ENCHANTEZ BLOG WORLD

Wine tasting at the gorgeous Mercury Bay Vineyard at Cook's Beach, the Coromandel, New Zealand

Kaitlin:

On my visit to the States in March, Christy and I managed to meet up for a wee girls' weekend in Naples, Florida. Among the highlights were the nights we spent drinking champagne under the stars and making up for lost time of best friend proximity by chatting and giggling well into the late hours.

Riding around Naples on Brooklyn Cruisers

Even before I moved to New Zealand three years ago, our friendship was mostly long-distance as Christy and I are both endless wanderers. As a result, we have a lengthy history of epic emails sent and received from around the world. We've now had twice as many years spent in different countries than we ever had in the same city. Long-standing physical separation would be a challenge to most friendships (and indeed my other pre-NZ friendships have suffered for distance); however, because of our mutually revered nomadic lifestyle, we long ago established familiar rhythms of electronic communication, prezzie packages, international visits, and intangible communions that drive our connection closer, even as the miles separate us.

On this unusual togetherness episode in Naples, that sparkling bottle of bubbles inspired a creative burst which formed itself into the words: "we should start a blog together!" I don't know whose idea it was, but we were certainly in wild agreement instantly. How brilliant! A blog together! A place to share our food and design interests from our respective corners of the globe, and another vehicle of connection to drive our friendship forward.

For it.

Queen's Wharf, Wellington, New Zealand

Christy asked me to write these few paragraphs as an intro to her intro post, but it's hardly necessary--her eloquent writing here requires no preamble (and she thinks I'm the writer, puh!)....


Christy:

I've always loved reading those lists of “untranslatable” words and this list of Norwegian words and phrases was no exception. I knew when I read the second word on the list that it was the exact term I was looking for to perfectly describe this blog:

Kos(elig): A word to describe the feeling of warmth and friendliness that arises from sharing simple pleasures of life with people you like.

We often try to translate it into words such as "nice" or "cozy," but those only describe parts of what is "kos" or "koselig." Kos means cuddling with your friend. Kos means being snowed in at your cabin in the mountains, in front of a roaring fire with cocoa, pastries, and a good crime novel. Even working hard can be koselig, if you’re doing it with people you like.

Hobbiton in Matamata, New Zealand

If you’re doing it with the people you like. If that’s all it takes for something to be koselig, then, even though I don’t speak a word of Norwegian, I know exactly what koselig is:

To me it's sitting under the midnight sky drinking champagne and painting your nails while you giggle about the most ludicrous and glitter-packed ways to get revenge on an ex. It means waking up the next morning and donning tulle skirts to bike to a cute café downtown for breakfast.

Naples chic

It means making delicious vegan treats, and digging a shovel hot tub, and getting out of your car at a red light so you can swap your favorite CDs NOW (God forbid we wait until both of us arrive at our mutual destination). It means midnight Brandy Alexanders, and drunken acro yoga (photo included here for obvious reasons), and packing the car Tetris-style after a trip to IKEA. It means having unexpectedly intimate conversations over pizza in the student union and crying into microwave burritos at 2am. It means giggling over poached eggs for breakfast while seated on the floor of the table-less dining room. It means countless emails sent from multiple countries, full of pictures, music, encouragements, pity parties, silliness, and life.

Party acro in Hamilton, New Zealand

Hot Water Beach, the Coromandel, New Zealand

It means starting a food and lifestyle blog with your friend who lives in a different hemisphere because 8,776 miles (yes, I looked it up) isn’t nearly such a daunting number when you can create an online space for koselig to happen.

Her Winter, My Summer will involve fashion, travel, cooking, and everything in between. But, ultimately, it’s about doing all those things because you love doing them with your best friend, even if she lives a hemisphere away. It’s about sharing simple pleasures of life with people you like without regard to the thousands of miles that physically separate you. To sum it up in one untranslatable word: Her Winter, My Summer is about koselig.

Halloween Party, Gainesville, Florida

Hike to Kite Kite Falls in the Waitakeres; Auckland, New Zealand

Sunset in Naples, Florida