Romania and Turkey Trip: Istanbul

We stayed in the central tourist area of Istanbul since it was our first time. Out of all the Turkish locations we visited, Istanbul had the most aggressive taxi drivers, storekeepers and touts which James and I hated, but it’s not like we’re going to Turkey and not visiting Istanbul!

We arrived at the airport late in the evening and just crashed at the hotel (which was beautiful and very centrally located). The Uber driver tried to rip us off and also smoked in the car, which wasn’t a great start to the Istanbul leg of our trip. =/

Day 1

Luckily things improved the next day (which I will still be calling Day 1, due it being our first actual day of sightseeing). We hired a private guide to show us around the main Istanbul attractions. It didn’t cost that much more than a group tour, but was so much nicer for getting some detailed information and going at our own pace.

Unfortunately it was raining that morning, so all my outdoor photos came out quite dreary and the mosques smelled like damp socks. =( We started at the Hagia Sophia.

Our guide told us that mosques could not have images of holy figures (remember the churches in Cappadocia with all the faces scratched out?) so the decoration was primarily the ornate names of the prophets and the beautiful tiles.

After we left it started raining more heavily – even our guide was impressed and took videos to show his friends!

We then headed to Topkapi Palace, which was the attraction I most wanted to see. It’s currently a museum but used to be the main residence of the sultan. We spent almost an hour waiting to get in because the rain caused the electronic systems to go down and they couldn’t process tickets or payments. Having a guide definitely paid off here because he was able to figure out what was happening and maneuver us to the front of the line, so when things started up again we were among the first to get in.

The crowd right before the gates:

The palace was massive and very impressive. James’ favourite part was the weapons exhibit and I liked the harems, especially the beautiful tiles.

Here we are in the gardens with the Bosphorus in the background. Notice our dampness and my impractical choice of open-toed shoes.

We also visited the Blue Mosque, but unfortunately didn’t get the full effect because it was under a multi-year renovation. The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia were across a park from each other, so if you were nearby for the calls to prayer you could hear both of them at the same time.

We had some lunch, and then our guide showed us around some other attractions before dropping us off at the Grand Bazaar. As someone who quite enjoys shopping, I thought I would love the Grand Bazaar. But as someone who dislikes crowds, high-pressure sales and haggling, I hated the Grand Bazaar. It was a maze with what seemed like thousands of stalls, many of them selling similar things – souvenirs, fake designer goods, pottery, jewellery, etc. 

We did find this weird crypto store near the market. There were a fair few of them around, which I guess makes sense because of their crazy inflation – people wanted to keep their money in anything but Turkish Lira!

For dinner we had a delicious kebab. This place was unusual because it had a horizontal spit instead of a vertical one, but it was very popular and one of my favourite meals in Istanbul.

Day 2

In the morning we went to the Basilica Cistern, which is the largest cistern under Istanbul – apparently there are hundreds of cisterns under Istanbul. It had been closed for renovation during covid but opened the week we were there, which was lucky!

I recommend going as soon as it opens, because even though we were there during high season it wasn’t too crowded (especially at the beginning). Maybe people preferred to go in the afternoon as a respite from the hot weather?

They had a light show going, which lit everything up in different colours and projected pictures onto the walls, but my favourite part was when they turned off all the lights and it was completely pitch black.

One of the famous Medusa heads:

(The clustered group of people are taking photos of the other Medusa head, which IIRC was oriented sideways)

Apparently there are a couple of theories as to why the Medusa heads aren’t rightside-up – one is that this way the power of the Medusa’s gaze was negated and the other is that the heads were just considered rubble/building material so the people assembling the columns didn’t pay attention to which way was up.

Afterwards we went to a Iznik pottery store. Not the mass-produced pottery that you find at tourist shops, but a place that had hand-made pieces from multi-generational artisan families. They had photos of the store owner with notable customers, like Oprah and Bill Clinton! There was no haggling and prices were extraordinarily high for Turkey but well under what you’d expect to pay for art in the US.

The store was enormous – three levels over three different storefronts. Most of the pieces (certainly all the expensive ones) were made traditionally by mixing quartz in with the clay, which apparently made it more durable and vibrantly-coloured.

These are the pieces we ended up getting:

The ship artwork is made of six different tiles. You would think that buying six tiles would give you a per-tile discount, but it’s actually more expensive! The sales guy explained it’s because the artist makes them all at the same time so that everything matches, and if one tile doesn’t come out then they have to scrap the whole thing. So the more tiles a piece is made of, the more chances there are that something goes wrong in the glazing or firings, hence the higher price. 

We left everything there to get wrapped for transport, and took the ferry to visit the Asian side of Istanbul. We had lunch at Ciya Sofrasi, which is on pretty much every list of the best restaurants in Istanbul.

It was interesting having Turkish food that wasn’t the usual pide and kebabs, and everything was delicious and very affordable. I’d highly recommend going if you’re in the area! We walked around afterwards, doing some window shopping, and agreed that the Asian side of Istanbul was way more chill.

Day 3

We walked north on the bridge to Karakoy, which had some beautiful leafy streets and cool little stores.

Here is a compilation of various cutely-positioned cats we encountered that day.

We went to Taksim shopping street, which is one of the most famous shopping streets in Istanbul. We were pretty underwhelmed since it was primarily western stores. Who goes to Istanbul just to shop at Nike and Zara? We did have some insanely delicious croquettes though, and when we passed that street vendor again I got seconds. Then we hung out at a wine bar and tried different Turkish wines until it was time for our sunset boat trip.

Boating tours along the Bosphorus are supposed to be one of the must-dos of Istanbul. We went with a group trip on a smaller boat instead of the (far cheaper!) public ferry trip. The boat was really nice but the guide didn’t have a microphone, so we didn’t get to hear anything. =( We still got to sail the Bosphorus which was nice, but didn’t actually learn anything about Istanbul!

Day 4

This was our last full day in Istanbul and we started it off by walking to Suleymaniye Mosque. We loved the view of the city from the garden outside.

It’s supposed to be one of the more beautiful mosques in Istanbul, but I preferred the interior of the other mosque we went to that morning, Rustem Pasha, which had some lovely blue tiles.

Also on our walk between the mosques we found these cool colourful steps.

We also passed by what looked like a kitchen supply district and bought some copper mugs for tons cheaper than the Grand Bazaar had them for. We also stopped by the spice market, where we picked up some spices for insanely low prices.

Then we headed to the Archaelogical museum where we had a nice wander around in air conditioned comfort. The museum wasn’t too busy and had a lot of cool statues and tombs.

We also finished up our souvenir shopping – we bought tiny rugs for the cats, copper mugs and tons of Turkish delight (though in hindsight, not enough Turkish delight!)

Day 6

That was our last day in Istanbul. We connected in Amsterdam, where the airline temporarily lost our luggage. We had to buy some more undies and toiletries to tide us over until our luggage arrived, and United reimbursed us. Then everything was delivered a day later, so we ended up with some free stuff lol.

The traditional shot of (most of) our souvenirs.

And a bonus picture of Kyoto enjoying his tiny rug. =)

Romania and Turkey Trip: Cappadocia

Cappadocia is a super interesting part of Turkey and famous for hot air balloons and volcanic rock formations (“fairy chimneys”). It isn’t the only place in the world with fairy chimneys, but it is the only place where they were used for human habitation. Our hotel was actually built inside some fairy chimneys.

Pretty cool, huh?

We arrived too early to check in, so decided to do a hike of the Red and Rose Valleys. There were also ATV and horseback riding tours of the valleys, but I wanted to be able to explore at our leisure and go inside the churches that had been carved into rocks – which was totally the right call because look how amazing they were.

The hike wasn’t very well signed but some of the churches were on Google Maps so we managed to bumble our way there by comparing the map to the available paths.

It’s amazing that people carved these buildings – you could see the individual gouges in the walls.

The churches were surprisingly chilly inside (very welcome since it was mid 30s!) and it was really fun seeing random fairy chimneys and just wandering inside. A couple of them were pretty inaccessible and we had to scramble our way up – though that just made it feel like more of an adventure!

Rock steps!

There were also murals but they were pretty hard to make out – I read that Muslims scratched out the faces on the murals (we learned later in Istanbul that they don’t allow pictures of religious figures).

We were really dumb and didn’t bring enough water for our impromptu hike in the middle of summer. And it wasn’t like we forgot – we knew we had brought maybe 20% of the water we should have, but couldn’t find a store on the way to buy water from. Also, my phone wasn’t turning on because of water damage and James’ phone was running on fumes because we hadn’t charged it and the GPS was sucking up all the battery. So irresponsible. =( But we were making pretty good time (church stops notwithstanding) and were feeling pretty optimistic until we came across the dogs.

Up until this point, every dog we’d met in Turkey had been super sweet. But these dogs looked like dobermans and were the meanest dogs I’d ever seen. As soon as they saw us they got up and started stalking us, barking and lunging and forcing us backwards. It was super scary because we had no idea how to deescalate aggressive dogs – were we supposed to avoid eye contact or stare them down? We were slowly walking backwards but were we supposed to turn and run or would that just encourage them to attack? James was trying to shield me and I kept trying to kick them when they lunged at me, and the whole experience was terrifying.

They forced us back really far and it was such a relief when they finally left us alone. It was genuinely one of the scariest moments of my life (and just then I turned to ask James if it was the same for him and he looked thoughtful, then nodded).

So the dogs meant that the obvious hiking path was cut off and we had to find a different way through. Also soon after we came across a guy who said he’d also been threatened by the dogs yesterday on the same hike, and he’d talked to someone who had actually been bitten by one of the dogs. So we were super lucky!

Though it didn’t feel like it at the time because we had no idea how to continue our hike. It was quite tricky because there were random paths through the rock formations that looked like possible routes but led to sheer drops, and we also went through a really narrow path with thorny bushes on either side that twisted and turned and ultimately went in the wrong direction. So in addition to us being down to our last half-bottle of water in the sweltering heat, we now had no idea where to go.

I was starting to feel a bit panicky but then we saw another group that was descending a steep hill via a rope and (correctly) figured they must be doing a similar hike but in reverse. So we headed in their direction and when we got closer we could see that they’d been there for awhile because there was one guy who was paralysed with fear – just holding onto the rope and freaking out, unable to go up or down. His friends were trying to help him but as soon as they tried to get him to move he’d panic and start screaming again.

What a rough time to figure out you’re scared of heights. =(

On the plus side, the climb got us back on track and provided us with some epic views.

Also we acquired a stray dog – a good dog this time. We saw him with another hiker and it turned out it wasn’t his dog because he just decided to join up with us instead. It was really comforting because he clearly knew the way and led us to the next church. Look how happy he was!

I also got a photo with our new friend.

But the best thing was the dog led us to a guy selling drinks! He had beer, freshly squeezed orange juice and cold water. And it was all surprisingly reasonably-priced – we had pretty much run out of water and would have paid 10x as much.

Our table with a view:

We got directions from the drinks guy (we had actually been quite close to the end) and rehydrated, finished our hike, minus our dog who decided to stay and chill in one of the caves near the cafe.=(

More insane views at the end:

The Rose and Red Valley hike was one of the most spectacular and unique hikes I’ve ever done. I loved that we started among the rock formations, then ended high up. It felt like we got the best of both worlds – exploring inside fairy chimneys and epic views.

The hot air balloons get all the publicity, but I think this hike is the must-do activity in Cappadocia. 

(A Kaye for scale)

The only bummer (besides the heat and scary dogs) was that taxis didn’t want to come and pick us up because we were out of the way, so we had to walk an extra 30+ minutes, then hail a car from the road. 

When we got back to the hotel we both had much-needed showers and a quick rest before dinner. Cappadocia is known for a special kind of kebab called testi kebab that’s cooked inside a clay pot. We had to call ahead several hours to order it (apparently the restaurants where you don’t have to call ahead just reheat it, so it’s not as good). Here’s a quick video of our kebab being opened:

It was definitely worth trying since it’s a speciality of the region, but taste-wise it was just OK – kind of like a stew. I definitely prefer regular kebabs!

Day 2

The next morning we got up early for our hot air balloon ride. The standard advice is to do it on your first morning so if they have to cancel because of the weather you can reschedule for another day, but fortunately our day was good to go.

We watched the balloons get set up before sunrise.

The baskets were really large – not the little square ones that you see in the movies, but big rectangular baskets that carried 16-20 people in separate compartments.

All the balloons taking off together:

James was initially a bit worried because he’s scared of heights, but he said it was fine as long as he didn’t look over the edge – though IMO that was one of the best parts!

We flew over the valleys we had hiked yesterday. I looked for the bad dogs but we were too high up to see – though occasionally our balloonist would swoop down into the valleys which was fun! Everywhere we looked there were balloons.

When we got close to the cliffs and the town, you could see all the people who had gathered to watch the hot air balloons. =) Also, much to our delight, we saw a really elaborate influencer photoshoot – one of the props was a cherry picker! And a woman was wearing a big, dramatic dress with a stupidly long train.

James: (looking at the train wonderingly) They have to fit that in the car afterwards.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel and had breakfast with some cheeky kittens.

It felt like we had done so much that day already, but we still had a tour scheduled!

There are two itineraries in Cappadocia that all the companies do – the Red Tour and the Green Tour, that between them cover all the well-known attractions in the region. People generally recommend doing the Green Tour if you only have time for one, because the itinerary is more spread-out, whereas the Red Tour is pretty central and you can easily get to all the locations on your own. The downside of doing the tours is that even if your tour is small-group, you’re on the same schedule and itinerary as all the other tours, so everything is crowded.

We started at the Pigeon Valley overlook:

I’m pretty sure they picked this overlook because it was across the road from a stupid tourist trap onyx store. I was kind of annoyed because part of the reason I had chosen this company in particular was because it didn’t have the gem store listed in the itinerary, whereas most of the other companies did, and I was like “oh good, they’re not going to waste our time”. But they snuck in a stop anyway. =/ It’s funny because on Tripadvisor the reviews for the onyx store are full of people who bought jewellery and found out they got ripped off, and it’s like … duh.

Anyway, the next stop was Kaymakli Underground City. There are two main underground cities that the tours go on, Kaymakli and Derinkuyu – apparently Derinkuyu is deeper and bigger, but Kaymakli has a more interesting design and feels more claustrophobic.

The underground cities were constructed as a hideout for the early Christians to shelter from foreign invaders. Thousands of people lived in them for months at a time – they had stables, wine-making rooms, schools, churches, ventilation shafts, plus rooms for families to live in.

The passages were deliberately made narrow and maze-like to confuse invaders.

This boulder could be rolled across the door to defensively block off passages:

Next we went on a quick hike through Ilhara Valley.

Then we stopped for a lunch break at some tourist trap restaurant with shit food and crazy-expensive drinks – like 5x as much as the drinks guy yesterday was charging!

The best part of lunch was seeing these wasp traps hanging up everywhere:

To be honest, our fancy hotel could have done with a couple of these at breakfast. Freaking wasps everywhere.

Our final stop was the Selime Monastery, which is the largest religious structure in Cappadocia.

It was busier than the churches we’d hiked to the day before (we had those all to ourselves!). But it wasn’t too hard to take cool photos with nobody else in them. =)

It was fun exploring all the carved-out nooks and crannies.

The inside of the worship area – way more expansive than the apses we saw the other day!

Selime monastery was visually more interesting than the churches we went to the day before, but James and I agreed that we preferred the adventure of finding the churches ourselves and having to scramble up rock faces to get inside. But the monastery was way cooler than I had been expecting and I was really glad we went.

Day 3

This was our final day in Cappadocia! We took a taxi to Uchisar Castle, which is the highest rock formation in the region. So of course the 360 degree views were spectacular.

We went relatively early in the morning and it was still very busy – the perils of travelling during peak season!

But the views were totally worth it.

I still can’t get over how awesome and sculptural the rocks were.

On the way home we made a stop at a winery and bought a couple of bottles of Cappadocian wine to bring home with us. Then we checked out and hung out in the lobby until our flight, making ample use of the hotel’s free red and white wine fountains.

The wine mugs were teeny tiny but we just kept going back for refills. You think you can deter us from drinking free wine by making it slightly inconvenient? Pah!

2.5 days was a good amount of time to spend in Cappadocia. We got to experience an almost-otherworldly landscape and hit all the must-see tourist attractions without feeling rushed. It was my favourite part of our Turkey trip, which surprised me because I was expecting it to be Istanbul. Even though we did the bog-standard tourist stuff, and even though a lot of the attractions were really crowded, Cappadocia was so different from anywhere else we’d ever visited that it was all very memorable.

(Definitely never going to forget those dogs!)

Romania and Turkey Trip: Kaş Days 4-6

To begin our next day in Kaş, we had breakfast at our hotel with one of the stray dogs. I gave him some of my breakfast meat – that he took so gently, what a good boy. Then he spotted his friend on the street (pictured here, spotting his friend), and he ran down the stairs to go play.

After breakfast we walked to the meeting point for our tour to Saklikent Gorge, which was another very popular day trip from Kaş. When we got to the road up to the mountain our guide told us we were going to have a water fight with some other tour groups (we had to buy the water guns for $1), and I thought “oh no, this is going to be shit”.

But you know what? I was wrong. It was so much fun.

Our jeep before the water fight, loaded with guns and three big buckets of water:

Our guide cranked up the music and played that song that goes “shots shots shots shots” and this is kind of embarrassing, but I was instantly hyped. It was impressive how well the guides coordinated, taking turns to slowly overtake each other so all the cars could take turns shooting each other.

Action shot!

Prior to the waterfall, our guide got us to put on mud masks – apparently the area is famous for its beautifying mud.

The walk to Gizlikent waterfall was pretty crowded, but it was quite fun hiking through the stream and scrambling over rocks. Some people wore impractical shoes and were having a hard time, but we were like mountain goats in our vibrams.

And finally, the waterfall. The water was surprisingly heavy!

Everyone was taking instagrammy shots, so James got in on it too. Behold my majestic husband.

Next we went to Saklikent Gorge. We didn’t go very far in (apparently you can do multi-day hiking trips in the gorge!) and it was very busy, but the cold water was really refreshing.

Even though it was packed, the gorge was dramatic and … gorge-ous. =D

Our guide showed us how to swim (or rather, lay down in the water and be carried) back to our starting spot which was bracingly cold and really, really fun. The water moved much faster than it looked! When we got to the end James had to drag me upright because I kept getting knocked over by the current.

Our lunch was included in the tour price and was fairly crap, but they did a good job with the atmosphere.

Even if that had been the end of the day I would have felt I’d gotten my money’s worth, but our guide then took us to a couple of beaches for some swimming time.

The first was Patara, which had a bunch of ruins nearby and is also a turtle nesting spot which prevents it from being built up too much. It had a really long, sandy shore (none of this pebble beach shit), so it was quite easy to find a spot to ourselves. Here is James waiting for a wave to body surf.

We had about an hour at Patara, and then our guide took us to Kaputaş Beach, which is one of the most famous beaches in Turkey. We were there late afternoon on a weekday and it was still super busy – but very photogenic!

Like Patara Beach, it was also nice and sandy. The waves at Patara were bigger, but the calm water was also nice – we lay on our backs and held hands like otters.

I’d been on the fence about booking this day trip but it ended up being super fun. It was great value – a little over $25 each and we did and saw a lot!

The next day we briefly left Turkey and did a day trip to Greece. About a 30 minute ferry from Kaş is a Greek island that the Turks call Meis. The island itself was kind of meh, but we had a free day and figured it was worth doing for the novelty. We had to go through passport control on both sides of the ferry ride, but it wasn’t too rigorous – if I were trying to illegally get into Turkey or Greece, Meis is definitely the way I’d do it!

We loved the turtles that hung out at the harbour in Meis, waiting for the fishermen to throw them scraps. James found some discarded squid to feed this turtle, whose name was Antonio.

The fisherman who provided the scraps informed a group of us that he had named Antonio after himself. And one kid was like “but that’s not his name, that’s your name!” And Fisherman Antonio was all indignant and said “I feed him for 40 years! His name is Antonio!”

The main attraction in Meis is called the Blue Cave or Blue Grotto, and you need to hire one of the fishermen to take you there by boat. We didn’t get a lot of time here (like seriously, maybe five minutes), but the cave itself was very cool.

Then afterwards we were dropped off at a nearby island for some (again, fairly mediocre) snorkelling. I would rather have spent that extra time in the cave!

Then we headed back to the main island for lunch, where we encountered this greedy little guy.

James: I offered him a little bit of pork and he took the biggest piece!

The food in Meis was also quite cheap. We had fried calamari, giant pork chops and booze, and it came to something like 30€.

Goodbye Meis!

The next morning we took a car to the airport to fly to Cappadocia. We loved our time in Kaş, but were a bit beached out (and the humidity – my God) so were looking forward to a change of scenery. Also, one final memory: as we drove up to Antalya airport, a taxi had stopped to let a young girl vomit out the back window. It was coming out in a huge stream, like Gizlikent waterfall, only it was bright pink. 

Anyway, onwards to Cappadocia!

Romania and Turkey Trip: Kaş Days 1-3

Our first destination in Turkey was Kaş. It’s a beachside town a three hour drive from Antalya airport. We arrived in the late afternoon with just enough time to check in, hang out at one of the local beaches and grab some dinner.

This is a sweet little cat who was frantically kneading an ATV. It looks like I sped up the video but I did not – this is actually how fast the cat was kneading.

We absolutely looooved the street cats and dogs of Turkey, so be prepared to see lots of photos! I read that in other countries stray animals belong to no one, whereas in Turkey strays belong to everyone, which explains why they were all so friendly and well-fed. 

The next morning we woke up to grab a traditional Turkish breakfast at a nearby restaurant. Mornings were my favourite time in Kaş – the weather was cooler and the streets were nice and empty. Also look how freaking beautiful it is. We passed this bougainvillea and cactus combo multiple times a day and every time I would stop to admire it.

A lovely cat we saw on the way to breakfast.

And finally, our jaw-dropping breakfast!

Afterwards we went to the public beach near our hotel. A lot of the beaches we went to were pebble beaches (apparently quite common in the Mediterranean) rather than sandy beaches, so the stretch between shore and water was quite uncomfortable. All the hotels and restaurants had sunbeds for rent, or for free if you bought food/drinks – but we preferred being in the water so didn’t bother. 

We took this photo early in the morning so it wasn’t busy yet, but from late morning to late evening the beaches were generally pretty packed. We found that once we got into the deeper water there wasn’t anybody there, so that was nice.

Kaş has cold water springs flowing from underground, so the water ranged from uncomfortably warm to super cold and invigorating. It doesn’t sound that interesting but it was genuinely fascinating to experience – often we’d pass through a freezing cold patch immediately into the warm ocean water, then back into another cold patch, and several times we’d have one arm in cold water and a leg in warm water. I remember at one point James just stopped moving to tread water for awhile, then eventually said “I’m in a really interesting spot”.

Afterwards we had a break in our air-conditioned hotel room, then emerged in the late afternoon to explore the other local beaches. The water was nice to swim in temperature-wise but not really great for snorkelling because there weren’t that many interesting fish.

Us at the still-busy municipal beach, I think around 5pm.

On the way back to our hotel there was an Amphitheatre that we stopped at, and we met this chill Amphitheatre cat.Also, we passed so many lemon trees, pomegranate trees and olive trees on our walk back – I was incredibly jealous!

Our kebab dinner:

The next day we went on a small-group boat trip to some islands and coves near Kaş. There were just eleven of us on the boat and I think we paid around $60ish each, which was very reasonable compared to what it would be elsewhere.

I was hoping to see a bit more marine life (and to be fair I did see a turtle – and tons of sea urchins!) but unfortunately the snorkelling wasn’t much more interesting than it was at the local beaches. But it was really nice getting to swim at all the empty coves, including one with a sunken ship. And again, the water temperature was quite pleasant and the visibility was crystal clear – there just wasn’t that much to see!

The boat had a kayak that we could take out:

At one of the coves we stopped at, the oar slipped away from the kayak while it was stored on the boat, so here is James rescuing it and looking like Poseidon with his trident:

More swimming!

It really did feel like we had the whole ocean to ourselves (even if that ocean was devoid of interesting fish).

After our first two days of swimming I was so brown. I showed James how dark my legs were compared to my butt and he started to say “it’s not so bad” but then registered the difference and said “oh my God”. (He wants to clarify that he was impressed, not horrified … but I know what I heard).

The next day we signed up for a group boat trip to Kekova to see the underwater city. This was the most popular boat trip from Kaş and all the tour providers offered it. I’d deliberately opted for a bigger group (apparently it can be up to 50 people, though our group felt more like 30) to compare/contrast with the smaller one. It was much cheaper – more like $20 each and obviously had much less personalised service. It was basically a big ferry that took us to cool locations and various swim spots.

The sunken city:

It was much less “city”-like than I was expecting – you can see the above-ground ruins and also some walls under the water. Swimming/diving wasn’t allowed because previous visitors had stolen pottery fragments from the ruins.

We also stopped at a nearby island called Kalekoy to visit Simena Castle. As you can tell from the photo, reaching the castle involved a lot of stairs. (Also our boat was pretty much identical to the boat on the right in case you were curious)Unlike the underwater city, the castle ruins were actually a lot cooler than I was expecting.

Nothing was roped off and you could pretty much go anywhere.

The view from the top:

We only had an hour on the island, and our original plan had been to climb up, explore/take photos, walk down and grab an ice cream from one of the many vendors near the bottom (apparently the ice cream here is quite famous?) But we ended up spending more time at the castle than we had expected, and we really didn’t want to be late and have the boat leave without us, since we were pretty sure they weren’t doing any sort of headcount before taking off!

This was my favourite swimming spot they took us to.

One last dive for James.

(He was trying to teach me how to dive on our various swim stops but I just ended up doing a ton of belly flops).

IMO the only real downside of the bigger group trip (aside from the aforementioned fear of potentially getting left behind) was that it took a lot longer to get on and off the boat when we stopped for swim breaks. With the small group we could jump straight off, but the bigger boat had a lot of people who were scared of jumping off and had to psyche themselves up, plus everyone had to wait for people to swim out of the way before jumping in. We’d done so much swimming the previous days so it wasn’t a big deal to wait. I assumed I’d be bothered by the extra people, but aside from getting on/off the boat it didn’t really feel that much more crowded because in between stops we just sat on our sun loungers and enjoyed the ocean breeze. The $20 trip wasn’t quite as nice as the $60 one, but for a third of the price it was pretty damn good!

So that was our first few days in Kaş. Now I look back on the photos I’m like “oh how nice” but I remember at the time feeling drenched every time we left the hotel. The heat and humidity really took some getting used to – and we still had two more days to go!

Romania and Turkey Trip: Bucharest

Last month James had to go on a work trip to Romania so I decided to tag along and make a holiday out of it by adding Turkey to the itinerary. Fortunately for us, boondoggle work trips are back!

Unfortunately for us, it was during peak summer travel – so massive crowds, heat waves, flights delayed/cancelled left and right, and airports melting down because they weren’t ready for the demand. But still. We got to travel again!

Bucharest is beautiful and very affordable. There’s also not really that much to do – even the highest-rated stuff is kind of lame, and then if you look at the reviews there is a lot of “eh, it’s okay”.

Having said that, on my first day I did a guided bike tour of the city that I would definitely recommend. It was a nice way to get oriented and learn about Romania’s history, and we managed to cover much more ground than a walking tour.

This is the most famous building in Bucharest – the Palace of the Parliament. It took 13 years to build and is the second largest government administrative building in the world (behind the Pentagon).

Something surprising that our guide told us, was that the buildings in Bucharest are not actually that old. A lot of the oldest buildings were destroyed in wars, fires or earthquakes, so most of the ones you see are only like, 100 years old. He said when they rebuilt they copied the Neoclassical French buildings and that’s why they look older!

Our guide told us this used to be a trading route marketplace with accommodation on the second level. There were several of these dotted around Bucharest.

We also visited a religious area, including a building where the Romanian Patriarch lives (our guide called him the Romanian Pope, but I looked it up later and I’m pretty sure it’s the Patriarch – but it’s a pretty understandable translation issue). This isn’t the best photo I took, but it is the one that got photobombed by a pigeon, so into the blog it goes!

Also check out this giant vat of holy water. (James was creeping on my photos while he was at work and apparently all his coworkers marvelled at the bulk holy water). 

I was quite surprised by how religious people were – for instance, lots of people would make the sign of the cross when passing by a church on the street.

Our guide called this statue a potato on a stick but then said it’s actually an olive to symbolise European friendship, like that made any more sense!

Also I sadly didn’t get a photo of it, but he took us to his favourite pastry place and we got these great little meat and cheese pastries (kind of like boreks) for around 50c each. I went back several times since it was near our hotel. The pastries weren’t much to look at, but they were one of my favourite things I ate the whole vacation, and I’m getting a little wistful thinking about them now.

For dinner I paid around $14 for a pretty big pizza and a sampling of Romanian wine at a trendy pizza place. James went to a more touristy restaurant with Fitbit and Google and said he was very jealous of my meal.

(One thing that I kind of wish I’d done is gone to a wine bar to sample a bunch of Romanian wines. Ah well).

The next day I went with a small tour group to Transylvania to see Bran Castle (“Dracula’s Castle”) and Peles Castle. I found two things really interesting:

1. The van had a device that was supposed to measure (and limit) how many hours the driver could drive due to European safety regulations. But the guide explained that the driver would put in false information because the traffic was bad and the drive was so long, and he would always go over his time limit. So about an hour into our tour the driver stopped the van and officially logged his start time, and an hour before the end of the tour he officially logged his end time.

2. We drove on a highway to get to the countryside, and there were several horse-pulled carts on the road, using the lane alongside cars. There was a big, big speed difference. Once I saw a couple of cars change lanes really abruptly and it was because they had come up behind a horse and cart. Unfortunately no photos because we passed them so quickly. =(

But anyway, onto the tour! Peles Castle was the summer castle of the royal family. Much like the buildings in Bucharest it was very impressive-looking but not actually that old – it was completed just before 1900, and had electricity, heating, running water and even a retractable roof!

The rooms and decor were satisfyingly ornate and original, but also the whole experience was very on rails. There was a set route to take, and you had to look at all the rooms from behind barricades. James’ coworker’s mum went on the same tour (different company) and James said during the day he and his coworker were comparing the photos we took and laughing because they were identical.

The aforementioned retractable roof:

Dining room:

An Ottoman-inspired smoking room:

The weapons’ room:

The master bathroom, which I think highlights how relatively modern the castle was. Apparently not everyone got running water though – just the royal family. 

This was the second floor of the lobby. On the left was a confession box, which the King wanted because he was religious, and then because he wanted it to be reasonably symmetrical, he got them to add a spiral staircase to the other side.

And then it was onto Bran Castle, aka Dracula’s Castle, which is the iconic tourist attraction of Romania. Everyone who knew we were visiting Romania asked if we were going to see Dracula’s Castle.

Bran Castle sucked. I’d done some research and knew it wasn’t actually Dracula’s Castle and that it was going to be shit – and it was still shitter than I was expecting.

This was the line to get into the castle continuing down the hill:

And that was after a line twice as long to actually buy tickets. Madness!

So I’ll try to explain why Bran Castle was so shit. First of all, it’s not actually Dracula’s Castle. Apparently it just vaguely fits the location, so the tourism board just ran with it and declared it to be Dracula’s Castle. The furniture is not original or even particularly old (“they went shopping at Ikea” our guide said derisively). So then what is there to see at the castle?

Nothing. Fucking nothing.

One room had a bunch of cheesy vampire cardboard standees. Some rooms had information about notable (and I use that term very loosely) guests who had stayed at the castle. They had a bit of information about the Queen who funded the building’s restoration. One hall had an antique dress on display and I figured it was a dress from the Queen’s wardrobe or something like that – no, the sign just said it was an old dress. WTF.

Oh yeah, and it was 35 degrees with no airflow. Do you remember the photo earlier of the massive queue to get in? Imagine everyone in that photo slowly filing through the small, cramped rooms. And inexplicably, INEXPLICABLY, everyone was actually stopping to look at these stupid exhibits, so the line was barely moving. 

An example of one of the crowded shit rooms, with a huge bottleneck from the single-file stairwell:

Once I got to the balcony/walkway area I was slightly mollified by the nice view.

But yeah, overall it was suuuuuper shit. I did get a nice photo of the castle from the outside though. (Also the castle was built in the 1300s, so is at least legitimately old).

Afterwards went to the medieval town of Brasov to have a bit of free time before heading home. It was nice enough, but not really that exciting. All the Peles/Bran tours include Brasov though – I wonder if it’s to make people feel less ripped off by Bran Castle or if it’s a logistical stop to avoid rush hour traffic.

I did get to walk down one of the narrowest streets in Europe (it was apparently originally for firefighters to more easily access the inner streets). On the mountain in the background you can see the Hollywood-esque Brasov sign.

After my wander around, I got a slice of pizza (which looks a bit vomity but was actually quite tasty) and sat down to eat. 

I was glad to sit down since my ankles had started to hurt from all the walking, and I texted James to complain about it.

LOL James.

On the third and final full day in Bucharest, my original plan had been to tour the Palace of the Parliament and Ceausescu’s mansion, but I wasn’t sure about James’ schedule so didn’t book anything, and when he ended up having most the day free everything was already booked out. =( We ended up walking around Bucharest with James’ coworker Jack, just randomly exploring.

In front of the Palace of the Parliament (after we had tried and failed to get a tour). Jack tried to get most of the building in the shot but it was so, so massive.

In a park we found a cool little hut with beer, wine and cocktails. So charming!

While we were walking in the park we saw an old Romanian guy feeding the pigeons. But instead of feeding them normally he just dumped the bag of grain on top of them. I laughed so hard seeing the grain bouncing off their little pigeon backs.

We also went to a coffee place because I’d read a blog post that recommended the coffee and added something along the lines of “make sure you visit the bathroom. I won’t ruin the surprise”. So cryptic! So intriguing! What amazing surprise could this bathroom hold? 

=|

Actually, that reminds me of something that was very common in Bucharest that I’ve never seen anywhere else; everywhere, even really trendy/high-end places had these odd patches of neglect. The coffee place we went to was quite bougie, and then had that horrific bathroom. We went to a really fancy bar with an amazing interior but a dank, smelly 70s elevator with wood-panelled walls. I’m not sure if it’s a Eastern European thing or a post-Communism thing, but it was interesting how common the pattern was.

We ended the day with some traditional food at a tourist-oriented restaurant. After James’ disappointing Romanian food experience the first night he wasn’t expecting much, but we both liked it a lot more than we were expecting, and James loved the poo-looking meat.

The next day we went to the airport to fly to Turkey. It was actually pretty stressful since when check in opened for our airline there was no line, just a scrum. We weren’t sure we were in the right line and there were so many people we were worried we wouldn’t make it in time, but I guess that was self-imposed stress because it seemed like everyone did eventually make it. I wasn’t sure if that’s just how check in is in Romania or if it was because we were flying with a particularly budget airline.

Anyway, that was the Romanian part of the trip. James and I were both more impressed by the food than we were expecting, and it didn’t hurt that everything was so very affordable!

SingleThread!

So, SingleThread reservations are available on the first of the month for the following month, and they go like *snaps fingers*. I refreshed the website the second it hit midnight and still wasn’t able to get a Saturday booking (though doing Thursday to Saturday instead of a weekend worked out better).

You pre-pay for the dinner, and if you can’t make your reservation you can’t just cancel and get a refund – you have to sell it to someone else. So a week and a bit before our trip we were being super Covid-paranoid; James worked from home, I wore an N95 while grocery shopping and at my pottery classes, and stopped going to the pool since obviously I couldn’t wear a mask while swimming. Such a hassle – but totally worth it!

This was how the table was set when we arrived.

What a strong start to the meal!

The waiter said it was like a scavenger hunt, and we were supposed to root around for little snacks in the foliage. I had a lot of fun lifting up a fern frond to find a teeny tiny plate of deliciousness, and everything was so beautifully presented.

Also at the end of the night they gave us a printed menu, the owl card (with a handwritten note signed by the staff) and the floral arrangements that were on our napkins. Thanks to the menu I didn’t have to remember everything we ate!

Siberian caviar with lotus root. 

Bream with gold-painted leaves and a roll of intensely condensed spinach:

Clam with dashi and tofu:

For drinks, we did what we always do and split a wine pairing. For the sake course though, the sommelier gave us one each, which was nice. =) He presented us with a basket of sake cups and we could choose which one to drink out of.

Sake being poured into our chosen cups:

Our next course had the sauce/broth hibernating in these mysterious vessels.

And then poured over our black cod.

The next course was duck, but we opted to upgrade one of the duck courses to Wagyu beef (I think for $90). James thought the Wagyu was the clearly superior choice, but I preferred the original duck – so we were both happy!

Eel with rice and radish on an artistic platter:

A kumquat palate cleanser and a traditional Japanese dessert biscuit thing that looks like an ice-cream sandwich but isn’t quite. I remember we had something similar at Den in Tokyo.

Another dessert – spiced carrot and hojicha.

And a final, beautiful dessert platter:

Also they had really nice, fancy Japanese toilets. They had them everywhere in Japan but whenever I encounter one in the US it feels so luxurious – sometimes I think we should just buy one for our bathroom but then I remember we don’t have a conveniently-placed outlet. =(

It’s been such a long time since we had a huge, splurgy meal, and I’m glad SingleThread was the one we chose to break the drought because we had such a wonderful time. =) 

A Weekend Getaway in Healdsburg

We continue to dip our toes back into travel!

Last weekend we went to Healdsburg, which is in wine country, a little over an hour from San Francisco. We’ve visited before and prefer it as a chiller alternative to Napa and Sonoma. Plus I had managed to get a reservation at SingleThread, which is currently rated one of the top restaurants in the world, so we built a long weekend around that.

We actually went Thursday to Saturday, which I would highly recommend. Healdsburg was a lot busier on Saturday, both in terms of foot and car traffic, whereas Thursday and Friday were much more low-key and we could do walk-ins at all the downtown tasting rooms and restaurants.

We had lunch at Troubadour, a trendy little sandwich place.

(James didn’t really enjoy that beer btw. He looked to see who made it, saw that it was a local brewery, sighed and said “at least I’m supporting small business”).

Next we headed to LIOCO and Bloodroot where we did a couple of wine flights. We really enjoyed the wines and I was pleased to see that both wineries used the same Gabriel Glas glasses that we have at home. Though at Bloodroot we ran into a wine tasting conundrum – if you opt to revisit one of the wines you tasted, are you expected to purchase a bottle?

In a panic, we messaged Tim, James’ foodie/wino colleague in NYC who said no. But Tim is also a lot ballsier than us – he books five restaurants for the same night, then cancels the ones he doesn’t feel like going to. We polled some other friends, and Kyle offered this diplomatic solution:

(We did end up buying a bottle of the rose, since James really liked it).

For dinner we went to Little Saint, a new vegan restaurant by the same owners as Singlethread. It was amazing. I’m not normally into vegan food because I don’t like substitutions – bean burgers? Cashew cheese? – those are just inferior versions of their far tastier counterparts. But Little Saint was about highlighting gorgeous in-season produce, so you didn’t miss the meat or feel like you were getting a “lesser” experience.

My favourite dish was probably the strawberry gazpacho soup, which somehow managed to be savoury but also strawberry-y. They also had fabulous cocktails.

And here I go back on what I said earlier, because in some cocktails they had aquafaba (basically chickpea water) as a substitute for egg white and I didn’t care/notice at all. 

On Friday morning we went for a bike ride after breakfast at our B&B. It was a very car-light road and passed by lots of scenic vineyards, so you could easily make an afternoon of it by dropping into one (or more!) of the many wineries on the way.

Here is James scooting along happily on his One Wheel. The round trip was 23 miles (37km) which was by far the longest he’s taken the new GT out for – and he still had 18% battery left!

Afterwards we chilled in our room, then got an afternoon coffee from Little Saint.

And then it was time for the main event – dinner at SingleThread! Everyone we talked to in town said that it was incredible. It has three Michelin stars and is rated in the top 50 restaurants in the world. James’ aforementioned foodie/wino colleague’s first question when he found out we were in Healdsburg was “are you going to SingleThread?” Needless to say, our expectations were sky high.

Did it meet those expectations? Yesyesyes. It’s hard to say if we’re viewing it through rose coloured post-Covid glasses, but we both agreed it was up there with the best meals we’ve ever had. I’ll make a separate post about it because everything was so beautiful and we took a ton of photos. =D

Saturday was our last day, and we went to Crane & Condor bakery to grab some goodies to take home and then did a walk-in for brunch at Little Saint. My original plan had been to grab some barbecue but what can I say, Little Saint was just that good. And yes, if you’re counting, we went there every day we were in Healdsburg.

We started with their bread and trio of dips. Every table seemed to be ordering this, and for good reason.

It turned out the bread was the sesame loaf we had just purchased from Crane & Condor. We checked the Little Saint store to try and buy the dips to take home and recreate the meal, but unfortunately they weren’t available that day. =(

The bread was too stingy and/or the dips too generous, so we also ordered some fresh veggies to go with the dips. And a good thing we did, because they were spectacular.

The snap peas were picked that morning from the Little Saint farm, and so crisp, plump and flavourful! They weren’t just the best peas or even the best vegetables I’ve ever eaten – I’d put them right up there as one of the most memorable food experiences I’ve had. I did not know that peas could taste like that.

We also had roast potatoes and a garlicky mushroom bread, and they were great, but the peas! The peas. I liked how crazy the bread looked though. =)

After our brunch we headed back to San Francisco. We had such a wonderful, relaxing time in Healdsburg, and were quite pleased that we left just as it was getting busy and the weather was heating up. We drank great wine and had fantastic meals (even if we didn’t particularly branch out haha) and on the drive home we were like “this is so close – why don’t we come here more often?”

Maybe next time we can try a couple of the restaurants that we didn’t get around to this trip. Or SingleThread again once they rotate their menu. Or maybe peaspeaspeas.

Another Two Weekends of Day-Drinking (Slightly Offset by Cycling)

Last weekend we ventured into Berkeley to meet up with some friends. We went to a brewery called Rare Barrel, which had nice sour beers, but a very annoying ordering system (no QR codes – you had to get up and order at the bar, and it was a busy weekend so each time you wanted another beer you were waiting in line for 10 minutes).

James and a couple of sour flights:

We’d had a massive Indian meal beforehand, and that combined with the beer made me feel fuller than I have in a long time. There were a couple of beers at the end that I didn’t even taste because my stomach was like “no, I can consume nothing more”. 

Bonus photo of the cholle bhature (otherwise known on the menu as “the big puffy thing”) I had for lunch at Viks Chaat: 

Then yesterday James and I took the ferry to Angel Island. The plan was for me to cycle and him to ride his One Wheel, but when we arrived a ranger told James that he wasn’t allowed to ride it! Apparently the rule is no rollerskates and skateboards, which is kind of annoying because electric bikes are allowed. I mean, the ranger was apologetic and nice about it, but it’s a stupid rule. People can zoom by on electric bikes but aren’t allowed to be on a manual skateboard? =/

But since we’d already paid the ferry fare and were already on the island, James rented a bike and we both did a couple of laps of the perimeter. The views were beautiful – bridge to bridge views of San Francisco. Unfortunately I couldn’t fit both bridges in the shot.

And here is the Golden Gate Bridge, with fog covering the western half of the city:James enjoyed cycling but was lamenting how nice it would have been on his One Wheel. He said people have recorded rides on Angel Island, so either they rode them out of sight of the rangers, or maybe there’s just that one ranger who is a stickler for the rules. Ah well.

We had the ferry pretty much to ourselves on the way back, since I guess everyone was staying a bit later. I had responsibly worn sunscreen but you can see James is getting a bit red!

The original plan had been to head home, but instead we went to a brewery near Mission Bay so James could get a bit of a ride in. We chose it because we thought the name was clever: Seven Stills (a nod to the Seven Hills of San Francisco), but it turned out the drinks and food were really nice also.

I had a sour beer and James tried a whiskey flight.

Then we cycled/One Wheeled home and I had a massive nap because I’m hardcore like that.

Some Nice Boozy Spots Near Us

We’ve had an unusually alcohol-filled couple of months!

For my birthday we checked out a cider bar near us called Upcider. They had cider flights, which I loved.

The bar was surprisingly chill and uncrowded, though I guess that’s to be expected on a Tuesday evening. Though our friends went on a Saturday night and said it wasn’t busy then either. 

We also hung out with those friends at a couple of breweries in Alameda. I forgot to take photos, which is a pity because it was a beautiful warm day and we had a gorgeous view of San Francisco. The original plan had been to head to Russian River to stand in line for Pliny the Younger, but this seemed like a more relaxing option.

Speaking of relaxing, we spent last Sunday morning walking around the Embarcadero. We walked to the Ferry Building, hoping for a roli roti pork sandwich, having forgotten that the truck isn’t there on Sundays. =( Then we headed towards Fisherman’s Wharf.

(Me considerately angling my head so you can see the cool ship)

We ended the walk at at Ghirardelli Square and checked to see if Ghirardelli had resumed their free chocolate samples (they had not), then went to the San Francisco Brewing beer garden.

They had nerds-flavoured sour beer!

I ordered it first and James liked it so much he included it in his flight. I was surprised because he normally doesn’t like stuff like that. He hated the strawberry sour I got next though. =(

There are a few new bars and restaurants that I also have my eye on, but one reservation that I’m pretty stoked about is SingleThread in Healdsburg next month. =D

A Ski Trip to Salt Lake City

James and I went on a trip to Salt Lake City where we skied/boarded at Solitude and Brighton. Our Ikon passes let us access a bunch of mountains, and since United doesn’t fly directly to Mammoth anymore, other destinations became equally convenient/inconvenient.

At the airport we were impressed by the dedicated ski/oversized baggage carousel.

We stayed at the village in Solitude, which was really convenient because it was walking distance from the chairlifts.

It hadn’t snowed since December, so we figured the snow wouldn’t be amazing, but it was actually way better than we had expected. The groomers were fun and fast, and even some off-piste parts were still soft – maybe because the snow is drier than in the Sierras and the temperature doesn’t fluctuate as much?

This was our favourite chairlift at Solitude. It was one of the two chairlifts we could easily walk to, and not as busy as the other lifts because it was far from the main parking lot.

The photo above was actually taken after the resort had closed, because in the morning we had seen this sign:

!!!

A group of about 15 of us gathered there and waited for half an hour, but no dog showed up. I think someone went to ask ski patrol, because they came over and explained that the sign was for another day and they had accidentally left it up. But they did still bring over a ski patrol dog (Lumen!) and did an impromptu Q&A which was really nice of them.

This is Lumen. =) Apparently floppy-eared breeds are better avalanche dogs because the ears help waft the scent of humans towards their noses.

(She is staring intently at her handler, who told her to stay for the photo)

We explored Solitude our first day, then Brighton our second day. They are two separate ski resorts that you can ski between if your pass allows it.

This was the view from Brighton at the top of … I think maybe the Crest chairlift?

Our friend Matt joined us for the remainder of the trip. We got super lucky because on Wednesday it snowed!

Also a group of skiers gave Matt a free lift pass!

And the snow was wonderful.

Since it was the first new snow in a couple of months the mountain was much busier than it had been previous days. Though it wasn’t super slammed – the longest chairlift line we waited in was probably 10 minutes and most of them we could ski straight on. I’m used to Mammoth, where you get the whole mountain to yourself if it snows midweek (though on the flip side, Mammoth often closes lifts for avalanche control or wind, so on popular days lift lines can go 30-60 minutes!)

We got tons of runs in, had a great time, and I was absolutely exhausted at the end. Worth it.

The next day we headed back to Solitude to show Matt our favourite runs.

Matt and James behind me on the Sunrise chairlift.

The chairlift actually seated three, but I am always filled with anxiety getting off the lift, so we thought it was safer to separate. Also look at the gap between James and Matt – is that a comfortable Kaye-sized space? I think not.

On Friday the lifts opened at 9am and checkout was 10am, so I managed to get in three morning laps of Sunrise (I timed it – nine minutes up on the chairlift, two minutes snowboarding down). Then we loaded the car and Matt drove us to Salt Lake City.

It was … not a long drive lol. Maybe a little over 30 minutes? So jealous. We killed time before checking into our hotel and spent the morning at Kiitos brewery. They had lots of really fun flavours, like creamsicle, blackberry truffle, key lime pie and cucumber tart. This flight was actually one of the tamer ones (it was the “leftover” additional flight we got at the end, since all of us had a couple of extra beers we wanted to try after our first tasting).

Salt Lake City wasn’t as dense/compact as other cities we’ve visited, but it was very easy to drive around and find parking. And beautiful mountain views in every direction! We visited some nice restaurants and even a speakeasy. A couple of things that surprised us about the speakeasy:

1. The cocktails were more expensive than in San Francisco! $16-18 vs $15 at Bourbon and Branch. I guess because of lack of competition?
2. They had a special device that regulated and tracked how much liquor they used in cocktails, and the bartender said that the state would audit them to make sure they weren’t using more liquor than their records showed. 

The next day we headed to the Natural History Museum. It was near a hiking/running trail with a gorgeous view of the mountains.

We really liked the dinosaur exhibit!

Afterwards we went to a brewery gastropub, where we had fried pickles and funeral potatoes (basically a cheesy/cornflakey potato casserole – apparently it’s very popular with Mormons).

And then it was time to leave Salt Lake City. In some ways it was a relief, because even though we (I) fantasise about moving to a mountain-adjacent city, our poor lungs can’t handle the cold, dry air. =( We both had cold-weather asthma the whole trip (poor Matt thought we were going to die) and as is tradition, James’ knuckles dried out and cracked from the lack of humidity.

But it was good to get some more snowboarding in, explore a new city, and see Matt again. I would definitely not be opposed to making it a yearly trip!