Travel Journal

This is my Journey Diary. It is the 20^th of August, 2013. I welcomed myself to the country of my ancestors, the country of bats and dark mythical creatures. I'm in Eastern Europe; Hungary.

Day 2.

Mostly resting today. Me and my crew (read; me and my Love) must have slept about 20 of the 24 hours. Activity only during breakfast, lunch and dinner time. And late at night. Tomorrow we are expecting adventure.

♥ When suddenly a wild animal appeared and we got photo bombed without noticing until we arrived back on deck (in our room) later that night. ♥

 

Day 3. Adventure.

Full of energy, we stared the day with a swim and the most refreshing shower we had in days. After lunch we explored Gyöngyös, a small town nearby. The bumpy bus ride alone was an adventure already. In town I bought lovely cute stuff while shopping. (“I-Shopped” later on.)

♥ In front of the church presbytery (book store nowadays) ♥

Post-Dinner. We climbed uphill in search of a lookout point and we found this picturesque watch tower, built around 1900.

Today I am Rapunzel, but my hair does not reach all the way down yet.

Sun sets so early in this far away land. As far as I could see, the last rays of sun were laying themselves down on the hills and cities around. Fog rises, night falls soon.

Returned safely to deck. I am satisfied with everything we have conquered today.

Day 4.

Nothing exciting happened today, other than a short climb down to the river. Lots of resting, enjoying the quietness inside and the small walks up and down to the dinner area. Prepared for tomorrows trip.

5th day.

Today's quest for beautiful scenery brought us to a small village nearby. A part of the trip was with a local small diesel train, which was way too adorable. Closed wagon one way and open wagon the other way.

♥ When I was little my grandparents had brought me to this place
and what I remember most is the little train. ♥

Our destination was the castle ruins of Kisnána. This place has a rich history and was massively restored during the last century.

♥ These are taken by myself ♥

♥ This is also taken by me, around 1900, before restoration. source. ♥

Day 6.

Failed attempt of locating another ruin in the woods nearby due to horrible path marking. No picture.


Day 7.

Last full day at this location. Morning started with a succeeded attempt to locate the ruins of Bene. Some of its walls are restored, but still half covered by dirt and all sorts of flora and fauna (so many lizzards!).

♥ Reconstruction of the Bene Castle. source. ♥

This place put me in a romantic mindset of long lost times. Of a little square, surrounded by walls, with wooden towers and pets all around. The castle had not been large, but did have several rooms dedicated to residence.

Day 8. Inter-country travel.

After lunch, we packed our belongings and continued our journey to the south to visit relatives. Trip was long and exhausting, but it made it even more relaxing to sink into our freshly prepared bed.

Day 9. In the south.

Wandered through town. This place is weird. Rich and poor are so clearly visible and yet so mixed. The inner city is being renewed, which looks really good. Even the restaurant we ate at in the evening was new. A cute, modern, Italian restaurant (finally somewhere to eat pesto!).

♥ Decorations in the shopping street. ♥

Day 10.

Full day of shopping and eating melons. Hungary has the fantasticestest water melons in the universe. Not even near to what is sold in our super markets at home; so full of taste and bright red flesh!

Other that that, shopping until our feet were sore.

♥ With all my shopping bags and plenty of awesome stuff in them. ♥

I will dedicate another post to my shoppings.

Day ended with fried cheese. Me and my crew are fully satisfied.

Final day. The travel back home.

Today I drank infinitely more coffee than I have in the past six months, as I started my day with a small cup with clouds of cream and beaches of sugar. In the plane I tried another sip, which -for once- was fairly okay. I usually don't drink coffee at all.

It is nice being in my own country again. I recognize the fashion, things are not broken and the trees are green!

This ten days journey was very relaxing, I saw the beautiful scenery that I was longing for. However, the search for supernatural creatures has led to only small clues; lots and lots of bats at night, legends of dragons living in the mountains around Kisnána (no proof was found, not even in the well) and the coat of arms of the village to which we had moored our ship:

♥ The weapons of the region with a depiction of the moon and the sun
and their relations to wolves, obviously hints towards werewolves. ♥

But honestly, I am happy to go back to my own warm nest, my home, my bed, my bunnies and my luxury life.

Summer Time is the Sweetest Time for Little Black Dresses

♥ The small bag is my actual camera bag. I bought a new cam, a freshly new system camera, Nikon 1. So yay, now i can take nice piccus too! ♥

♥ Also, new hair style! ♥

When reality and dreams collide

♥ A little while ago, my and my colleagues won a trip to the Efteling, a fairy tale themed theme park in the Netherlands.Here follow pictures of the prettiest things I saw. ♥

♥ Supposedly there were pink doves. I didn't manage to really see a pink one, so here photoshop for you. ♥

♥ Residence of the sleeping beauty ♥

♥ The mix of modern and old style-fairy tale was brilliant. The little green roof was part of and Ice cream and Waffle saloon where I nommed a pink waffle. How adorable! ♥


♥ Coffee - drink me? ♥

♥ I would eat that! Including the house. ♥

♥ Roller coaster outfit ♥

The day closed with a 'magical' luxury buffet dinner provided by a famous perfume label. The tables were decorated with gigantic 5 liter bottles of perfume and chocolate fondues with loads of fruit to dip. Also, chocolates brought around by topless model guys, paid to just be there and looking good.

Sweet summer sunshine

 
♥ Enjoying the sun and showing off one of my fave perfumes, Miss Dior. Thankyou Elselien for the pretty pics and collage:) ♥

 

♥ This is a little gift from Dior when buying a Miss Dior fragrance. This iny box isn't just cute on the outside, on the inside it shows a glimpse of a luxurious fashion dream. The little bottle is a fairy sized 5 ml miniature. It is way too adorable to ever use it! I display it at my perfume table. ♥

I never thought you would come and visit me... I'm on cloud nine

♥ New rings (Clair's) and earrings I don't remember ever wearing before. ♥

The very newest purchase in my closet is yet another LBD. Its simplicity makes it elegant, I can wear this with tons of different styles. Today's style is elegant goth; decorative references to death (like the bird skull ring and black flowers in my hair) with virginly ornaments (necklace) and bare legs. Eye makeup (black, white and a little purple) is all Urban Decay; Lipstick is dark red from Make Up For Ever.

♥ My 1000th Little Black Dress (second hand). ♥

♥ Heels I usually only wear on vacation (New Yorker). ♥

LBDs

Little Black Dresses. I have a strong desire for them. Here are two new ones I purchased lately ♥

♥From the Night by Suiteblanco collection, bought second hand. I love its open back and the folds in the skirt part! Goes perfectly with my bordello's. On the tv in the background I was playing Godsmack songs. My top three: Voodoo, I stand alone and Awake.♥

♥This is not really an LBD, although I'm wearing one. This is my newly purchased diary / agenda for the coming school year. It's from Dolce Luna, mostly famous for their jewelry. This agenda is so exuberantly decorated with cute little pieces of lace and delicate cameos. Every week has a line of wisdom, such as "What will you do today, that will make you proud in a year?" ♥

♥This Little Cuty Black Dress is from Donna Li, the fall off shoulders of lace made me fall in love with it. Purchased on a day of shopping (Ici Paris XL work training) in Utrecht. Shoes are from V&D (purchased as 'work shoes') and the tights are from Tally Weijl. ♥

The plant and the chair in the last pictures have a special story. They are both found on the street. The plant was orphaned about 4 years ago. It was on the street, half dead. Someone had obviously given up on it and put it outside to throw away. I took it home and cut all the dead leaves, replanted it in a more comfy pot and in the following months it had grown massively. Now it still shows the pain from being abandoned, but it lives. I think it is happy.

As for the chair, this fairy tale story happened about two years ago, when I was heading for some lecture. I saw this chair outside, in front of an internet cafe. The weather was grey and lightly rainy (can you imagine how chairs must hate that weather!). I parked my bike and went inside the cafe and asked why the chair was outside, the dude looked at me uninterestedly and said the neighbor man puts his crap outside sometimes, for the cafe to take if they like (there was also a crappy leather couch outside), but they didn't want it. So I took it on the back of my bike home. I cleaned it thoroughly and discovered there was a price tag on it of € 120!! I guess the neighbor had a small antique shop? After all the chair got a lovely home with me and is now used as my computer chair.

Red and black and Tim Burton

One of my recent Fridays I was home alone and This is what my evening included:

Warm tea from my red cup and Tim Burton's book
'The melancholy death of Oyster boy and other stories.'

This is the cutest story of the book, I think.
This is the french book, hence the translations on the right page.

Awww, this bold dude likes his walls to be smeared with blood. I think his name is Jimmy.

Geniet ervan! Random text on my teabag tells me to enjoy it :) so cute.

In the theme of red; I took a picture of the roses the are on the TV-dressoir.

I had put my old Placebo Cd's on since I hadn't listened to them in ages and it was nice. I remembered why I liked them so much!

Here some outfit pictures I wanted to post for a while but life happened.

College outfit. (Boots Van Haren, skirt V&D, bag vintage)

Work outfit. (Sephora)

Pink macarons and blood.

    On May 5th we celebrate the end of WWII. Usually there are huge festivals throughout the whole country. I, however, celebrated this sweet sunny Sunday with making a cycling tour with bf through some cute villages in the neighborhood. The was the first really-warm-and-comforatbly-sunny-day of the year. I had such a gigantic serotonin boost!

Tip of the day: sun increases the speed of serotonin production. And more serotonin increases happiness!

Me with my bicycle on a cycling trip. Here pausing at dolmen G1 near Noordlaren.

    Our goal was to reach Zuidlaardermeer and cuddle some goats that are at the Landal Greenparks resort over there. Sadly, we couldn't cuddle the goats due to fences, but we saw them. and they were adorable! There were three super silly-sounding baby goats and lots of fluffy chicken.

Also the lake was beautiful, so relaxing! At the lake side the grass was so green I really had to lay down in it. a few seconds of direct sun on my skin were so delightful, they even warmed my core (I usually avoid direct sunlight, I want to keep my skin healthy and pale!).

Eventually we cycled about 35 kilometers. It was fantastic.

Enjoying the grass. I assumed since it was at a fancy resort, there are probably no bugs in the grass. That is how I allowed myself to lay down.

    Yesterday was wonderful weather too (until it started raining of course, dutch weather -.-). After school I went to town with my shopping buddy Eric and I managed to find the sun glasses I was looking for! Super very round with a black wire frame. Yay to the vintage shop Eric pointed out to me (no clue they had glasses there!).
Also yay to the dress E and I bought about two months ago, that I had finally cut shorter (a dress that touches the knees is waaay too long!) and was able to wear. The leggings were in my closet for way too long as well. I think together they make a cool outfit. And the Sephora hear band with big black bow really finishes of my classy doll look of the day.
In my hand: pink macarons. so yummy!

Eating macarons. Leggings (H&M), ankle boots (V&D), dress (second hand).

Glasses are new from a vintage shop in Groningen; Recessie 3.0

As for today: I got a phone call from the blood bank that they urgently needed my precious O negative blood, so I went there in the morning. I hope I save lives with my blood or that my blood will be used for science.
I matched my lipstick to match my blood color today. I succeeded pretty well. Lipstick is the Aqua Rouge from Make Up For Ever, number 9.

Biology lesson of the day: O negative can be donated to anybody with any blood type. However, people that have type O negative can only receive O negative blood, all the other blood types would be rejected by the body. Negative means that there is no antigen (in contrary of positive rhesus types, which often contain D-antigens). These antigens can provoke immune system responses. You preferably don't want that. You want to see what your blood type is compatible with? Click here

Me after donating blood at Sanquin in Groningen.

How donating blood evolved through the centuries.
In 1667 Richard Lower tried to have blood transferred from a sheep into a (mentally ill) human directly. This is what it looked like:

I wonder if either of the subjects survived and I'm happy donating blood advanced throughout time.