here's to ends, and new beginnings

What better way to end the year than with a farinheira-stuffed chicken accompanied with roasted potatoes and chestnuts, good wine, and beets? Visiting Portugal has a terrible effect on my waistband, but Pedro's mum is such a heavenly cook!

So long 2015!

let's end the year with sheep

Well I don't know about you, but 2013 was a fine year. This is going to be quick, as we are about to begin our celebrations for New Year's Eve a little early— have a wonderful, wonderful time my friends. See you in 2014!

greetings from the south china sea

Have a Harika New Year, my friends!
See you in 2012

goodbye 2010

It's already 2011 in Istanbul, and as I await the stroke of midnight here, in California, I can't help but look back on the year that was so full of adventure and wonderful things. I'm thankful that I was able to live out so many of my childhood dreams in 2010— climbing up to the Parthenon, strolling through Barcelona, drinking yak butter tea in Nepal and standing in front of the mighty Himalaya.

So 2011, what do you have in store? I look upon you with hopeful eyes and a pounding heart. It is my goal to make every dream of mine a reality. My dear readers, I wish you the happiest of new years. May your 2011 be full of love, laughter, light and adventure. May you live your dreams.

Mutlu Yıllar! Happy New Year!

twenty ten

Here's to a harika 2010!
Nothing like cheering in the New Year with a paper cup of bubbly on the Bosphorus walkway with lovely people. I have great hope for this year.
Happy New Year!

bye bye 2009!

These are all the sketchbooks I've filled in 2009— that's 928 pages front and back, full of scribbles and sketches— not including the work I've done in the International Moleskine Exchange! I wonder if I can beat that next year...

I'm not big on resolutions. I, like most people, rarely stick to them, and end up with that December guilt of never having reached the goals I had set for myself twelve months earlier. 2009 has been a year full of change— I moved halfway across the world, discovered a new career path, met all sorts of wonderful people, visited two cities I've always dreamed of seeing— Prague and Budapest— and I bought a fish from a fishmonger in Turkish.

So what do I have planned for 2010? I've decided to tackle this new year's goals in four ways: art, language, travel and sport. Regarding art, I will continue to work on my drawings and paintings, hopefully getting an exhibition and finishing the comic I've been working on. Language— I want to improve my Turkish. If I have time, I'd like to get back my German. In travel, I will spend a month volunteering in Kathmandu this summer, and I hope to make it to Barcelona and Athens or Oslo. Finally, sport: since I have found nowhere to trapeze in Istanbul, I will take up fencing.

As usual, I want to floss more regularly and read more. I'd love to take up the accordion, but with all the painting, travelling and fencing in Turkish I've got planned, I'm not sure if I can realistically fit it in. We'll see. It's a skill I've been longing to collect.

What are your plans for 2010?

happy 2009!

I am so excited about this year, being that I'm living in a new country and learning new things. I just got back from Beirut on Sunday and have been getting over a cold I came down with that night. New Year's Eve was the best I've had, with lots of food, dancing and noise. There were singers, dancers and musicians that performed all night, and we finished up the event at a sweets shop with some künefe, a delicious sweet cheese dessert. I had never had it in bread, but it was just right.