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NehaWickramasekaran

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Neha

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Turkish Airlines VIP Lounge

This post comes to you from a shower room at the Turkish Airlines VIP Lounge in Istanbul. THIS PLACE IS AMAZING! I've been planning this 6 hour layover for months. We were going to venture into the city, see at least one site, have some Turkish coffee and come back to the airport. I was very disappointed when our flight was delayed enough to cancel our adventure. But this lounge is a great consolation! Starting with the amazing shower I'm about to have...

Rajaratnam

This is Rajaratnam. He's our tailor. He only speaks Tamil. My sister and I don't speak Tamil. This resulted in him making things with sleeves when we wanted them without sleeves. Next time, there will be drawings. He's a sweetheart and a very good tailor and I hated asking him to redo my stuff. 

Last day in Sri Lanka!

This has been an amazing trip! We drove around most of the island and met and reconnected with wonderful people. We saw wild elephants, eagles, peacocks monkeys and bunnies! We packed our bellies with delicious food and we packed our bags full of beautiful things. We visited an Ayurvedic hospital, a few Ayurvedic spas and had an authentic Thai massage. Hoping to make one last pilgrimage to Barefoot for a bite and to see Radhika in action promoting her new book!

Spa Day

Today was a spa day! We started off with a 7am yoga class at the hotel next door. After class we made appointments for Ayurvedic massage, shirodhara, steam, and bath for after breakfast. Breakfast is included at our hotel -- a full Sri Lankan and western spread. I had string hoppers and fish curry with all the fixin's. Might do the omelette/waffle thing tomorrow. We had a leisurely lunch after our treatments and ended the day with authentic Thai massages at another nearby hotel. All of our treatments were great and I feel wonderful!

Santa Cruz

We started off our one and only full day in Santa Cruz by sleeping in. We had planned to surf, but there were no waves. So, we slept in and leisurely made our way over to Café Iveta on James' recommendation. It was excellent! We ended up getting breakfast (breakfast burrito and bagel with lox) and sharing a second breakfast (egg on toast) to go with our coffee and chai and fresh squeezed OJ. Every single thing was delicious. We lingered for a while making plans for our future empire and plotted out a course for the rest of our morning.

We decided to drive a few blocks down to the ocean and check out some of the nearby breaks. We stopped at the surf museum and Steamer's Lane and watched a solitary surfer wait for waves from the cliff above. He caught one and finally another and we moved on. Continuing down West Cliff Drive, we thought the houses looked more east coast than west. Our drive took us down to Cowell's and the boardwalk where we played some air hockey and video games at the arcade, did a little shopping and strolled down the boardwalk.

After we'd had our fill of carnival fun (not very long), we went to New Leaf to pick up some groceries for pizza making! When we got home, our hosts were in the yard relaxing and getting the oven ready for us. We got a lesson in wood-fired pizza making and we became instant pizza chefs. Our hosts took off and James and his family came by to make and share pizza with us. It was magical.

We decided we MUST have a wood fire oven. After James and his family left (their 2 year old had a previous engagement), we made one more pizza with an egg from the house chickens. It was fantastic and we were stuffed. We cleaned up the kitchen and ourselves, took a moment to rest and then went downtown to check out one of my favorite shops in the world, Bookshop Santa Cruz.

We got a great parking spot in front of a sweet cafe and had espresso and hot chocolate before heading over to the bookshop. There, we got some other ideas for our house with the pizza oven in the design section and bought a "surfari" book. After a short stroll around the block, we headed home. Tomorrow, we hit the road! Destination: Los Angeles via Big Sur.