The Easiest Dinner You're Not Making: Baked Whole Fish!

I was reluctant to start sharing recipes on my blog, for two main reasons. The first being that I'm absolutely awful at giving recipes. Every time someone asks me how I make something, I cringe. I can be extremely ADD in the kitchen, throwing things together and having no idea how it happened in the end. My idea of a recipe includes a lot of "some" and "a bit of" and little tangible measurements like "cups" and "tablespoons". In fact, I don't even own a set of measuring cups. The second reason I have no business food blogging is that as we move every year into someone else's kitchen, I'm usually left working with whatever plates, utensils and pots and pans they've left available to me. Do not be mistaken, they are never glamorous and I usually struggle to find any two things in the kitchen that actually came from the same collection. So here is my forewarning, my pictures are from my iPhone and I would never pick out the heinous plates and tablewear you will see in the subsequent photos. (Side note: If you do want to look at a real, professional, fabulous food blog with gorgeous photos, you should check out my sister-in-laws here.

The best type of meals are the ones that look super impressive to your guests, but actually take little to no effort whatsoever. I'm a huge seafood fan, we eat fish in our house at least 3-4 times/week. However, up until our move to Spain, I was always too intimidated to prepare a whole fish. In our town in Northwest Spain, in what is called the Galician region, seafood is King. You can get incredible quality seafood for really great prices. My new favorite easy dinner meal here is Baked Whole Dorada, a whole white fish that also goes by Dorade and Sea Bream. I think Dorada is only available on this side of the Atlantic, so a whole Sea Bass or any flaky white fish would also do. Served with your veggie of choice, I use zucchini here but asparagus and potatoes are also great (the potatoes will need to cook a bit longer ahead of time). I typically prefer the fish left completely whole, with the head on, but struggled to communicate that to the woman working in the seafood department so you can do as you wish. 

Ingredients:

2 Whole Dorada Fish, ask them to clean it and butterfly it for you (or do it yourself if you're into that)

1/4 cup olive oil + 1 tbsp for drizzling

A head of garlic

Fresh Rosemary

Fresh Thyme

1/4 Cup Parsley

1 Lemon, sliced thin

1 Lemon, juiced

1 Cup, cherry tomatoes

1 Zucchini, sliced or a bundle of Asparagus

1/4 Cup white wine (+ more for you to drink while preparing)

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (200 C) 
• In a blender or food processor, blend olive oil, lemon juice, 3 sprigs rosemary, 3 sprigs thyme,  1/4 cup of parsley, 3 cloves of garlic, salt and pepper into a paste
• Pat your fish dry with a paper towel and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper
• Score (slash across the skin) each side of the fish a few times.
• Rub mixture all over your whole fish, the outsides and inside. Stuff each fish with 2-3 slices of lemon, a couple springs of the fresh herbs, and a few cloves of sliced garlic. Leave in fridge for 2 hours to marinate (if you're pressed for time, you can go ahead and cook it, but I recommend marinating)
  
• Lay fish on a piece of parchment paper and scatter cherry tomatoes and your vegetable of choice around the fish. Drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, whole garlic cloves and a few sprigs of herbs. Pour in white wine.
  
  
  
  
• Cook fish for 15-20 minutes depending on your preference, taking the fish out about half way through to baste with the white wine sauce. Depending on your oven, you may want to turn it up to 450 for the last few minutes or so to crisp up the skin.
  
• Serve with pan sauce spooned on top of fish
   
  

Other Variations of this Recipe:

• The first time I cooked this, I omitted the rub and just drizzled each fish with olive oil and laid the herbs in the middle. It was also delicious if you're in a rush and don't have time to make the marinade!
• Add black olives and fresh mint and serve with tzatziki to make a greek style fish

  

  My first attempt at a whole fish, with the head left on.

  

  If serving with potatoes, let them bake first for 20 or so minutes before adding the fish

I couldn't have been more wrong about the complexity of cooking a whole fish and it has now become an easy weekday staple in our house! Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Life Lately!

My past four New Year's Resolution lists have all included the desire to write more, and sensibly each year I seem to write less and less. Between running my own business, attempting to learn two languages and feeding an XL human full-time, I rarely have down time here to sit and blog but again, I will attempt to do better this year!

Spain has been amazing so far! The food, the people, the culture, I absolutely love it all. Since my erratic brain seems to jump from subject to subject, here are some highlights (and lowlights) from our past two (I can't believe it) months here!

• This is the first year we've joined a team that one of our friends currently played on and this has been such a blessing. Four years ago during our first season abroad I met Indre, the twenty year old girlfriend of one of D's Lithuanian teammates when we played in Vilnius. She was my first friend on the team and we have stayed close ever since. I am SO excited that her now husband is one of D's teammates again this year! She has been so helpful to me, driving me everywhere, introducing me to the best places, babysitting Tucker, forcing me to join her in Spanish Class.. the list goes on and on but she's just an all-around rockstar of a friend. I love her and am so grateful for her!
• Aside from Indre, I'm equally obsessed with all the other wives and girlfriends on the team. There are seven of us that are here full time including two other Americans, a Swede, and a bunch of Spanish girls. We hang out all the time and it's so much fun being on a team with so many awesome gals to hang out with.

  

  The girls on Thanksgiving!

• This is also the first year where the majority of the team lives in the same building! This has been super fun and convenient as we can walk to each other's houses to hang out. It's also terrifying as I often look like a blind, homeless, crystal meth addict when I take Tucker out in the mornings. So far no run-ins but it's bound to happen.
• Speaking of our apartment building, it has one extremely odd characteristic. We live on the second floor of our building, but our laundry room is separate, on the fourth floor attic. It's not a communal space, as every person in the building has their own locked room on this floor specifically for laundry. You're only allowed to use the room between 10 am-10 pm and it makes doing laundry an even bigger pain in the ass than it is already. The room is huge and obviously extremely creepy and I am 100% positive it's inhabited by one of the monsters from Stranger Things. The good news is, I could easily through a few air-mattresses in there and rent the place out on Airbnb. Will keep you updated.
• The hardest thing to adjust to so far has been our change in schedule here. DD and I usually have the sleeping patterns of an 80 year old couple: early to bed, early to rise, but we've had to drastically change that this season. The Spaniards are definitely in no rush to get their days started, and D's "morning" practice is usually at 11:45. His evening practices start around 7-7:30 and he often doesn't get home until after 10. This forces us to eat dinner around 10:30-11 and then we stay up for a few hours so that we don't gain 300 lbs. Additionally, grocery stores are all closed on Sundays, which of course I never remember until it's Saturday evening and I'm staring at an empty fridge. 
• I'll be the first to admit my Spanish is not progressing the way I had hoped. After taking Spanish for several years growing up (and learning the colors, months and days of the week over and over again), I thought it would be pretty easy to get back into.  I had no idea how much more difficult it would be to try to throw a third language in the mix whilst learning Lithuanian. It's so hard for me to switch my brain into Spanish when my brain speaks English, and then Lithuanian first. I spend most of the time in my class wondering why on earth some of my classmates possibly consider themselves "beginners" when they are able to carry out full blown conversations with our non-English speaking teacher for ten minutes. I'm bitter...and jealous.. and wish they would bump up to the advanced class where they belong while my adorable, gay little chorizo of a Spanish teacher teaches me how to say the colors and order wine. Until then, I'll continue to be devastated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening when I pull up to my class and the building isn't engulfed in flames.
• We had an amazing Thanksgiving at one of D's teammates houses. Cooking for 20 people, most of them being oversized and eating for 2, is never an easy task, but through a foreign country into the mix and shit really hits the fan. Between translating recipe terms into Spanish, converting recipes with cups into grams, and having to substitute at least 2-3 ingredients in every dish, it can be a bit of a nightmare. It's all worth it when you get to experience a bunch of European's First Thanksgivings, where they spend the evening asking questions like "so I don't get it.. you just eat? That's the holiday" and "wow this is weird", regarding sweet potato casserole. 
• This is the first year I won't be going home for an early Christmas with my family. My heart will be so heavy being away from them but my Mama always does the best job of making sure we all feel together, regardless of how far apart we may actually be. Christmas will come a day late for me this year when three of my best friends head to Spain to visit! I cannot wait!
• Speaking of Christmas, I can't tell you how nice it is to see Christmas decorations out in stores and hear songs playing in public places! Living in Turkey last year, December felt like any other month. It's definitely Christmastime in Santiago and I'm pretty stoked about it. D even had the honors of turning on the Christmas lights at the Mall here, which was hilarious because apparently Santa's elf didn't get the memo that he didn't speak Spanish and kept trying to give him the microphone in front of the crowd to make a speech :) 
  

More updates to come! Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

Viva Espana!

The offseason is always an extremely stressful time and this year was no different. When our season ended in early May, we headed to Lithuania for about a month to visit family and renovate an investment property we purchased. From there, we headed to the states for the remainder of the summer, which turned out to be much longer than we expected.

Every Summer, D communicates back and forth with his agent who is speaking with various teams on his behalf. There is never a perfect situation, with each offer comes multiple compromises. We always sit down and prioritize which aspects of a contract are most important to us: the basketball situation, team financial stability, the city, money, the league, etc, and always have to give up at least one, often more, of these elements. Each year the market changes and the economic status of countries all over Europe trickle down to their basketball teams as well. In the past, we've been lucky enough to typically sign our contracts very early in the Summer, which allows us to relax and prepare for our new team while enjoying time with family. Unfortunately this year, we were far from prepared for how long we would have to wait. D's agent came to us with a few different options, but each lacked in some major areas in which we felt were priorities. We continued to reject offers and pray that new ones would transpire.

In addition to weighing out the normal components of different teams and their pros and cons, the current state of security in the world adds so much more depth to this process. After spending last season in Turkey, making so many phone calls to my mom to assure her I was safe amongst all the terrorist plots, and feeling the horror over the Summer when the Istanbul Airport, a place that was practically my second home last season,  was the victim of an ISIS attack, safety and security was a new layer to add to the already extensive list of things to consider. To be honest, I felt very safe in our city in Turkey last year, and can't tell you how frustrating it was to constantly hear from friends, family, and often strangers, alike about how I shouldn't, and couldn't possibly go back. I was open to returning to Turkey this season, if it was in a city where I felt comfortable, but it's hard to reassure people who haven't been there and don't know anything about the situation, that I would be okay. 

Safety did play a factor in our negotiations, however, and I did have limits to where I would feel comfortable living, and D respected that. The weeks kept passing and with each deal that would pass, my anxiety and fear would only multiply. Every time I would feel sorry for myself and the fact that  we didn't have a job yet,  I would re-read the blog of my friend Kelly who is undergoing a bone marrow transplant for her leukemia (you should really read it here), and immediately want to punch myself in the face for failing to realize how trivial my problems were. We needed to stay positive, control the things we could and surrender to God the things we couldn't. Towards the end of September, we made the tough decision to switch agents, a move that was really hard for D, as he has been loyal to his first and only agent since beginning his professional career. 

Fast forward to two weeks ago, we were prepping for Hurricane Matthew to hit my mom's house in South Florida when we got a call from D's new agent that there was an offer in for Turkey that we would be happy with. They would want D there soon so we would need to pack immediately. Adding "pack your life up into two suitcases" to hurricane prep is less than ideal, believe it or not, but we welcomed the thought of a new opportunity. After stressing back and forth about the move, but feeling relieved that we would finally be heading back to Europe, the deal ended up falling through at the last minute. 

A few days later, D's agent contacted us about a potential offer in Spain. Spain has always been tip top on our bucket list of places to play, but it can be really difficult to break into the Spanish ACB League as it's full of European super-stars and guys that have already made names for themselves in the country. To make the situation even more desirable, one of D's best Lithuanian friends (who's wife is one of my absolute favorite people alive), was on the team and she had already told me great things about the management and the city. Honestly, I blew off the idea of going there, thinking it would ultimately be too good to be true, and just leave us disappointed in the end. After several days of back and forth, we were beginning to lose hope that it would happen until last Thursday where we were surprised with a signed contract in our inbox, followed by a phone call from D's agent telling us to prepare to leave that evening. In the past five seasons, this was definitely our quickest turnaround time, with just 6 hours separating our contract signing and our flight takeoff in Miami.

After telling friends and family about our new opportunity, and hearing so many respond with how much they had been praying for us and for something to happen, it was so clear to me that all of the support and love we are surrounded with directly influenced God's plan for us this season. I can't tell you how much it means to us to have the support of so many people, even when we know you have so many bigger, and more significant, issues to focus on.

We arrived in Santiago de Compostela, Spain last Friday, and it's been a whirlwind ever since. D left the day after we arrived, to travel with the team to an away game in Barcelona. Normally, I'd be a bit apprehensive about being alone in a new city, but I was so lucky that my close friend, Indre, was here to make me feel at home and introduce me to my new city. We had a fabulous weekend exploring the city, it's Old Town and local markets, shopping malls and parks. I am so grateful to have her here and so excited to keep getting to know the other wives here, who have been so much fun already. 

Santiago is such an amazing city, and after exploring, I was frankly surprised I had never heard of it. Located in Northwest Spain, just above Portugal, it is most famous for their massive Cathedral that is the central core of the city. The Cathedral is the burial place of St. James, the apostle, and the end point of a long pilgrimage done by hundreds of thousands of people each year, from the Middle ages until the present. On any given day, you can walk into the Old Town and see Christian Pilgrims, from all over, ending their several hundred mile journey, on foot, and arriving here to their final destination, to pay homage to St. James. 

I've spent the past week getting our apartment together, meeting new friends, beginning my Spanish lessons, and drinking more 2 euro a bottle wine and eating more jamon than I am proud to admit. I'm so excited for what this season has in store, and just so thankful that we have another year on this journey! 

Mercado de Abastos de Santiago

Old Town, Santiago

Georgia....?

My life is a series of amazing ideas that are born in my brain and don't always come to fruition. My husband, bless his heart, has had to humor me through a lot of my ideas, and I have to say I've gotten us into some pretty interesting situations in these past four years of living abroad.

Needless to say, he was less than shocked when he woke up a couple weeks ago and I told him to pack his bags for Georgia. He had two days off and I couldn't possibly live three hours from the border of an unconquered country for a year without visiting it. After coming up blank to all of his questions-- what would we do in Georgia, what type of food would we eat, and finally- can you actually tell me one thing about Georgia, we hit the road and were on our way.

A two and a half hour drive delivered us to the border of Georgia and Turkey where we would soon come to our first surprise of the trip. After being used to living in the EU and easily crossing through borders with our car,  it kind of slipped our mind that we weren't in Kansas anymore. We'd have to leave our car here and fend for ourself on the other side. Anyone who truly knows D and myself realize that we have our fair share of opposite personality traits. I'm a more go-with-the-flow and wing it kinda girl while D has to have things planned out to precision. The thought of him not knowing this major flaw in our travel plans didn't sit to well with the big guy. We checked out the map and realized we weren't far from our destination, just 15 minutes from Batumi, and figured we could take a bus or a taxi once we crossed the border.

As we parked and stepped into the border patrol, a second issue crossed my mind, how would I smuggle my little chihuahua into the country? Sure, I had all of his paperwork with me and up to date, but its not uncommon for border control agents over here to give you a hard time over nothing and deny my little Mexican angel entry. Georgia would be Tucker's 8th country, and he is surely no stranger to being smuggled illegally across a border. I threw him in his carrier and draped my leather jacket on top of him and we were good to go. I only had one near heart attack when a young girl decided to run over and point to him as my passport was being checked by an agent, but my death stare worked on her and she turned around and ran away.

Welp.. we're in Georgia. Now what. A young guy approached us, asking if we needed a taxi and we took him up on his offer. In retrospect, this wasn't the best idea and when we questioned him as to why his car lacked a taxi sign, he stole one off another car, thinking this would somehow put us at ease. We reluctantly climbed in the car for what would be a very strange 15 minute drive. Goats, sheep, cows and all kinds of livestock in the middle of the streets, zero signs of civilization. I truly felt like I had gone back in time 50 years. Where the fuck are we and why did I think this was a good idea. To make matters worse, the taxi driver started making some very sketchy phone calls and I became 100% certain we were about to be robbed or sold into the Georgian sex trade. I blamed D for taking his Louis Vuitton duffle bag, thinking we would be safer with something a bit more discreet. 10 minutes in we started seeing some signs of life in the city and soon pulled up to our hotel. Luckily for us, the taxi driver's frantic calls to his fellow mobster friends went unanswered and thus his plan to rob us went out the window, so we got out of the car as fast as humanly possible and ran into the hotel. Not a great start, Georgia.

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After checking into our hotel room and seeing the huge casino downstairs, a Google search taught me that Batumi was the "Las Vegas" of Georgia. Neither D nor I like to gamble but I was hoping this would also mean there would be girls in fabulous clothing and tons of great restaurants. So we went upstairs to change and I researched an authentic Georgian restaurant for us to try.

I wish I could say the walk to the restaurant was a turning point in the evening, but this would be a complete lie. Apparently Google Maps took us through the hood of Batumi and I was about ready to just write this idea down as an L in the books. As we came close to the restaurant, we pulled out my phone to figure out exactly which door it was, and a Georgian taxi driver pointed us in the right direction. "Wow the people are so nice here", I said, desperately clinging to any positive thing I could actually say so that I didn't have to claim defeat out loud. 

Our luck, and our lives as a whole, were about to change, as we took our first bite of Khachapuri. Good God. This heavenly dish consists of a ton of melted cheese, topped with butter and an egg, wrapped in a dough that tasted just like Napoleon pizza crust. How have I possibly lived 27 years without this. Finally, this trip was starting to shape up. No matter what happened now, it was worth it. 

After stuffing ourselves with cheesy goodness and Georgian beer, the trip totally took a 360. We walked a few blocks and found ourselves in the middle of a gorgeous plaza with some really unique architecture and neat coffee shops and bars. We took a seat outside one of the bars and ordered some wine when we were surprised to hear Americans at the table next to us. I obviously had to know why on Earth another American was in Batumi at this time and I insisted on getting their life stories. I yelled across to them and learned they were PeaceCorps members and one of the girls was even from Florida! Minutes later we would realize that they were also FSU graduates and they immediately recognized D from watching FSU Basketball. I have had several of these crazy small world moments living overseas, but sitting in a wine bar in Batumi, Georgia, meeting a table of people who graduated college with us and knew D by name, this had to be one of the weirdest. 

After drinks, we walked around Batumi Boulevard, a beautiful street along the waterfront covered in hotels, shops, and neat sculptures and architecture. We then went up to a rooftop bar where we would have our second weird encounter of the evening. As we were sitting and talking at the bar, a guy approached us and asked if were American. After going back and forth for a bit, he told us he was an American, living just 20 minutes away from where we lived last season in Italy. Really small world. He worked for NATO and was moving to Georgia in a few months and educated us a lot about the country and culture that we were so ignorant to. He delighted us by saying Georgia had one of the lowest crime rates in Europe, and made me feel less than stupid for fearing for my life hours earlier. It almost made me doubt the fact that my taxi driver attempted to kidnap us, but this fact I was actually sure of.

The next day we spent walking around the city and I was definitely taken back by how unique it was. Regardless of how different European cities can be, at the end of the day they all have so many similarities. Georgia was unlike anywhere I've ever been before. A lot of streets and stores we walked into felt like I was taking a step back in time. D said it reminded him of Lithuania when he was growing up. I don't think I've ever seen a place with such drastic disparities between buildings. On one side of the street there would be a fabulous, European looking plaza and directly across the street would be a tattered old dilapidated building that reminded me of the Soviet Union that I'd only seen on TV. 

These two drastically different buildings were right next to one another

Later that day, we took a much safer, hotel-recommended taxi, back to the border, smuggled back in the Chihuahua and crossed back over to the country we've called home these past 8 months. Although our time in Georgia was short, it was definitely a trip for the books. I'm so grateful for my travel parter, his openness to my crazy ideas, and the hilarious memories we're creating together. 

That Time I Almost Died in Turkey

"Come to the village", they said. "It will be fun", they said.

"They" is my Turkish friend Ozgur and "fun" ended up being the dead last word in the English language that I would used to describe my Valentine's Day 2016.

Our town is settled on top of the Black Sea with small villages up in the mountains behind us. My Turkish Bestie, Ozgur, and his wife, Sibel, often go to the villages to buy their dairy, eggs and other fresh produce and milk products. I have told him all year long that I wanted to accompany them on one of their trips to the village sometime and he promised me we would do so.

A few days before Valentine's Day, Ozgur invited Deividas, myself and one of D's teammate's wives, Brittney, to join him and his wife on a trip to the village. Britt and I had built up images of us in the village all year long, we were truly waiting for this moment. We would take turns milking cows and picking fresh berries while being offered tea and sweets from the local villagers. It was going to be an epic Valentine's Day. 

The night before the trip, Ozgur texted me telling me to be sure to wear snow boots as the village was up in the mountains and would possibly have a little snow. I responded by telling him that I didn't own a pair of snow boots and asked if my rain boots would suffice. "Sure", he said. I should've taken this as my first red flag but figured he was just being overprotective. I then decided I may need a bit more information as to what I was getting into. "So what are we going to be doing there", I asked. "Oh, well we will just take a bus to the mountain, get out and walk around a little and then go somewhere else and so on". Snow boots sounded completely unnecessary for a little walking, I was going to be fine.

A few hours later, the next text from Ozgur arrived. "McCall, pack a few snacks, okay?" Snacks? That's weird. I thought we would be driving around to the villages and eating their local delicacies. Again, must be a bit of an exaggeration. "10-4, Ozgur, see you in the morning".

The next morning, we woke at the unbearable hour of 5 am and headed to meet Ozgur. At his home, we waited for our bus to arrive. When it did, we took a seat in the back and immediately began taking inventory of our fellow passengers. "Why the hell do these people look straight out of the National Geographic Chanel"?, I asked Brittney. Face masks, head scarves, windbreakers, mountain boots, weatherproof boot protectors, holy shit, these people mean business. "I hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass, but I really feel like this crew overdid it in the uniform department. Aren't we just going to walk round some villages?" Oh would those words feel like a poison a few hours from now. 

After making about ten stops to pick up random people off the road, including a detour to a tea shop to borrow stools for our passengers to sit in the bus aisle, we finally fit 21 people in a 15 person maximum van and were on our way. First stop, a random cafe for soup.. at 7 am. Our fellow villagers were excited to learn that a Basketball player was on board and after many selfies and sips of soups, we began the voyage to the village. 

First stop, soup!

On the hour and a half ride to the village, Brittney, D and I soaked in the scenery outside and traded thoughts on how the day would go. "Ozgur told me these villages are famous for steaks, so I think we are just going to be going around and eating a bunch of steak", Deividas added. Brittney and I were more interested in doing local village work and argued over who would be first to milk the goat while the other churned butter. We were ready for this adventure. 

When we finally reached the top of the mountain, we stepped out of the bus to what felt like 100 mph wind. How on Earth will be butter churn in this weather. Our first stop was this small tea house for a quick tea to get the day started. The old tea house looked like it had been standing for 300 years and was full of old men playing board games and smoking cigarettes. Because what else do you do at 8 am in the village?

Ozgur was the sole English speaker of the Turkish group that we were with, but context clues were clearly showing me the two head honchos that were running the show here. Ali and Mustafa, two Turkish brothers were our village leaders. One came up to me and asked if I had ever been "trekking" before. "I'm sorry Ozgur, I think somethings getting lost in translation here.. what is trekking"? The group laughed and I soon realized the joke was on me. 

The crew!

Ozgur then decided to tell us that we would be "trekking" around approximately 3 miles that day. Okay, that didn't sound too bad. My husband's a professional athlete and Britt and I spend 6 days a week in the gym, a 3 mile walk would be no sweat.  We took inventory of our fellow trekkers and realized we were clearly in the best shape here, no physical activity would be any issue for us. The gorgeous landscape looked like something from the show "Survivor" and I made a few jokes with D about how fast we would be eliminated on any couples wilderness show, as I'm not quite the outdoorsy type, and also don't take direction well, especially from my spouse. We agreed we'd be the first to get voted off the island and carried on with the beautiful walk.

So stupid and naive at the beginning of the trek.

Twenty minutes in we began to realize the light snow underneath our feet had turned into ice. Five minutes later we were full blown sliding down the mountain on sheets of black ice. Welp.. this escalated quickly. Thank God this was going to be the toughest part of our day. As we continued walking down the mountain, the ice slowly evolved into snow that continued to rise with every step. Before we knew it we were hip deep in snow, walking like a pack of dogs one foot after the other, just trying not to get stuck. This continued. Nonstop. For three hours. When hour three approached, we started questioning what the fuck was actually happening here and why anyone in their right mind would agree to do this. Also, why in God's name was it necessary for us to walk on the dead edge of the cliff? I was holding in sneezes worried that one would set me over the edge. To add insult to injury, our trek leader decided to point out the bear prints next to mine, adding that they were definitely "fresh". Great. Ozgur called out from the trenches ahead that it was lunchtime and I was pretty excited to put all this behind me and try the local cuisine. I was pretty sure this is where the farm animals and churned butter would come into play. 

Like a pack of wolves out there.

Why is no one else alarmed here?

In the distance, we saw what appeared to be an unfinished home, and to our surprise, our trek leader opened the door and we all went inside. "Do we know whose house this is", I asked Ozgur. "No, we just asked if we could come inside for shelter to have lunch". Around the corner came a little old man with a tray full of twenty teas for us all. We told Ozgur that in America, if twenty strangers show up at your house for lunch, you get out your shotgun and call the cops, you don't invite them inside for tea and casual conversation. The home had no windows or walls, and and was an empty building filled with old furniture and no electricity. Britt and I marveled back and forth on how these villagers could possibly survive in this lifestyle, when Ozgur interjected, laughing, telling us this part of the house was under construction and that the families real home was downstairs. Stupid Americans. 

Our Lunch destination

Breaking and Entering

I noticed my fellow trekkers unpacking their elaborate Turkish lunches, and realized this was probably where the snack part came in handy. I looked over at D, unpacking our sole snickers bar and bottle of water and realized I should've taken Ozgur's suggestions a bit more seriously. Luckily, our fellow trekkers felt sorry for our pathetic lack of preparation and brought us over all of their yummy treats for us to try. As lunch wrapped up, we assumed the hike had to be winding down pretty soon. We had easily conquered three miles already and Ozgur had said the entire trip would be five hours max.

Britt utilizing several techniques to make it down.

Yes, it was as miserable as it looks.

As we ventured back out into the hip-deep snowy hell, I realized my husband had reached a state of delirium. "I can't make it anymore, I'm done", were his last words as his 6'4" frame melted face first into the snow.  "Straighten the hell up D, you are a professional fucking athlete", I said, realizing I wanted nothing more than to be unconsciously laying beside him. The next two hours we spent slushing through the snow, only surviving via fun games such as, "would you rather murder your entire family or spend one more hour on this hike", or taking turns calculating mathematical equations on how long it would take for a rescue mission to reach us. Did I mention over half of our fellow trekkers happened to be photographers? As we are gasping for air, just trying to make it from step to step, these people are setting up tripods and staging their perfect photos. They kept asking D and I to pose for photos and finally D responded with a harsh "YOU GUYS ARE ALL HAVING FUN TAKING PHOTOS AND I'M JUST OUT HERE TRYING TO SURVIVE". They stopped asking.

MAN DOWN!

It was almost worth it for this pic.

Hour five came and went, as did the feeling in my limbs and any hope of seeing a farm animal or steak. After cussing out Ozgur for the last three hours, I decided to play nice and ask how much longer we had left. "I think 20 minutes McCall, we're going to stop for a fire now". Knowing that there was no way in hell we would be stopping for a break if we had only 20 minutes left and realizing it would be getting dark within the hour, we forewent the campfire and decided to fend for ourselves and just get the hell out of there. As we plan our escape route, we pass our trek-leader, Ali, praying on his prayer mat and I kindly ask him if he could add me to his prayer list, recognizing that I could use all the Gods I could get at his point. Apparently one of our fellow Trekkers had also had enough, he forfeited the camping idea to get a jumpstart on the track so we immediately followed him, realizing it would be better to die in company anyways. After walking a few hundred meters from the campsite, we came to a fork in the mountain where we were faced with the choice of continuing our normal snowy route, or taking what appeared to be a shortcut down a very steep cliff. Clearly we chose the latter and full sprinted ahead down the side of the mountain. Anything to shorten this absolutely miserable route. To our surprise, the bottom of the cliff housed a massive waterfall with no clear way down except directly through it. At this point, the rest of the clan had clearly feared for our safety and caught up with us to provide direction. Anyone who knows my husband, knows he is immediately an expert at anything he does, in spite of how unfamiliar with it he actually may be, so at hour seven of the hike, he had obviously promoted himself to the new trek leader.

Suddenly, I'm running through the waterfall with the water flowing underneath me strong enough to take me down any second. D's long legs are good enough to effortlessly get him over the rocks, but I realize I have no other choice than to swing from the branches of the trees to stay above the water. As I'm hanging from a branch, pumping air with my feet to get me momentum to jump to the next tree,  I wonder what the hell happened in my life to get me to this place and what I possibly did to deserve this. D turned around as I'm mid air between tree branches, clearly unaware of what an absolute savage I am when push comes to shove. I shook my head at him, tree leaves in hair and dirt on my face, and said "I am outdoorsy as fuck. Don't you ever say I am not outdoorsy again". Some of my fellow trekkers behind me started shouting out "Tarzan and Jane" at us and I felt a whole new sense of badassery that I had never experienced.

At this point in the day, Deividas realizes he has lost feeling in his feet. This was confirmed when his amazement at how warm the water was, turned to shock as he bent down to touch it with his hands and felt that it was actually ice cold.  He now has zero functioning nerves left in either of his feet. When we finally make it to the bottom of the waterfall, it becomes apparent there is absolutely nothing promising about our future. We've now been transformed into the forest of Narnia with mossy trees and rocks covering the entire forest. I am on my hands and knees crawling on the mossy floor, knowing that my rain boots don't stand a chance in hell of holding up on this surface. I turn around to see Britt being escorted down the mountain by our trek-leader Mustafa, and I know shit has officially hit the fan when he has out his rope and is full blown scaling down the side of the mountain.

 It is now hour eight and I find myself straddled over a barbed wire fence, trying to make it as quickly as I can to the other side, while still ensuring I can some day reproduce. I see headlights and a flat surface in this distance, and I'm unsure if this is a fictional oasis I've created in my brain, or if in fact the finish line could be near. Eight hours and 13 miles later, through the most grueling of circumstances, Deividas and I are the first to make it to the van, parked in front of a small local farm. We face dive into the ground, and watch the farm owners stare us down, in their full black burkas, holding their chickens, and again reflect on how our lives have lead us to this exact point. A few moments later, Brittney runs full speed ahead, Rocky-esque into the finish line. 

In retrospect, I don't think Britt would wear the Gucci Bag again.

As we board the bus home, we took about ten minutes to gather our thoughts and then the three of us burst into tears, half out of laughter and half out of gratitude for our survival. The entire bus is staring at us as we are uncontrollably crying in the backseat, recounting this insane day. As the bus reversed our route home, dropping off our fellow trekkers, we advised them all to go to home and hug their families tonight and provided them with each with awards based on their day's performance. Unfortunately the language barrier prevented them from understanding the value of "Mr. Congeniality" and "Best Comeback Performance", but we're pretty sure Ozgur understood loud and clear what "Most Likely To Never Hang Out With Us Again" meant.

Our former friends, Ozgur and Sibel

As it's taken me two months to un-supress the deep dark pain of this day from my cerebral cortex, it's difficult to put into words what an absolutely hilariously terrible experience it was. As I attempt to find the good in it, I realize there was zero except the glimmer of hope that Deividas and I would perhaps not be the first couple eliminated from Survivor.