Snow is Falling, All Around Me!

Hi Everyone,

In the spirit of the current weather, I thought the Obligatory Snow photo would only be fitting:

Snowy View from my Window

Not the best view, I know, but I am still loving the amount of snow that is falling, and has been falling since I've woken up this morning (Okay afternoon).

I hate it when the snow is falling though, but once it has stopped falling, especially when you've decided to go on a walk in the countryside, everything becomes really calm and quiet. It's amazing how relaxing and fun a walk in the snow can be.

I do have to say though, that people don't seem to cope very well with the snow here in London, everything tends to just come to a complete stand-still. There are a lot more 'snow days' here than back in my home country - don't get me wrong, I do love me a lazy day - but when you need to get work done, it can get pretty annoying.

Anyway, that's all from me today, I hope you're all enjoying the winter fun, and for everyone not in the vicinity of snow, I hope you've had an amazing weekend!

As Always, Stay Tuned!

- A

New Year, New Aspirations

Hi Everyone,

It's been a ridiculously long time since I've posted something on this blog (over a month!!). Now that the new year is here, I've got some new aspirations brewing in my mind.

This is the year that I want to start planning and setting up my own business for real. I have spent too much time dreaming and thinking about it, it's time to act. If a 12-year-old boy can set up a hugely successful website/business, then so can I, right?

I also want to start researching into an MBA (yes I know it's a lot to take on, but I have to get to it). I've always wanted more than the average Bachelor's degree, and as I gain more work experience, I will be in the position to apply for such a program. I've therefore decided to look into which MBA program to join and where, and obviously plan the funds for this.

I also want to bring more to the table at work. It's time to step up and bring in some ideas. I want to progress as I have finally found a job that I enjoy and want to succeed in.

So, with by big life goals now out on the table, what are your goals, and what are you doing to achieve them?

As Always, Stay Tuned!

- A

Next Trousers and Recent Updates

Hi Everyone,

Today's post is all about Next Trousers and recent updates, as it's been a ridiculously long time (over a month!) since I've last posted something.

Here are some updates:

I have recently taken on a second job, which I'm quite excited about. It's similar to what I'm currently doing, but a little more related to what I want to be going in the direction of in the future. The job will take up 10 hours of my time, every week!

I have moved homes, I now live in the centre of London, as opposed to outside of the city. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work compared to 1 hour, and it's really convenient to go places during the weekend or after work! The flat is a lot bigger and very modern, and I love it (despite the fact that everything runs on electricity and the bills will give me several heart attacks over the next year)!

I've pretty much completed most of my Christmas shopping (just the boyfriend's parents left now!) and everything is looking pretty good.

The company I work for is in the process of changing, and the clothing policy has changed - it's all smart and professional dress now, which I quite like as I like a little businessy dress or trousers and shirt. - By the way please do drop me a line if you know any good retailers for business clothing, so far my business wardrobe consists of Next and (I dare say) Primark! Any tips will help as I REALLY need some new tops to go with some very unique trousers, see the following pictures:

Next Grey Check Trousers

Next Check Trousers

Anyway, the main issue I'm having is finding a nice black suit (preferably with trousers but could buy both trousers and skirt to match the jacket). If anyone has any tips (for tailored fits) please, please let me know!

That's really it for today.

As Always, Stay Tuned!
- A

The Christmas Cheer is Near

Hi Everyone,

It's that time of year again: Christmas!
In all honesty it's my favourite time of year. The all around atmosphere of love and joy, the sitting in front of a warm fire drinking hot chocolate, or even those long walks in the snow with a loved one, it can't get better than that! Of course I also love the shopping aspect of it, and walking along Oxford Street with the gorgeous Christmas lights blinking and glistening against the crisp winter air - just gorgeous!

This year, I'll be spending Christmas with my sister, in my gorgeous, new, central London home (yes, I am moving in 2 weeks and am VERY excited about this)!

When I was younger and spent Christmas with the family, we used to celebrate it on the 24th of December, and we would have 3 days of food feasts, and another feast on New Year's Eve! I really want to make this year's Christmas similar to those, so any good Christmas recipes would be very much appreciated.

In terms of gifts, I'm always at a bit of a loss at what to get the boyfriend. The last present I got him (for our 2-year anniversary) was an expensive pen pouch, which he wasn't very happy with (much to my anger).

So for Christmas, it's got to be something practical, yet not overly expensive. Anyone have any good ideas?

In terms of Christmas presents for women, here are a few things she might like:

Although I'm sure your wife doesn't hate the Christmas jumper you seem to love getting her every year, she would most definitely prefer something like this gorgeous Tiffany & Co. bracelet:

Your sister probably likes the usual fashion jewellery that you tend to get her every year, but I'm sure she'd love you for this amazing French Connection dress, which is perfect for a New Year's Party:

And then of course, there's your mother, who I'm sure loves those bath products you seem to give her for every special occasion, but would absolutely adore you for buying this stunning pair of Swarovski Earrings for her:

For other Christmas present ideas, have a look at sites like Buy a Gift. In turn, if you've got any good ideas, I always appreciate the help!

Hoping you're all going to enjoy the festive season!

As Always, Stay Tuned!

- A

Venice - The City of Romance

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the third and final part of my 3-part holiday post! This one is all about Venice, the city of romance!

Now I love a bit of romance (as most girls do), and I must say, if there is ever a place for romance, Venice is definitely it!

Unfortunately, we had a bit of a hiccup when we first arrived. We had spent all night on an overnight train from Rome to Venice (arriving at around 5am), including a snoring, rowdy old man who constantly went in and out of the cabin and turned on the lights, and screamed down the phone at around 3am.
Once we arrived in Venice (in the dark), we went to the hotel and found that it was shut, and not opening until 7am!!! We rang the bell and got a sleepy, angry owner on the line, telling us to come back at 7. So with heavy suitcases in hand, we set off down the road to find an open cafe. Two hours of eating pastries and drinking delicious coffee later, I was exhausted and could only think of a comfortable bed! So we headed back to the hotel to check in and sleep, only to find that, yes, we were able to check in but no, the room was not available until 2pm!!! I'm sure you can understand my aggravation, and they did not even offer a shower for us to freshen up. We left out suitcases there, and set off to wonder around the city.

The city is like a bit of a maze, so it's easy to get lost. But everywhere you go, there are lots of shops selling the famous Murano glass (made on Murano island), gorgeous masquerade ball masks, and lots of other quirky little things.
Once 2pm finally came around, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep for about 4 hours!
The good thing of being up at around 7am, was the fact that we were able to see the gorgeous sunrise above the little streets and canals of Venice. The bad side? We were falling asleep on a bench, somewhere in the middle of Venice, watching a duck trying to steal a bin!

Overall, there are 5 other islands to see, but we only went to three of them - Murano, Burano, and Lido.
Murano was amazing, we went to see one of the many glass factories (and I have to say, I feel sorry for the people working there. Outside it was already 30 degrees C, inside it must have been so much worse!!). We watched two men making a gorgeous glass vase, and after a short while decided to have a little wonder around the island. Murano is much smaller than Venice itself, but the amount of shops selling Murano glass are multiplied by about 10.

After Murano came Burano, the island of colourful houses and lace! I have never seen such a pretty place to live, the colours of houses varied from bright blue, to green, to pink and red! The island is probably the smallest amongst this group, and it probably only takes about 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other. It has a pretty main square, where all the restaurants are. We decided to have lunch here, which was a bit of a fiasco. The amount of waiters standing outside and trying to get you to their restaurant is slightly overwhelming. We finally decided on a place and, after about 15 minutes of waiting to actually be served, decided to walk off and go to a different restaurant. Maybe they shouldn't try to get people in, but focus on the ones that are already there!
After lunch, we had a look around the shops. Here, the abundance of lace shops was pretty amazing. I really wanted to buy a nice, thin, pink scarf, but they are (obviously) very expensive, and I decided not to.

Once we left Burano, we headed to Lido. Lido is one of the bigger islands, and we had been told that the island has a beach!! We walked from one end of the island to the other (the width, not the length!) and found the beach. Unfortunately, by the time we got there it was about 6 O'clock, and getting rather cold. I tried to sunbathe, but it was pretty much impossible at that time.
I did, however, gather a few small seashells, to remind me of the island  - they are currently sitting on my windowsill.

The islands took up one whole day of being in Venice, the other was spent visiting St. Marks Square, and all the sights around the square. We didn't end up going up to Campanille, as it started raining quite badly when we were in the queue outside. Maybe next time!

All in all, the holiday (despite a few minor hiccups), was super fun, but pretty exhausting.
Beach holiday next, please!

As Always, Stay Tuned!

- A

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, But it was Visited in Two!

Hi Everyone,

So it's been over 2 weeks (!!) since I last posted, and I am well aware of the fact that I promised a three part post about what I did on my holiday in September. Therefore, I'd like to apologise for my delay with this post, but here is the second part to my holiday shenanigans:

The fifth day of our holiday, it was time to go to the airport (at 5am I might add) to fly to Rome. We got there at around 12pm, and it was gorgeous! The weather was so hot, and as we were driving towards the city on one of the airport shuttles, I instantly fell in love with the gorgeous houses sprinkled all over the little towns of Italy.

As soon as we got to the hotel, we checked in straight away. The room we had was the best of all three rooms we stayed in. It was fairly big, had a good, big shower, and was nice and quiet, away from the hustle and bustle from the street. The hotel itself was just a two minute walk from Termini Station, which is where we had to get our night train from on our way to Venice two days later. There were lots of restaurants around, and quite a few sights were within walking distance.

Unlike Paris, Rome was a lot smaller, and we were able to walk to different places pretty quickly, meaning we didn't use the public transport too much, which I thought was a little confusing anyway.

My favourite part of Rome? I know it's cheesy but, once it turned 7pm, you would see lots of brides and grooms taking their wedding photos at places like the Colosseum, which was pretty amazing. I'm a typical girl in the sense that I was looking at all of their wedding dresses, imagining myself in them.

The food in Rome was pretty good too, being Italian, I was pretty happy. I do have to say though, that Italians seem to eat a lot for dinner. Their menus included three courses, the courses each being huge, like a full plate of pasta for first course, and a big steak with veg. and chips for the second course. I must have gained a good 5 Kilos whilst I was there.

The other thing which was slightly annoying in Rome (and Venice too, as a matter of fact), was the amount of people selling fake designer bags and sunglasses and wallets on the streets. They did like to hassle you, and try to get you to buy one of their bags saying they were just like the real thing (when in reality they didn't look anything like the real thing).

When we went to the Vatican, I was almost not allowed into St. Peter's Basilica, because they are so strict with dress codes. A woman is not allowed to show her upper legs, her shoulders, her midriff,  or have a top which is too low cut. I understand it of course, with the Basilica being so religious, but I had covered my upper legs, and quickly put on a cardigan. So after a short 2 minute discussion with one of the security guards, I was okay to proceed.

Rome is also the best place to see the Roman ruins (of course), and my boyfriend and I spent about 3 hours of one day walking around all of the ancient ruins. As I was looking at different things, I was imagining what it must have been like to live in Rome in those days. We tend to take a lot of things for granted with it being the digital age and so on, but people in those days must have had quite a few difficulties with various things.
I do think the history in Rome is really cool and interesting, as (in my opinion) it is one of the most historic and cultured cities in the world.

Anyway, that is all I've got to say about my time in Rome. For a first time visit, it was pretty amazing.

The last part of my 3-part post will come soon (I promise to write it before the end of next week!!), and will be about: Venice - the City of Romance.

As Always, Stay Tuned.

- A

Oh la blah - Disappointing Paris!

Hi everyone,

It has been quite a while since I've last written a post, so the plan is to write a 3-part post over the next few days about my holiday adventures from the beginning of this month!

First up: Oh la blah - Disappointing Paris!

So my boyfriend asked me a few months ago, what three places I'd like to visit most in Europe. My answer: Paris, Venice and Rome.

The outcome of this discussion was, that he booked a 10 day holiday weekend for us to go and visit all of those places. First up was Paris.

Now, my expectations of Paris were huge, especially since everyone says that it's 'One of the most romantic cities on earth'!

Upon arriving, we ended up in a rather rough area of the city. Picture army people walking around with machine guns, full grown men walking around kicking bins over out of anger, and a whole lot of alcoholics sitting on benches, drinking and gawking at anything that had legs. And that wasn't even the worst of it: the Metro had a constant smell of wee about it, which was rather unpleasant after a romantic dinner in the nice part of town.

Don't get me wrong, there were also a few nice moments in the city, like a boat tour on the river, climbing up the Eifel Tower, and seeing it glitter and sparkle every hour, on the hour, as it was lit up with shining lights. But was this my favourite place on the holiday? No!

The city has put me off of French food, one particular restaurant served something which resembled a mix between chicken, and pressed organs, but was actually meant to be fish - I still feel sick thinking about it now!
In another particular restaurant, the waiter was actually trying to tell us that a corking bottle of wine was, in fact, not corking at all but that the 2009 wine was just quite old...
On the bright side, I have quite a few funny stories to look back on, after stripping away the aggravation, aching feet (from hours upon hours of walking around the city, going sightseeing and more), and the smell of wee!

Other things that happened in Paris? I met my boyfriends cousin, who took us to some dodgy looking (and smelling!!) "underground" bar. The bar was covered in graffiti inside and out, but the cocktails (although strong) were pretty good.
I had breakfast on the Champs Elysees (which I've always wanted to do), I saw and climbed up the Eifel Tower, I went up the Arc de Triomphe, went to see Notre Dame cathedral, and saw various amazing views of Paris by day and night!

All in all, even though I didn't love Paris, it's still worth a visit and definitely an interesting experience.

Next on the 3-part post: Rome Wasn't Built in a Day - But Visited in Two!

As Always, Stay Tuned!

- A