Archive for March, 2010
Boat on the Bosphorus
This is the last Istanbul post, I promise! The day before we left, we took a 1.5 hour boat trip up the Bosphorus. That is all!
Gallipoli
To anyone who isn’t from Australia or New Zealand, Gallipoli probably doesn’t mean much at all (as we discovered while talking to other travellers at our hostel). But for those that are, the Gallipoli Campaign is a very important part of our (very limited) history, and so we thought it only fitting to visit the site while we were in Turkey.
Blue Mosque, Ayasofya and the Palace
Out of the three, I think the Blue Mosque was our favourite. For a start – it was free, so we could keep going back. We also got to sit in on a prayer service, even though the sign says it’s closed to the public (pays to ask!), which was amazing!
Istanbul
We’re back!! And what an amazing time we had! I won’t bore you with the details – suffice to say that the weather was amazing, the people extra friendly (except one very upsetting carpet seller), and the sites, sounds and smells utterly overwhelming (in a good way!)! I’ve just finished going through all the photos and (thanks to us being such trigger-happy-snappers) I’m going to have to share them over a couple of posts.
So, I’ll just start off with some of general shots we took along the way.. tomorrow will be the Ayasofya, Blue Mosque and the Palace. Enjoy!
Technicolour spots
A current work in progress. I have grand plans for this to become one of two posters for my wall.. but I’ll see how I feel about that idea once I actually finish this one! Only about a thousand more spots to go!
Delicious Granola Bars
I found this granola bar recipe over on Smitten Kitchen and decided to give it a go.. and I’m glad I did – they are seriously delicious! They did turn out a little bit crumbly (ok, a lot crumbly) for any number of reasons, but I think storing them in the fridge should do the trick. The recipe below is a slightly different version to that on Smitten Kitchen, because I couldn’t find some of the ingredients.. but this recipe is really flexible, so don’t feel like you have to stick to my recipe either!
Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup oats processed in food processor until finely ground)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 cups (approx.) dried fruit and nuts chopped how you like it (I used: 2 cups mixed nuts (walnuts, pecans, blanched almonds), 1 cup mixed dried berries (cranberries, cherries, blueberries), 1/4 cup dried apple, 1/4 cup dried apricots)
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 g butter, melted
1/4 cup maple syrup (or honey)
2 tbs honey (the recipe asks for corn syrup, but I don’t know what that is – or where to find it in our local Germany supermarket!)
1 tbs water
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line and grease a tin (the one I used was 23cm x 23cm).
Stir all the dry ingredients together (including fruit and nuts) in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, vanilla, peanut butter, maple syrup, honey and water until it looks like caramel. Combine this with the dry ingredients and stir until it’s all combined.
Put the mixture into the prepared tin and press the mixture into the pan firmly until it’s well compacted (I used the back of a metal spoon to really compact the mixture and make sure it was all even).
Bake for 30 – 40 minutes, or until it’s browned around the edges and browning in the middle. The slice must then be completely cooled in the tin before being cut, and if it’s still too crumbly, put it in the fridge for another 30 minutes and try again.
Oh Happy Day!
This weekend gone (after much deliberation, cost comparing, and review reading – of course) we walked into our local camera shop, handed over a wad of cash, and in turn got to go home with the beautiful new Canon EOS 550d. It really is lovely. I’ve been using the 350d for just over 4 years now, and absolutely love it to bits – so I can’t wait to see how the 550d goes in comparison (the gigantic screen has already made the money worthwhile for me!).
Its first official outing was into the forest just down the road.. we had fun, but it was so cold that the outing didn’t last too long!
slip-casting
One of our on-going projects over the last couple of months has been slip-casting bowls. I think we now have about 6 bowls all made with this process, so we’ll take them off to be fired soon! We probably could have done a lot more bowls in all this time, but we’ve been pretty lazy with the whole thing really.. we keep forgetting about it!
Neu VitraHaus
Last weekend we took the opportunity to visit the amazing new VitraHaus, which is only about a 10 minute drive from where we live. It really was fantastic – so many chairs, so little time! I just wish they were a little bit cheaper.. or me a bit richer, because I would really like to buy one before we leave Germany. Naturally, it’s this one that’s had me drooling for quite a while now, but at just under €5,000 I’ll be lucky to own it at all in my lifetime. Instead, I have my eye on either this one with wooden legs, or this one.. and then probably trying to find a second-hand one at that :) Wish me luck! And go visit the Haus if you’re around – it’s well worth it!
