Viva Espana

This year I've been lucky enough to get out to Berlin, Croatia, LA and Spain and as I've shared some pictures from all of my trips so far, here's a few from Spain...

1. My grandparents live in a small rural Spanish town called Calasparra

2. The figs are fresh from their neighbor who speaks zero English and told me off because I still haven't learnt any (I will I swear!)

3. My Grandma makes a mean paella

4. The little puppy was one that had been abandoned, unfortunately they don't have the same animal rights as we do, so sadly this is quite common. Don't worry though, this little guy was saved!

5. It's really unfair that we don't have siestas - a nap in the middle of the day is brilliant

I wonder where next year will take me!

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All pictures are my own apart from the very first and last, which are from weheartit

California Dreaming

So, you know I said work had got pretty busy? Well, last week I was in LA for a week long digital art exhibition and a whole host of meetings. I didn't get much downtime unfortunately, but here's a few pictures of sunny LA that I managed to capture.

 Huntington Beach

 LEGO! At the Lego shop in LA Disney (where the exhibition and hotel was!)

 View from a dinner meeting at the Jazz Kitchen

 Surf Comp at Huntington Beach

 The gorgeous Santa Monica

My favourite fries ever

What did I learn in LA then? 

- Fries with nacho cheese are amazing, why don't we put nacho cheese on everything? 

- Life is 100% better when it's sunny, even if you have work
- American people are either insanely skinny or of the cuddly persuasion - dedication both ways!

- I want to live in Santa Monica

- Everyone is overjoyed at Disney

- You can make anything out of LEGO

- Americans LOVE the royal family, a LOT (especially Diana) 

- A British accent immediately makes you smarter, hotter and more likable in LA - score!

- Don't ever go downtown in Hollywood, unless crystal meth, homelessness and a dash of genuine crazy is what your into... 

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Croatia: My New Favorite Place

Hi everyone! I'm like a dodgy magician at the moment, one minute I'm here and the next minute I'm gone. I'm back though *clouds of smoke, doves and other magical shiz* and this post is a full of a few snaps from my holiday the other week.

I went away with four friends to Dubrovnik, Croatia and it was a-maze. Honestly, if you get the chance to go then you really should. It's absolutely gorgeous, full of lovely people, great cocktails and some yummy food...

 The gorgeous 'Old City'

 Half way up our daily 200ish steps (ouch)

 My new name

 The girls!

 One of the many many night out photos

 Classic knee shot

 Lokrum Island

 View from the top of the city walls

 Where's the camera?

 So gorgeous!

 By the Onophrian Fountain in the Old City

 View from Cafe Buza 

 The harbor

Dubrovnik

So, you want the low down huh? here we go...

Where to stay:

- We stayed in an apartment just up from the Old City as we wanted a pool to ourselves for the week. If there are a lot of you heading to Croatia then a villa can be a more affordable option. Otherwise there are some great hotels, including a large Hilton that is in a really good location (not as many steps as ours!). 

What to do:

- You have to scale the Old City walls for a breathtaking view of Dubrovnik from every single angle possible

- Eat ice cream, a lot. Not sure if it's because it's so close to Italy, but the ice cream was amazing. Each cone costs about 80p too, so you can try a lot of flavors for pretty much nothing.

- Visit Cafe Buza, a super cool bar which claims to have 'the most beautiful view', not wrong! If you're feeling brave you can also jump off the cliff with fellow brave people (not me!). 

- Drink cocktails! There are loads of places to grab a cocktail no matter what your budget is.

- Soak up the sunshine. It was 35C+ whilst we were there, so make sure you have a high SPF and lots of water, especially when you scale those walls. 

Where to go:

- Lockrum Island: This pretty little island is just a 12min ferry trip from the Dubrovnik Harbour and is basically where people go to dip in the sea. I have to say that the sea is beautiful in Croatia, you feel like you are in paradise. There's a botanical garden (no joke like 5 flowers), lots of restaurants and some bars too. 

- Cafe Buza: Most beautiful view in Dubrovnik, enough said. 

- Art Cafe: Cool, indie, arty bar that makes some amazing cocktails for hardly any money.

- Sky Bar: Top40 playlist? Check. Cocktails in a bucket? Check. Incredibly good looking people from Australia, South Africa and other 'sexy places'? Check. Great atmosphere? Check. More dancing than you can shake a stick at? Check. Croatia certainly isn't your 'let's get wasted' Malia style place, but people do like a good time and the Sky Bar is a good stop on a night out. 

- Glam Cafe: Stop by for a shake, smoothie or juice. Especially good for a hangover!

- City Walls: Get your arse up all those steps and make your way around the city walls

- Club Revelin: This is the biggest and apparently best club in Croatia and where everyone goes on a night out. It's in an old fortress, which is pretty cool and we had some very fun nights in there. Keep an eye out for posters around the Old City to see if anyone is playing, we saw Sebastian Ingrosso and that was one of the best nights out during our holiday. As a warning, skip the evening where it is 'Dream Girls' this is basically where the half naked dancers that are usually in cages 'perform' some kind of strange porno/burlesque thing. 

- Marco Polo: There are loads of amazing places to eat (deffo have a pizza at least once!) and Marco Polo is a great restaurant tucked up down one of the alley ways in the Old City

- Buy some souvenirs: There are loads to buy and some really cute homemade things. My friend got her baby niece this adorable wooden toy and some candles from Candle City (think that's right), which is mental.

There's loads more to do and if i haven't tempted you, it's pretty cheap and just b-e-a-utiful (I mentioned that a little). I had a good time anyways...

Link me up if you've been anywhere recently! I am already looking for my next adventure "The World is a book, and those who do not travel only read a page" Saint Augustine (any excuse!). 

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The Summer Edit: Bikini's

As I will be heading off on holiday at the end of the week I thought it was the perfect time to run through the summer essentials and well non-essentials I have been purchasing in preparation. I'm going to split it into sections so it doesn't become one long post, starting with bikinis!

I have three new bikinis for my holidays this year...

ASOS Contrast Mini Knot Front Bandeau Bikini - £28 total

This bikini is pretty simple and doesn't really look like much flung on my decking, but it is so flattering! If you are quite small and bottom heavy (junk in da trunk) like me, I would really recommend this bikini. The small bow detailing makes you look smaller on the bottom and bigger on the top and I think navy is a classic colour for a summer bikini. I've had a few ASOS bikinis in the past and I think they are great quality and there is so much choice, took me forever to decide.

H&M Bikini Top - £10 ish (Can't remember)
H&M Bikini Bottoms - £7.99

The H&M website is terrible for locating stuff, so sorry guys can't link the top! Again, my decking is doing this bikini no justice with it flung on there, cuz that bikini top is gorgeous. It genuinely looks designer with the rose gold zip and paneling and I'm pretty sure it was £10ish. It does come with matching bottoms, but I didn't like them as they had a gigantic piece of elastic as the waistband - wtf - so I opted for these standard black ones. 

Neon Coral Bikini £7.99 bottoms, £9.99 top (no link again)

This was a last minute purchase from H&M and is deffo a post tan bikini as it is so bright! It was magically sunny in the UK this afternoon, so the sun makes it look lighter than it is in this picture (think neon coral!). It has cute little gold details to make it look a bit more expensive and again it's a good shape. I am a bit gutted though, as I found out my best mate who has the body of a model also has the same one. I might end up saving this for my trip to Spain later on in the year when she isn't there and I have utilised my gym membership more effectively! haha.

Talking of the gym, I have spinning very soon so I shall head off (have you been spinning before? It is hell on a bike. Like a never ending ride to doom - why am I going?!), let me know what bikini and general holiday essentials you have been buying, link me up!

Ps...Bloglovin is soon to be the only way we can stay up to date with each others blogs, so click the link and give me a follow if you fancy it :) catch you soon x

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Remember me?

I have been a terrible blogger recently! I've had loads of new changes where I work, so I have been super busy on trips to London, new projects and a bigger workload. On top of that it has been everyone's birthdays and my family have been arriving left, right and centre to hang out! So much so, it's already June!! (time flies etc etc). Have no fear though, I am back and I'm back with some new blog post ideas - boo yeah. 

To tide you lovely followers (if you are still with me) here's some snaps and general things I have been up to in my brief absence:

Last year my Nan booked a holiday, but then had a stroke on the day we we're going (she's completely fine, she said she just got too excited and then spent the time in hospital moaning about why we hadn't just carried on with the plan!), so now she has recovered pretty much fully she was keen to get us all booked in somewhere else. Over the bank holiday weekend, me and 15 members of my family headed down/up and across to Sidmouth, Devon. It was glorious weather and we all had so much fun.

 Hope of a beach body went right out the window this weekend!

 

We all ate a lot, drank a lot and chatted a lot, only pausing to breath in the sea air. 

Beauty and such related I have been raiding boots in my normal fashion (I'm sure I must be some kind of shareholder now with the amount I spend) and trying to get some holiday stuff together wherever possible for my trip to Croatia in 2ish weeks! I'm still writing for London Beauty Hub too, so if you haven't been over to check the site out you can see my latest post on festival beauty favs here.

Also, whilst running around H&M in the week I noticed they are doing a scheme where you can take a carrier bag of clothes (worn, with holes, bits of rags, re-usable etc) and get a £5 voucher off your next £30 spend. I always worry that my clothes don't get recycled properly (huge fashion industry problem!) so this is perfect because you can recycle and buy, whilst doing your little bit! (more details here).

That's it from me, leave your links for me below so I can check out your blogs and stay tuned for some regular posts - promise ;)

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Berlin: Part 1

Guten Tag! Apologies for my recent disappearance from the blogging world, but I jetted (makes flying Ryanair sound much more sophisticated) off to Berlin during the very early hours of Good Friday morning with my boyfriend for a bit of an Easter break and I thought I would give myself a break from computers for a while too (obvs, jumped onto Twitter and Bloglovin as soon as I was home, but the break was good).

I thought I would do a series of my travels in Berlin and share some snaps from the six days with you all in case you are thinking of going or just want a peek! I will spread these posts out, so I don't bore you with the Berlin hype too much, but here's a few bits and pieces from the first few days:

We arrived to snow falling and caught a bus to where we needed to go to reach our hotel...kinda. We didn't realize for some reason that the underground was right next to the airport and blissfully unaware of this we hopped on this random bus that took us on a pretty scenic route to the centre (we also only paid 1.40 Euro by accident because we think we were suppose to get off a lot sooner and not at the last stop - oops).

Eventually, we made it to the hotel which was the Adina Apartment Hotel near Hauptbahnhof station which we were both really happy with! The hotel is like a mini apartment/suite with a bedroom, bathroom and lounge/kitchen and diner and it's all really modern and the staff were very helpful etc. We decided to get an apartment so we could save some money on breakfast and so we didn't have to wake up for it too. It's still like a hotel though, so it's like having a flat with a cleaner who cleans everyday - something I could get used to!

The rest of the first day was a bit of a boring one I guess, we got our bearings, stocked up on food, ate a lot of our food and watched the film 'Savages' before getting some sleep ready for a big day of sightseeing or 'getting our Berlin on' as I kept saying for some reason....

Day 2

Feeling fresher, relaxed and in holiday mode we went to the city zoo (there are two, this one is in zoolischer garten) because wherever there are cool animals, Alex has to go and see them. The zoo had pretty much every animal you can think of, which was amazing to see, especially so up close.

"I don't think y'all ready for this jelly" 

However, we both felt like the animals were a bit cramped and not in the best enclosures, which wasn't so amazing. Everything was in German at the zoo pretty much, so it was hard to tell whether they were on any breeding programmes etc or if they were there forever. We weren't fans to be honest, but would love to know what you thought if you have been? This guy pretty much summed it up! (I have censored his modesty. Not that he cares as he was just letting it all hang low...)

After the zoo we went to The Hard Rock Cafe, which I just love. I've been to quite a few now and started collecting the cocktail glasses a little while ago, so added to my collection a little further after indulging on a HUGE burger and fries.

We then wandered around some shops where we went in this crazy 'it's always Christmas shop' which was pretty cool and then sauntered back to the hotel for a cuppa and some Toffifee which I had never had before - pretty amazing hazelnutty goodness.

In the eve we headed out for some more cocktails, which was a bit of an ordeal at the beginning because we went the wrong way for a while and ended up in the freezing snow alongside the Berlin Wall in the pitch black. It was like we were trying to re-enact a scene from the war as there was nobody else to be seen as we hurriedly walked by the wall wondering how we ended up in such a sketchy place with prison like buildings.

After that experience though we did make it to where we thought we were headed before which was full of life (thank gawd) and cheap strong cocktails. A few Long island ice teas later, we went to some underground indie rock bar (loads of the bars are underground) which was really chilled and full of cool people (and me and Alex). We stumbled back in the early hours, made a chip butty and hit the sack.

Those were my first two days in Berlin! I will continue with the rest over the coming weekend/week, so keep an eye out if you are interested.

Something I know a lot of you are interested in is my blog giveaway winner, so without further a due, drum roll.....golden envelope....dramatic pause (plus other cliché award moments), the winner is the beautiful Hannah over at Which Way To Wonderland? Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who entered, major chuffed with the response to the giveaway.

On a final note, it's my birthday next Thurs (11th) so please send all gifts to Emma...kidding (sort of). I will be doing some b day related posts and beauty stuff though, so keep an eye out for those too!

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