house tour

To show you what a huge contrast this place is from the last place we lived in Bishkek (or any place, really, because plain white walls were a rare find in Bishkek). To show you what you could possibly rent for 760 Euros a month in Gent(brugge, technically just outside of Ghent). To have proof, …

how to find an apartment in Bishkek

OKAY GUYS. I get it. I’ve mentioned enough real estate-related terms on this blog that many of you end up here from Google looking for actual advice on how to find an apartment or a house in Bishkek. I receive an unbelieveable amount of emails asking for tips on apartment-hunting, or flat out asking if …

Kirstin gets sued (hypothetically)

The revelation that some House Hunters and House Hunters International episodes might not be as truthful as they first appear hit some people hard. When I was back in the states one woman’s account of making her episode was national news. But nothing was affected more seriously than the strained diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and …

watching myself on TV

I thought about never watching it. I was worried that all the ridiculousness that happened over the three days of filming in Bishkek and one day in DC would be a half-hour of embarrassing nonsense. Still, I had come to terms with the fact that other people, friends, family and complete strangers, would watch me …

hello, new readers!

Our big television debut on House Hunters International is tomorrow night, and the amount of press we’re getting for it is just really overwhelming! So I thought I’d write a bit of an introduction to my multitude of new fans! (just kidding) If you happen to have made it to this page after reading about …

another House Hunters update

Somehow the production studio managed to pull together an episode out of three awkward days filming Farrell and me in Bishkek. So if you’re in the US, or any location where you get HGTV, tune in Thursday, September 29 at 10:30pm (eastern time) to see us looking at two apartments way out of our budget …

Behind the scenes with HHI: Part 3, brilliant ideas to chew on

From an email with the production company: (disregard the typos) “The other things I wanted to talk to you about are the things you like doing around the town of Kygyzstan. I read one of the interesting foods you have them is like a Hamburger, but instead it’s called a gamburger. I thought it would …

behind the scenes with HHI: part 2, how not to make whipped cream

I like to think of myself as a complex person with a wide-range of interests, but it’s all too much for 21 minutes of reality TV to attempt to show all of my many, glittering facets. Instead, viewers will get two very basic views of me: – Photographer Kirstin – Baker/Food-blogger Kirstin (both of which …

Behind the Scenes with HHI (part 1)

House Hunters International in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. What? Really? Why? That is something I’m still unable to answer. But it happened, and it was strange. I have big plans for a worthy round-up of the whole clusterf**k that it turned out to be, but for now I’ll leave you with some highlights because I just arrived …

House Hunters update

I have to admit that I have lost considerable blogging motivation in the past couple weeks between finishing up my photography class (agonizing the grading process), attending various lectures and workshops, stalking the editors of neweurasia.net, the absolute madness of manually entering 100+ data points from 1200 surveys, and constantly roaming Bishkek for cafes with …