Merry Christmas!

We wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! The pottery above is made by the owners of the house we are watching. The weather is fantastic here today so we'll have a nice walk in a park today as it is our last day in Tallahassee.

Tallahassee is a very green and widespread city. It is safe and lovely but not a tourist destination at all. If it hadn't been for the house/ pet sit we wouldn't have stayed longer than a day or two but the 10 days flew by and we enjoyed ourselves a lot here.

We visited several cute little historic towns throughout our stay here is the town Havana, a tiny little town, very southern, very quiet.

Like always we visited a few thrift stores, the more isolated places often have the best finds!

The Old Spanish Trail from San Diego, California to St. Augustine -hee painted on the wall- would be great to do, we might do it in the future, we actually have done it partially last year from St. Augustine to New Orleans, but that is just a fraction of this long road!

America is huge and as soon as you are not in a city there is a lot of space, farms, and woods.

We can't get enough of the huge oaks here in the South, some parts are so thickly covered with trees that you can't see the sun, it's quite magical especially when they are adorned with Spanish moss.

This building reminded me of oxidized copper, which I absolutely love.

An old ad, back when Cola was 5cents.

The historic parts are often just one main street as the towns were small, to begin with, and some big houses clearly of rich people. This is the Historic district of Quincy.

At the end of the day, we had an amazing sunset which I, unfortunately, could not really capture.

The next day we went to the St.Marks National Wildlife Refuge. 5$ to enter with a car, 1$ by bike and absolutely amazing. It was very large and everyone there was there to enjoy the birds and nature (lots of bird watchers). You could stop to take pictures as everyone was driving very slow and as the weather wasn't perfect it wasn't crowded.

It was a magical place and very calming.

Lots of birds, a cool Belted Kingfisher on a dried-out tree.

This bird stayed like this, I think it wanted to make itself look big towards us, not sure.

Apparently, there had been a fire a while back as a part showed remains of that, I guess at a very dry time as it was very wet there now.

Remainings of a pier had become a hotspot for pelicans.

 Walking among the dunes where the smaller birds were.

The St.Marks Lighthouse.
The lighthouse and this area have quite the history, if interested you can read it here.

Someone had taken the time to make the deer signs into Rudolf signs for Christmas which was really funny in the mostly very natural environment.

All roads around here are various stages of green, even in the city of Tallahassee, we love it.

An abandoned fairytale-like house.

With even an abandoned car, I wonder what happened there.

We came across this beautiful river while driving back to Tallahassee.

And some quirky garden ornaments.

Merry Christmas again, I hope you enjoyed our trip :)!

Weird Times

I mentioned our elections last week.
After 13 days they (AK party) still have not handed over Istanbul to the Democratic party, they are asking for recounts, which happened, and now even try to have a new election for just Istanbul. In the meantime papers are destroyed, and ugly things are surfacing. For example, just in Istanbul, it turned out that there were 60.000 employees, getting their salary every month, without working a day. ATM workers they are called, so the only job they do is go to an ATM and withdraw their salary. The corruption is huge, and this is just the beginning of the pile of money they have been spending on friends and family. I hope Istanbul will get their deserved Mayor soon, and hopefully, this is the beginning of a new era here.
And the photo is just something I took this week, light is hope, and I hope to see light at the end of the tunnel :)

Newly Listed: Sterling Silver Coral Branch Necklace

Sterling Silver Coral Branch Necklace with Red Coral and Silver Branch by StaroftheEast
Ship Photography, Red Boat Fine Art Print, Hopeful Seaside Art, Dreamy Rowing Boat by JudithKimberPhoto
No. 3 Sea Coral, Red Coral, Beach Art, beach decor, Watercolor by willowlief
Lighthouse Photograph, Coastal Decor, Beach, Minimalist Coastal Art, Nautical Wall Print by EyePoetryPhotography

Photo Expedition - Datça & Knidos

This Sunday I went to another photo expedition with my photography class. This time it was pretty close by to Datça first and then Knidos. Both are on the same Peninsula and have amazing bays but also history.

Datça is a village but it is popular for city people and a lot of people from Istanbul come here for vacations or even move here after retirement. So even though it is a village it doesn't really have the usual things 'true villages' have. Not much farming and such going on.

The old stone houses are very typical in this place, which makes it charming and photographic.

Lots of beautiful doors.

And abandoned school and Mosque, both emptied due to earthquake damage.

You could especially see lots of cracks at the mosque, the only person inside was a ginger cat but he didn't want to pose.

I adore these cute little narrow 'streets', reminds me of old stories and fairy tales.

We had terrific weather and great fun.

Love this paddle gate door :D

Evil eyes everywhere, I guess a neighbor was stealing the lemons :)

Silk thread from a cute little silk shop.

We then went to Knidos, horrible winding road, I think going with a boat would be more fun. The ruins in Knidos were kind of ruined, all ordered in rows, not nice at all, so that was disappointing. But pretty views, the lighthouse and the wildflowers were nice.

I love wild flowers, in the mountains as soon as you pay attention there are dozens of types and all so pretty.

 The details of the ruins were pretty too, but not really worth the horrible road :D

I prefer the sea, which was amazingly turquoise on Sunday, breathtaking colors.

I hope you enjoyed my day with me :)