It has been a few busy months but here we are. Finally settling into our new, yet temporary, apartment in the Mission Bay area in San Francisco.

It's such a relief to finally have arrived. The past few weeks have been intense. Throwing out, donating away and not the least giving away so many things. Organizing the VISA. Saying goodbye to our friends until next time. Working my last few days at Squarespace. And inevitably, teaching my last yoga class in Ireland.

We spent a little over a year in Dublin which is really not that long. At the same time, it has been an intense year full of work, traveling, and not the least wedding preparations and celebrations. All while getting to teach and practice yoga around the city. I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I have met. For my beautiful colleagues and fellow yogis. The friendships you form in a place is truly what makes your life there. And the toughest part with moving country has to be the goodbyes.. 

At the same time, I'm super excited to start our new life here in San Francisco. While we've been here for holidays before, I just can't wait to explore the city further, study and practice with the local yoga community, and enjoy all the things that SF and and California have to offer.

Talk soon! With love,

Karin

Yesterday we decided to discover some new parts of Dublin. We ended up in Ranelagh, a cute neighbourhood on the other side of the canal, where we found some nice health food stores and book shops. I was really impressed by Urban Health, a newly opened store with all the essential superfoods. Must come back to try out their menu, the juices looked really fresh. We also found a really cool bookshop with so many must-buy books. I got the book from Ireland's healthy eating revolutionaries at the Happy Pear. Back home, I went through the whole book which now has so many post-its in it, that I think I have enough new recipes for another month, at least.

After reading over a hundred recipes, I was definitely in the mood for some baking and decided to make a batch of granola for the week. I went for a recipe that I have experimented with for a while now and once I took the granola out of the oven, I knew it. This is it. The ULTIMATE CHEWY GRANOLA RECIPE.

I've never managed to make the granola chewy enough with oil. Sunflower or coconut oil never do the trick for me. The oil makes it nice and crunchy but I prefer it chewy too, almost like pieces of crumbled cookie. One day when I was making my granola my eyes caught sight of a few ripe avocados and bananas in my kitchen. And that was it, my oil-free avocado granola was born. Here's the recipe:

Chewy avocado granola (oil-free)

1/2 avocado
1 ripe banana
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
2 cups (200 g) organic oats
1/2 cup (60 g) desiccated coconut
1/2 cup (100 g sunflower) and/or pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup (45 g) sesame seeds
1 tbsp raspberry jam (I use St Dalfour) 
 
Preheat the oven to 180 C degrees and line a tray with a baking sheet.

Mash the banana and avocado in a bowl until completely smooth. Add cinnamon and maple syrup and stir everything together. Mix oats, coconut, sunflower and your choice of seeds in another bowl. Then add the oat and seed mixture to the wet ingredients and mix everything well together. Finally add a tablespoon of raspberry jam and make sure it mixes well with the other ingredients. 

Pour the mixture onto the baking sheet and spread out evenly until it covers the whole sheet. Bake for 15 minutes and then remove it from the oven, crack it a little with a wooden spoon and put any dark golden pieces from the edge into the middle of the tray so that they don't burn. 

After another five minutes, remove from the oven and let stand to cool. You might need to break down the granola into smaller pieces with the spoon.

Once cooled, pop the granola into a mason jar and enjoy for a week or so. 

Some decisions and some actions affect your life for a long period of time. First time I signed a flat lease it was for 6 months only, however it felt like a lifelong commitment. I had just moved to London with my friend and we sat on a bench in a crowded park in Whitechapel. I remember I felt a pressure. A pressure that if I didn't sign I would fail myself, and even worse - my friend.

Today is different, this time I am not calling my dad to find the strength to put my signature on the contract. Five years later, me and my man are signing the contract for a cute little apartment here in Dublin. It will be ours in just a couple of days. Our arrival day was full of contrasts. Especially in terms of the architecture, the weather and the women. While the first two are pretty self-explanatory the last one deserves some closer attention. In France I am often the taller one and I often feel less girly than the women around me. I am aware there are many tall french ladies but maybe they are all full time models without any free evenings to spend out. Or more likely, it is just a random fact that the people we happen to know are not as tall. The first Irish lady that we met however, yes the taxidriver-with-an-uncomprehensible-accent was a man, was the woman renting the airbnb flat where we are staying. She was at least 180 cm, and with her big coat and darker voice, I felt more feminine and petite than ever before. I suspect this first impression of the ladies will prove itself wrong pretty soon and I need to get over the initial wow-the-way-I-speak-is-so-different kind of feeling.

Another impression I've had of Ireland so far is that while the Sunday mornings are spent in church, it seems like the next destination for the Dubliners is the pub. It was extremely busy on the Sunday afternoon. This is different from France, where the afternoon is traditionally spent at home to socialise with the family. Since Damien and I are neither frequent church visitors or beer drinkers I have suggested that we start an afternoon tea tradition. I do like the scones, and we do like tea - preferably in huge quantities.