jerome gerard geraldo

Columbia Road flower market on a sunday with the London fam. Vague memories of telling Bridgette to join us, followed by a handfull of 'i can't's cause she had 'friends over'. Then telling her that 'i've got socks for you' causing a 'i'm coming now!' response. Oh socks.

Happy Birthday to Chef Gerard. May this year be better than your best so far.

the cold

the sun comes and the sun goes. it never stays bright for long in this place. hibernation moves from second to first nature.

pre-fall istanbul leftovers

not the best of weeks, lost my bank card, which lead to a week of financial limbo. finally over! what i thought was going to be two rolls of photos turned out to be one blank and one summer leftovers. i'll snap snap more more in the weeks to come, queue GRACE's entrance.. see you in 12 days!

the designer profile lecture today made me realize two things: a. i need to sleep earlier (despite how intriguing it was, i couldn't help but yawn) and b. blogs have the potential to stimulate creativity. so here's my commitment. i promise to this space that i will post at least once a week. tomorrow morning i go to snappy snaps, where two rolls will be torn apart, cut, drenched, dried, and scanned.

oh how i wish it were hot

After a rather exciting morning in the emergency room (making it sound more dramatic than it was), on IV drips and heart scans (just precautions really), I caught a flight back to London. This was exactly a week ago and I'm still at home tryna kick this flu, how have I only recently discovered that being sick is the ultimate time drainer?? But truthfully, I do enjoy laying in bed catching up on my TV. My choice of shows this time: Game of Thrones and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo! What I've learned: winter is coming, it's already here in london, and I miss asian mama, take care of me please.

Moving on to these images, taken on our family road trip + sailing holiday to the south of turkey, I miss the sun!! One week and I miss the sun already, ahhhhh. Ate lots of fish, lots of fruits, lots of vegg, and lots of bread. 

Menemen has become my favorite breakfast meal. Basically an omelet with peppers tomatoes and spices, but what makes it so tasty is the undercooked soft eggs. My description isn't really doing it any justice, yep, just read that bit over, DEFINITELY not doing it any justice. A must try, trust.


So my father spent 180TL on fishing equipment. Asian mama, being convinced that fishing was going to be rather simple, purchased two big buckets for ALL THE FISH we were going to catch. First couple days pass, didn't even attempt fishing. The next couple days we gave it a try, nothing happened. And then FINALLY, hallelujah, a fish got hooked. That motherfucker was strong. Flopped about for a good five minutes before it finally calmed down and gave up, we put it in the bucket, and took a look around. Red blood spots, everywhere. As if a teenage girl got a 'present' while jumping on a trampoline, indeed. Took us another twenty minutes to clean everything up. That was the only fish we caught. Conclusion: fishing is too much effort. So that fish you're looking at (apparently a lambuka, aka mahi mahi) is worth 180TL.

Gocek was beautiful, mountains caressed by the sea, sun in the sky across from the moon. We would sail around the waters in the day, stopping at the little bays of the various islands,   and at night we would dock at the restaurant bays.

an ideal end

Blue room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Sultanahmet, Istanbul

S.W.E.A.R, girl is incapable of taking a normal picture, just one of the reasons, the main reason, that makes her moooo

Starting to put my belongings into two piles; the so-called 'to bring' and 'to leave behind' piles. This could only mean one thing: it's almost time to leave summer and Istanbul in the past. Queue sad yet exited music, what is that?? A new semester of school is fast approaching and there's quite a bit to do before then; mainly packing then unpacking and picking up boxes to unpack + move in to the new flat. But before all the PACK-work can take action, i've got a week to kill in this city. As much as I find comfort in roaming around the house, eating while playing dead (similar to my deceased turtles) and watching tv, a so called ' TO SEE' list was brewed in my cauldron (located in my back yard! holla).  The list ain't looking all that great though, please lower any/all standards:

- Dolmabahce Palace
- Galata Tower
- Istiklal
- Sultanahmet
- Istanbul Akvaryum (i like fish)

lesvos

Lesbos in Lesvos, that should have been the story we went with. Would have been able to avoid all the awkward conversations if we thought of that line earlier. Right mu? Too bad we didn't, but this way we've got heaps of memories to laugh about. I've got a question that i'm dying to ask mukfa, do you wanna go back to that island??

7:00 am, finally arriving in ayvalik. The night bus from istanbul was long, loooooong. You know the feeling when you've been sitting for a while, and you get up, and you realize you forgot how to walk. That feeling + just waking up + in a new town = our morning in ayvalik. All we knew was that we wanted some ayvalik tost. And so we got us some.

After breakfast we took a dolmus to cunda island, cause we heard that the church there is a must see. Upon arrival we asked around, 'where's the church?' and we were told to walk up the hill. So we walked up the hill. And kept walking up the hill. Till we saw the church, completely covered in scaffolding! Aha! Saw some top notch scaffolding, well done.

And then we went to midili, mytilene, there's bout a billion ways to spell the name of that island.

There's a giant castle on top of the town. The walk up the hill was a bit of a drag, you know, especially in 35 degree weather, but the breeze in the castle ruins.. it was gooooooood.  

As yas and mu would know, I've recently become obsessed, OBSESSED I TELL YOU, with Adini Feriha Koydum (a turkish drama). Finished the first season in three days, that's 24 episodes and each of them are about 1:45 min = about 42 hours! Oh gawd. 

Iyi Bayramlar + Eid Mubarak to everyone x

edit: in the last two days that it took me to write up this post, i've powered through another 15 episodes, CRAY.