada; this time with our kids and in the summer, so that we can also enjoy the Canadian summer, go and visit the Toronto islands, maybe drive up to Ottawa, or down to New York, and give our kids the chance to speak some English.
If you ask me what I liked the most in Canada, I would name two things:
1- the squirrels that are everywhere (the one above was in NOTL, next to our horse carriage, looking for food, not afraid of humans at all!);
2- and the fact that everybody around me was speaking English. Coming from Italy, it felt like paradise in Canada :-)

In between....

2008-01-11T11:11:00.000+01:00

Just a short note to tell those who wonder about me: I am back from Canada, everything is fine, kids are back to school (well, Sander is sick and at home today), husband is working hard as usual, and I am putting the house in order after the vacations. I began writing about our vacation in Canada but it takes time to finish it. I will post as soon as I can.

Hope all of you had some relaxing days during the holidays.

Bye for now!

To give or not to give... a gift

2007-12-14T15:23:00.000+01:00

When I was little, I remember that every year around new year, the national day of teachers and mothers' day the parents' representative of our class was gathering money from our parents to buy gifts to our teacher(s). I remember how irritated our parents were every time they were asked for money. Since we are two sisters, of course, my parents had to pay twice for each occasion. I thought this was something done only in Turkey. God, how wrong I was.. When our daughter began attending daycare, I learned that the same tradition existed also here in Italy. The amount that was asked increased when we changed schools and my daughter began the kindergarten. This year she is in elementary school and we pay even more! I wonder where this thing will lead us to... And you should hear about the presents the parents' representative has got for two of the teachers (thank God that she bought gifts only for two teachers and not all the others). This year the primary teacher is getting a Gucci foulard, and her assistant will get a Gucci silver bracelet. I have never bought any Gucci stuff for myself... Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Gucci, or Prada, or all the other designer stuff. The thing that disturbs me is the extravagance in the gifts. What happened to the good old modesty?

Oh, my son is in daycare by the way, and we never had a parents-teachers meeting for his class, so we do not have a class representative there. Yet, someone has taken the initiative (as always is the case) and has sent out notes to us parents, asking for money to buy gifts for the teachers :-) We have already left the asked amount at the school's secretary since we have no idea who the initiative taker is, and what kind of presents she has in mind....

Do you buy gifts to the teachers of your child? Do you think it is necessary? For me, they are doing their jobs, and are getting paid for that (in our case, getting well paid I presume, since it is a little private school). I do not see why I am forced (not literally, but, hey, the pressure is there; if every other parent has paid, you are also expected to pay) to give/contribute to a present if I really don't feel like it....

Xmas objects everywhere in the living-room

2007-12-11T13:47:00.000+01:00

We are ready for Xmas in our house. Last Saturday, December 8th, Iris and I decorated our tree as we do every year exactly on December 8th. It is a holiday here in Italy and it seems to be the right day to begin decorating the house and mounting the tree. I said 'mounting' the tree because some years ago we decided to be environment-friendly and bought a plastic tree which looks quite good in fact. Of course the smell and the real green of a little pine tree is more beautiful but it is a pity to throw it away after the holidays are over. We have tried to plant our trees after the holidays in the past, but none of them survived, so we gave up.

In addition to the tree we have other objects that we take out only at Xmas time. This is our electrical '7-candles light' that we have bought in Norway in 1998. I saw on hedikliev that the same light exists also in Sweden. In Norway they usually place this light in their windows and that was what we used to do in our other house. Unfortunately, in this house we don't have a proper place in the windows so we place it over one of the furniture in our living room.

Over the fireplace and on our coffee table we place different candle holders. The Santa-figured candle holder was a gift from our gasoline station a few years ago. The Santa-hat on the coffee table belongs to Iris.

The candle holder on the left is one of my favorites. It was a gift from a friend of ours some years ago. The snow ball shaped tea-light holder is from Norway, we bought it in 1998. The other tea-light holder below is Swedish and it was a gift from a friend who visited us in 2003. I love these Scandinavian design objects.

As is the tradition Iris has written her wish-list for Santa and placed it over the fireplace. She began writing it in early October and every week one or two new things are added to the list :-) This year she wants objects of Winx Club, different games of Winx, computer of Winx etc. There is a Winx mania in Italy among little girls, and of course, my little one is also a part of it :-) There are some electronic toys, dolls and few innocent stuff like colored pens, a new pencil holder on the list as well. My favorite on the list is: computer come quello della mamma, a computer like my mother's :-) Eh, I know that also the father would love to get a computer like mine (a MacBook Pro), but my little one, I guess you should wait some more years before you can get that wish granted ;-)

Iris likes Xmas and Xmas decorations a lot. She also likes making drawings of the Xmas tree. For now, we have only two drawings in the living room: one over the fireplace and one on the Xmas tree itself :-)

The decorations on our tree increase every year with the edition of new pieces. The two pieces in the photos above were Xmas presents from one of my husband's assistants a couple of years ago.

These two were products of the tiny hands of my Iris. The first one she made in kindergarten, the second one even before, when she was still in daycare.

I think that this is one of the most beautiful decorations we have. It was a gift from my Norwegian professor Trond. He sent it with his Xmas card in 2004, saying that the minute he saw it he thought about Iris :-) The little girl sitting under the tree with black braided hair does look quite much like Iris :-)

These five figures above are my traditional Norwegian Santa Claus, 'nisse' (click the link and read the story of nisse in Wikipedia, really nice), that protect our tree :-) I bought them in 2003 in Bergen at the Christmas Shop, Julehuset, an all-year open traditional Xmas decorations shop, along with some other decorations. One of them was broken, but I didn't have the heart to throw it away, so it has been glued (as can be seen in the photo).

The last important Xmas item in our living-room is the tree mat. When we bought this plastic tree I also looked for a nice tree mat to put under it, but didn't like the items in the market. Hence, I went to a shop that sold beautiful cloths with traditional Xmas figures and bought two different textiles and made my own tree mat using one textile as the border and one as the center piece. I even used an old bed sheet as lining under the mat ;-) I am very happy with the result.

I got tagged

2007-12-10T09:01:00.000+01:00

I was tagged by müzi some time ago, only now I have the time to write..

When I was little (ben küçükken) I was a good and silent child, I think :-) I was rather shy, didn't talk much, was mostly interested in my books and school work. When I was in elementary school whenever I had some problem with the kids in my class I called my (younger) sister and asked her to 'fix' the problem. I remember her beating up a couple of kids that were disturbing me :-) I liked being the brain behind the scenes, if you know what I mean ;-) I had a nice name among teachers that I didn't want to destroy ;-)

I am in fact (ben aslinda) still a little bit shy. I thought that I had overcome the shyness during my years in Norway, but every now and then it takes over me, like two days ago, when we were at a Lions Club dinner with my husband, the speaker was bullshitting about the school system in Tuscany, about the rights of the kids, about the number of foreign kids in schools etc and I just didn't have the guts to stand up and say exactly what I mean. Ufff... In fact I am quite good in giving public speeches, making presentations and stuff (so they say), but maybe I was afraid that my Italian was not 'good enough' (my horrible perfectionism!)? I don't know...

The first time I cheated in an exam (ilk kopyam) must be in a history exam in high school. I cannot remember well. I didn't cheat usually. I was the one who was helping others in exams. But in high school I began thinking that memorizing the exact dates of wars and treaties was a waste of time. I preferred solving a few extra maths or physics problems instead. (God, do I sound boring?)

My cellular phone (cep telefonum) is not an elongation of my body, but I do feel a bit irritated when I forget it at home, worrying that they might call from the school of the kids, or my mother may call and I cannot answer back. I do miss the time before any cell phones existed.

My most stupid characteristic (en saçma huyum) must be my perfectionism. I do not only try to do my best in anything and everything I do (from cleaning the house to writing a thesis), but I expect the same attitude also from others! This is wrong. I only disturb myself and nobody else gives a damn.

Love (ask) cannot be explained by words. If you can answer the question "why do you love him/her?", that is not real love, because for loving someone you do not need a reason, you just love. It is love when a smile appears on your face only on hearing his/her name. It is love if you feel a sudden flush of heat in your body on seeing him/her. It is love if you get goose bumps only by a little touch of his/her hands. Although I define myself as a realistic person with feet firmly placed on earth, when it comes to love I think I am an incurable romantic :-)

The blogs that I like the most (en sevdigim bloglar) are the ones that I try to follow and sometimes leave a comment.

I want to tag metin, fulya and alp&ege'nin annesi. If you were tagged before, sorry, I haven't been following the blogs very much lately...

Magical days...

2007-11-30T08:20:00.000+01:00

- It is that time of the year again.... We have to be creative! Creative in gift ideas, creative in decorating the tree, creative in finding the right food to prepare... I have a love-and-hate relationship with Christmas. I love to see all the streets with beautiful lights, the shops full of red and green stuff, people walking hastily from shop to shop trying to find that special gift for a loved one.. But I hate that I should sit and be 'creative' again in finding the right gifts for everybody. Tell me, what shall I buy for my in-laws??? What can you buy for people that have everything and that really don't have a special need or a hobby?? My father-in-law likes hunting, cooking and gardening.. Some instruments for gardening: bought, cooking utensils and books: bought, special clothes for hunting: bought already. What is left there to buy? My mother-in-law does not have any hobbies at all, also due to some problems she has she cannot knit or do other handcrafts either. She doesn't cook, it is the father who usually does the cooking. She has only her gym hours, that's all. We have bought things for a nice and comfortable bath, pullovers, candle holders, electronic photo frame (I know, not personal enough the last two). And this year?? I am really out of ideas. Oh, I shouldn't forget that I have also a brother-in-law and his wife to think about... nightmare.... What do you buy for people that you see less than five times a year??

It is very easy to choose for the kids, on the other hand. My daughter has already written her letter to Santa Claus with a loooong list of toys&co. that she would like to receive. My son is too little to even think about gifts but he is crazy for toy cars, so that is easy...

When it comes to my mother, sister and other close relatives from 'my side', I have already found the right gifts, packed them and placed them in my mother's luggage to be taken to Istanbul.

- My daughter told me a few days ago that some kids in her class don't believe in Santa Claus. They have told her that it is the parents that buy all those gifts for their children. She asked me: "But is there really a Santa Claus?". I asked back: "Do you believe in him?". She said: "Yes". "Then Santa Claus really exists", I said. "But then why do those children say that he doesn't exist??". I said: "It must be because they don't believe in magic, but you do, so Santa Claus exists".

- Yesterday morning my daughter lost another tooth. This morning, in the little tooth box that she had put her tooth in and placed under her pillow, she found two 2-euro coins! "It must be because I lost two teeth recently", she said :-) In fact, one of them was from her grandmother and only one was from the little mouse a.k.a. mother ;-) She was so worried that she would lose it on the Christmas night, because what if Santa Claus and the little mouse arrived at the same second and one was afraid of the other and ran away without leaving gifts/money??? :-) Luckily it didn't happen, she was relieved :-)

A fairy-tale from the blog world

2007-11-18T14:00:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time in a country far far away there was this 50 year old child. He was bragging about being a communications and public relations expert, but was full of bull. He had this blog where he claimed to be doing a 'service' for the big country that he was living in (which was not his own) because he was bringing people with different views on issues related to that country. He was preaching that freedom of speech was the most important thing on earth, and that country did not give that right to his people. That he was open to different ideas.... Bull, bull, and even more bull... One day one of his co-authors, the one who was always not only cleaning up the mess of his blog and his English, but also editing his articles for online dailies, did the mistake of criticizing him. Oh my God! What a mistake it was! His highness preached about freedom of speech but not everybody was entitled to have that freedom! How could a co-author criticize him??? He was the infallible, the one who was always right, the one who knew everything, the ultimate one. He could easily point out when some person was writing sensational posts in his blog, but when his co-author said the same thing about him he just couldn't take it. He got very pissed off. Began insulting the co-author. Sent threatening short messages to her mobile phone. Left threatening voice-messages claiming that she had blocked him from his own blog!! He was so ignorant that he didn't know that a co-author has no administrative rights on a blog other than posting. In the mean time the co-author did not even respond to his rootless claims and threats. She just canceled her authorship from the blog of that arrogant child and left. The threats lasted two days. After some time the arrogant blog-owner who could not tolerate to be criticized and therefore was spreading nonsense rumors about his co-author, sent a message of apology to the mobile phone of the co-author saying that he was wrong in thinking that she had blocked him from his own blog. She did not respond to that message either. Some weeks passed after these episodes until someone on his blog has asked him what happened to the co-author, why she is not posting any more. And the shameless arrogant child who claimed to be an expert in communications answered, lying: "She could not handle some critics and as a co administrator, before she left, she took all my administrator features away. So I can not change one thing on this blog." Lie no.1: It was not she who couldn't handle critics but him. Lie no. 2: She was not a co-admin but a co-author of that blog. The x-co-author had no idea how the arrogant communications expert had lost his admin privileges on his own blog, all she could do was guess. He was either too high or too drunk to remember what he had done that day and did something wrong while he was playing with the settings of his blog.. She could not believe the ease the 50 year old child was lying about things and spreading lies about someone who had done nothing but helped him in the past (which she regretted dearly). The x-co-author had a clean conscience knowing that her only mistake was having helped someone she did not know well. All she wanted was that her name and e-mail address were removed from the blog of the arrogant 50 year old child....

The lessons we get from this fairy-tale:
- Never help people that you do not very well, on internet.
- Stay away from people who claim to be communication experts. They can be experts in lying.
- Never believe in everything you read in a blog/comments of a blog without questioning the facts it claims to be giving. If these 'facts' are about 'people', ask those 'people' first before making judgments about them. There can be a totally different story behind the so-called facts that are offered to you.

Disclaimer: As the title says this is a fairy tale, told to give some lessons. Any resemblance to actual people or events are only coincidental.

In sickness and health

2007-11-13T08:39:00.000+01:00

- I was sick yesterday. So sick that I didn't even get near my computer, think! :-) On Sunday we went out to see the fresh oil from the little producers around our area. There, around the stands, we ate something prepared over the grill. We think that we got poisoned by the things we ate. I spent the whole night between the bedroom and bathroom. Iris was also sick but she survived by not eating anything and my husband managed to go to work although he wasn't feeling well. Luckily my son and my mother didn't eat from the same thing and they were saved. I spent the whole day yesterday in bed. Today I am feeling fine again.

- I need urgent help. I should buy a present for a friend of ours who is celebrating her 40th birthday this weekend. I think that it should be a personal present, but I am having trouble deciding what could be the best thing to buy. Any ideas???

- I added a new link to the blogs that I follow, take a peek: talk turkey.

Halloween; the chocolate shop

2007-11-03T17:50:00.000+01:00

Halloween is over. Iris was so excited about Halloween this year. She wanted a witch's outfit, but was content with only a hat & wig :-) For the first time we bought a pumpkin and carved it to put a candle inside and placed it out in our balcony. We did a trial of the outfit and the pumpkin the day before Halloween.

On 31st when we came home from school, she changed in her black clothes, put her wig and the hat, took the broom in her hand and was ready to knock on the door of our downstairs neighbor. Sander was dressed all in red; was the little devil :-) He cleaned the floor of the neighbor's kitchen with his sister's broom :-)

Yesterday I was in a dream shop for all chocolate lovers: Slitti Café, in Monsummano (Pistoia). You enter the shop and begin breathing in coffee and chocolate. They produce different types of chocolate and offer quality coffee. On the walls there were the clips of newspaper articles in different languages about Slitti products. They are world famous. I couldn't help taking a couple of pictures in the shop.

On their coffee stand there was a bag of very particular coffee beans: the kopi luwak, the most expensive coffee in the world. On the information leaflet it said that kopi luwak is the rarest coffee, which originates from the Sumatra island and is produced in very small quantities. It is nothing but coffee berries eaten and passed through the digestive system of a local animal called luwak. This animal goes during the night into the best coffee plantations and feeds on the sweetest and ripest berries selecting them one by one. The gastric juices that favor its digestion create a fermentation process that is absolutely unique for coffee, thus explaining its totally different and original taste. The beans, once swallowed and then expelled by this small marsupial, are collected from earth in these plantations and then disinfected, the coats containing the beans are broken and beans washed, dried and packed into 20 kg bags. The taste of the coffee from these beans is extremely thick, characterized by a flavor of cacao, aromatic herbs and bitter orange marmalade.

After reading this I took a last look at the bag containing the kopi luwak beans, with a price tag of over 600 Euros a kg. I don't think I will be able to taste that coffee, even if it is offered for free....

Traveling again..

2007-10-25T14:28:00.000+02:00

We are going to Canada! Me and my husband, alone again, in Canada, meeting our friends and my sister. We always wanted to go there one day, and last year, right after Christmas, we decided that it was enough doing the same things every year: the family lunch, opening the presents, eating until we die... We decided that next year would be different, that we would travel, alone, far... to Canada. During the year there have been some periods that made me think that we wouldn't make this travel after all. But finally, two days ago, we bought our tickets, so it is for real, we are going. We will leave Florence on 23rd of December and will be back home on 3rd of January. I am so excited. It is rather far, we haven't traveled so far since our honeymoon (which was in Mauritius), and I am afraid it will be cold there. But hey, I managed to live for 10 years in Norway, I should be able to survive a mere 10 days in Canada, no? ;-)

Toronto, get ready, here we come :-P

Facebook brings back old memories

2007-10-19T13:46:00.000+02:00

Some weeks back I have been introduced to facebook.. I don't even remember by whom, but it became an addiction now. I found so many old friends that I didn't have any contact for many years. I found even two of my elementary school friends G.T. and M.S., and with G.T. we began exchanging messages, talking about our other classmates...

I attended Zühtüpasa Ilkokulu (now the name changed to Zühtüpasa Ilkogretimokulu; before elementary school was for 5 years, now they increased it to 8 years eliminating middle schools which were 3 years and thus making 8 years of education obligatory for everyone, which is a good thing) in Istanbul, from 1975 to 1980. We had a middle aged female teacher Z.S. who was not embarrassed to wash the brains of her little pupils by making them repeat the name of the then prime minister, evidently from her favorite political party. I had come to the conclusion that it was high time she got herself a pair of glasses when, on one occasion in 1975, she asked 'whose mother are you?' to my cousin who was, then, only 12 years old!!! She had her daughter Y. in our school, too, a little, roundish, always-smiling girl. All in all Z.S. was not a bad teacher, but we all hated her when she, in our last year of elementary school, asked for going on retirement, leaving us with a new teacher in the last months of our time in that school.

I don't remember the exact number of pupils in our class, which varied from one year to the next, with some leaving and some others coming in, but it must be a number around 30.. I should admit that I cannot remember all of them. My best friend was E.A., I shared a desk with her. She was a silent girl, rather tall for her age, and I considered her as my little sister since she was only one month older than my real sister (me and my sister have only 11 months difference in age, born in the same calender year actually). She came from a family with three children, with one older sister and a younger brother. Her father was a merchant of fabrics and I remember her mother made for her kids clothes from those fabrics as well... Her father was rather traditional/religious though her mother didn't carry the headscarf. E.A. had quite often ear-infections. She wore glasses. I don't remember which middle/high school she attended after graduation, but I know that she was studying medicine later at the university. We saw each other a couple of times, then lost contact. I had heard that she had begun using a headscarf. I don't know where she is now, or what she is doing, whether she is still 'covered' or not... But I still remember where she lived when we first met, and the apartment they bought years after and moved with her family; I had been invited to both.

Then there was S.Y., one of the two girls that were both called S. (the other one was S.T.; I will come back to her later). S.Y. had beautiful eyes, I remember. She had a little brother which, years later, attended my high-school. S.Y. was sitting at the desk that was orthogonal to mine, on my right hand side (we used to put three desks together, two facing each other, and a third one orthogonal to those on one of their shorter sides thus forming an 'island' with 6 pupils), with the only boy of our 'island' next to her. I considered her a beauty. She had long straight hair, I had short curly. She had colored eyes, I had dark brown. I wore glasses, she didn't. I liked her a lot and thought that if I were a boy, I would choose her as my girlfriend :-) I know that she attended an all girls school after elementary school, as G.T. and S.V. two other girls of our class. S.Y. was studying journalism at the university, if I am not mistaken. Now I have learned from my friend G.T. that she is married and has a family.

S.V. was the only blond of our island. She had long blond hair, light colored eyes (however, I cannot remember the real color of her eyes). She had a younger brother, M. Her father had a patisserie, 'lucky her' I thought ;-) Think that she could eat all the chocolate, the cakes and sweets she wanted, whenever she wanted. I think her father still has that patisserie at the same spot as it was over 30 years ago. They used to live near a pharmacy that my parents took me to get injections whenever they were prescribed by our doctor. Afterwards they bought a new apartment in a tall building nearer to our house. G.T. told me that S.V. is also married now and has a family. I don't know if she is working and what she has studied at the university.

Next to S.V. there sat a tiny girl, S.B., who seemed so thin and delicate that I was afraid she would break if I held her arm. She always spoke with a very low voice, she was very shy. She lived on a street right across the school. If I don't remember wrong there were some issues in her family, and I caught her crying many times. She got sick very easily and was away for long periods due to her sicknesses. I felt like her protector; not that I had done anything for her as a protector, but I felt that she needed protection. I would love to know where she is now, and how her life turned out to be...

The only boy of our island, M., was a silent boy as well. I don't remember much of him, not even his surname...

There was one girl, D.A., very thin, tall, most of the time with short hair, very straight hair. She wasn't in my circle of friends, and I didn't have much to do with her then. But later, after many years our paths crossed in an awkward way.. I knew that she was studying law since my sister had met her many times at the law faculty of Istanbul University. I was seeing her brother H., who was two years older, at my university in Istanbul, and I had heard that he had gone to Norway to study, as I had done a few years later.. During my first year in Norway I met a Turkish guy with whom I shared the kitchen at the dormitory, and I began to be quite fond of him. He wasn't interested in me, but that didn't matter ;-) He was a graduate of Bogaziçi University, my old university in Istanbul, and was studying towards a master's degree in sociology in Bergen. That same year when I went to Istanbul during X-mas vacation I went to visit my friends at my old university, and was sitting at one of the cafes, when this guy entered (not totally unexpected for me because I was hoping to see him there, I knew that it was his favorite cafe) hand-in-hand with D.A.!!! Do I need to try to explain how I felt?? :-) I don't know how but they knew each other and apparently it was more than friendship. I pretended not to see him and not to recognize my classmate from elementary school. After that incident I didn't even think about D.A. let alone ask anything to our 'common' friend about her. This week I learned from G.T. that D.A. had become a very good lawyer, that she has a son and is probably divorced.

D.A. was the best friend of A.E.A., another nice and silent girl in our class. If I am not mistaken she had an older brother, and she had lost her father quite early. I know which high school she attended afterwards, but no more than that...

D.K. was a very cute little girl, with huge, sparkling, dark eyes, and she was ready to smile all the time. She began school with some days' delay because she was visiting her aunt who lived in the USA. Now, that was something, having an aunt in USA :-) She had an older brother, in the same class with the brother of D.A. She wasn't particularly smart, but she was loved, because she was really sweet. Many many years later, when I moved to Florence, I was looking for a translator for my wedding ceremony, and I met a girl at the honorary Turkish counsel's office. After some hours of talking with my new friend we found out that D.K. was her cousin! The world is small, or what! She told me that D.K. didn't study after high school, went through a wrong marriage, divorced, and now is married again with a good guy, and is still in Istanbul.

G.T. was one of the hard-working and silent girls of our class. I remember her always with a smile on her face. I found her on facebook a few days ago, and seeing her pictures I should say that she hasn't changed much. She still has that nice and kind smile. She has become an engineer and is working at the same company for 12 years now. I cannot believe that such an intelligent and nice girl is not married yet. Hey guys, what are you waiting for??? Oh, I know, being nice is out, being a bitch is in nowadays ;-) If you are too good, they don't like you....

M.S. is the cousin of G.T. and he was also in our class. I remember him with his roundish glasses, and I remember his sister, N., who was in my sister's class. Some years ago, during one of my trips to Istanbul, I saw a picture of M.S. next to his article in a newspaper . He has become a journalist, a very successful one. I was so proud to see that a classmate of mine had become a loved figure in Turkey.

Then there was T.G., a not-so-thin boy, with dark hair and dark eyes, one of the most hardworking ones like myself ;-) I felt that there was some kind of a race between the two of us. I was playing mandolin and he was playing the guitar. If he was the class-head, I was the vice-head, or the other way round. I remember him saying 'you are my secretary, since I am the head, you should do as I tell you' :-) His grandmother used to live in an apartment just across ours and when he visited her we went out to the balcony and waved at each other. If I am not mistaken his mother was working and it was usually his grandmother that came to take him from school. Later he also had a sister, E. After elementary school he was also successful in the high-school entrance exams and got in to a French school. I lost track of him afterwards.

I liked a boy more than the others. His name was K., and even though I try hard, I cannot remember his surname. The only think I remember about that boy is that his mother always went around with dark glasses. Rumor said that she had two different colored eyes, one brown and one blue. Isn't it strange that about the person I cared most I remember the least?

G.T. reminded me of a boy named T. I think it was that boy with the open ears and open mouth .. His saliva was running all the time, right G.T??

The last year of school we had a new friend in our class, from Van. He was so different then all the kids that I was used to seeing around me. He seemed so rough, so macho. One day he made me very angry and I cannot remember why, but I was really furious, so furious that I wanted to hit him. But I knew that he was stronger than me, and he was from the east, meaning that most probably he didn't know how to treat girls and could hit me back, so I needed to find a way to hit him and get away with it. When our teacher entered the classroom after the break, everybody sat at their desks and this guy was standing next to the teacher, talking, I just got on to my feet, ran to him, hit him many times on his arms, crying, and went back to my seat. I cannot forget the surprise on the face of our teacher who would never expect anything like that from me, the pupil of her eye, and to tell the truth, neither did I.... :-)

Well, folks, if you also want to dwell in old memories come and join us in facebook. Who knows, maybe we are related, as friends of friends of friends..... ;-)

The 187th page

2007-10-11T08:41:00.000+02:00

There is some kind of game going on among the Turkish bloggers... They write about a specific thing, like the cities that they have been to/want to go to/want to live in, or 3 recipes that they have tried, or some other stuff and they call 3 (5) other bloggers which are supposed to write about the same thing. I have been called by Alp&Ege'nin annesi to write what stands on the 187th page of the book that I am reading these days.

I usually read many books in parallel (I am so used to doing parallel computing ;-) ). But right now I only have one book (and many magazines) on the table next to my bed: Leyla'nin Evi (Leyla's House), by Zülfü Livaneli. It is about Istanbul, about three people who do not know each other, whose lives would normally not cross. They belong to different worlds. But something causes them to get involved in each other's lives.. Zülfü Livaneli is one of my favorite authors and I loved this novel, too.

On the 187th page (which I was reading last night, by the way) there is a very short paragraph of three sentences. It finishes as: "Cünkü ne de olsa adab-i muaseret kurallarini bilen koklü bir aileden geliyordu." (I do not translate, sorry)

Other than this book the magazine that is always in my hands nowadays is the 2008 catalog of IKEA, and on its 187th page there are furnitures for children.

Now I want to pass the torch to B5, müzi and archi*sugar.

I am back! (not that I have been gone anywhere, but...)

2007-10-09T14:44:00.000+02:00

It has been 4 weeks since my latest post. Well, if you can consider that a post, only two lines where I am sending you to another blog so that you can read something that I had written..

I have been extremely busy these weeks. First of all my little one began going to daycare. He had a period of insertion in the system, where the duration of stay at the school increased day by day and finally since last week he began staying at school from 8:30 in the morning until 16:30, nearly 17:00. He had no problem in going to school, meeting new people, both adults and kids like himself. He is a very independent little boy, just like his sister. No crying when we leave him at school, no crying when he falls while playing... They say that he eats everything (and in abundance) at lunch and snack time. He is a very good boy indeed. He is so sweet that during his first week one of the little girls in his group wanted to 'taste' him, and gave him a big bite on his left cheek! The teachers said that he was left there in awe without knowing what to do. He went around with a round blue mark on his cheek for a week after the incident.

Then, of course, began our sicknesses.. First me, with stomach-aches, sneezes, coughs.. It lasted two weeks. Afterwards it was Sander's turn. Poor him, he had an ear infection, he couldn't go to school for an entire week and had to use antibiotics. Now he seems to be fine.

And last, but not the least, important thing on my agenda was finding a job. I have been searching on the net every single day. I got contacted by two people, who wanted to discuss job opportunities with me. One of them was for a job in Ireland, so I just had to forget about it. But the second one is here in Italy, although it is not in Florence, it is close by. Today I had to do a programming test for this position. It works like this. They send you a problem that needs to be solved algorithmically, and coded, run on the data set that they include in their mail. Then, everything that is produced (i.e. the algorithm, the code and the output) needs to be mailed back to them in 3 hours. Well, when you have only 3 hours you cannot do much. Luckily they didn't expect me to find an optimal algorithm for the problem, but just any solution. I only had time to write the code, compile it and get rid of any compilation errors, and then write my assumptions and sketch the algorithm for the solution. I didn't have enough time to debug the code, which, right now, is not finding a solution to the problem, but with a few hours' work would work just fine. I wonder what they wanted to see with this test... Now the ball is in their hands.. I am waiting for their next step.

I will try to write again here every now and then. By the way, I have already begun writing the rest of our vacation in France, but didn't get the chance to finish it yet.

I am guilty

2007-09-13T16:07:00.000+02:00

... of not writing here, on my own blog, but posting over there. Check out my pasta news if you want to see an old photo of mine (from 1999), or this one to learn some maths ;-)

Vacation in France, part 1

2007-09-08T14:10:00.000+02:00

On 31st of July we left Florence at 15.00 and went directly to San Remo, a small town by the sea (famous for the national music festival that takes place every year in March if I am not mistaken) near the French border. Since we arrived at 20.00 after two episodes of Sander vomiting in the car (only a few hundreds of meters away from our friends' house) we couldn't see the town center but watched the beautiful sea from the terrace of the house instead. The house was quite strange, built on a hill right by the sea, with many levels and stairs everywhere inside and outside. The rooms were maybe biggish but fitted on a strange plan, the workmanship not good, kitchen too little for the size of the house etc. Anyway, the view of the terrace was beautiful, and we were there only for the night, with no intention of buying the house ;-)

Before I tell about our next day I should mention one of the dishes that was served by our friends that night: raw tuna fish. I was skeptical at first but then I thought about sushi and said 'why not'. It was delicious and very easy to prepare (I prepared it for the first time two days ago).

Raw tuna fish
Cut the fish in (roughly) 3 mm thick squares of 3 cm long edges. Then place the fish pieces in very salty water, salty like the sea-water, for about 15-20 minutes. Afterwards take the pieces out of the water and let all the water run out. Season with extra virgin olive oil only (no lemon juice!). The fish prepared this way is to be served with freshly diced tomatoes and basil. Absolutely finger-licking delicious :-)

☀☀☀

OK, going back to our trip. On the morning of 1st of August we woke up, got ready, had a cup of coffee and some cookies, thanked for the hospitality of our friends and set out for France. We tried to choose the less curvy roads on the navigator so that the little one didn't vomit and the mother (that would be me) didn't get all dizzy and sick in the stomach, but my husband also bought some anti-seasickness chewing gum and syrup 'just in case' (which proved to be very helpful all through the vacation, in fact).

Our first stop was Monte Carlo. If you are traveling to France from Italy following the sea you cannot (and should not) avoid a stop in Monte Carlo. When you enter the city you begin breathing in 'money'. The luxury cars, the buildings, casino signs here and there... You also get the feeling that the space is scarce seeing all the tall buildings glued to each other, parking places all underground, streets quite narrow.. Then you slowly swirl down the hill following the Formula 1 tracks. I felt like I was in the Monte Carlo car race simulator when I recognized most of the streets, the buildings, the tunnels.. While I was turning my head continuously to the right and left trying not to miss anything I noticed that I had lost the chance of taking the picture of the famous casino building :-( But then we were already in the harbor area and we decided to park the car so that we could take a walk and get a bite; it was already noon and we had two hungry monsters in the back.

The boats, well yachts (or 'floating villas' might be the right description of what we saw), in the harbor were amazing.. We even witnessed some rich guy being delivered his new yacht. Not that we want a floating skyscraper, but an 11ft sailboat wouldn't be bad to own one day ;-) Anyway, dreams aside, Monte Carlo is a beautiful rich city, a vision to the eyes, a nightmare for your pocket.. We sat at a cafe in the harbor area, ordered a toast, a crepe and a hot-dog (see the size of that hot-dog in the photo below!) and some things to drink, ending up paying as if we had eaten at a restaurant in Italy. The parking bill was of the same caliber as well. So, we ran out of Monte Carlo before finishing all our money in the first 48 hours of our vacation and got back to France.

Our target for the day was Grasse. We decided not to take the highway so that we can see around, hence we took the road that runs parallel to the sea line. The next city on our route was Nice. When we entered the city from the suburbs I was shocked, to tell the truth. It was far from my imaginations... no different than the suburbs of any other big city, lots of road work here and there, a lot of foreigners, quite ordinary architecture... We rushed through Nice without getting out of the car, but of course we went all the way to the esplanade, driving slowly, watched the beautiful buildings, the beaches, the prestigious hotels, people walking lazily under the sun.

The thing that I began noticing everywhere we went in France was the flowers on and off the streets. There were flowers hanging down light poles, there were flowers in the middle of the large avenues, there were flowers at the intersections.. everywhere... really beautiful.

After Nice we continued on the seaside road and decided to stop at Antibes. It was nothing special. We just went for a walk in the town and by the sea for an hour or so and had to go back to the car and go directly to Grasse since it was already afternoon and we had no place to stay for the night. We drove inland this time and arrived at Grasse, but continued driving in order to find a hotel. After a few inquiries at the hotels we found on the road we chose to stay in St. Vallier, at a little hotel. Our room was on the top floor, with two French beds (my God, how little those beds are). We had to sleep each with one kid that night.

Our day ended at a restaurant, well a small dining place which I wouldn't know how to call, in the village. We took a table outside, under a huge tree and did eat quite well but we were dying of laughter when we were first given the menu. Why? Because there were 'lawyers with shrimp sauce cocktail' and 'ice children' :-) These were the exact words written in the English language menu, believe me! I tried to take the photo of the menu but partly because it was covered with a plastic layer and partly because the waiter took it away from me fast when she noticed what I was doing, that it didn't come out very well. Look below :-)

It turns out that both 'lawyer' and 'avocado' are 'avocat' in French, and whoever had translated the French menu into English must have just gotten the French-English dictionary, looked for 'avocat' and wrote the first word that appeared next to it: lawyer. 'Ice children' was the English for 'ice cream for children' by the way :-)

More about France soon...

The Austrian experience

2007-08-31T14:04:00.000+02:00

Finally the vacations are over. I was bored of filling and emptying luggage, doing the laundry and ironing.. :-P
The last leg of our summer vacation was the best. Me and Gabriele had a great time in Austria. Our hotel was in the state of Carinthia, more specifically at Katschberg, in Spittal. It is a little mountain village with a few hotels specialized in summer and winter vacation packages for families with kids. It is a definite paradise for families really. All the hotels have animation for kids during the day and in the evening, plus special menu at their restaurants, family rooms equipped with kitchen stuff to prepare food for babies etc. There are ski-schools and ski-kindergartens for the winter season as well. We are thinking of returning there one winter with our kids.
In addition to all the kid oriented stuff each hotel has some kind of spa, with swimming pools and whirlpools, different kinds of baths, beauty treatments and massages. The weekly package that we have bought included some massages and treatments, too: hot-chocolate massage, classical upper-body massage, 10 minutes of solarium and half an hour in the hay-bed. We did them all and added some others to the list: hot stone massage, lymph drainage, facial treatment and, the best of all, lomi lomi nui. Lomi lomi nui was a great experience that lasted 1,5 hours with Hawaiian music in the background, relaxing smell of the massage oil and the able hands of the masseur. I would definitely recommend it to people that want absolute relaxation.
Apart from spending a lot of time in the swimming pool and the spa (I miss the hammam and sauna, and lying down on the rocking beds in the silent relaxation areas, sipping my green tea and reading a stupid magazine) we went for long walks every day either at Katschberg, on the hills, or nearby locations. It was extremely green everywhere we went. The forests were full of all kinds of berries. I have no idea how much I ate everyday during our walks. I just couldn't help myself from stopping to get nearly each and every berry around the walking tracks.

One day we went to St.Michael, down the ski tracks of Katschberg, a little village with its typical wooden houses all covered with colorful flowers hanging down the balconies. The park in the photo below was in St. Michael.
On a rainy day we went to Spittal, just for an hour or so. On our way to Spittal we stopped at Gmünd to visit a private museum: Porsche Automuseum of Helmut Pfeifhofer. Did you know that although Porsche GmbH was founded in Stuttgart in 1931 it was building cars in Gmünd during the 2° World War and moved back to Stuttgart later in the early 1950s?

We even tried something new in Austria, for the very first time in our lives: golf. There was one hour of free golf lesson at the nearby golf club on our first day and we decided to give it a try. Watch the video below and see how it went for me :-P I did enjoy it, but I should warn you, I couldn't feel my arms that evening. It was tough :-)

It was a wonderful week in Austria. We came to the conclusion that we have to repeat these vacations-for-two whenever we get the chance.. to keep our sanity ;-)

Soon I will write about our 10 days in France. Keep checking this page ;-)

Came back, going again...

2007-08-17T09:16:00.000+02:00

I am in between two vacations, again. Came back from France last week Thursday, and leaving for Austria tomorrow. This time alone with my husband. Will be back after a week. I will write all about our vacation in France when the vacations are over, in September that is. In the mean time you can take a look at my first observations about France here. I will be having massages and doing Nordic walking next week :-)

Bye!

On the road again

2007-07-30T09:50:00.000+02:00

It is the end of July and here in Italy August is the month of vacation. So, tomorrow we are also leaving for our summer vacation. Target: France. Plan: no plan, as usual. We like just packing our luggage and driving off. The only thing we know about our vacation this year is that tomorrow night we will sleep at a friend's house in San Remo, then on Wednesday we will pass over the border to France. We want to see mainly Provence. We have no idea how long we will be gone, and where we will make our stops. This means that I won't be able to write anything here until September. I will of course have my computer with me, I cannot travel without a computer, badly addicted ;-) Since we are planning to stay at little bed&breakfast hotels or farm houses I don't think we will have much Internet access.

I wish a beautiful vacation to all that are planning to go on vacation. Until September, bye!

Chocolate+Basil=Delicious!

2007-07-25T19:55:00.000+02:00

I just have to give you this recipe of a delicious double chocolate cake that I learned and tried out on Sunday. Sunday, around lunch time, I was watching the news on an Italian TV channel and during the news there was a cook that gave the recipe of a cake that was to be cooked in microwave oven. It sounded very interesting because the cooking time was only 8 minutes. I didn't write down the recipe, nor did the cook give a real recipe with measurements of the ingredients. I only watched what he did. When I learned that my in-laws would pay a visit to us later that day, and that it was our wedding anniversary I decided to bake this cake so that we could celebrate our 7 years of marriage with our visitors in the afternoon. I need to warn you: if you are not used to improvising and/or measuring the ingredients 'with your eyes' rather then liters/cups and stuff, don't read it ;-) Oh, one more thing: your microwave oven should have the crisp function. Here it goes:

Put butter and bitter chocolate pieces in a bowl that can go in the microwave and melt at 160 watts for 2 minutes. I didn't have bitter chocolate at home, so I skipped that ingredient. If they do not melt thoroughly in 2 minutes, leave them a bit longer at the same power. In a big bowl whisk (don't use a hand blender) 4 eggs and sugar for about 1 minute. I added about one and a half 'small water glass' of sugar, though I usually use not that much sugar in my cakes I added that extra half a glass since I didn't have the chocolate which would have contributed to the sugar content of the cake. Add in a pinch of salt, baking powder, dark cacao powder, a little bit of all purpose flour and mix well. I used one small water glass of flour. Mix in some milk. I didn't measure my milk, just poured in from the bottle as much as I thought was necessary. Finally add the melted butter and chocolate in the batter. The result will be not thick and not excessively liquid. One important last-minute ingredient: fresh basil leaves. Wash some fresh basil leaves and add the shredded basil into the batter. Grease the crisp tray of your microwave oven and cover it with flour as well. Pour in the batter and bake using the crisp function for 8 minutes. Your cake is ready in circa 15 minutes, preparation time included. You can serve it with whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream, garnished with fresh basil leaves. I am planning to bake it again using bitter chocolate with chilly, mmmmm...

Buon appetito!

An entrepreneur is born

2007-07-23T11:37:00.000+02:00

Since yesterday my little daughter decided to earn some money and began working (!). She decided to sell her drawings and paintings :-) Her first exhibition was on the coffee table in our living room. She put little labels on each painting with the price in Euro. Some paintings had two labels with two different prices. We asked her why they had two different prices. 'The buyer can choose which price to pay', was her answer :-) She first forced my mother to buy two paintings. Then my husband bought 5 paintings, so she was very happy. I bought one only, and she gave me another one as gift, since she had to open more space on the table to put more paintings :-) After selling each piece she sat down and 'produced' more to sell. She even 'ordered' one painting to my mother, told her what to paint and where on the paper, and when the work was done she added also that one to her collection on the table with a price tag: 100 Euro! :-) In the afternoon when my in-laws paid a short visit to us they couldn't escape the 'pressure' and bought two paintings, one of which was the one that my mother made (no, they didn't pay 100 Euro, they did a hard bargain and ended up paying a few Euros only). Right now my little one is waiting in the garden, her paintings in her hand, that our neighbor downstairs returns home from her daily jogging tour so that she can sell some paintings also to her.... When we ask her what she will do with all that money she says that she will put some in her bank account, and she will buy ice-cream and frozen yogurt with the rest...

A new blog..

2007-07-18T17:01:00.000+02:00

As of today I am the co-author of the blog Internations Musings: Istanbul, Florence and Athens, originally of Hans A.H.C. de Wit, the husband of a dear friend of mine, Ozlem.

For a while I have been editing the postings, correcting a mistake here and there without touching the essence of the posts, nor changing the style. Now I will try to write some stuff also myself every now and then.

Don't forget to check our blog when you have time :-)

Vacation at Giannella

2007-07-17T11:55:00.000+02:00

We are back. We came back Saturday around noon after a 2,5 hours drive under the heat.

Vacation was nice, it is always nice. But I cannot say that I could rest much. I had my mother with me, yet she was not much help since she has some problem with one of her knees. She had to sit, put her leg up and put ice on her knee everyday. She couldn't walk much either. Unfortunately this year our apartment was in one of the rear corners of the housing complex, so we had to walk a bit to get to the beach, which, for me, was great. Everyday I had to cook, wash the dishes (by hand), wash some clothes/bed-sheets/towels (by hand), take care of the kids, play with them in the sea, wash them when we returned from the beach, clean the house, tidy the house, shortly do everything that I usually do at home and more (like cleaning the house, or washing the dishes and clothes by hand, that I don't do at home). I was so exhausted at the end of the day that every evening I went to bed around 21.30!!! This means that I didn't manage to keep a diary as I planned to do before traveling. I used my computer only to listen to music, play some DVDs for the kids or transfer the photos from my camera, that's all.

Anyway, let me make a summary of our two weeks down in Giannella (Orbetello). This year we wanted an apartment with garden. They have given us a two bedroom apartment, one room with a double bed, the other one with two single beds and in the living-room a sofa-bed for two. So we had more than enough place to sleep. The living-room was spacious with a kitchen-corner and a big dining-table. The garden was quite big, with huge pine trees, and a big charcoal grill. There were porches both on the front and back part of the apartment and we used the table out in the back porch for dining instead of eating inside.

The housing complex is only a few meters away from the sea, separated from the sea by a road. The beach is quite large and sandy, a dream for all the mothers of little kids :-) My children were making sand castles, opening wells, lying down and rolling around on the beach non-stop, when I managed to take them out of the water, that is ;-)

The second week also my in-laws rented an apartment there and we were at the beach all together everyday. I don't know if this was good or bad for me.. I had a bit more time for myself, for lying down under the sun and reading my magazines since they helped me take care of the kids, but the kids became more spoiled and unmanageable as a result of their presence, as is the case most of time when the grandparents are around.

All in all it was a nice change for us, we all got a nice tan and had fun for two weeks.

Now about Giannella and surroundings. Giannella is a fraction of Orbetello, a town in the province of Grosseto in Tuscany. Orbetello is situated on a tongue of land projecting westward into a lagoon which is enclosed on the west and south by two long narrow sandy spits, and on the seaward (southwest) side by the peninsula of Monte Argentario. One of these long and narrow sandy spits is Giannella. On one side of the land you find the salty lagoon, on the other side the sea and in the middle of the two there is the road that connects mainland to the peninsula of Mount Argentario. The sea has a fine sandy base, always crystal clear (you see the little fish and crabs practically on the shore) and quite shallow, so it is a paradise for families with little children (that is one of the main reasons I chose this place for our vacation). Giannella is situated at the mid-point of Orbetello and Porto Santo Stefano, an old little fishing center now an important vacation point and the port from which you can take ferries to the Giglio and Giannutri islands. Another little port in the peninsula of Mt. Argentario is Porto Ercole, a charming fishing and holiday site. All of these beautiful places are located in the southern coastal part of Tuscany called Maremma.

I would recommend the coast of Tuscany for your summer vacations. We prefer this coast to the Adriatic coast of Italy mainly because it is less crowded, the coastline is beautiful with rocky and sandy beaches addressing different tastes, there are pine tree forests combining the freshness of the blue with the relaxing effect of green.... Quite a poetic scenery indeed...

PS. I began writing this post yesterday morning and can finish only now. It is really difficult to find time for myself with two monsters around me the whole day. You bet I am looking forward to September when both of them will be at school the whole day ;-)

Just a short note

2007-06-28T00:36:00.000+02:00

My mother arrived yesterday, everybody is happy, everything is fine.

I have to make the luggage and bags until Friday evening. Saturday morning we are off to the seaside. We rented an apartment for two weeks, so I won't be around until the middle of July. There I don't have Internet access.

I intend to take my computer with me and try to write some things in the evenings, hoping to post them when I am back home.

Anybody wondering where we will be? Around here.

Berlin, last days

2007-06-23T13:14:00.000+02:00

Yesterday morning after writing my post here I went out and went to the Turkish jewellery shop walking but taking a different route this time. I got the bracelet for my son and chose a pair of earrings for my daughter. She doesn't have her ears pierced yet, and I am sure on receiving this gift she will insist on piercing them soon, but I don't intend to do it for some years.

The Turkish shop owner was not there yesterday morning and I had to speak German with the two ladies. It was fun because I managed to make myself understood. I should create more occasions like this to practice my one-and-only non-practiced language. The day before, at the reception, I spoke some Norwegian and I was happy to see that I haven't forgotten that either. I should note down in my to-do list: a trip to Norway, soon, just to practice my language, what else?? :-P

After the jewellery shop I went into one of the Turkish grocery shops. They had practically everything from Turkey. Meat, cheese, salami, butter, yufka, canned vegetables, everything you can think of. I thought I was in heaven :-) But I didn't buy that much, only 4 packages of yufka (to freeze), a big can of feta cheese, a package of kasar cheese, two packages of olives (green and black), a package of thin bulgur (my mother makes delicious kisir with that) and a jar of hot paprika paste to be eaten with fresh bread, mmmmm... :-)

My hands were full with the heavy bags so I took a taxi and went back to my hotel to leave the stuff before going out again. It was fun to get out of the taxi in front of this fancy hotel with two plastic bags full of food ;-) The hotel was surrounded by a lot of policemen and men in black suits yesterday. Since we arrived there has been a EU conference in our hotel. Everyday we met people representing different countries of the EU, some at secretary some at Ministry level and yesterday was even more hectic with all the black BMWs and AUDIs with special plates parked all around the hotel area. Just when I was leaving two guys with professional film cameras in their hands were entering the hotel. I wonder what happened after I left.....

I walked to the Philharmonic Hall where the conference was, then down to Potzdamer Platz to meet Gabriele and Andrea. We had some lively discussion about the Italian husbands and their Mediterranean wives, and the problems that these wives have in Italy and how the husbands should deal with those problems, without any conclusion, as usual ;-) We ate our lunch in the few seconds during which we were listening to each other during the discussion. Afterwards Andrea went back to the conference and I took Gabriele for a tour. We visited the Sony center, admired the huge High Definition LCD and Plasma TVs, the new High Definition photo cameras and camcorders. Then we went to the Legoshop and got some Lego bricks for Iris (or for us?).

I made him walk for over an hour and took him to KaDeWe, the shopping center. Not that I wanted to do more shopping, but I wanted also him to see and enjoy this beautiful place. We first visited the floor where they have all types of delicacies from around Europe.. Chocolates, salamis and prosciuttos, pastries, wine, beer... We had to stop at the Lindt corner, our favorite chocolate. We took bitter chocolate with different flavors, with chili, sour cherry, lime, guava... I can hardly wait to try them all. By the way, the one with sour cherry and chilly (together) is Delicious!

After the travel into food land we went up to the top floor, the Wintergarten, with a ceiling of glass.. Watching the view of Berlin we sipped our huge glasses of weiss bier, and met our friend from Macedonia. Later, leaving her there in the chocolate corner, we went out and continued window shopping until we both became dizzy with all the colors, clothes and people around us. We ran back to our hotel to relax.. We finished the day (and our stay in Berlin) with a light dinner at a Greek restaurant which is right in front of our hotel.

This morning after then breakfast Gabriele went to the conference and I am here writing this post.. I began making our luggage in the morning. Now I will go up and finish packing. We will check out of the hotel at 14 and will be off to the airport. Tonight we will arrive Florence late in the evening and tomorrow we will get our children. God, we missed them!

Berlin, the 1st and 2nd days

2007-06-22T11:42:00.000+02:00

On our first day in Berlin (Wednesday) the sun was shining and it was quite hot. Gabriele went to the conference early in the morning and I got a map from the reception and began walking. My aim was to go to the Turkish area and see what they have to offer :-)

For the ones that are familiar with Berlin, our hotel is in Budapester strasse. I began walking towards the south east from our hotel, towards Kreuzberg, the Turkish part. Not after long I began seeing the first ladies with the headscarves and the first Turkish cafe shops (kahvehane) with men sitting inside drinking tea and playing cards! Just like in Turkey! Then the number of the shops that had Turkish names increased and the Turkish jewellery shops appeared, then came the Turkish groceries with all the colorful and fresh vegetables placed outside, and the salesmen shouting as they do in the Turkish markets, only this time in German. I entered in one of the Turkish jewellery shops and chose a bracelet for my little one, I ordered them to engrave his name on the bracelet, paid and left. Today I am supposed to go and get the bracelet.

After the Turkish area I decided to go back to civilization and began walking up towards Potzdamer Platz, the area with the postmodern glass buildings. I didn't stop there either. After a few phone calls I found out that the wife of a Turkish friend is in Alexanderplatz and she is waiting for me. Not listening to the painful cries coming from my poor feet I changed my direction towards east, target: Alexanderplatz. I went all the way up Leipziger strasse, then turned left to Friedrich strasse (one of my favorite streets here in Berlin), but then decided not to lose a lot of time there and changed direction again towards the east. Three hours after leaving the hotel I was in Alexanderplatz, all tired, melted under the extreme sun, my clothes all wet with sweat, my feet bleeding in some places, my brain cooked, my face red.... and with an urgent need to go to the bathroom!

I said 'hello' to our friend's wife (we met for the first time then and there), and said that I had to find a toilet! What a first impression I must have made ;-) We entered C&A and went straight up to the floor where they had the bathrooms. It is so strange in this country that you have to pay for the toilets that are in the shops, in McDonalds etc. Anyway, I was more relaxed ;-) We bought some shorts and T-shirts for our little sons (she has a son that is born around the same time that our daughter is born, and a younger son that is born around the time our son is born, what a coincidence!). After a light lunch right there in Alexanderplatz (under the hotel Park Inn, which we remember always with a smile on our faces from the time we stayed there in the summer of 2003; I will tell you another time why that smile) she left with some other Turkish friends and I decided that it was time for me to go back to our hotel now that I was kilometers away, it would take me quite a while to walk back.. But I really didn't have the force in me to walk back... I decided to take a taxi back to the hotel. The only problem was that I didn't have any cash on me! Then I remembered having seen a little sticker on the window of the taxi that we had taken from the airport to our hotel that said that we could pay with our credit cards. God save the credit cards and the guy who invented them!

I didn't know where I could get a taxi so I began walking towards the museum area, in the direction of our hotel. After a while I got lost! I had the map in my hand but the tiny streets that I was walking through were not marked on that map! I just had to continue my walk with the gut feeling, trying to remember the times that I had walked through those streets 4 years ago. Finally I came out to the main street in Unter Den Linden (the linden trees do not leave me alone in Berlin, neither. It smells of linden everywhere also here.) I checked the map and found out a taxi stop was pretty near. When I entered in the taxi I gave out a huge breath. I was literally exhausted. It was around 14:45 and I had been walking since 9:30, sitting only for 20 minutes during lunch. Walking under the sun, over 30 degrees centigrade...

I arrived at the hotel, refreshed myself with some cold water and went out again, almost immediately, this time to meet my best friend from Norway who is also here for the conference. We met in Kurfürstendamm and went to Starbucks to have a cup of coffee and a good chat.. Afterwards we did some windows shopping and some real shopping ;-) I went back to the hotel around 18:30, took a fast shower, changed and got out again with Gabriele to attend the opening ceremony. It turned out that they didn't have enough spaces in the hall for the ceremony and we couldn't enter. It was no loss, was even better, so we had more time left to be spent with our friends. We went out with our Turkish dentist friends and went to a cafe/restaurant at the Sony center at Potzdamer Plazt. We finished the day there....

Yesterday when I woke up I couldn't walk! No wonder.... The day before I had walked so much that all the muscles in my legs were hurting. But of course this didn't stop me from going out and hitting the streets again ;-) I was out with two Turkish friends the whole morning on Kurfürstendamm, the shopping street. Our main target was KaDeWe, the biggest shopping center of Berlin, so they say... It is quite an elegant shopping center. I mainly did window shopping but had to buy some presents for my daughter otherwise she will be very angry seeing the things I have already bought for the boy.. I bought her a small bag to carry her snack everyday to school. I also bought the matching snack box and a little thermos to put her milk or juice. When we were in the toys department I couldn't stop myself and bought also a construction set for her. When I was little I loved playing with construction sets, making pulleys, constructing strange vehicles etc. I hope she also enjoys this new toy. And I had to get a miniature bus for my son, he loves playing with his miniature cars..

We ate our lunch at a Chinese corner in KaDeWe. When we got out the rain was pouring, so we decided to go back to our hotels. After two days of intense walking (and shopping) I was quite tired. I found myself in bed.. I slept for about 2 hours, then took my shower, Gabriele arrived, we got prepared and went out to attend the President's reception at the concert hall of Berlin. Since it was raining very heavily it was impossible to find a taxi. We waited over 15 minutes in front of the hotel in a queue before we got our taxi.

The concert hall is a very huge building, very stylish. The problem was that the reception was extremely crowded. We had to wait in line over half an hour to get a plate of food and finally when it was our turn to food was finished!!! At least there was a lot to drink, though we still had to stay in line for that, too. I met many old friends from Norway, Norwegian and non. We had great laughs, lot to drink, pain in the feet because of standing son our feet all the time, but it was worth it. When we came back to our hotel it was after 23, and being the lazy people we are, we went straight to bed instead of sitting at the bar or going somewhere else to enjoy our child-free time..

This morning we woke up to cloudy skies, but now that I have been siting here over an hour writing this post it has changed. There is sun shining and I think I should use this opportunity to go out and enjoy Berlin. This is the last full day I have here. Tomorrow evening we will be travelling back home.

Berlin, arrival day

2007-06-21T09:31:00.000+02:00

Tuesday afternoon we were quite stressed at the little airport of Florence. Our plane for Munich was 35 minutes delayed and this meant that we would have difficulty in catching the next plane from Munich to Berlin. Luckily when we arrived at Munich there was a minibus waiting for us outside to take us directly to our next plane without going through the terminal. We found all the other passengers seated and waiting impatiently for our arrival to the plane. When we entered everybody was looking at us with that look in their eyes: 'Who are these idiots that arrive so late, making us lose time waiting?'. Well, it was not our fault guys, our plane was delayed!

We arrived at Berlin on time, took a taxi to our hotel, changed and rushed out to go to a party that we were invited to. The party was organized at the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum (Berlin Medical History Museum). It was a very strange building that was destroyed during the war and not quite renovated afterwards. They even said that it didn't have a ceiling until recently. Anyway, they had made it look very nice with candle light, a bar in a corner, some live music, round tables with white table clothes over, waiters going around with round trays in their hands with colorful cocktails first, wine and beer glasses afterwards... They told us that we were free to enter the museum's hall during the dinner and we decided to go and see the museum before eating. That was a clever decision because, frankly, if we did that tour after eating we would risk vomiting out everything we ate right there in the middle of the museum. Why, you would ask... You should just go and see that museum to understand why. They had tissue samples from sick people. There were skeletons of babies (from a few months old to 1,5 years of age) that had problems like microcephaly, or hydrochephalis, or skeletons and skulls of people that had various problems. There were bottles with lungs of cancer patients, patients with tuberculosis.. There were other organs (you name it, they had it!) that had different types of failures/sicknesses. I didn't manage to look at them all. I just had to run out of the museum hall. My goodness.. What kind of a museum was that????

Berlin is full of extremely beautiful museums to visit, you should see them all. But please, don't even bother to go and see the Museum of Medical History, if you don't thrust your stomach!

1987-2007

2007-06-19T00:02:00.000+02:00

Just finished looking through around 130 photos of my classmates from high-school. This year it is our 20th anniversary of graduation. Hence, my friends, most of whom are still living in Istanbul, organized a dinner last Saturday. I couldn't be there, of course. Today I saw the photos they had placed at our mailing group's site at Yahoo. It took me back many years. Many memories came before my eyes after each photo. Most of the people have changed, and there are some that have changed so much that I had difficulty in recognizing them. The guys have lost hair and had gotten fatter.. The girls have a few wrinkles here and there and they also seem to be 'bigger'.. There are some, though, that look exactly the same as they did 20 years ago, impressive!

When I look in the mirror I don't think that I have changed that much. I am sure everybody could recognize me easily. I still have the curly/wavy hair that I had. I am still wearing glasses. I am neither too thin nor fat, as I was then (I cannot say 'as always' because during the years in Norway I was Thin, also too much for my taste now) and what is more I am still wearing braces on my teeth ;-)

Looking at those photos made me recognize once more that time is passing.. too fast. And I have no time to do anything that I want to or have to do! Help!

A comment about the comments

2007-06-13T14:41:00.000+02:00

There are some people out there that have nothing to do but visit blogs and pour out their venom in the comments area. I wonder what is passing in their little sick minds when they are leaving their comments anonymously, writing about things they have no idea of, about people they don't know and will never get the chance to know, pretending to be something and somebody but only proving to be just the opposite of what they claim to be, writing comments without reading the whole post and getting the message/topic of the post, and most probably are not even capable of understanding what actually is written.. I guess that something or things are missing in their lives and this is the way they try to compensate that 'missed' whatever...

Anyway, my blog is not here to be the outlet for your anger/hatred/envy or whatever it is that you are missing. I will still keep the comments area open to everybody without moderation, but whenever one of you sends a comment that I don't like I will simply delete it. Hey, this is my blog, I decide. And I decided that I will not come down to your level to answer you. You are also free to open a blog to write down all your sick comments as posts if you want ;-)

Busy bee soon to fly away :-)

2007-06-13T10:07:00.000+02:00

I just don't have the time to write here nowadays.... There is so much to do. I have been washing all the curtains of the house this weekend and since yesterday I am ironing them. I hate ironing, by the way, but I couldn't let the cleaning lady iron these, because I know that she would wrap them in two-three folds before ironing and I would hate to see the folds on my curtains. Hence, I decided to roll up my sleeves and get it done myself... under this heat.... I carried the ironing table downstairs since it is cooking upstairs under the roof. I placed it in the living-room strategically between two open windows right in front of the TV so that I can at least watch some shows/soaps while taking care of this 'heavy' job ;-)

Next Tuesday me and my husband are off to Berlin and the kids will be staying with their grandparents. This means that this weekend I should wash and iron (again!) the necessary clothes for them and for us. Then I should prepare our and their luggage. We also have a dinner to attend on Saturday, so I should get my hair fixed and decide what to wear, for me and the kids, since we decided to take them along.

On 26th of this month my mother is coming! We are all excited and can hardly wait. But, of course, this also means some preparations. I should get her room and bathroom cleaned and prepared, get out her towels and some clothes that she has left with us, go and buy the food that she loves, get the things that she prefers eating for breakfast etc. Luckily we are going to Germany, a country which is a paradise for me after Italy since there it is possible to find all the Turkish food that I miss and that I would love to get for my mother so she doesn't miss anything for her breakfasts here. I should make a list of things to be bought in Germany: Turkish feta cheese, yufka, some spices, some canned food, maybe some Turkish olives....

In fact I look forward to going to Berlin for another reason. We were there in the summer of 2003, spent three nights and yet we didn't manage to see everything we wanted since Iris was only 2 years old and visits to the museums with her was not that easy. This time we are alone, though Gabriele will be attending a conference I will be free during the days to visit all the museums that I had left out last time. I will also meet some dear friends from the good old days in Norway, and I am really looking forward to that.

I should just hang on, finish everything that is to be done before Tuesday and then relax and enjoy our 4 days alone with my husband... a long deserved get away for both of us...

Getting drunk...

2007-06-06T15:08:00.000+02:00

with the strong smell coming from the linden trees that are everywhere in Florence! The last two-three weeks while traveling in my car I had the windows closed either because it was too hot and I had the A/C on in the car, or it was raining cats and dogs and I didn't even dare to slide them down a little bit.. Two days ago it was a mild day with some sunshine, but not extremely hot to force me to turn on the A/C, so I took down the window on my side of the car and got hit with a wall of strong smell: the linden tree flowers. My God, what a nice smell that is....

This smell takes me back to my school days in Istanbul.. In the evening, after dinner, me and my sister retreated to our room to finish our homework for the day after, and if it was winter, my mother came in after some time with a tray in her hands.. There used to be two glasses of linden flower infusion on that tray. The infusion was prepared with dried linden flowers, the peel of an apple and a lemon, a small piece of cinnamon bark and maybe one or two dried cloves. We put a spoonful of honey to sweeten the infusion and let it fill our stomach and nose with its strong aromas.

Every spring when I begin inhaling this extraordinary smell of the linden flowers I feel like going downtown with a pair of scissors in my hand and collecting these flowers to dry later and store away for the winter. These people do not know how to use these flowers that are practically everywhere! One of our neighbors had a linden tree in his garden and last year he cut it down! It was making too much shadow! What an excuse.... I loved to watch that tree from my kitchen. Oh, well, maybe I plant one in our garden in the future :-)

Simple joys of daily life

2007-06-04T12:33:00.000+02:00

- My little one is walking! All of a sudden yesterday he decided that it was time to look down on things instead of lifting the head up and going on all 4. And, yes, he can talk on the phone and send faxes, too ;-)

- We spent the whole weekend at home, relaxing, doing the daily routine things.. I love cooking for my family and watching them enjoy the things that I have prepared. Saturday I made that French dish that I had given the recipe here in my blog some time ago, changing a few things. And yesterday I made açma (a type of little bread-like thing; Turkish). They loved it!
- The only 'different' thing we did this weekend was going for a walk in the forest all 5 of us, including the dog Roy that is :-) Me and Iris collected some flowers, as usual, which you can see here. The rose is from our garden.

- My one and only tomato plant in the rear balcony has small tomatoes on it. I can hardly wait to pick them up and add to our salads.

- One of my cacti (not the one that had flowers some weeks ago) is preparing a flower. I have never seen its flower before, so I am waiting impatiently, checking every day whether it has opened or not.
- Yesterday after a looong time I found myself playing Minesweeper. You know, that simple game that comes with Windows. I was addicted to that game when I was doing my PhD (and to Tetris during my MSc. studies). I remember saying to myself: 'Just three games then I will continue studying', and then playing for hours until I won the game, at least once... Last night I was playing until 1 am. I am a geek sometimes :-P
- I found that I had a very nice graphics program on my Mac. My professor needs to make some special graphs for her new book and I want to help her. She will be very happy when I show her this program :-)

Iris' show... and graduation :-)

2007-05-29T13:34:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we went to watch the little performers at Iris' school. For the first time both Gabriele and his father were also there in addition to me and my mother-in-law, and, of course, Sander. Since it was raining cats and dogs (and horses) [the link tries to explain the origin of this phrase; interesting indeed] they had to take the performance indoors, and they stacked us all in the gymnastic hall. There were a lot of grandparents in addition to parents.

The kids were dressed in blue trousers/jeans (mostly, there was one girl in a blue skirt and I think one boy in white trousers; strange to see that some kids don't have blue-jeans) and white t-shirts painted by them with the picture of the character they will be representing. Iris had the picture of a brown bird on her t-shirt; she was a cuckoo :-)

They mainly sang songs and danced/acted to the stories told in these songs. The opening and closing song was a song thanking all for being there. There were songs in Italian and English. Even one song had some lines in French :-) Multi-lingual kids ;-)
They were really beautiful. It is amazing how they can memorize all those songs without a written text in their hands. They are little, 5-6 years old, they cannot read and write properly yet, but they have huge memories in those tiny heads of theirs. It was quite emotional for us parents to watch them do everything their teachers had taught them, flawlessly.

Just when we thought that the program was over the teachers arrived with a huge box and began taking out black square academic caps made of black cardboard complete with tassels! But they were right: our little ones are graduating, maybe not from high-school or college yet, but from kindergarten. Next year they will begin elementary school.

Seeing my daughter with her cap on her head, then receiving her diploma from the school principal was quite emotional for me. I could hardly keep the tears in my eyes. I am sure I will cry in September on her first school day in elementary school.

It was a very beautiful afternoon. Even Sander enjoyed it, dancing when the kids were dancing, clapping when everybody else was clapping and waving to his sister during the show. At the end of the show he was very happy in the arms of Silvia, the teacher of Iris :-)

Weekend of sun, rain, wine and flowers

2007-05-28T12:54:00.000+02:00

Last Friday after picking Iris up from school we went to visit a friend of hers. In fact the aim was to take the present they had made on her birthday which was too small and the mother had to change. But since the weather was extraordinarily beautiful the kids were invited for a couple of hours' swim in the little pool our friends place in their garden every summer. While Iris and her friend were playing in the pool Sander got a 'pool' of his own as you can see in the picture :-)

After more than a week of sunny and hot weather yesterday it got dark in the middle of the day as if it was winter and it began raining.. raining as if it had never rained before, that the clouds were so anxious to pour down water enough for a whole month for the plants in our gardens and the fields... In just five minutes water was coming through all the windows and doors of our house! We were running around the house with my husband to close all the blinds and dry the floors. Yet, in the afternoon it was sunny and the streets were all dry.

This weekend all the wine producers in Italy had their cellars open to public. It was possible to visit the estates, see their cellars and taste their wine. Having a house right in the middle of vineyards we decided to visit the Poggio Casciano Estate, which is across the street to our house and the owner of all the vineyards around us. Clicking the link you can see the beauty of this estate. They have a classical cellar which is very stylish and well kept. This was my first time in a guided tour to a cellar and I learned that:

- though they harvest the grapes usually in September this year they are planning to do it one month earlier due to the early arrival of summer
- once the grapes are picked up by hand they are placed on a huge table and chosen grain by grain if they are to be used for the production of Brunello (one of my favorites; my first choice, however, is Nobile)
- the grapes are left in huge fermentation tanks for about 2-3 weeks
- in these tanks the temperature is kept constant using a layer of water between the metal tank and the grapes inside, which can be heated to the desired temperature
- there is constant current in these fermentation tanks in order to avoid the formation of a crust of the skin of grapes on the top since it is the skin that gives the color and most of its taste to the wine
- Sangiovese type of grapes don't have a skin that can give color, so some percentage of other types of grapes are added as 'colorant' to this kind of wine during fermentation
- after fermentation the wine is transfered to wooden barrels. It is the contact that the wine has with these barrels that gives the odor and taste of different fruit, tobacco etc taste that we get in our mouth when we drink the wine.
- the smaller the barrel the more contact wine has with it and the more concentrated the bouquet will be.

After our short visit to the wine cellar we went to Antella, where they had a little market of plants. I couldn't stop myself as usual and we came back home with 4 new flower pots. Our tour out lasted less than two hours but it was a refreshing change before starting another routine week...

This afternoon there is the End of the Year Show of Iris' class at her school. I will write about it tomorrow.

Food that smells of summer: 2 vegetable dishes

2007-05-23T12:15:00.000+02:00

Last week I had quite some tomatoes, squash, eggplants and peppers in my refrigerator that needed to be consumed before they got bad. They were left over from the weekend before. We were expecting three more friends to join us for Sunday-lunch, but unfortunately they couldn't come because of sicknesses.

Since I hate the idea of throwing away food, especially raw materials, I turned to my little collection of cooking books (no, not Internet, I am quite traditional when it comes to searching for recipes/vocabulary/information; I first check my books/encyclopedias/dictionaries, only when I am not satisfied with what I found I consult the Internet) and found two very fitting recipes that smell of summer. These following recipes saved me from the trouble of thinking what to cook for two consecutive dinners.

The first one is a French dish, three vegetable tian. You need onions, garlic cloves, squash, eggplants, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese as the main ingredients. Peel and slice the onions into rings. Peel and crush the garlic cloves. Cook the onion and garlic in olive oil until the onions turn transparent. Wash the eggplants and squash, and slice them in ca. 4 mm thick slices. I cut the eggplants in their length and the squash in their width. Brush an oven tray with olive oil and place the eggplant and squash slices over, season with salt and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for about 8 minutes. I used my microwave oven instead, placing the slices on the crisp-function tray. After pouring some olive oil over them I cooked the vegetable slices using the crisp function for 9 minutes, by which time they were partially cooked. Wash the tomatoes and cut them in slices discarding the hard stem. Slice the mozzarella cheese into the same number of slices as you have of tomato. Take an oven dish (an oval/round one would be perfect) and spread the softened onion in a layer on the bottom (without greasing the dish before) followed by a layer of overlapping, partially cooked eggplant slices. Cover with a layer of overlapping and alternating cheese and tomato slices. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with chopped herbs (parsley, basil and oregano - optional). Top with a final, fairly loose layer of squash slices and lightly season again with salt and pepper. Cook in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 25 minutes. Remove the tian from the oven, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs. Return the tian to the oven and cook for a further 20-30 minutes. You can serve it with nothing but crispy white bread.

The second dish is Italian, peperonata. I had eaten it a few times at my in-laws' house, but never prepared myself. Main ingredients are red and green peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and balsamic vinegar. I had one each of red, green and yellow peppers, so I used them all. Cut the peppers into quarters, deseed them and remove the fibres. Then cut them into big rectangular (2 cm x 3 cm ca.) pieces. Roughly dice the flesh of the fresh tomatoes. I used canned tomatoes since I had finished the fresh ones the day before while cooking the tian. Peel and finely slice the onions and garlic. Heat some olive oil in a pan and sweat the onions until they turn transparent. Add the peppers and garlic and sweat for 5 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and pour in about 4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. I mixed 2 tbs of balsamic vinegar with 1 tbs of red wine vinegar. Season with salt, pepper (and a pinch of cayenne pepper if you wish) and sprinkle a pinch of sugar. I used about 2 teaspoons of sugar since I cannot tolerate the strong taste of vinegar. Simmer the peperonata, covered, for 30-40 minutes until the peppers are soft but still retain their shape. Sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves before serving. Peperonata can be served as a side dish to any kind of fish, meat or poultry, or you can serve it cold as a starter, which is the way I prefer serving it.

Buon appetito!

Rose, vino e pane

2007-05-22T16:03:00.000+02:00

Rose, vino e pane (roses, wine and bread) was the theme of the weekend in San Casciano, a little village near Florence. The narrow streets of the village was filled with different kinds of roses, in all colors, for sale. I chose a beautiful little bush of white roses to take home and place next to our other roses by the gazebo. The stands of the local bakeries with their delicious cookies, cakes, bread and other types of pastry were placed side by side with those of the rose cultivators and wine producers. We tasted (and bought) a couple of cookies. I also bought and ate immediately 4 pieces of delicious fried pastry, mmmm :-) Gabriele tasted some Chianti and wanted to buy some bottles but to our surprise they were not for sale, only for tasting... strange.

Walking lazily on the streets of San Casciano, shopping a little, chatting a little, enjoying the sun, then later in the evening a barbecue dinner under the gazebo... This is what we did on Sunday with our visitors from Sweden on their last day here in Florence. They arrived late Thursday evening. On Friday we strolled around Florence center. Saturday was relaxing; leaving the kids with their fathers at home, me and my friend went to the supermarket, and afterwards took something to drink at a cafe... This was the top of everything for me because I miss doing simple things with old friends, like going for a walk, window-shopping, chatting over a cup of tea. When you meet an old friend even after a long time, you just pick up where you had left and continue as if you were never separated. You don't have to pretend anything, don't have to re-introduce yourself, don't have to weigh your words and sentences too much before uttering them.. It is not the same with new friends, the ones that you have met after your thirties, the ones with which you have not shared years in high-school or university, the ones with which you didn't cook together in a dormitory, the ones who don't know your family, your x-es, your past... (When does a new friend become an old friend?? Can all the new friends become old friends one day??)

I wish I had more of my old friends visiting me...

Let the photos do the talking: our weekend in open air

2007-05-15T15:32:00.000+02:00

This is my daughter's Mother's Day present to me... She has made the vase at school. The pink flower was given to each student by their teacher. She thought that it was not enough and took me to the flower shop on Saturday, chose two more flowers and even wanted to pay them with her own money! She also recited a poem while giving her present. Need to say more? She is priceless.

This morning I woke up and saw these beautiful flowers of one of my cacti. Last year it had made two single flowers in different time periods and before I had the chance to take their photos they were already dead. This year I took their picture immediately. I am afraid to go home this evening and find them already dead.. They have such a short life...

We had visitors on Sunday and we enjoyed a grill-lunch together in our garden.

I had prepared a birthday cake for Iris. It was delicious, especially the chocolate cream, but the pan di Spagna remained a little bit too dry. I should wet it with more milk next time.

Above you see our birthday present to Iris, we got it for free (long story)!.

Our garden is full of flowers these days!

(The photos are taken by Iris.)

Iris' birthday

2007-05-10T17:26:00.000+02:00

I have been running around the house like a maniac the whole week.. On Monday I began cleaning/putting in place/putting away/replacing/washing/mending things at 7:30 am and continued non-stop until 16:30, only taking little breaks to feed or change the baby. At 16:30 I had to stop, because I had to go and get my daughter from school. I continued doing things in the house also in the evening that day.

On Tuesday I gave myself a break and went for a walk with my kids instead of running around in the house.

Yesterday morning I locked myself in the house again, this time to make a skirt for my Iris. Today is her birthday and I wanted to 'make' her a gift instead of buying one this year. So, I took all the materials I had, decided how to make it and made it all from scratch. It was finished by lunch time! At night, while everybody else in the house was sleeping, I also took the blouse I had knitted for her, finished its little details and ironed the two pieces, ready for this morning.

This morning she was so excited :-) Right after breakfast she got dressed and I took her pictures, as I always do every year on her birthday before she goes off to school.

She looks so grown up with her new hair style (we got it cut yesterday evening). She is 6 now, beginning elementary school in September. Time flies!

Every year I arrange a big birthday party for her in our garden. This year I won't do it for the first time. Instead, I ordered a big birthday cake for her and took it to her school today and she celebrated with her friends. On Sunday we have a grill party in our garden with some friends. I am planning to prepare a cake for her so that I can take her picture blowing the candles :-) But next year I promised to make a big party inviting also a clown.

I will have visitors this weekend and from Thursday over next weekend at our house. So I don't think that I will find the time to post anything for about 10 days.

The 48 laws of power

2007-05-02T14:47:00.000+02:00

I found this list here. If only I could follow half of these laws...

Law 1 Never Outshine the Master
Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

Law 2 Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.

Law 3 Conceal your Intentions
Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

Law 4 Always Say Less than Necessary
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinx-like. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

Law 5 So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life
Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

Law 6 Court Attention at all Cost
Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the bland and timid masses.

Law 7 Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.

Law 8 Make other People come to you – use Bait if Necessary
When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains – then attack. You hold the cards.

Law 9 Win through your Actions, Never through Argument
Any momentary triumph you think gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate.

Law 10 Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
You can die from someone else’s misery – emotional states are as infectious as disease. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster. The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.

Law 11 Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.

Law 12 Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim
One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift – a Trojan horse – will serve the same purpose.

Law 13 When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself.

Law 14 Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

Law 15 Crush your Enemy Totally
All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. (Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation: The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.

Law 16 Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
Too much circulation makes the price go down: The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear. If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity.

Law 17 Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability

Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.

Law 18 Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous
The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere – everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from – it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.

Law 19 Know Who You’re Dealing with – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person
There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs’ clothing. Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then – never offend or deceive the wrong person.

Law 20 Do Not Commit to Anyone
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others – playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

Law 21 Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber than your Mark
No one likes feeling stupider than the next persons. The trick, is to make your victims feel smart – and not just smart, but smarter than you are. Once convinced of this, they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives.

Law 22 Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power
When you are weaker, never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, time to wait for his power to wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you – surrender first. By turning the other check you infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.

Law 23 Concentrate Your Forces
Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than by flitting from one shallow mine to another – intensity defeats extensity every time. When looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you milk for a long time to come.

Law 24 Play the Perfect Courtier
The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the mot oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

Law 25 Re-Create Yourself
Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define if for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

Law 26 Keep Your Hands Clean
You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws to disguise your involvement.

Law 27 Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cult-like Following
People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.

Law 28 Enter Action with Boldness
If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution. Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

Law 29 Plan All the Way to the End
The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others. By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.

Law 30 Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.

Law 31 Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal
The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice: Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your puppets. Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose. Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose. Put them on the horns of a dilemma: They are gored wherever they turn.

Law 32 Play to People’s Fantasies
The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.

Law 33 Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usual y an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

Law 34 Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one
The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated; In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.

Law 35 Master the Art of Timing
Never seem to be in a hurry – hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself, and over time. Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will come to you eventually. Become a detective of the right moment; sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends that will carry you to power. Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike fiercely when it has reached fruition.

Law 36 Disdain Things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best Revenge
By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.

Law 37 Create Compelling Spectacles
Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power – everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.

Law 38 Think as you like but Behave like others
If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend in and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.

Law 39 Stir up Waters to Catch Fish
Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off-balance: Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.

Law 40 Despise the Free Lunch
What is offered for free is dangerous – it usually involves either a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for. By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often wise to pay the full price – there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and keep it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power.

Law 41 Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes
What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after. If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will have to accomplish double their achievements to outshine them. Do not get lost in their shadow, or stuck in a past not of your own making: Establish your own name and identity by changing course. Slay the overbearing father, disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your own way.

Law 42 Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter
Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual – the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the poisoned of goodwill. If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence. Do not wait for the troubles they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with them – they are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them. Strike at the source of the trouble and the sheep will scatter.

Law 43 Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and what they fear. Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow to hate you.

Law 44 Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect
The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception: When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy. The Mirror Effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson. Few can resist the power of Mirror Effect.

Law 45 Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

Law 46 Never appear too Perfect
Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no faults or weaknesses. Envy creates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity.

Law 47 Do not go Past the Mark you Aimed for; In Victory, Learn when to Stop
The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for, and by going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat. Do not allow success to go to your head. There is no substitute for strategy and careful planning. Set a goal, and when you reach it, stop.

Law 48 Assume Formlessness
By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.

Trip to Todi

2007-04-29T19:46:00.000+02:00

Today we went to Todi, a little town in the province of Perugia, in Umbria region. We have these American friends, a recently retired couple, who have rented a three bedroom apartment in the center of Todi for 3 months. They kindly invited us to spend some time together and we couldn't say no.

We were planning to leave the house at 9 o'clock in the morning, but being a typical family with little kids of course we didn't manage getting on the road before 9:40.
There was some traffic but no queues on the highway, so it was fine, except for one idiot! He was driving a black BMW X5 and was trying to pass us from the right hand side, which, of course, is not possible, this is not England! My husband didn't let him pass and the idiot got mad! When it was possible we did change the lane and let him pass to our left, thinking that now he will go ahead on his road to hell leaving us in peace. We were wrong. He didn't pass us, but placed his car next to ours, VERY close to ours, dangerously close, and kept his speed equal to ours, blocking us behind a motorbike for a couple of minutes. This was not enough, he even drove ON to our car, forcing my husband to make a sharp motion towards the right, nearly out of the road! The idiot tried to push us out of the road, can you believe it???? And assuming that he was not blind, since he was given a driver's license, he must have seen the two little kids sitting in the back of our car, yet it meant absolutely nothing to him. After some time we somehow got in the left lane again, one car ahead of him, and when we could we came back to the right lane to continue in our own pace. This idiot came like a lightning out of the blue again and passed us at only millimeters' distance, so close to us and so fast that though our car is a huge SUV it shook with the wind of his BMW. Then he got lost in the distance... Everything lasted about ten minutes, but they were my worst ten minutes on the highways of Italy. I have sworn, and cursed him. I had taken his plate number but it is of no use. This is Italy, you NEVER find any police on the highways when you need them. And the streets and highways are full of idiots like the one we met this morning. I don't understand why they keep wondering about the reason of the huge number of accidents that happen in Italy every year. They should just watch themselves driving! It is obvious. They drive like maniacs.

Anyway... We did arrive at Todi around 11.15. We went to the apartment of our friends for a while. Then we went out to the narrow streets of the tiny town. It is a quite beautiful little medieval town with its stone buildings with thick walls, narrow streets, streets of tens of stairs, streets that suddenly open into a piazza, little and crowded restaurants, cafes on either side of the streets, flowers hanging down from the little balconies that open to the narrow stony streets, huge stone buildings with little shops squeezed one against the other... They took us to a typical restaurant and we ate very well, sipping our red wine from Umbria. I chose some long flat pasta with black truffles as my first dish. It was delicious! My second dish was a plate of entrecote cooked medium-rare and sliced, placed over a bed of fresh spicy rucola, and washed with the sweet-and-sour balsamic vinegar.. absolutely to make you lick your fingers. My favorite was my side-dish though. I ordered some eggplants prepared in a way that I had never tried before. They had sliced the eggplants in half a cm thick disks and then grilled them. Afterwards the eggplants were placed on a little plate. Over them there was some extra virgin olive oil. They were topped with toasted pine nuts and raisins (also the raisins were toasted). And on the very top there was a layer of freshly grated pecorino cheese. I recommend the eggplant lovers to try this recipe, definitely a winner.

Instead of eating some dessert at the same restaurant we preferred to go out and get ice-cream somewhere else. After a short walk and some rest at the apartment of our friends we got on the road home towards 5 pm.

Italy (but especially Tuscany and Umbria) is full of beautiful little towns that make the foreigners (Americans, Germans, and the others) fall in love and come back again and again. I should admit, they are right, it is a beautiful country.

Went shopping

2007-04-27T13:44:00.000+02:00

This morning, seeing the beautiful weather, I left everything as it is in the house, prepared my son and got out. When it is sunny outside, even the little one doesn't want to stay at home, points continuously at the window trying to tell me that he wants to get out.

We came downtown, parked the car in front of the office of my husband and went for a walk. I wanted to buy a new pair of shoes for the little one, but since he cannot walk yet the soft summer shoes are not for him. He has to suffer in his thick but appropriate shoes at least one more month until he begins really walking.

After this failed attempt of buying shoes for him, I listened to the advice of someone who reads my blog and decided to buy some things for me. I spent over a hundred euro in one shop and was satisfied with the things that I bought. The problem is when I am out shopping for something for the kids or my husband I never think how much I spend, I just take whatever is necessary and beautiful for them. Yet, when I have to buy something for myself I don't manage to buy expensive things, I always go for the cheaper ones. Why??? If I do manage to pay a bit more than what I had in mind, I get this guilty feeling, as I did also this morning, although the things that I bought were absolutely necessary and in fact I had to buy them a long time ago.

On my way back to the office I bought also some material to make a dress for my daughter. When I finish it I will put its picture here. It will be really pretty. I am planning to finish the dress for her birthday, which is less than 2 weeks ahead.

The wisdom of "The Little Prince"

2007-04-22T23:42:00.000+02:00

I have serious reason to believe that the planet from which the little prince came is asteroid known as B-612.

This asteroid has only once been seen through the telescope. That was by a Turkish astronomer, in 1909.

On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration. But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody would believe what he said.

Grown-ups are like that...

Fortunately, however, for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator made a law that his subjects, under pain of death, should change to European costume. So in 1920 the astronomer gave his demonstration all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report.

From "The Little Prince", by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

Yes, the grown-ups are like this. It doesn't really matter what you say, or do, as long as you do it the way they want you to do it, obeying their rules and formats.

You can remove the grown-ups / they in the former sentence and put Europeans / the-western-world / the- ones-that-think-to-know-everything / the-ones-that-have-the-power / the-ones-that-have-the-money etc., and the sentence will still be sound.

I love "The Little Prince". His wisdom is universal and ever valid. You will find more of his wisdom in my blog in the future. In the mean time, maybe you want to check out the book below :-)

Determination ending in desperation

2007-04-19T22:49:00.000+02:00

I decided to study computer engineering/science when I was 11. I didn't only decide what to study but where to study, too, at that early age. When I was telling everybody that I would be studying computer engineering at Bogazici University in Istanbul, the ones that didn't know me well (they were yet to discover what a determined and hard-working student I was) were just making a grin saying 'Sure, everybody wants to study there, but only a handful can get in'. After 7 years and a two-step university entrance exam there I was, exactly where I had told them that I would be. The only strange thing was the reason why I had said at that early age that I wanted to study computers. It was not because I was in love with computers or anything (hey, it was 1980 when I made my decision, not everybody had a computer then). It was simply because I was hearing people talk about computers, and how difficult it had to be to study computer engineering and how intelligent the guys that have chosen computer engineering were. The guys? The guys! 'Why the guys, but not the girls??', I thought. I was intelligent. I had determination. I adored mathematics. What else was necessary?? Being a boy? Nope. I had found my profession, and I went for it.

We were 60 that were admitted that year, and if I don't remember wrong, we were only 4 or 5 girls. Not that it disturbed me, just the opposite: I enjoyed the friendship of boys more than that of the girls at that time. In a short while I became one of the boys, too.

After 3 years of computer engineering I got accepted to the computer science department of University of Bergen in Norway and transfered there although I had only one year left for graduation in Istanbul and I lost a year (or gained a language; depends if you want to see the empty or full part of half a glass of water) by transferring to Norway. 13 years after this change of location I even got my PhD. I was not living in Norway any more at the time, I had already moved on with my life and got married, moved to Italy and even made one baby. But my passion for computer science was not changed, it has never changed.

I know that I have chosen the correct profession for me, and when I am given the chance I show that I am good at it, too. Yet, I don't have a job where I can use my knowledge, especially my specialty (parallel computing; subject of a future post maybe), and this is killing me. I feel like I have no future in this country when it comes to finding a proper job. A job, any job I can always find, but not the job. And this is killing me.

Barbecue season is opened

2007-04-16T12:00:00.000+02:00

Finally spring has arrived. Not that we had an extreme winter this year, it was abnormally warm the whole winter. And now it is too warm for April; last Thursday it was 31 degrees C here in Florence!

This weekend seeing the beautiful sun I decided to benefit from it and did 4 machines of laundry, all dried out under the sun in a few hours. I love the smell of laundry dried in fresh air. In the winter I hang them on a rack in the attic or put some small pieces on the radiators (my husband doesn't like it, but it is quite fast to dry socks and stuff), which create a lot of humidity in the house..

Yesterday I also did some gardening, planted some new flowers in pots and put them in my front balcony, planted some herbs and placed them in the rear balcony which my kitchen opens to. I also changed the pots of some flowers and my daughter helped me. She likes playing the gardener with her mother :-)

We opened our barbecue season as well yesterday: a big piece of beef-steak as high as two-fingers, the way traditional bistecca alla fiorentina is supposed to be, cooked rare, delicious Tuscan sausages and the inevitable eggplant prepared as my father-in-law prepares it. We like inviting our friends to barbecue in the summer and we always prepare our special eggplant. Everybody loves it. Now I will give you the recipe of this delicious and easy way of enjoying eggplants.

You need eggplants, better if they are the purple short and fat type, fresh basil or mint leaves, some garlic boats, white wine vinegar, sea-salt and extra virgin olive oil.

Cut the eggplants in their length without pealing off their skin. The slices should not be too thick (they wouldn't be cooked well on the grill), and neither too thin (they would get burnt immediately). The right thickness is about 4-5 mm. Place the slices side by side on a pan, layering them with sea-salt. Leave them aside for some time so that the bitter liquid of the eggplant comes out. Then wash off the salt, squeeze them slightly and dry them completely placing them between two clean kitchen towels and pressing over a little. Next, place the dried slices again in a pan, pouring some extra virgin olive oil on each layer making sure that each slice gets oil on it. While the eggplants are getting barbecued cut the garlic boats in thin slices and put in a deep bowl. Add the basil/mint leaves and the vinegar. The grilled slices of eggplant are put in this vinegar-garlic-basil/mint mixture and mixed a few times before they are eaten so that each slice soaks in some vinegar. Buon appetito! :-)

Don't read this if you are on a diet!

2007-04-13T19:17:00.000+02:00

I love experimenting in my kitchen and today I had the perfect occasion. I had chocolate from two Easter-eggs, two bags of cookies that were about to go soft and a whole package of mascarpone cheese whose best before date is tomorrow! I have been surfing the net for a suitable recipe in which I could use all the materials that I wanted to get rid of. Finally I found an all chocolate cheesecake recipe that seemed OK. But of course I had to adapt this recipe to the ingredients that I had at hand. I sat down to work...

One of the bag of cookies was of type quaresimali, with chocolate, in the form of letters of the alphabet, something that you can buy only around the time of carnival here. The second bag contained cookies made of corn flour, quite good to accompany a cup of black tea actually. I placed all these cookies in the blender and after a few turns I had the cookie-flour for the base of my cake. In the mean time I had already melted about 200 grams of butter and left it aside to cool. I mixed the cookie-flour and the melted butter with a tablespoon of dark cacao. After covering the bottom of my springform pan with baking paper I pressed this mixture to cover it evenly and baked the base for 10 minutes in 175 degrees C.

While the base was in the oven I began preparing the fill. In a bowl I mixed 250 grams of mascarpone cheese and a cup of sugar. I added 2 tablespoons of flour to the cheese-sugar mixture instead of only one as written in the original recipe. Then I added 5 eggs one by one, mixing very well after adding each egg. I substituted the sour cream with two tablespoons of full-milk yogurt. Finally I added the melted chocolate and 1 ml of vanilla extract. After tasting the mixture I decided that it was too sweet for my taste (must be the chocolate from the Easter eggs; milk chocolate, nobody likes it in the family, that is why it was left uneaten until today). So I added one full tablespoon of dark cacao. Looking in the box of cacao I noticed that very little was left. I thought 'What the heck..' and added the rest of the cacao as well :-) I poured the mixture over the base and rolled it into the oven at 220 degrees C. After 15 minutes I took the temperature down to 150 degrees and put the timer to 45 minutes. Right now the cake is still cooking. So I cannot tell you yet how this experiment turned out. But I will add a picture here as soon as possible, and tell you what the family members thought about my all chocolate cheesecake.

The all chocolate cake was delicious! We all ate two slices each yesterday. But next time I will try to make it with a different base, maybe a thin layer of pan di spagna with cacao. This one was rather heavy for our taste. We are not used to eating so much butter. (14.04.2007 10:03 AM)

What's the language of your thoughts? And your dreams?

2007-04-13T00:18:00.000+02:00

Mine have different languages. If I am thinking about someone or something in Turkiye I find myself thinking in Turkish. If it is a problem that I have in Italy, it is an Italian friend, then, of course, I think in Italian. Sometimes I remember stuff from the good old days in Norway. But in this case there is no fixed language for my thoughts. It depends on the actors of the little play in my brain. If they are Norwegians with whom I used to speak in Norwegian, then it is definitely Norwegian that they also use in the play. If the play has something to do with my studies, my adviser (who was also Norwegian by the way) at the university, the language is English. When the actors are my Turkish friends in Norway, they speak Turkish, naturally. However, I should admit that the language that I use the most in thinking is not Turkish as one might expect, it is English...

When it comes to my dreams the situation does not change much, gets worse ;-) Why? Because I sometimes find myself dreaming in German in addition to my Turkish, English, Italian and Norwegian dreams! I studied German as my second foreign language for 6 years in secondary and high school. Since I have never used the language I have forgotten most of what I knew before. Yet, it all comes back to the surface in my dreams.

In which language do the infants that cannot speak any language yet think and dream???

Existential question about my blog

2007-04-12T16:02:00.000+02:00

I simply don't know what to write in my blog. I see people that have very interesting blogs, informative blogs, culinary blogs, business oriented blogs, diary-blogs.. I don't know what I want my blog to be.

In the old days I had begun keeping diaries at different time intervals. Every time that I started I ended after a day or two. So, I know that I am no diary writer.

I like taking photos, but I don't think I am good enough (neither is my camera) to publish my photos here. Hence, no photo-blog..

There are many culinary blogs, I don't see the need for another one, though I love cooking and among friends and family I am known to be quite good at it.

I am not an artist, either. I do knit and sew and do crochet etc, and I used to paint, and I would love to learn how to play the guitar (I have one). But these don't make me an artist.

I cannot write a business oriented blog since I don't even have a job. OK, maybe this is not totally true. I do some work for a mathematics professor at the University of Florence, and I also assist her course (numerical computing), but this cannot be considered a real job, can it?

So, what remains for me/my blog???

Easter weekend and more..

2007-04-10T12:42:00.000+02:00

Another Easter has passed. This year, for a change, we went to the country house of my in-laws. Every year we eat the Easter lunch with them, so the only change was the change of house. I have other plans for next year though ;-)

Anyway, it was nice. We were lucky with the weather, quite sunny and pleasantly warm on Sunday, little bit misty yesterday. Sunday morning me and my daughter went out in the garden (I call it for simplicity as garden; it is a big piece of land with olive trees and in a corner my father-in-law grows also potatoes and some other vegetables). We played football first, then we went all around the land collecting flowers. There were many different flowers mostly in different shades of violet. When we came back to the house our shoes and trousers were all wet because of the morning dew on the grass.

Me and the kids spent two lazy days, lying on the sofas watching TV, playing cards, going for a walk around the house, sleeping, reading, eating, whereas Gabriele and his father had to work in the garden cutting wood, removing the cut branches of the olive trees, preparing the grill.

In Italy when people get together for any reason, Easter - Xmas - new years' eve - birthdays - celebrations of any kind, they EAT. They like having their visitors around dining table instead of serving them only a cup of coffee and some sweets in the living room... So we also ate this weekend, lamp - the classical Easter meat-, but also chicken and pork. I had made a pineapple cake as the dessert of our Easter lunch, they loved it. I had also prepared a sweet Easter bread (paskalya çöreği in Turkish). Though I made it for the first time in my life it turned out quite delicious and we ate it not only at breakfast time with our coffee but also dipped it in our Vin Santo after dinner.

Today I am at home with the two kids. Iris' school doesn't open before Thursday. I am planning to go downtown and visit a Spanish friend of mine in the afternoon. She just had her second daughter a couple of weeks ago. Maybe we take all our four kids and go out to a park, we will see.

I should do something about finding a job soon. I am becoming (or am I already???) a housewife and I don't like this (no offense to real housewives, the ones who have chosen to be only housewives, but I wasn't planning to become one, so it is unacceptable for me)!!!

The "Bree" in me, Part 2

2007-04-04T13:13:00.000+02:00

I told the cleaning lady to vacuum-clean the mattresses of our beds last week. She said 'Sure, I do it from time to time, I can do it also today'. Great. I was in the kitchen, as always, while she was doing the cleaning. I noticed that she didn't go to the storage room where we have the stuff for cleaning and the different pieces of the vacuum cleaner, but I heard the vacuuming in our bedroom.
- She is not vacuuming the mattress with the piece for the floors, is she?
I found myself thinking... Then I waived that question off saying to myself that any person able to use her brain a little bit would not do something so stupid. Well, she turned out to be not one of those people. I found it out on Monday when I told her to vacuum the sofas in the living room with the little piece of the vacuum-cleaner which is made for that purpose, and adding: 'You used that piece to clean our mattresses as well, right?'. The answer was 'No'.

You cannot clean the dust and dog-hair and food rests and whatever else is on the floor with one brush and then use the same brush to clean the mattress that you sleep on for God's sake! This is not cleaning but dirtying the place that you lie down. If I enjoyed sleeping with all the dust of the house I would sleep on the floor.

Yes, I am a cleanliness freak, I accept that. When I go out in one of my balconies I either use some other slippers that are to be used only in that balcony, or clean under my slippers before getting in the house again. I have all kinds of detergents for each bathroom, the kitchen, the refrigerator, the floors etc. The list can be made longer, but enough of that.

However, I think that being a person of order and system is not something so bad after all. For example, I am extremely precise in whatever it is that I do, be it a knitting job or a software that I write. I would sit at my computer for hours in order to make my little piece of program code perfect, or take down a knitting project just for correcting one single loop knitted wrong many lines before, though nobody else but me would recognize the mistake. You can always be sure that you would get my best if I have said that I would do something for you. And this is not bad, is it? :-)

To do list

2007-03-30T17:40:00.000+02:00

- Find a job (soon)
- Visit the shops that have many choices of wardrobes, make a decision and order the wardrobe for our bedroom
- Go through the toys of the kids (done!)
- Bring the cooking books downstairs and put them on the kitchen-shelf (done!)
- Tidy your bathroom chest (too many things, soaps, perfumes that have expired: throw throw throw!)
- Talk to Barbara about some job possibilities that she might know of
- Write to Zuhal (done!)
- Finish knitting the sweater for Iris (done!)
- Finish sewing the mantle for Sander
- Sew that tablecloth for the dining table for God's sake! It's been 3 years that the material is waiting in a nylon bag up in the attic
- Fix some curtains for the kitchen
- Renew the plastic cover of the table in the kitchen
- Buy new plates (not urgent)
- Do the editing job for the professor (very urgent!) (done!)
- Put a button on the trousers of Gabriele (done!)
- Put the things that the cleaning lady has ironed in their place (done!)
- Go to Ikea one day
- Buy yourself some new clothes (I like this one the most ;-))
- Buy some new shoes (you can never have enough of those)

Dream or nightmare?

2007-03-26T08:52:00.000+02:00

I saw him again in my dream tonight.

I am in a city (I have no idea which city it is), dressed very strangely. I have my white heavy cotton apron with many ladybugs arranged in a heart shape under which it is written 'I love Florence', and over this I am wearing a white semi-transparent dress! I am supposed to go to school, but looking in the mirror I realize that you can see through my dress and I feel very uncomfortable.

All of a sudden the scenery changes. I'm wearing some dark trousers now, with a shirt and a jacket over. I am at an office where people are sitting at big tables with newspapers in front of them, reading the ads, underlining some stuff with markers, making phone calls... There is a queue in front of this office, I pass by the people in the queue and with the corner of my eye I see him, leaning on a wall with a girl next to him. He notices me, too, but I think he is pretending not to have seen me. I look at the girl, just a quick look. She is not so young (but younger than me), with glasses and make up under her glasses, her hair dyed and tied in the back. I sit at the only seat available and begin reading a newspaper, but I don't work there, I sit only because I feel tired and there is an empty seat. Soon somebody comes, somebody working there, to whom I have to hand over my seat. Now I don't know where to stand. I can still see him over there, and this time I know that he is watching me, I can feel his eyes on me. I sense that he wants to talk to me, but I don't do anything to encourage him. I get bored of waiting and decide to leave. I have to go down some stairs and there he is, right at the top of the stairs waiting for me. He stops me and begins talking, smiling the way only he smiles..
- Hei
- Hi
- So how are you?
- Quite well. I see you are fine, too.
- Yes, I am doing fine.
Suddenly a girl appears next to him, not the girl that I have seen before, a different one, without glasses, blondish, with a little baby in her arms!
- Let me introduce you to my girlfriend, Hediye (Hediye? What a name! Why a Turkish name? Is she also Turkish?? No, I don't think so. She looks like Bosnian or some other X-Yugoslavian to me)
- Nice to meet you Hediye.
- Nice to meet you Yasemin (She is nervous?). Look, this is our daughter. (So he has got a daughter, how beautiful. He deserves it.)
She gives the baby to him. He takes her recklessly in his arms.
- Ja, I have a daughter now.
He smiles widely as if trying to give me a message. 'You thought I would never have a family maybe?'. He doesn't say these words but I know him well enough to read his mind.

He gives the baby back to the mother and without saying anything takes my arm and leads me out to another room. There we talk a bit more, I don't remember now what we actually talked about, dreams do you this dirty trick, the more time passes the more you forget.
- You still look very beautiful.
- Ja, I know. (Me and my modesty! I wanted to remind him what he had lost. In fact I know that he will regret it all his life, everybody told him so when it was over.)
We talk... about the old days. Then it is time to say our farewells. He kisses me on my cheek, then another kiss on the other cheek. I want to go. It is wrong.. He doesn't leave me. I wriggle out of his arms and run away. If I stayed a little more I know I would do things that I would regret this time.

I find myself thinking.. So he didn't move in with that other girl in fact. He doesn't have to take care of the sons of that other woman but has got a daughter of his own. Good for him. This is definitely better.

I woke up. It was one of those dreams that feel so real.

Why do I continue to see him in my dreams? Such a long time has passed.. We have no contact since I got married. It was his choice though. He made up a reason for not contacting me, for getting angry with me, he really had no reason. He just couldn't accept that I got married.

But why do I still see him in my dreams?

The concert

2007-03-23T19:04:00.000+01:00

We are going to a concert tonight with my husband.
Loreena McKennitt is in town as a part of her An Ancient Muse tour following the release of her latest album with the same name in November 2006 after a long period of silence. We love her music and style, but to me she represents something else.

It was the summer of '98, I was visiting my family in Istanbul. I went in a music shop and went through the CDs. I wanted to start listening to some new music, was fed up with my collection: Supertramp, Brian Adams, Sting, Alan Parsons Project, Dire Straits, Turkish pop artists.. I wanted to try something new, so I turned my attention to new-age stuff. There it was: The Visit of Loreena McKennitt. It was just a coincidence that I bought that album, but I really liked it.

Then about two weeks later I was back in Norway, and just by coincidence again I met my later-to-be husband for the first time. We listened to The Visit together, he liked it so much that I bought a copy for him as a farewell present when he was supposed to go back to his country. Later our relationship got stronger while our collection of Loreena McKennitt's work got complete. It is, kind of, our first project realized together with my husband :-)

One day last month I had stopped at the traffic lights and was looking around and there it was: the announcement of her concert in Florence. We just had to go to listen her singing live for us.

Well, the day has come. The kids are left at the grandparents for the night and soon we are off to listen to our favorite singer. I am sure we will enjoy it..

The "Bree" in me, Part 1

2007-03-19T19:19:00.000+01:00

I have two favorite TV series: Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. My husband makes fun of me saying "Desperate housewife is watching her series again", and I get angry. In fact, he is right ;-) I should acknowledge the fact that I find something in common with at least one of the characters there: Bree.

I love seeing my house in order, clean, everything in its place, and I don't really see what is wrong with that! In the house everybody is supposed to wear slippers, I hate that people enter my home with their shoes! I tried many times to explain them the reasons but they simply don't seem to grasp it. It is quite normal for us Turks that when you go to visit someone you take off your shoes in the entrance and they offer you slippers, or you change in to the ones you have carried for yourself from home. Nobody has the right to step on the carpets/kilims with dirty/wet/muddy/dusty shoes, or go in the bathrooms with their shoes and make dirty the floors which we step on with bare feet after shower. I found my little son many times literally licking the floors. I certainly don't want him to lick the piece of mud that a dear visitor has carried in my house from God knows where!

OK, this was the clean house part. My Breeness goes beyond that. You should see my dishwasher: each piece of silverware, cutlery, pot, glass has its own spot. That's why I hate it when someone else takes over the duty of filling my dishwasher, because I have to open the dishwasher and change the place of everything that is misplaced after that person has finished his job before I can turn it on. When you open the cupboards in my kitchen you see that I follow the trend also there: pots and plates placed according to size, bowls piled up in order of capacity, glasses grouped according to their function...

While ironing I can lose myself in a fold that doesn't seem to disappear no matter how much steam I use, while cleaning the floors I could continue vacuuming the same spot for minutes because of a single thread of dog-hair, while doing the laundry I may try all kinds of stain removers available in the market in order to get rid of a stubborn little stain.

Everything should be perfect, or at least nearly so. Things should be symmetric, or in place, or evenly distributed. I will never forget the face of my husband when he saw the first pizza that I had prepared for us: each centimeter square of the pizza had equal amount of cheese, tomatoes and what-ever-else found place on it. Maybe this was the result of my studying optimization for such a long time, I don't know, but doesn't change the result, I made a very mathematical looking pizza... ;-)

Well, I do sound as if "I have dust in my brain", as the Norwegians say (å ha støv på hjerne) :-)

Operation 'Lemon Plant'

2007-03-19T10:44:00.000+01:00

We've got a little lemon plant in our house. Since we bought it last summer it has been 'invaded' by some kind of parasite that attacks the leaves, flowers and the fruits causing them to dry. It makes some white foam-like sticky thing on the leaves and stem. It was sad to watch the beautiful plant die slowly in front of our eyes so I decided to take action this morning. I made a dish of soapy water, put on my gloves and got to work. I wiped clean each and every leaf, flower and branch. I hope, if I repeat this process once or twice, the plant will be saved. Nowadays when you enter our house you get this strong smell of lemon flowers. I intend to keep this smell and won't give in to a little bug! :-)

Still good...

2007-03-14T12:59:00.000+01:00

Just entered the house after half an hour out in the garden.. I looked at my son and he seemed bored all alone playing in his box. So I dressed him and took him out. We first picked the day's post, then he exercised his walking a bit. The weather is extremely beautiful, with full sun and a little breeze. We walked through all the garden, stopped to pick some daisies, or smell the lemon grass and sage. Our jealous Golden Retriever Roy accompanied us though I would be more happy if he didn't ;-) He tries to get between me and the baby, trying to lick him, stealing the flowers that the baby wants to pick up. He even tried to get on the swing with us :-)

Today is a beautiful day indeed.. I managed to be good and didn't shout at the dog. I am impressed by myself ;-)

A good day

2007-03-14T10:04:00.000+01:00

This morning the first thing I saw was the white hyacinth in one of the pots in my balcony. I was so happy to see that it finally gave me a flower. What a smell it has! I changed its position and placed it right in front of the living-room window so that every time I look out I can enjoy my beautiful flower.

Beginning the day with a smile on my face I decided: today I will be 'good'. I will try not to get angry in traffic. I won't put on the horn or flash the lights like a maniac to grannies that are going in front of me with 30 km/hour. I won't pass on yellow light. I will stop to let people cross the road. Wow, do I sound like a crazy driver! I am not, in fact. It is the traffic in this country that 'drives' me 'crazy'!

Wanted: a marketing expert

2007-03-12T19:39:00.000+01:00

I need to learn how to 'market' myself. Seeing around many people that are not worth a penny but pretend to have 'created the world' makes me sick. It is not good to be too modest, people step over you and continue on their way up while you are left there trying to understand what the hell has happened.

"What is in a name?

2007-03-12T00:48:00.000+01:00

That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet."

Yes, Shakespeare had said so, and maybe was right in his context. But I would really like to find a suitable title for my blog and I don't take this job lightly. It should fit the content and reflect 'me'. Hence, I decided to leave my newest 'toy' without a proper title until the 'right time' comes.

You know I have done exactly the same thing when I took in a kitten many years ago. It was a beautiful lively little 'tiger'. The minute my parents saw him they asked me how I would name the newcomer. "It should earn his name", I said. And so he did.. I named him "Haydut" (bandit in Turkish).

Check later!

2006-11-25T12:22:00.000+01:00

Soon I will begin writing, just wait ;-)