Wanderlust and Terrible Dust

Wednesday morning I headed to Kütahya, if you have been following our blog for 10 years and have an excellent memory, you might remember that we have an old house there.

It is about 500km from our home, normally I take the longer route as it is a highway but I took by accident the shorter one and I ended up in some cute villages which were also fun.

Traffic was mostly a bunch of geese :)

I was in Kütahy till Saturday evening. The house was in a much worse state, we never went there in the past 10 years. I didn't take any photos, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, windows were broken and thieves even stole the doors and metal work of the windows. Time was not so kind to the building but it was the people who ruined it.

As it is a historic building I went to several governmental offices that might buy it. I also spoke to the new Mayor of Kütahya which is luckily not part of AKparty which is a big improvement and a lucky break. Hopefully, soon they'll buy it and renovate it, I'm not holding my breath but at least I did something about it. I stayed with friend's who are some of the sweetest people we know which was a ray of sunshine in the otherwise somber visit.

The Best is Yet to Come

Most likely you are aware of the situation in Turkey. You also most likely are not 100% sure what it is that is going on but don't worry hardly anyone is sure, and it is a total and sad mess.
These past few days people from all of the world contacted us through various places to check up on us and we are thankful for that. We are fine around here, sad and unsure about the future but fine.
The government and the men on the top are playing some extremely dangerous games with the people as pawns and them watching safely from their ivory towers.
Hopefully brighter days are coming, but for now it seems we are going to a very dark place.

But I will now continue on a brighter side as there is so much bad things going on, not only here but practically all over the world,
Just before shit hit the fan, actually the day of the fake coup I went to pick up our brand new car, yaaay! I had to pick the papers and plates from Muğla.
It is the first time that we are owners of a not second hand one, it smells new and we are making its history, which is a nice feeling. As I picked it up right before the mess we haven't really enjoyed it yet but it is nice.

This lab that you are seeing is where my plates were made :) I had to pick them up myself as foreigners get different plates which doesn't go automatically like normal plates. The manner was pretty old school and cute so I took some pictures.

Then with the plates I went to another town, Denizli, a bus drive from Muğla of 2,5 hours. It was a bit tiring all by all but I had a good deal on this car so it was worth the extra journey.
Just the night before I went we made a brand new evil eye charm with hamsa's and lots of eyes for lots of protection. I put it on at the dealers before driving it for the first time :)

We still need to sell our old car but that will be fine. Hopefully with my next blog post there will be some more good news, especially about the way things are going around here politically would be nice if there would be a turn to a better direction.
Stay safe and in peace everyone.

Adventurous Sunday

On Sunday we decided to make it a 'real' Sunday and go out and about and enjoying the sun and the sea starting with a lovely brunch.

Wriggly earth roads where you can not go faster than 30 km/h brought us to some amazing views and places.

Little islands...

Beautiful bays and lots of greens and blues.

And some more islands. Eventually after not coming across a single soul we ended up in a little restaurant, they never have customers from land, only from boats that sail by and like to have some solid ground and food before continuing their journey. We drank a coffee there and asked for instructions to find a bay we were looking for and continued our journey.

The road however is less fun and very tiring but it was worth it until...

crap...

No biggie, we have a spare tire, ah and it is in good condition pfewww, and then another crap when we discovered that our jack was awol and so was the tool that screws loose the screws that holds the tires, oh boy...
So we walked back to the little restaurant for help, luckily they had everything needed and helped us tremendously so we were very lucky because beside them their were only chicken in the neighborhood.

Oh and a donkey but he didn't know anything about changing tires.

Not wanting to take any risks we didn't continue the road we planned to avoid another flat tire, and got back the way we came. But as we had been mostly in the car all day I wanted to go to the beach to have a refreshing swim. There were a few people, one chasing the wind, flying on the waves.

After a refreshing swim it started to get dark, but the reason was a cloud covering the sun, we hadn't seen any clouds for a while, and this one made some pretty pictures.

Aaaahhh a peak to heaven *sigh*
All relaxed we got in to our car and just 500 meters away I had the terrible feeling that we had a flat tire again.

And I was right, for crying out loud. Now without a spare tire, no jack or tools we were totally helpless in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday.

We called friends who found a tire repairman and we were home eventually at 9 pm totally exhausted.

I now have two new tires, a jack and everything else needed, apparently there was also something else wrong with the car, which actually was the reason of this double trouble, so we were in luck as on a highway this could have ended very badly. So we count our blessings but I do not know when we will dare to have another 'vacation' again :)

Newly Listed: Winding Roads Weekender

Newly listed today is this cool weekender, all made with fabulous vintage bits and pieces, ready to go on a journey.
Country Road to Snowy Mountains Landscape Photograph by ApplesAndOats
New York City Subway Map Photograph, Title Wander by KarinKohlmeier
From the train window by theaterclouds

Nothing Goes As Planned

We learned that again, as the roof terrace didn't go as planned at all. This is the latest state of it and it will stay like this for another week as we came back home so that it all can dry. We will be going back next week to finish it off but in the mean time we have been able to catch up work and errands at home.

On the way back we saw a few huge nests of Storks. The fun thing is that little birds take advantage of the safe and high place and make nests on the side of the big nest, partly already isolated, very smart.

And these ladies were chatting and wished us a safe journey :)

We are now back home, catching our breath and organizing our new supplies which we purchased in Izmir and finishing orders of the past 10 days!

New Adventures

We are not at home for the coming 7 to 10 days.

A very good friend from Holland has a house in another town and it needs some work on the roof which will mum be leading the workers etc. We hit the roads yesterday.

Great views and wonderful weather, which makes the journey fun.

Unfortunatly we got stuck in a town because of a cycling competiton, all roads were blocked and we needed to wait a while to get through. We were lucky though as some had been waiting for hours, weirdness!

But no time is lost in our household and mum started knitting in the car :)

Some more bendy bumpy roads, and finally after quite some hours we arrived to our destination.

Unfortunatly it started to rain today so the roof project is on hold and we are enjoying some quiet time, although without internet we are having some withdrawal symptoms.

To continue…

Flickr Favorites

1. Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try! (252/365), 2. Fields of Gold, 3. The Blue Movement, 4. Cool Camper

Life is often a struggle... there will be many bumpy roads during our journey. I wanted to create a collection of flawless lines, representing somesort of flawless future, not that it is possible but one can always try :)

See more mosaics at ArtMind's blog, you can join the game, it's fun!

Flickr Favorites- Cars

1. Ford Monterey Car and Hot Rod Show Tualatin, Oregon ~ 6625C, 2. 1964 Ford Ranchero, Classic Cars at Bob's Big Boy, 3. UK - Oxon - Blenheim Car Show - Classic Ford, 4. mossy Ford car

By the time you see this mosaic we will be in our old Ford (no classic, just old) on our way to İzmir. We will be there for a few days to catch up our breath, tons of supply shopping, IKEA and a little fun :)
We might not be able to blog those days, but will be back at the end of the week!

See more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's Blog!

This and that

Summer is still going hot and strong over here, and it will take atleast a month to cool down a bit. Doggies are happy and a bit overheated as you can see :)

At the previous blogpost I mentioned that I went to Kütahya but not the reason. The reason was that we have a very old house there (built in 1902). The house needs a renovation and we don't have the money for it so it is just standing there. No one wants to buy such a burden, except the goverment. The reason that the goverment wants it is beside to renovate it and give the city a fresh look is that the first president of Turkey, Atatürk has visited and maybe even stayed in our house. In almost every city of Turkey is an Atatürk museum, they now want to make a museum of our house. Of course the goverment wants to pay such a small amount of money that we needed to go there to talk with the mayor of Kütahya. I went there with our lawyer, the road is not a problem if you go on your own or with a friend. But this time it was HELL, the lawyer did not stop talking....*sigh* so two days long I had a terrible headache during the journey.


The blue one is ours, it is huge! About 650 square meter of living space, but now impossible to use. Of course the mayor preposed a joke of a price and we went back empty handed. We will see if we will ever hear from them again, we will keep you posted :)

On the way back, we went on sunday and returned on monday, I was so tired of listening to the verbal tornado of our lawyer that I took some fun pictures of the night with lights :)

Flickr Favorites- Road Trip

1. Billybanks Car Park #2, 2. Brezza di primavera, 3. Gracious God, 4. Road Trip

I'm just back from a road trip to Kütahya, a seven hour drive. This mosaic is inspired by this trip.

Explore more beautiful mosaics at ArtMind's blog!

During the journey we passed the 'Salt Lake' it is so salty that it is very white as there was a cloud you can't see the whiteness so good. In real it is fascinating.