Time to Catch Up in A World of Havoc

Well... It's been a bit since I've updated this blog.

It's been a busy year (literally I think it's over a year from my last update) sooo what's changed?

I guess, pretty much everything.

Last year, around this time Baros and I traveled to Turkey together for the first time.  I got to meet his parents in person and we celebrated Baros' and his father's birthdays in person all together.  I got to see his home town and the absolute beauty that is Istanbul.  We took a mini vacation within our vacation and spent a few days in Bodrum, otherwise known as a peaceful haven on the Mediterranean.

After getting back, I interviewed for a promotion and got it!  So I'm the Team Lead of my amazing squad at work.  It's been crazy and busy and hectic but very worth it.  It's probably a lot of the reason I stopped updating the blog because I was just working a lot and adjusting to my new position and all the demands that came with it.

6 weeks of training with the visiting Italians.  Eventually, I'd like to go train with them in Italy.  But I suppose it will have to wait for the moment until the world calms down.

We traveled down the shore to spend time with my Mom a few times over the summer.  We went to Philly to visit Andrea and Inch.

We celebrated Burak's birthday with a mellow visit.  We won some Broadway tickets so he could see his first musical with Baros.

I low key celebrated my birthday.  Honestly, it was so low key I barely remember what I did.  At work, they surprised me.  Baros got me beautiful roses and somehow I got even more lucky.  I won tickets to see Phantom of the Opera on my birthday. 

I went to the Renaissance Faire twice.  Once with Baros, Ang and a friend.  And once with Jeremy and co.  I love the spirit and fun loving atmosphere and can't wait to go back.  The costumes and camaraderie are incredible.

Halloween was fun.  I was a mermaid at work and organized a costume contest!  When I made it home, I de-mermaidified and we watched Hocus Pocus.  Unfortunately the weather was just crap so we couldn't go out.  I probably remember this because Halloween has always been my favorite holiday.

Thanksgiving was fun.  We spent Thanksgiving day with my brother's girlfriend's family.  We ate too much and had great conversation.  It was weird not hosting but lovely just the same.  And then the next day Mom made Thanksgiving anyway.  She can't help herself.

December was busy.  We threw Andrea a surprise Baby Shower at mom's!  It was small but so much fun.  We told Andrea it was an early Christmas lunch and actually succeeded at surprising her.  We "showered" her with love and food and unicorns!  (Well, Jeremy supplied the unicorns, but they were there).

We spent Christmas at home since I worked on Christmas Eve and chilled out with Baros' brother, Burak.

New Year's Eve was also spent at home with the boys, but we made a feast and watched the ball drop with Raki and delicious foods.  At midnight, Burak and I jumped on the couch like kids!  It was already broken so all was well.

January was mellow.

February was hard.  So very hard to process.

It started off well enough, searching for apartments and just being us.  But then, Baros' mom passed away and I don't know where the rest of February went.  It was unexpected and shocking and just about the most difficult thing I've dealt with.

There were tears and sadness and anger and confusion.  We found out on Sunday and flew to Turkey Monday.
We made it to Istanbul at 7am Tuesday morning and walked into a living room of memories drenched in sadness and regret.  We jumped into funeral arrangement and went to the morgue.  We said our goodbyes and navigated family and friends.  For me, all was done with minimal understanding because my Turkish is just not good enough.  I was the hugger, the arm, the person watching facial expressions trying to be in the right place at the right time, to not be in the way.
We went just about 38 hours without sleeping.  To the point that I was falling asleep while standing up.

It was a difficult week with trips to the cemetery and difficult/impossible good byes.  Anaconda (Nuran) will be missed everyday.  She was a wonderful person who's life was too short.  There was still so much we wanted to share with her.
The rest of February was nothing.  Just living.

March was crazy.  We started the moving process.  We took the whole month to move our tiny apartment to a larger place in the same town.  It was back and forth.  We walked about 75% of our belongings and got help from my mom and our friends Ernesto and Bihter.
We stubbornly folded our mattress in half and walked it across West New York.  We built 10 pieces of Ikea furniture! We still love each other through it all!  <3

And through it all, Corona started sneaking into our lives more regularly. It was on the news.  Suddenly, restrictions popping up.  Listening to talk of Pandemics.  Public Transit changing schedules.  New Jersey and New York practically shutting down except for Essential businesses.  Working from home.  Unpacking.  Organizing.  Trying to pretend it's just a vacation.  But people are dying and there's nothing we can do but stay home and wait it out.

I haven't seen Mom since the beginning of March and my brother since well before that.

Good news though.  We've finished unpacking.  We got our Kitty!  His name is Maestro and he's a little love that follows us around wherever we go. He's our little baby and I'm so glad we have him around us right now!  He's definitely going to be a super spoiled kitty!

The world is crazy and I guess I need to get back to writing on here so I can process the world around me.  I  need to write down the good and share some pictures from last year and from this year.  And continue documenting this journey that Baros and I are on.

Life is an adventure.  It's different and a little scarier than expected.  But we're going to get through it together as best we can.

Valentine's Day Adventures: NYC edition

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

To tell the truth, I've never been a Valentine's aficionado.  For me, it's always been a bit of a contrived holiday. It's very commercial.  The red and pink hearts everywhere... Plus, there was that year I worked at a floral shop... I was traumatized by the sheer quantity of thorns I had to remove from roses.
Also, being single as a woman during Valentine's Day was never fun.  I don't think it's quite as problematic for single men.  Nobody wants to know why they don't have a Valentines.  That whole double standard always felt problematic to me and to an extent still does.  Why have Galentine's but there's no male equivalent?

I will say I still don't love Valentine's Day but it's not quite as obnoxious to me.  And I've gotten over my issues with roses.  I'm back to loving them (luckily since Baros gets me roses every now and then!) .

Last year, on the day before Valentine's Day I won tickets to see Kinky Boots through a Broadway Lottery.  So on February 13, we had a pre-Valentine's Date in the city.  We saw Kinky Boots, which is AMAZING.  If you haven't seen it, you really should before it goes off Broadway this year.

One of the best shows I've seen!

<3

Being silly at intermission!

 After the show we got dessert at a diner and headed home to relax.

A brownie Sundae

Baros looking on with his strawberry shake

I'm sooo happy.... I did share though...

The next day, Baros gave me the cutest unicorn bags (who needs hearts?  Unicorns are wonderful) and we spent a very lovely evening at home home watching movies and eating yummy food.

Love these bags.  I use them as my makeup bags still. 

And at some point, someone in our neighborhood started shooting fireworks so we got a lovely surprise show too.

The view from our window.  We were too tired to go
outside. 

This year, we're actually going out ON Valentine's Day, tonight.

Through Todaytix, I found really reasonably priced opera tickets for the 14th.  So Baros and I are going to see Iolanta and Bluebeard's Castle at the MET.

We've never been to an opera together before but we love classical music.  This should be a wonderful experience, especially since one of the operas (there are two one-act operas) is by one of Baros' favorite composers, Bartok.  The other opera is by Tchaikovsky.

They are supposed to be haunting, and lovely and I'm looking forward to it.  It'll also be the first opera I've seen in Russian so it should be interesting.  I've seen operas in Italian, English and French so far, so I'm curious to hear what another language sounds like in opera form.  So far, Italian flows the best for me in operatic singing and English not so much (it was weird to have to read the subtitles for my first language lol).

We haven't gotten reservations so as soon as I get into the city after work, we'll book it to a restaurant.  We're either going to go to Giardino54 or Jacob's Pickles.  I know!  Such a diverse choice!  Neither restaurant takes reservations and we couldn't decide between classic Italian and Southern Charm.

From there (wherever we wind up), we'll head to the MET.

I think it's going to be a lovely evening with my favorite person!  <3

NYC Adventures: Celebrations at Beetle House

On Thursday, I took a day off so Baros and I could go to his Greencard Interview.  For anyone who doesn't know, Baros is from Turkey and when we got married he was on an artist visa.  Together, we decided to apply for his Permanent Residency here.
So from the time we got married (November 2017) we've been busy.  We filled out lots of paperwork (Baros mostly did everything but I helped) and did a ton of waiting.  We've waited for notifications, work permits and most recently for our interview date.
Happily, our interview was this past Thursday and it went really well.  We had all our paperwork in order and hundreds of pictures ready as evidence. It was a stressful kind of day.
We got dressed up and went to Newark.
We waited some more and then just as quickly as the interview started, it was over.
Our case was accepted and Baros is now a Permanent Resident here in the USA!
Once his greencard is in hand, we'll be able to travel wherever we like and have even more adventures together.
I'm so excited and I know he is too!
First thing: TRIP to TURKEY!!  Baros will see his parents for the first time in almost 3 years and I'll get to meet them in person for the first time.
I don't think excitement quite covers the emotions we're feeling.  It's incredible and relieving and wonderful!
So on Thursday, after our interview, we went home to drop off our crazy heavy bags (soooo much paperwork!) and then we head into the city for a celebration!

Beetle House - Downtown Manhattan

It took us a while to decide but we finally chose Beetle House.  We've been talking about going there for ages but it never felt like quite the right moment! 

This is Halloween!  This is amazing!

We're both huge Tim Burton fans so it has been on the agenda for a while. Baros had been back when it first opened but I'd never been.

We're giant nerds.

I've seen many, many Burton films: Edward Scissorhands, BeetleJuice, Batman Returns, The NightMare Before Christmas, Batman Forever, James and the Giant Peach, Corpse Bride, Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children, Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sleepy Hollow.  I love them.  I think Baros has missed a few that I've seen... but we can always watch together now!  I love re-watching.

So Thursday seemed like the perfect night! We could celebrate in true nerd fashion.

Since it was a Thursday night we were able to walk in without a reservation, but if you're going on a weekend, I would definitely make that reservation.  It's a small restaurant so I think it gets crowded quickly.  Even for a Thursday it was pretty busy!  We got the last table in the front.  It was a dark corner facing the bar so I really liked it. <3

The atmosphere was lovely.  It really felt like you were entering a Burton world!

The best thing is that when we walked in we were greeted by The Corpse Bride. She was great and actually came to check in on us and chat with us periodically through the evening. It was lovely and we even got to take a picture with her during the evening.

What a lovely bride! She didn't even try to steal my hubby!

The food was also pretty delicious. However, we weren't careful when we were reading the menu online and didn't realize it was a two course pre fixe menu.  There were two price choices $35 or $45 dollars per person.  So you chose an appetizer and a main course.  The main courses impacted the overall price (most of the vegan, vegetarian or light meat dishes were the lower price option).  It wasn't really a problem, but we also weren't expecting that.  We would have gone hungrier if we had realized.

We decided to share the Brains & Chips (guacamole, black tortilla chips and plaintain chips) and the Nightmare Wings for our appetizers.  Then we also got the Chesire Mac & Cheese and the Edward Burger Hands.  We stuck to the $35 options, for budget but also because they sounded pretty delicious.

Gotta love Jack!

The Brains & Chips was pretty tasty. It felt like a well done Guacamole although the pineapple was extremely mild and not abundantly flavorful.  It was delicious but the pineapple wasn't super present (not a bad thing at all).  It used to be served in a skull but the manager told us that people kept stealing them! so I'm a little sad that we didn't get the full experience.
The Nightmare Wings weren't crazy spicy.  They were tasty and pretty meaty (we had an experience not too long ago with really sad wings, so these were awesome).  Definitely enjoyed them!

The Back of the restaurant

The Cheshire Mac & Cheese was delicious and creamy. The stewed tomato reduction and the salted honey butter crumb topping were really amazing.  We only ate half (we were happily full by the end of our meal) and took the rest home with us to eat the next day for dinner.

The Edward Burger Hands was pretty amazing too (sadly not served with scissors anymore... also due to people).   It's an 8oz burger with pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, roasted red peppers, smoked bacon, a sunny side egg, and siracha aioli and it was served with the best sweet potato fries I've had in a while.  I'm not always the biggest burger fan but this was juicy and perfectly cooked.  The egg was perfect too.  The most difficult thing was splitting the burger in two!  It was a challenge but I did it! Since the egg was perfect it got all over the place, but we used the amazing bun and sweet potato fries to sop it all up.

To drink, Baros got a couple of IPAs and I got a new drink called The Corpse, recommended by the Corpse Bride herself.  I don't know what was in it since it's not officially on the menu yet, but it was delicious! It was a super cool drink that came out bubbling!  It was such a lovely effect and very yummy.  I think it was vodka, but I honestly don't remember since I didn't see it in writing.

Bubble, Bubble

We had such a great night! The bartender/waiter, the corpse bride and manager were all amazing.
The manager came to check on us a couple of times and even showed us the new cookbook. It is really cool so we decided to nerd out and get ourselves a copy.

It has some beautiful food and drink recipes as well as party ideas and I can't wait to try some of them!  The Giant Peach Salad, Frog's Breath & Nightshade Risotto, Hallowpeno Honey Cheddar Cornbread and the Sriracha-Roasted Butternut Squash Death Soup sound particularly amazing to me so maybe in a couple of months we'll even have a Burton themed house party.

What was also lovely is that we got to meet one of the chefs that contributed to the book.  Chef Chris Binotto just moved to NYC from the LA location so he was kind enough to come out of the kitchen and have a whole conversation with us and sign our book.  It was pretty awesome!
He told us that we should come back in the next few months because he'll be helping to revamp the menu!  Apparently, he's got some new tricks up his sleeves.

Our brand new signed cookbook!  Next time we should remember to get a
picture with the chef!  He was pretty awesome!

We will definitely be back after such a wonderful experience!

After finishing our meal, we grabbed one more drink at a nearby bar called Burp Castle (it's really cool since it's actually quiet and great for conversation) and then we walked back to Port Authority.

Shockingly fun!

It was a long walk from the lower east side and took a lot out of me!  I've been on and off sick for weeks so by the time we got home, I was dead on my feet. I was exhausted and my sore throat and cough came back!  When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling pretty poopy, so I had to take one more day off to recover.

Even so, it was a great day!  I spent the rest of the weekend recovering and relaxing with hubby so I'm a happy camper. 

Catchup and Travel adventures

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written here.

The end of October and November have been crazy.

We went on our vacation to 3 incredible places: Providence, Boston and Pittsburgh and we did so much that I didn't leave myself any time to write about them!

And then we got back to Jersey and it's been busy season at work with lots of changes going on at once.

I ran out of time and couldn't motivate myself to get back on track.  But hopefully I'll be able to adjust starting from now.

There's so much to write about and share.  So these are some of the upcoming posts!

• Apple Picking Adventures with friends 
• Providence Adventures
• Happy Hour
• Walking tours of the city
• Trattoria Zooma
• The RISD gallery 
• Our first AirBnB experience 
• Rooftop (ish) drinks
• Boston Adventures
• The best Clam Chowder
• The Aquarium 
• The 360 panorama view of the city
• Historic Boat Tour
• The best Lobster Roll and Loster Bisque 
• The Science Museum
• Walking the Freedom Trail (and seeing the DUCKIES) 
• Italian in the North End 
• Cannolis too
• Pittsburgh Adventures
• Catching up with family (Baros' brother lives there) 
• Dinner and drinks on the town
• The Duquesne Incline 
• The Andy Warhol Museum
• Hiking 
• The 8 hour bus ride home
• Halloween Adventures and Carving Baros' and Danielle's first pumpkin
• Adventures in Brooklyn: Making Dinner with friends
• Celebrating our Anniversary in the City
• Broadway Adventures: Aladdin
• Adventures in Baking: Cranberry Curd Tart
• Thanksgiving Adventures
• Food Adventures
• Fitness Adventures

And... I think that's everything!  I'll add to the list and slowly start writing again and editing photos too today!

Birthday Adventures: A week of celebrations

So I'm finally done celebrating my birthday!  This is my recap of all of the crazy activities we did!!

I had some weeklong mini adventures.  I'm not one for organizing big parties (unless they involve costumes!) because I find it challenging to coordinate my friends who live all over the tri-state and have crazy different schedules.  Some people are only free on weekends, some have rotating schedules, some are never free on weekends.  Some live out of state or not near enough for a convenient trip.  So I tend to celebrate in small outings with different groupings of people so I can hang out and enjoy with everyone I love.

When I turn 35 I think I'll try to organize a big party... with some kind of book character theme, like for my 28th when I got everyone to dress up from Alice in Wonderland.   But I have plenty of time to plan for that since I only turned 32 this week.  3 more years till that craziness!!

So on the 22nd I went to my second ever Paint Night!  I met up with my friend Danielle who brought us a bottle of wine to share and we painted to our hearts content.  We had a blast and made some beautiful paintings to put on our walls. Go here to read more about it!

Then the morning after, I headed to Queens to head over to the Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo, NY. We spent a few hours running around admiring costumes and eating delicious food.

Then afterwards we headed back to NYC and got to go to Little Italy for the last day of San Gennaro.  I love adventures in Little Italy!  We ran around trying different foods and seeing some lovely booths before I headed back to NJ for some rest before my work week.

On Tuesday night, hubby and I got to celebrate.  We ate and then headed to The Color Factory (sadly now closed... but there should be a new exhibition soon so if you missed the Color Factory, there should be something equally fun coming your way!!) We had such a wonderful night.

On my actual birthday, I went to work.  And my coworkers threw me a surprise party at the end of the day!  They managed to really surprise me since they waited till the very end of the day so I thought they may have forgotten!

It was so cute.  They gave me flowers, a teddy bear and a balloon and cake, lots of cake.  I'm so happy to be a part of my team!!  I love them so much!
Afterwards, I caught a ride home (yayyy! no train for the birthday girl!) and then I crashed.  Well, first, I found flowers on my doorstep from one of my besties.  Grace sent me some beautiful fall inspired flowers!   Then I got inside and crashed.  I was so tired.  Eventually, Baros got home and he surprised me with flowers too!  He got me beautiful red roses and lilies!  I was such a happy birthday girl.  We ate a little dinner and I took my first online Spanish lesson (I didn't think he'd make it home till late so I scheduled poorly).
I got such a cute message from my brother-in-law, Burak (later on in the week he even sent me a picture of a beer and a toast in my honor!) and then I got a wonderful call from one of my favorite Californians and we caught up and talked about life and her upcoming nuptials.  Alex is awesome and I can't wait to see her soon.

Then we fell asleep.  Baros fell asleep while I was talking, but I made him move from the end of the bed to where he belonged, next to me.  He was so exhausted and adorable in his exhaustion. He fell right back asleep and then I followed shortly after.  We had wanted to eat the ice cream in our freezer... but it never happened.  We were just too pooped.  It was a "we're asleep by 9:45 kind of night" and that's so rare for me that I'm okay with it!!  It was a relaxing way to spend my evening so I was really happy. 

Then the following Saturday I got to go back to the Renaissance fair for Adventure Part II.  I went with Danielle, Jeremy and his group of friends and it was so much fun. It was an all day affair that ended with pancakes and breakfast food at Brownstone Pancakes.  So delicious.
It was a lovely full and busy day.

One of my last birthday celebrations actually came as a surprise to me exactly one week after my birthday.  One of my best friends, Endira, came in from Chicago for work so I met up with her.  She treated me to birthday dinner and drinks.  We went to an outdoor happy hour and got some wine and some dumplings.  And then we walked over to delicious sushi at Asuka on 8th Ave and 23rd St. We got edamame and rolls to share.  If you're looking for good sushi this is a great place to go. Plus, we had some delicious cocktails.
We had a wonderful few hours of catching up and hanging out. It was a lovely celebration with one of my favorite people who I don't get to see as much as I'd like to!
Life and distance! But no worries, Chicago is on my horizons.

Then on Saturday night I had one last surprise.
Baros and I went to Brooklyn to see our friends Bihter and Ernesto for the first time in a long while.
We had a raki night with yummy food and even better company. And once we were finished eating, out came the surprise cheesecake and birthday song.  It was so fun celebrating with them, even though I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of all of us together.

fried liver, yummy yogurt sauce called haydari made by Bihter, cucumber and tomato salad and feta. 

All the food... just a little blurry... 

About to cut the cheesecake!

The desserts, baklava, cheesecake and a jammy cookie

On the subway home!

With that birthday surprise, my birthday celebrations have dragged on for two weeks so now I must declare the celebrations over!

I'm so lucky to have so many amazing people in my life.  I didn't get to celebrate with everyone, but I felt so loved between the messages and celebrations!
I didn't even get to celebrate with Mom and Paul, but Paul sent me a beautiful color changing butterfly mug and I got to have a great conversation with the mamma bear on the morning of my birthday.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks, I'll get down to visit them too and we can have some other adventures... Maybe even Mom's first tattoo adventure since she wanted to get a mother/daughter tattoo for my birthday.

Let's see where this year takes us!! 32 is going to be a good one!