I know it has been a long time, almost 6 months I believe. I have thought about writing here a lot and things keep happening and I keep postponing. But here I am now. I have been working a lot to stay busy and not think of stuff one should not think about. A lot has happened to me in the last couple of months.
I had a wonderful summer traveling with students. I spent time in Thailand and in Spain and it was wonderful to get some sun on the beach in Cádiz. Thailand is a beautiful country and the people are so nice. I also made some new friends in Cádiz and got to know a colleague much better.
Thailand and Morocco
Thailand
Spain
Spain and Gibraltar
Fall in Vancouver, WA
I was out shopping for shirts to make for my coworkers and a guy who backing out of his parking spot, stepped on the gas instead of the break and hit my car at full speed. My car was totaled and I started the school year in a massive stressful situation. A few weeks later, Ben got laid off (he got a job the next day), but still there are somethings that are stressful in the whole situation.
I am now driving Ben’s truck which is very tall so my knee and ankle (which were already an issue before) are hurting because of the jumping in and out of it. It is an adjustment, but we decided to keep our bills down for a while at least especially with the high interest rates of lately.
Well, I will try to stay more up to date here and let you know how things are going. I am hoping to grow my following but I need more time to devote to this, so we will see what happens.
Here I am again, I haven’t had much to share. It has been a bit difficult for me to take pictures of myself and share things. But I thought I would try again.
The outfits on the pictures are a mix of old and new. The skirt I got more recently and the sweater is a bit older, but since it is white it is somewhat of a classic. This year the weather has been difficult. Cold and warm and we never know what we are going to get. It is late May and we are still wearing winter clothes some days. I can’t wait for the time when we can use spring and summer clothes everyday. The booties are a success every time I wear it. I have three of them in the same style just with different colors.
Spring fashion
Well, the school year is almost over and the new year will bring new challenges and new classes. I am looking forward to it.
There are a few things Turkey is known for, one of them is their leather, which the things we saw were made of lamb leather. Soooo soft!!! After days of seeing these jackets everywhere, I finally found one that I liked, that fit me and that was not very expensive and I bought it on our last day. It is a very different jacket and very soft to wear. (Funny enough, I had never seen them before but on my way back I was watching a ‘chapter’ from my Brazilian ‘novela’ “O Tempo Não Para”, and one of the characters was wearing a black version of the jacket. The show was recorded back in 2018.) 🙂
The dress was love at first sight. I saw the dress on the sidewalk of a store and I had to check it out. It was nice that they had my size and did not give me a weird look because of my size. I absolutely love the colors of this dress and it is so comfortable too.
I also got some scarves there, and I will post them at a later date. They are all beautiful and different from any others I have ever had. I was also able to find the ones with the places we visited which is a thing I do so I have souvenirs from the places we visit. The only other country I was never able to find a specific scarf was Germany.
Last year, before taking the group of students to Europe I did some looking around Pinterest and found some posts about giving treats or gifts to the flight crew. I went ahead and prepared a few bags of candy from the Pacific Northwest area.
The flight attendants from Lufthansa were so surprised and touched by it that they even announced to the whole plane a big thank you to the group. Some of the other flight crews were so thankful they gave me some wine in a real glass like the business class gets.
So for the flight to and from Turkey, I prepared a big surprise for them.
I transformed two shoe boxes into vintage like suitcases and filled them with all kinds of stuff. I made some earrings and keychains and also got some other stuff like compressed towels, fuzzy socks, and of course some candy.
As a result from this gift, the flight attendants brought me a beautiful tray with “candle” light, cheeses and cake with a glass of champagne.
They told me they had never received anything so nice from anyone.
I truly believe an act of kindness can go a long way. I was happy I did this for them because the crew had a really hard time during the flight. We went through some really bad turbulence and people refused to follow their directions which were only for everyone’s safety.
I am not going to lie, it was a lot of work, but I love doing crafts and it was great having a purpose for these crafts.
Just recently I was able to fulfill a long time dream of visiting this amazing country, Turkey. The cradle of civilization, the meeting place of east and west, a place of diverse cultures and religions…
As many of you who have known me for a while, you know I love the time before traveling and the time to prepare for the new place I will visit. So for the 3 months prior to traveling I did my “homework”, I learned some Turkish using Duolingo and a textbook I found on Amazon, I read many blogs and posts about traveling to Turkey. I looked at several lists of what to wear and what to do while visiting Turkey. However, nothing prepared me for some of the curiosities I found in this beautiful country.
In Turkey, dogs and cats are considered communal pets so the whole population helps take care of them. They are everywhere in the cities. The animals are taken to the veterinarian to get the proper shots and to get spayed or neutered. The dogs are really big but very sleepy for the most part. The cats sleep everywhere, the most common places to find them are the store windows where they take sweet naps on the well known Turkish rugs and other souvenir items. We even saw a cat inside the shopping mall.
The other curiosity is that they have two different kinds of bathrooms in many public places, including the airport. They have the eastern type of bathroom and the western kind.
The first time I saw it was at the Archaeological Museum, needless to say it was a cultural shock since this was already the second day in Turkey. Also, there are public bathrooms on the streets that require one to use the metro card to get in, I was able to use one because a policeman felt bad for me and helped me out. They are very nice and clean, and curiously some of them also have a prayer area next to them and they have separate spaces for men and women.
It was wonderful to see all these different things and cultural differences. I am so happy I had this opportunity.
Here I am, ready to tell you all about our amazing family trip to Turkey over Spring Break.
We had the blessing of taking a direct flight from Seattle to Istanbul and I think that was a first for me. I loved the fact we did not have to switch flights anywhere. It was a long flight though – 12 hours. However, Turkish Airlines is very nice and way more room than other companies. Both Ben and Lucas could move a bit on their seats and they even give everyone in the plane a nice little bag with socks, slippers, toothbrush, toothpaste and lip balm. Nice touch!!!
Our first stop was Istanbul. What an incredible city. The history is everywhere you look and it is clear why this is considered the cradle of civilization. There are people from all over the world buzzing around either to go to work or as tourists. I felt like the city never slept. We could hear noises late into the night of life going on outside the hotel. We could also hear the city intercom with the prayers 5 times a day. The majority of the country’s population is muslim and respect the traditions related to the religion.
Shopping
There are several bazaars all over the city, some big and some small. Of course, the main one is the Grand Bazaar which is the oldest and largest covered shopping mall in the world. There are about 4000 stores and 61 ramifications. Obviously as the good shopper that I am, I had to go visit, but it quickly became clear that everything in there was super expensive and it was just for the experience. They do expect you to bargain with them so they start the prices out really high. If you step outside the Grand Bazaar, you can find the same exact things for much more reasonable prices without having to bargain as much.
The Turkish are proud sales people and it is an art form for them, so we fell for their traditional ambush. We were walking around early in the morning in our way to the Blue Mosque and a man appeared out of nowhere and was very nice and helpful. Well, it turned out his family owned a couple of shops and one of them was a rug store. He would not let us go, he waited for us outside the Blue Mosque to make sure we would go to his store. Once we walked in and they made room for us on the couch, I knew we were in trouble. They brought us apple tea and water and started their rug presentation. It was clear we were not leaving without a rug. I was able to convince them that as a teacher I did not have that much money so we ended up purchasing a small Kilim rug for our foyer and two mini ones for gifts. It was a shock to have to spend that kind of money on the first day, but it was all about the experience at that point.
We did learn our lesson and from then on, we ignored everyone very well. No more eye contact with the sales people. They try really hard to get you to their shops and restaurants. They have people that their only job is to find and bring customers to their shops.
I had already read that their first customer was important to them and because we started our days fairly early we got a lot of discounts for being the first customers of the day. They are all very friendly, almost too friendly 🙂
Cappadocia
Well, on the third day in Turkey, we woke up super early and headed to the airport at 4 in the morning to catch a short flight to the Cappadocia region. I have to say, this was my favorite part of the trip. Cappadocia is something from another world. The landscape is incredible and everywhere you look there is something amazing.
We went ahead and hired a car and tour guide for the first day so we could see some of the main sites. We met Mithat at our hotel, which by the way was a cave hotel, the coolest thing ever!!! He took us to the Open Air Museum in Göreme first. There are a few churches inside the caves here and it is a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. This place is so full of history and really takes you back in time. The churches had beautiful paintings that were made out of fruit pigments.
Underground City
We also visited an underground city in Derinkuyu. WOW! To think that about 1000 people lived in this huge underground city with very small passages to walk through for about 5 to 6 months at a time is unbelievable. They had no choice and were just trying to survive hiding from the Romans.
I wasn’t sure Ben and Lucas were going to make it out in one piece, it was super tight for me to go through so it was a hard task for them. Totally worth it though. Now, that is history, these cities were build back in the year 34 or 35, right after Jesus died and the Christians had to go into hiding because the religion was not accepted by the Romans.
Once Constantinople took over and recognized Christianity as a religion, things got a bit easier and they then created many churches in the caves and even monasteries and schools, all inside these beautiful formations left by thousands of years of wind, water and ashes.
Our stay
As I mentioned earlier, our hotel was also inside one of these caves, this was a very different and interesting experience. The room was not cold, nor hot, it was comfortable. Moreover, it was bigger than most hotel rooms in Europe. The bathroom was very spacious and nice. For breakfast, we headed to the top of the cave and had a beautiful view of the area.
Breakfast
Breakfasts in Turkey were another nice surprise. They serve french fries, a fried cheese rollup, a sausage sauce thing, lots of vegetables, cheeses, fresh bread, cookies, cakes, coffee, tea, juices and hard boiled eggs. For us having breakfast included was perfect and very helpful. It was by far our largest meal of the day.
This is it for this post, but please read my other posts about some of the curiosities from Turkey and how I spoiled our flight crew.
It has been a long time since I posted so I thought I would post a Christmas picture. This has been a long and exhausting year.
There were some beautiful things, new friendships, new experiences, some traveling and happy moments. However, there were some sad moments, lots of disappointments and difficult lessons learned.
I am very hopeful for 2024, lots of traveling happening and showing the world to a new group of students. Also, looking forward to making some personal changes based on lessons learned. Maybe more meditations and more time for prayer.
Sorry I have disappeared for a while. Unfortunately, somethings have happened that hurt my own body image so I was having a hard time taking pictures of myself.
I changed insurances and one of my medications was not covered and because I stopped taking it I gain weight. With this, I had to get used to seeing myself big again. I think I have started to make peace with it again now.
I hope that once I can take the medication again, not only my diabetes will be better, but I will lose the weight again.
The pictures above is from a span of time so you can see the progression. I have been trying some tennis shoes with dress clothes too. A couple of the necklaces are from @miche.line.
Here I am having a snow day in February. So I thought I would share some of my latest outfits that I wore this winter for work. Shout out to @michee.line for all the beautiful necklaces. Checkout her necklaces on Instagram #MicheLine made by @michelinevbj
Aqui estou em um dia de neve sem escola presencial. Então resolvi postar umas fotinhos… Mas queria chamar a atenção para os colares lindos de cada foto todos da coleção da @michee.line, todos feitos pela maravilhosa @michelinevbj
Sempre recebo muitos cumprimentos…. Procurem por ela no Instagram.
