Current obsessions

I never really do posts on my current favorites or monthly favorites, as there simply is no use. When I like something I like it and I don’t tend to change things up. What I do find myself doing is that I go through phases. Phases where you really like one particular thing so much that you cannot get enough of it. These phases usually last longer than one month though and it also takes a while for me to recognize that I’m going through a phase. I normally don’t notice until it’s already over. This time round though I have 5 things that I have been loving. If you’ve been following this space or my twitter/ facebook posts then you may have already noticed. Here are my current obsessions.

Button down shirts

My one fashion obsession this time round have been loose fitting button down shirts. I stood in front of my closet the other day and found out I have purchased over 10 button down shirts in the past 6 months or so. It all started with the sheer yellow one in the picture (from ASOS) and the last one I bought is the leopard print one (from H&M). I have already seen another one at ASOS that I loved, but I feel that by now I should try to hold back a little. Just well, because

Twinings Vintage Darjeeling tea

I love tea, that is no secret. I have blogged about it before so I’m sure this doesn’t come as a shock. However, this tea in particular is what’s caused me to drink liters more tea. I am not a big fan of black teas, but when I smelled this one in the Twinings store in London I was intrigued. It’s much more mellow and nutty than a regular Darjeeling and has much more ‘character’ to it. If teas, like wine, becomes better with age, then this is definitely a good example of it.

Tim Christensen & the Damn Crystals

A bit of music could of course not be left out as well. One dreary Saturday morning, after hitting up the gym, I stepped into my local record store and this CD was playing. I was immediately intrigued, found out which album it was that was playing and immediately when home to try and find a stream, a download, anything. Found it, loved it, played it all the time, bought the CD, bought a ticket to see them live and I haven’t stopped listening to it since. My favorite is the opening track as well as a track called Love & Water.

Crime Scene Investigation

Obsessed doesn’t even begin to describe my love for the original CSI series. A few weeks ago I pretty much had gone through all new episodes of my favorite series. I had rewatched my favorite movies and was just stuck for something good to watch. New series to TV series have not finished yet and I getting my hands on every single episode separately. So then I decided to rewatch series 1 – 11 of the original CSI series. It is my favorite one of the three. I am now half way through season 7.

MAC Pink Plaid, Topshop Confession, NARS Shrinagar, MAC lip erase in Dim.

Lipstick (swatches)

My last obsession would be lipstick. Ever since big, thick scarves stopped being a must in this country I have taken to wearing lipstick a whole lot more. I bought some MAC lip erase in London and have been loving that stuff. It instantly makes so many lipsticks prettier and easier to wear. The shades in the picture are my current favorite shades to wear: a pink, a (bright) coral and a purple.

What are your current obsessions?

Upcoming trips #2: USA & Canada

As you may remember I took a short trip to London in February earlier this year. However, I have also been planning a slightly more major trip for the past couple of months. You could already read about it in my very first post of this year, as I will be taking a 2.5 week long trip which will take me to the United States of America and Canada. Finally, after 3 years of not having been to the good ole US of A, I will return to one of my favorite places in the world and I will hit up a few new ones at the same time. I just finished booking my final flights and since my itinerary is now complete, I thought I’d share. On top of that, I will inform you of any plans I already have. If you have any must see places for me to add to my list, please feel free to leave a comment below!

This July I will find myself on a plane heading for New York City. I will be flying with Aer Lingus, from Amsterdam, via Dublin to JFK airport. I will only stay there for one night, as I will take an early flight out to Toronto, Canada. Toronto will be my first real stop on this trip and I will stay there for 5 days. I have never been to Toronto, so I don’t have much of an idea what to do while there. All I know is that I have a hotel in the most historic part of town (in a Georgian town house!) and that I really want to see Niagara Falls. I already figured out how to go there (take a bus and then a shuttle) so I will definitely check that out for one day. As for the rest: I have no clue. I will most likely just walk around and stumble across things as I go along.

After 5 days I will head back to the US and go to Boston. Again for 5 days. And again in a Georgian town house, not too far from the downtown area and really close to a train station. I already read that Boston is a good town for walking, so I plan on doing that. I may want to follow this trail that I have read about which takes you past all the major places, one of them being Harvard of course. On top of that I want to go to Cape Cod, do some shopping (there’s an Ulta not too far from where I will be at!) and if I get the chance I would also like to visit the house of one of the great American writers such as Mark Twain who used to live near Boston.

My final stop will be New York City: my favorite city in the whole world. I will be here for 5 days as well, but on the final day I will have to be on a plane later that evening. Since this will be my 6th time in The Big Apple I will skip the very touristy things. I plan to do some thorough neighborhood browsing and plan to have a look around Staten Island, Brooklyn as well as Soho, The Village and the Meatpacking District. For some reason I have never gotten a good look around there and thought it about time. I will also go and walk the High Line, a park built on old elevated railroad tracks.

I also plan to do most of my shopping in NYC. I definitely want to go to Victoria’s Secret and Sephora, but also Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters and the major drug stores. As you could read above I also want to try to go to Ulta which should be make up heaven! I just finished booking all of my flights, trains and hotels, so I’m all set and ready to go. Now all I have to do is save up some money to spend while I’m there and I’m good to go. I just can’t wait to go back!

What are you doing this summer?

Plans for my London trip

Yeah baby! When you’re reading this, the count down is seriously on: in little over 24 hours I will be hitting up good ol’ London town once more. I will only be gone for a few days, but since this is the 4th year in a row I’m going there, I think that is plenty to get around. I do have a few things I want to do. Some are completely new, others aren’t, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun. Care to know what I’ll be up to (and will most definitely write blogs about)? Then keep on reading!

Houses of Parliament w/ Big Ben in 2010

First of all this will be the first time in a long time of going to London when it’s not spring or summer time. The weather will therefore be an interesting factor on this trip. The forecasts so far are pretty good, with major rain not coming in until Wednesday which is when I’ll be leaving. The rest of my stay will see some scattered showers, but overall it should be dry and sunny for most of it. With London you can never tell though. I’ll just bring an umbrella and make the best of it.

My actual plans involve some of the ideas I had when I first booked the trip. I have plans for hitting up some museums as well as some shopping and seeing a musical. I have never been to the National Gallery so I’ll be going there. It’s still only February so I’m thinking I’ll be safer inside than outside to begin with. I’m also going to visit Temple Church. It is a place with very limited opening hours and needs planning ahead of time. I have looked up all information I need on their website, so I should be good and will not end up standing there when it’s closed.

I will also go to a part of the city I have never been to before: East London. The Brick Lane area to be specific. It’s this very hip and happening place (apparently) ever since artists such as Damien Hirst and his colleagues started setting up shop in the area. Rough Trade has a record store there (great resource for indie music) and also located in the area is Spital Fields Market which is a good place for shopping vintage clothes and accessories. I think it will be an interesting part of London to visit as it borders onto the borough where many Bengali immigrants live so there will be plenty of curry/ food places around methinks.

A museum that I plan to revisit is the British Museum. I went there way back when in 2004. At the time though I was sick and air conditioning made everything worse, so I only stayed inside for less than an hour and saw nothing but the Egypt section. Since the British Museum is huge, I definitely plan on devoting most of one of my days to it, depending on how interesting it is and which exhibitions they have. In the worst case I will just wander about for hours looking at all the prettiness of ancient cultures and then some.

Naturally I will also take out time to go shopping. I’m thinking of just going to Oxford Street and Covent Garden as I know from experience those places have everything I’m looking for. There’s the Primark flagship store, Forever 21, Urban Outfitters, Selfridges, TopShop and many more to keep me entertained. I’ll be looking mostly for clothes this time round and there are a few specific items that I hope to find while I’m there. Another shop I will definitely visit is the Twinings shop on The Strand. They sell all kinds of different teas not available in The Netherlands and to top things off I received an email saying they have added new green teas to their selection. I’m curious to try those.

So there you have it: my London plans. I’m just going to see how everything works out. If the weather is nice I will definitely spend a lot of time just wandering about and popping in and out of places as I’m walking around. These plans are by no means set in stone, neither are they intended to fill up my entire day in one go and I’m all for unintentional and spontaneous visits to places. I may or may not go see a West End musical or maybe I’ll just go and see a movie. Who knows! I’m curious to see what my hotel will be like. It does come with free Wifi so I hope to keep this blog going live from London. In any case I know I’ll have a blast.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Upcoming trips #1 – London

I started this year with an overview of what the new year would bring for me. One of my plans includes doing some traveling again. By now I have arranged most of my trips and so I thought it would be fun to inform you about them: what hotel I’ve picked out, what I plan on doing there etc. And of course if you have any suggestions, feel fee to leave a comment and tell me what I shouldn’t miss.

Tower Bridge, London (this is my own picture)

My first stop this year will be London and I’m excited to say that I will be going there in less than a month! I am gonna go for only four days during springbreak, but ever since I went to London in 2009 (after years of not having been there at all), I fell in love with it so much that I have been going back every year. This year is no exception. By now I’ve seen most of the touristy stuff, so I will be doing some sightseeing, but my main plan is just to browse around the city as much as I can (weather permit).

I’m staying at a very simple hotel as I’m not planning on spending much time there. The hotel is near King’s Cross Station and I was staying in the same area last year so I know a few pubs and places around, so even if the hotel is a horrible mess I can just hang out there. The hotel comes with breakfast and is close to public transportation and that’s the most important thing to me. I’m flying into Gatwick so I’ll be able to catch a train which takes me straight to St. Pancras and my hotel will be just a 5 minute walk, another plus!

As far as plans are concerned I honestly don’t really have any. I may want to try to hit up Temple Church, but that has very limited accessibility so I will have to look into whether it will even be open during my stay. Another thing that I might do go to a museum. This is mainly on the list for a rainy day. I’m thinking of going to the National Gallery or The British Museum. I’ve never been to the first one, and the last one has been ages since I last went there. I also want to go see a West End musical. Preferably I’d like to see Legally Blonde as I tried to go last year, but didn’t manage.

Other than that: there are no plans. I may want to go to Brick Lane as Rough Trade has its main store there and it’s apparently a very vibrant part of London. I will naturally be doing some shopping, but I’m not planning on doing a huge amount of spending. Last year my wishlist was huge, now: I have nothing on it. So we’ll see how it goes. I think I will just let my plans depend on tips from locals and whatever the weather is like. One thing I love about London is that by just walking around you’ll find something new regardless, so I think this trip will be fun.

What are your travel plans for 2012? Would London be on your list? Anyone planning on actually going to the Olympics this summer?

What the new year will bring

I don’t really do new year’s resolutions, but last year I did something like that. Most of these still stand. My job is a bit fickle as I’m not sure if my contract will be prolonged yet again, and when it comes to being satisfied with what I have, well I decided that I’m just not the type of person to ever be satisfied with anything. Before you think that’s a negative, I view it as a positive as it also allows me to strive for things in life and that is one trait that I cherish in myself. The rest I succeeded on or are things I want to continue anyway. So I was thinking: why focus on the negative and the things you want to change, when you can also look at what you have and put things in a negative light? Here’s what I know 2012 will hold in store for me regardless of what else happens.

Source: weheartit.com

Travel. Yep I have a few trips in mind again. I will be booking flights to two of my favorite countries some time today or tomorrow. First of all I’ll be going to London again in February and over summer I will finally, finally after 3 years, take a trip to the US of A again. But this time I won’t just be going to the States, oh no. I will visit Canada for the first time as plans are to hit up Toronto, Boston and of course New York City. Can’t wait for that.

Finish up uni courses. I only have 6 months of actual classes left. After that, it’s an internship and my dissertation and I’ll be done. I look forward to the day I am able to set up my own schedule again and be more flexible with when I work and when not. In other uni news, I also hope to get the article that I am still working on published. It’s not a matter of if, but more of when it will happen. My supervisor/ co-author is confident we have a good chance of getting it published in an academic journal. So that’s exciting.

New role at work. I’ve already talked it briefly a few times, but as of January 1st I will become the leader of the English team. My colleague decided to quit that task and I have decided to take it up. This means I will be busier, but it’ll also be an exciting and hopefully fruitful advance on the ladder of my career. If all fails, meaning my job has no place for me anymore, I will at least be able to list the experience on my resume, which hopefully makes me more appropriate for other jobs.

More concerts & good music. There’s already a few things I have in mind, all that rests is to get some tickets, so don’t fret I will be posting more on concerts and music I like. One thing I’m looking forward to is Swan Lake. Yup, I’m going to the ballet, courtesy of my mom. I have never seen a performance of Swan Lake and my having been a dancer for pretty much my entire life, it is sort of a must.

More shopping. Oh yes, I will definitely do some more shopping this year. As a matter of fact, my first shopping spree will happen some time this week as I plan on going to Antwerp. In other shopping news, another thing I need very very badly is a new laptop, so that is in fact the first thing I’ll be buying this new year.

More blogging. I do not intend to stop writing posts on here just yet. I feel like I’ve just started. I will soon hit my 500th post and December officially attracted more than 5000 views for the first time in the history of this blog. I know that’s not much compared to major blogs, but to me that’s incredible. I started this thing not even knowing what I was doing and now I’ve got 5000 views? How long and how frequent I can blog totally depends on what the job turns out to be. If anything I might post slightly less, but I will still be here. It’s also a way to keep me sane so I’ll need it.

What are your plans for 2012?