Passing by

Nothing new really. I have been a little quiet these days but there is not much to say for now.

We are having a relaxing time at the marina. Surfing the internet, watching TV-shows, eating good food and listening to good music.

I am just counting the days as I can't wait to be back home for a visit. We'll be there on the 2nd of March. I know exactly how it will be then... When I am home, after a few days, I want to go back exploring the world. But when I am away, after a while, I just can't wait to go home. Now it has been a while, I was there last on the 23rd of November. Wow, time goes bye really quickly !

I am working on an important article at the moment and planing on sending it to the news paper in France for a start. I'll also post it here soon. I have to warn you though, it is going to be a long one !

It is not about me, but it is what my eyes saw, what my heart felt and what my mind came up with. It is about some beautiful people with a really hard life.

So, until then, I'll leave you with the picture of the day. Nothing connected to this post but connected to the mood I am in right now. Like these Italian Nonnas, or other village's ladies sitting outside and watching life pass by, waiting for the next exciting thing to happen...

Fun and stupidity ?

So, I'm sitting at the marina's library (very nice place, smell of wood, books everywhere, low lights and pool tables...) and I have exactly 40 minutes to write a little before I need to go pick-up the laundry at the laundry place.

The Valentines party was fun ! Even cornier than expected and we were definitely the youngest people around (give us 30 to 40 years + and we would have fit right in )but our friends and our Raki drinks helped tremendously ! I'm exaggerating...they helped a little.

The thing is that we had so many nice talks and people around us seemed so joyful that the we could even forget about the music (first part-TANGO- and second part anything from Barry White to Whitney Houston, basically every single 80's LOVE BALLADS)...

We saw all kinds of funny people :

After, laughing at other people around us (what we all do once in a while), we realized that we were actually the ones that should be laughed at. The thing was that WE were the young ones, right. But we were the ones sitting on our chairs, watching the majority of the place dancing, not caring about the way they did and mostly, having hips of fun and not self-concious at all !!

So, thumbs up to all of them, to all "older" people that understand the meaning of life way, WAY better than we, young fools do.

We might be healthy and sexy but we sure are stupid and boring when we react that way....

We ended up having a great time and once again, a very smart one.

It feels good not to constantly talk about meaningless subjects and be proud about it.

That was my point of the day and the laundry must be ready...

An indirect kiss on the forehead

Hang on to whatever you are sitting, laying or standing on.

This is might be a long post, perhaps you should grab a cup of coffee to go with it...

Frank and Andrea.

Frank and Andrea are the names of our German friends.

They came for diner like planed and once again we had a great evening. They are inviting us to stay at their place in Munich when ever we want and we surely will sooner or later.

I was a little more quiet yesterday, had a

lot of thoughts in my head...for several reasons. But good ones, very good. First of all I just found out that my cousin, who lives in Belgium, is getting married in July ! This will be the first "family-wedding" for me. I can't wait and I am very excited for them. The only thing is that I don't even know his fiancee...

I haven't seen my mother's family in almost 9 years. The thing you see, is that being born from two different cultures and growing up in a third one has its good and its bad points. My parents met in the south of France. Dad was a sailor who's boat was being repaired in Villefranche and mom was in holidays, planing on relaxing around the french riviera before she'd move to Italy. She is Italian but her parents immigrated in Belgium as many others because of world war 2.

So she finally stayed in France with my dad and her family remained in Belgium.

We use to go see them when we could, maybe once every two years when I was a kid but then, life happened. I am planning on going to Belgium soon with Gordon for a nice visit to everyone and so I'll probably get to know the first "new add" to the family. More important, go visit my grand mother, la mia nonna, who lives in an retirement house and who will probably not remember me. I feel guilty I never made that move before...

I received the nicest and sweetest mail ever yesterday. A great friend of mine read my blog and told me how touched he got and how he missed me... I did start that blog because I felt like I needed to share my deeper feelings, just like I would talk to a friend, as I barely ever see my closest friends or my family anymore. Even if I am happy in life, I just miss them all a lot.

And it was exactly what I needed, someone who would send me his true and sincere love as best as he could. He and I always show our feelings to each other in "jokes" way...we know we love one an other and we just need that. But his mail made me feel incredibly good. I see that deciding to share on a blog and to let myself be, with simple words, doesn't only help me get things of my chest or prove that I can do something different, it all comes back to me in a beautiful way, It shows me I am not that far away from the people I love.

Richard, thank you.

Just after reading my friend's mail...I saw that I had a comment on my last post. My heart started beating faster, I had just received my very first comment ! Once again that person wrote

something beautiful. It warmed me up even more and gave me a lot of courage and motivation. I think I am on a good path and that makes me smile.

Later on, I read some of my posts out loud to my man (so he would understand better why I was so excited) and it made him smile and laugh. I think he was surprised to hear my inside thoughts in a way he hadn't before, nicely surprised. Not that I do not share everything and every thoughts or emotion with him, but I guess I can never really express myself the same way. Here I write for me. I am not telling him something, I am expressing my feelings in a personal way, not a couple's way. And he understands that completely.

After all that and after encouraging me, he got motivated and read me an article he wrote a few years ago of one of his adventures in Djibouti... I will ask him if I can write about that in a future post because it's an incredible story, really. He shared something very special with me and I have to say, he writes beautifully. He also made me feel very happy, again. He shared many of his inside feelings. Told me how he use to be and how after I happened he feels different in some very positive ways. We really are something him and I when we connect like this. I think I am very lucky to have found the perfect person for me.

Last night I also learned that some good friends of mine were having a baby. I was literally shaking from happiness, from all these good things happening to me, around me. A blink from life and its indirect kiss on my forehead.

Almost as if someone wanted to let me know that things can be OK and beautiful more often than we think...

You just have to let it happen.

Tomorrow it will be my very first Valentines day. I have never had, let's say, a proper one before. I either had no boyfriend, went out with girlfriends, didn't care about it or was in a "relationship doubts" state. Now all that is behind me and we are joining Frank and Andrea to the marina's Valentines party. We are expecting it to be corny and to have a majority of retired people but... I am so excited !

I am sure we'll have an amazing time, like always. And I'll be wearing high hills.

Good Valentines or non Valentines day to all.

I think John Lennon and Yoko Ono were with us...

I woke up a little hangover this morning... and my day is based on this, nothing very exciting but the feeling of living in a big bubble. I do have a good reason for it though :

Last night we went for some diner out in the marina and then stopped at the bar thinking "one beer and we go back to the nest". BUT while I was in the bathroom (relaxing myself after tree sips of beer), some lady tried to come in and got confused, shutting the light on and off and forcing the lock as if the door had a problem. I nicely but weirdly told her it was occupied as I couldn't stop myself having a little laughing reaction, she laughed too and said sorry in a funny/embarrassed way. When I went back to the bar, I saw that my boyfriend was talking to a man across us and realized that my toilet-secret-lady was actually the companion of that man Gordon was talking to. Her and I smiled with a knowing glance and she could finally go do, you know, her thing.

So basically to make all that hangover talk of mine clearer, the men met at the bar, just giving each other some random, manly "cheers" and we women met while one was one the throne and the other one wanted to be on it...

This ended up with them joining us at the bar and later on inviting us to their boat for some more drinks.

We had such an incredibly good time ! They are very special people so let me introduce them to you :

They are in their late 40's and have been with each other for about 25 years, sailing

together on their cute 10 meter boat, "Good Luck". They are from Germany and they live there half time, own a little cocktails bar and try to save up enough money to bye a bigger boat so they will, one day, realize their dream to sail around the world and to do just that. The only problem is that we cannot really remember their names just yet... we heard it just once and just before many "now, lets make a toast to that !!". -----------------(This picture is obviously not mine...)------

They sure are real good Germans if you follow the beer-drinking cliché...

We talked about everything with them, EVERYTHING. It was as if we found our guardian angels... they are like us but older and wiser than us. They also helped us realize that we are very lucky to have such a beautiful relationship and that we have to take good care of it.

We talked about how every couple have fights and how they are such a necessary thing, about how much we learn from those fights and how much it actually always helps. Even if it hurts sometimes to hear the truth...

They said that there is a big difference between couples who fight and couples who make war to each other. Fighting is a good thing, making war is hopeless.

Right now you must think : "Oh...she is such a hippie and these people sound like they are the biggest hippies ever..." But no !! That's what is so good about it, there was absolutely no "feel-good plants" involved, they didn't have tons of necklaces+flowers in hair+long beard and strange smiles ! They were just regular, nice and normal people. They just carried huge hearts and very open minded heads on their shoulders.

I really wish more people could take time to seat and talk more often and most importantly to try to understand each other and to accept that we all have that possibility to share and to communicate, no matter were we come from or how old we are.

We are having them over on our boat for diner tonight and I'm making Danish meat balls and mashed potatoes.

I'll let you know tomorrow how the wine was flowing and the minds expending !

After all...

So... I cooked, made some eggs and bacon with toast for my American man.

Then a home made, perfectly french mayonnaise !

I am listening to Bob Dylan and I feel much better than a few hours ago. "Lay, lady lay" is my favorite...ha. It is THE song of the beginning of my relationship. I don't know why that one but I will always remember how it moved me...and still does ! Of course it was easy to feel that way after all our drunk dancing, making no sense and loving it.

Now motivated again, I just went trough a few blogs and I see that I have a lot of work to do to make mine interesting and readable. I am thinking about posting some pictures of mine to illustrate my moods and subjects. Maybe I could even do a little publicity... I am a part time photographer and I would love for it to become a full time job. I am more interested in the Arty-way of photography but I think that I should try to do some baby pics, events etc... at least for a start and hope to get a little money out of it.

So you can see my first photo for a good start. The night is slowly coming here

in our new home in Turkey and I want it to be a nice, peaceful evening, just like that one time in Italy...

Stormy days

Ha... When was the last time I wrote again ?

Hum, hum...and what is the day today ?

Hum, hum.

My so called "challenge" is not much of one for now. Its funny because I am always thinking of nice, fun and interesting things to write about, so people can read and not be too bored. But I never do write ! Whenever I start to or consider writing a new post, something comes along.

Ex : Me- Hum, I think I'll write. Then...no, let's watch some Weeds.

Me- Hum, I think I'll write. Then...no, we have to go out for diner.

No, we have to do the laundry.

No, we have to work.

No, we have to go to bed...

No, -he's hungry- I should cook.

No...I don't know what to write about.

But mostly :

No, I'm lasy, bored and not inspired.

So well, let's start with getting motivated as best as we can and talk about what the day looks like. Today we are in Turkey, after leaving Israel and after two days at sea where I got sea sick for the first time...so there, that was not fun.

The marina where we are is completely flooded

and getting destroyed because there is a huge storm with up to 55+nots winds. He LOVES it, goes outside for two hours and enjoys facing the power of nature, while I stay in the nest and try my best to do whatever a "cool, intelligent-blog writer" would do. Then he comes back, excited like a little kid (which is just too cute...and makes me smile even if neither my mood or I is in top shape) and tells me " you HAVE to get on your full weather gear and come see this !!! " I smile and nod negatively as I still am hoping to write a little and more importantly as I don't feel very adventuress today.

Then he sights and tells me he cannot believe I don't want to see it.

I do love to watch and feel the ocean and its beautiful, unpredictable strength, specially if the wind blows in the right direction, making me look like a movie star (joke), I do, usually.

But as everyone knows, there are somedays where you just want to stay home, do nothing and enjoy having a little time between you and yourself.

So, I am sorry sweetheart but no, today I won't play the penguin on a breaking iceberg.

-As I'm writing it just started hailing so it is a definitive NO.-

Bored on a boat... bored of the boat.

I guess I'll just go cook something then I'll try to write again, probably about how the cooking went. I'm sure it will be very exciting.

What an awesome day...