Calis beach – Canals, sunsets and ladybird cakes!

Posted on August 18, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

It’s been a while since we went for a long walk along Calis, in fact I hardly left the house last week apart from to walk the dog! It’s been extremely hot for the past week or two, with recorded temperatues hitting 40.5 oc in the shade on a couple of occasions, so it’s quite honestly been too hot to go out anywhere.

Today, although it was still a roasting 36oc we decided to go for a walk after dinner around 6pm, and the breeze along the sea front made it bearable.

We walked all the way from our end of Calis seafront to Mutlu hotel at the other end of the promenade. We stopped in the little garden area next to it, which was really busy with Turkish people enjoying their Sunday off and having a picnic in the park – it’s a bit weird, because it’s a not a big park area and certainly not somewhere you’d think to turn up with food and cay… I even saw someone had tied a hammock to the trees and was rocking their baby in it… each to their own though! It was funny as there were sprinklers all over the area watering the grass, and if any of them changed direction lots of people would end up soaked! We found an empty, dry bench and sat on that eating some sunflower seeds. Why is it when you decide to have one it turns into half a packet, and you end up with a handful of shells? I don’t even like them that much!

We decided to walk over the ‘new’ (it’s not really new anymore!) bridge behind the garden which leads to the other side of the canal – there’s a nice view from the top. They’re still working on improving the canal area, last winter they removed all the reeds and plants growing at the sides and replaced it with concrete and walls, and in the past month they have erected a green fence along the entire length of it – I’m not sure what the plans are for it eventually, but it’s definitely a work-in-progress. Lots of people seem to be concerned about the amount of wildlife that have been displaced during the process though.

We walked along the road where all the little gift shops are and crossed the junction at the ‘dolphin roundabout’ to a new-ish pastanesi (cake shop) that opened around the beginning of the season, it used to be a restaurant, but I definitely prefer it as it is now because their cakes are amazing! I’d never been in it before but my favourite thing to do in Fethiye is go to Mercan Pastanesi and get something sweet, so knowing that this new cake shop is just around the corner is going to be a big temptation! They sell coffee, drinks, spongecakes, cheesecakes, muffins, crossiants, biscuits, baklava…. there was a huge selection to chose from, but I knew what I wanted as soon as I walked in and spotted it…

How cute?! They had a hedgehog shaped chocolate cake too but I decided on the banana sponge lady bird cake, just because it was so adorable. Look at that little face! Honestly, I’m so easily amused, this cake seriously made my day. Who needs expensive presents from their boyfriend when they could just buy them a 4tl cake instead?! We actually ended up buying 10tl worth of cakes and took them home with us for later.

By the time we had walked back to ‘our’ end of Calis it was nearly 7.30pm and the sun was starting to go down, so even though Berkay had to be at work by 8pm, we sat and watched the sunset. I really notice how much earlier the sun sets now compared to a month ago – before the end of Ramadan the sun was setting around 8.30pm and today it set around 7.45pm! It’s not fun to think about but autumn/winter is on it’s way.

We strolled along the beach and dipped our feet in the sea, which was actually really warm, I could feel the heat coming off it every time a wave crashed against the stones, it looked very inviting.

We managed to catch the sunset before Berkay rushed home for a quick shower and went to work. It was a lovely walk, such a beautiful place to walk along in the evenings, I love it! We’re off to Fethiye tomorrow for a day full of visa paperwork. Oh the joys! It’s a good job the scenery is nice! (:

Turkish goodies giveaway!

Posted on May 24, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

When I started my blog back in August 2013, 9 months ago, I never expected many people to read it, it was more of a personal thing for me to look back on, so when I reached 1,000 views I was amazed. Time went on, and it became more popular, more people read including some very loyal members who comment on every post, and then I got to 10,000 views… then 50,000….. then 100,000 and I really was flabbergasted.

I also created a Facebook page for my blog a few days ago, and have over 400 likes on that – which is also amazing! 🙂 Click HERE to go to the page and please like it if you haven’t already so that you won’t miss any blog updates!

Four months ago I done a little thank you giveaway to celebrate 70,000 views. Now I have almost double that, with 136,000+ so I think another giveaway is well overdue. It’s not much, just another little something to say THANK YOU to my readers. Although there will only be one winner, I’m so thankful to each and everyone of you for reading, liking, sharing and commenting on my posts – I really do feel like I’ve made some friends through doing this. The comments I get always make me smile, I read every single one. Just knowing people click onto my blog to read what little-old-me is saying is a weird feeling – but a good one. I feel like you’re all on a little journey with me, from when I first started and was living in Turkey, to the challenges and emotions I faced when moving back to England, the stress of visas and excitement when Berkay comes to visit me, the sadness when he goes home again, and now of course all the excitement of moving back to Turkey again for the summer. I hope to keep my blog posts up while I’m there, even if I don’t have internet access at home to enable me to post regularly, I’ll continue to write posts occasionally using a wifi spot elsewhere. I hope you’ll all carry on reading and carry on going on this little journey with me!

Enough of the soppy stuff – now for the details of the giveaway! I was struggling to think of something to give, but I wanted it to be Turkey-related. I decided to take a trip to the Turkish Food Centre to buy some goodies to put together a little package. Here’s what it will include:

Apple Tea – good hot or left to cool with ice cubes in – yum!
Turkish delight – rose and lemon flavour. This is really, really good. I took a box into work yesterday and it was all eaten! It’s better than the normal pre-packed boxes.
Cin biscuits – biscuits with orange jelly and chocolate sprinkles – a bit like Jaffa cakes.
Tutku biscuits – biscuits with chocolate cream in the middle.
Kombo biscuits – biscuits half dipped in chocolate and coconut- my favourites!
A sachet of Salep – just add hot milk, it’s a thick, milky drink with cinnamon. Mmmm.
A Turkish Eye keyring.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on THIS blog post – it has to be on here directly, not on a facebook comment – and say what your favourite thing to eat in Turkey is – it can be anything, even an English breakfast 😉 I’ll choose the winner at random using a random number/name generator. It’s only open for people in the UK/ROI I’m afraid, as I don’t know the customs rules for sending food to other countries. Winner will be chosen after 8pm on Monday 26th May and will be announced on here via a new post.

A little disclaimer, I paid for this with my own money, it was not given to me. I also earn no money at all from my blog, I do not get paid per view or receive any income from adverts, I blog entirely for fun, and just wanted to do a little giveaway to say a huge thanks for helping me reach over 136,000 views, and 400+ on Facebook!

Thank you all so much once again, and good luck.

Turkish food shopping..in London!

Posted on October 22, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Today Dad took me to the Turkish Food Centre near us, and we stocked up on a few Turkish goodies. Always on the look out for new blog post ideas, I thought Id take a few photos and share the store for anyone else in London who may be experiencing withdrawal symptoms from their favourite Turkish snacks!

The TFC we went to is in Welling, south east London, but they have branches all over London. Click here to visit their site and see if there’s a store near you!

The shop has a selection of fruit and veg as well as a meat counter and bakery. The bakery sells that fresh Turkish bread we all love, along with all kinds of traditional Turkish cakes and pastries, most importantly there is a good selection of baklava too!

They sell everything else you could want, shampoo, toiletries, snacks, cakes, biscuits, crisps, juice, cheese, butter, all brands that you would find in Turkish shops and that you wouldn’t normally see in the UK. In typical Turkish style, the ‘pickled vegetables’ aisle was the biggest, along with huge jars of olives and bags of cay!

Everything in the shop seemed reasonably priced to me, more expensive than in Turkey, but not by much. We came away with a bag of Turkish tea, apple tea, sunflower seeds, simit bread, sachets of salep, cracker sticks, pop keks and wafer chocolates.

It was so weird seeing all these Turkish brands in the shop, it was like being back home in Fethiye! When you spend 2.5 years in a country you get used to their food and I really quite miss it when its not there anymore. Seeing the shampoo I used to buy in Turkey made me smile, sometimes it’s the small things! In the same way when going abroad you miss home comforts, when returning back after so many years, you miss things you never thought you would. It’s a lot of adapting, even down to the little things like which shampoo you buy!..Perhaps I’m just a little odd and too sentimental (: