Mother Nature: 'No, you silly girl! Here's 30°C for you!'

Halloooo!!!

Do you want to hear something really really really ironic? Remember in my last blog post (It's all about finding that morning routine or just scroll down x)) I was writing about the fact that I am ready for autumn and winter? Well, I posted the blog on Saturday 22nd.... And it was 30°C! Ugh. Karma I guess? I'm happy for it to rain and be cold and then Mother Nature says: 'No, you silly girl! Here's some 30°C for you'. Ah well, I didn't die, so I'll keep wearing those shorts and sandales I guess?

Anyway, that incredibly hot Saturday I went to Green Park to enjoy some reading in the comfortable  temperatures in the shades of the trees in the park. I bought myself some raspberries and some strawberries and a bottle of water of course and I just read for a couple of hours. Still reading Outlander. Unlike the previous books like The Falconer and the Doon series, Outlander is a bit more advanced and 3x as big. I'm a slow reader, I can't read 850pages in 1 week, let alone in a few days.

I also had a little visitor. This little guy saw that I was eating something and he (or she) was very curious so decided to come over and have a look. It's incredible how tame most squirrels are in the London parks. Not so tame you can actually pet them, but tame enough to come as close as within touching distance. I didn't even use a zoom on the picture below!

So that was my Saturday. Sunday consisted of watching YouTube videos and Downton Abbey. It was raining so I was thrilled! ^^ And than on Monday I had to go to work again. Thursday was National Burger day in the UK, so of course, we had to have a burger for lunch. It's been a while since the last time I had lunch with the colleagues, so that was a fun change in the normal pace of the week ^^ And I almost binge watched the fifth season of Downton Abbey. I can't wait for the 6th and final season this autumn!

Anyway, I'm currently in Belgium as it is bank holiday in the UK. Yes, I don't have to work this Monday (today!) so I decided to take the chance and come home for a couple of days. I'm not even sure when I'll be back home, so I'm enjoying every moment I have whilst I'm here ^^

That's it for this week!

Thanks for reading!

It's all about finding that morning routine

Halloooo!!

My first week back in London, England. Temperatures between 20°C and 25°C, cloudy at times and we've even had rain on two evenings. That's how I like my weather. You'll probably all hate me for saying this, but I am ready! Ready for autumn and winter! Bring on the cold, wind and rain! The cozy nights snuggling up in bed with a movie and a cup of tea. Reading whilst the rain is ticking on the window. Feeling your cheeks turn red and cold so you have difficulty using your facial expressions. Dark by 4pm. Hot chocolat from Costa and reading in St James's church. Hats, scarfs, mittens, boots, winter coats, the lot. Yes, I am ready!

Now, as for this week. It's been another normal week at the office. Sitting behind my desk and doing my job. The major difference this week with all the previous weeks was that I hardly was in a bad mood. Since my trip to Scotland I was struggling big time and something just had to change (as you might recall from my rather honest blog post). Well, something is about to change, but it's not settled yet so as long as it's not official, I'm afraid I can't tell you what's going on. But it's something I am actually looking forward to, which is huge :)

Other than the actual possibility of a change in my life, is the fact that I've found the most relaxing morning routine this week. I've had quite a few different ones in the past year or so. Eating breakfast 'at home', eating breakfast on the train, eating breakfast at the office, etc. As you might know, each morning I take the 7.37 train to London Victoria. Around 8 the train would drive into the station and by 8.15 I would be in the office. Work hours start at 9, so I'd have plenty of time to have breakfast and settle myself in for the days work ahead. Now this week, I catched the 7.26 train to London Victoria (yes, even earlier), but instead of going straight to the office and settle in, I have a coffee at the Costa Coffee. It's only a 5min walk to the office from there, so from 8.05 til 8.41 I have a blisful half hour reading my book, eating my breakfast whilst sipping a delicious coffee. When the weather is nice I'd sit outside, but unfortunatly all the smokers sit outside as well. And I'd rather have my breakfast not inhaling other peoples cigarette smoke... So I sit inside :)

Not sure how long I can keep this routine up, as it's probably an expensive one in the long run, but it does give me a rather nice time to properly wake up and have a moment to myself before heading to the office.

I'm currently reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, if anyone is interested. I have the small paperback pocket edition which has 850 pages, which is actually nothing compared to the whopping 1070 pages of Drums of Autumn, the fourth book in the 8books series. But Outlander is such a pages turner! I read on the 25min on the train into London Victoria, I read 30min whilst eating my breakfast, I read during my 1hour lunch break, I read again 25min on the train 'home' and if the weather is nice I read for an hour after work in the park and I read after I've watch my episode of Downton Abbey before I go to sleep. It's like Harry Potter, or Narnia, or the Mortal Instruments or the 'I heart' series. It's so good I just want to keep reading!

Another reason why I might be less grumpy this week is because I've had good nights of sleep this week. I have new earplugs you see ;) At first I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hear my alarm clocks, but turns out that is absolutely not a problem ^^ So I sleep well, so I wasn't so tired when at work. Except for one night though. One of my housemates started vacuum cleaning at 1.30am and another housemate started 'slamming' his door at 4am. To give you all the information, his door is out of his hinges and is missing the doorknob and lock. It's basically a piece of wood in a doorway. So everytime he or his son wishes to enter the room or leave the room, they have to get the entire piece of wood out instead of just swinging the door open. I've only seen them twice in the house this week, so I assume they've found some place else to stay until the door is fixed. I have to say I do not want to know what happened to that door. Let's just say I'm hoping it is not a result of my housemate aggressive out bursts.

Anyway, it's been quite an uneventful week this week, but it was a rather nice one :) Looking forward to next week though! Or should I say the week after? ^^

Thanks for reading!!
xo - Sara

8 tips for anyone who's crazy enough to travel to Croatia in August (like me)

Halloooooo!!

As promised, a mid-week blog post about my trip to Croatia. It'll be a recap/do's and don'ts/tips'n'trix kind of post. I'm not going to bother you with places you must visit. You can find enough blogs/books/guides/websites who can advise you where to go and help you plan your trip. I'm here to give an honest opinion about my trip to Croatia ;)

I have about 8 'tips':

1) Zadar is a very beautiful city. Old town is anyway, no idea what new town looks like. My tip for this city is to find accommodation just outside old town. That way you're within walking distance to the city centre, but also within walking distance to the beach.

2) the Plitvice lakes are gorgeous but waaaaay too touristy to my taste. Daily about 14.000 visitors walk through the park so you're never a second by yourself to enjoy the splendor of nature. It's difficult to take pictures as you're always taking photos of other tourists or someone is waiting impatiently to get past you. That is not how I'd like to enjoy a walk through nature. If I ever want to see lakes as blue as the Plitvice ones again, I'll do my research to avoid the crowd and where you can actually swim! I've heard that the lakes in Krka are worth to pay a visit ;)

3) My first impression of Split is that it is a dirty dirty dirty city. The smell of pee is almost always present. The beach near our accommodation was far from my scene, but the other little beach we found was okay. Old town is alright though. Some beautiful building, boulevard and Marjan park. I have to admit this was the least fun city we've visited.

4) Dubrovnik; freaking King's Landing yeah! If you're a GoT fans this will be your cup of tea. But bear in mind: they have a lot of stairs in Dubrovnik. Our accommodation was situated on the hill with a beautiful view over the town. But screw the view, find an accommodation near the town, unless you want to walk a bizillion stairs up and down every day. The beach next to the old city walls is also pretty idyllic. But again, in many places the smell of pee is present.

View from our accommodation in Dubrovnik... As you can see we had to walk many many flights of stairs down... And up...

5) Croatia hasn't scored highly regarding tourist friendliness. Shop assistants, waiters, etc are often not friendly towards tourists. Not in my experience anyway. Luckily most of hotel/apartment owners are and most of them show you on a map the best places to eat, easiest way to get to a touristy spot and things you definitely must see before you leave again.

6) Temperatures in August can easily reach 38 degrees. If you can't handle heat well, you might want to visit during spring or autumn. Not summer. It's not that I mind the sweating (it will stream of your body, even when sitting still), but thank god there is almost always a beach nearby. You'll need to cool off!

7) A very useful and practical tip for when you go swimming: buy waterproof shoes/sandals. There are a lot of rocks in the Adriatic sea and it rather hurts your feet. It might look a bit silly, but you'll enjoy your swim even more as you don't have to worry about hurting yourself!

Basic essentials: A good book, waterproof shoes, sunscreen, sunglasses, a towel and a hat. Oh, and don't forget a bottle of water!

8) The last tip is pretty self explanatory: Eat a lot of ice cream and a lot of chips. And don't forget to drink a lot!

Voila, I hope these tips were a bit useful. If not, I hope they were enteraining at least :)

If you've ever been to Croatia yourself, please tell me about your experiences! Whether you agree or disagree with some of my 'tips' ^^

As always, thanks for reading
xo - Sara

Travel diary Croatie day 8: 38°C vs us 1-0

Halloooo!!!

This will be the very last blog post of my trip to Croatia. I'm currently back in London as I have to work tomorrow, so I'm desperately going to cling to this last blog post about my beautiful trip to Croatia.

Ending our trip in Dubrovnik maybe wasn't the smartest idea. The city is located in the most Southern part of Croatia so temperatures reached crazy hights. For me anyway. 38°C!!!!!! oO But we didn't let the last day go to waste. I've managed to find some more filming locations of Game of Thrones and we had a lovely swim in the afternoon. What else can you do when sweat is streaming even whilst you're not sitting in the sun? Mind you, my hunt for the filming locations got me in active modus, 38°C or not. Hopping around town whilst my sister and Jill sat on a bench, trying to cool off. I was properly geeking out x)

After my running around for movie location and visiting a couple of shops (most of them were closed as 15th August is a National Holiday) we made our way to the nearest 'beach'. Luckily some clouds made an appearance so the sun didn't burn too hard.

Around 4pm we made our way up the many many stairs to our apartment and car. At 6pm we had to hand in our car keys at Dubrovnik airport and we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time go get there :) Have I mentionned the many stairs in Dubrovnik? A lot is an understatement x)

Aaah well, we handed in our car keys, changed out of sweaty cloths into something clean, checked in our luggage, went through customs and spent our last 200KN on dinner. Our flight was delayed with 35min, but to be honest, I didn't really mind. Our flight with Brussels Airlines went very very very smoothly and by 00.30am I was home. So our trip to Croatia came to an end. I'm now sitting on my bed in London, almost ready to go to bed as the alarm will go off at 6am again tomorrow morning. Back to reality!

That's it for this blog post and this travel diary to Croatia. I think I'm going to upload a recap blog post about this trip on Wednesday with some suggestions and tips for anyone who'd like to visit Croatia as well :) That is, if you don't mind x)

Thanks for reading anyway!
xo - Sara

Travel diary Croatia day 7: King's Landing vs us 0-1

Halloooo!!

Today was awesoooome! Hot, but awesome. The entire city is basically a decor for the TV show Game of Thrones. It's very likely that around every corner, HBO shot some scene for King's Landing. Let me show a few locations I saw myself and took a picture from. Mind you, I saw a whole lot more, but I just didn't snap a pic. It was not manageable if I wanted to keep moving x)

So, we started our day with a walk on the old city walls. These walls are so thick and solid that no one ever in the course of history managed to attack the city. Yeah, that's saying a lot. On these walls, of course, they shot some very beautiful scenes in GoT as you have a stunning view 360°.



Whilst walking on the city walls, I quickly noticed that in the surrounding houses people like you and me live. So every now and then you could see someone's laundry hanging outside x)

 

 

This fortress is used as harbor in the TV show. I'm going try to get a better shot of it tomorrow. Where you can see the boat in the picture, that used to be the first harbor of Dubrovnik as well.

 

Once we got off the city walls (that tour took us about 2 hours) we walked around town for a bit. We visited the oldest pharmacy and an abbey as well.

 

One thing I might have forgotten to mention is that it was incredibly hot. And incredibly is an understatement. I think I haven't sweat this much since my last lesson of ballet, 5 years ago. No spot was left dry. Sweat was poring out of every inch of my skin. So naturally we went looking for a beach to cool off a bit. From 1pm til 6pm we sat at a beach, going in and out of the water. The beach was situated right next to the city wall, a most beautiful location to swim!

 

I have to admit, after visiting Dubrovnik, I am considering to start watching GoT again. I stopped after season 2, as I just can not handle all the violence in that TV show. But it is a damn good show, so perhaps I just need to get over myself and just man up and watch the damn show. I'll keep you posted on how that'll progress x)

 

Voila, that is it for today. To give a short summary: City walls, GoT, sweating and swimming :)

 

Keep your eyes open for tomorrow's blog post (which will be live mostlikely on Sunday) for the final 'Travel diary Croatia' as I'm flying back home tomorrow. Somewhere next week (probably Wednesday) I think I'll upload a recap of my trip with some useful tips and trix for anyone who'd like to visit Croatia themselves!! ^^

 

Thanks for reading!

xo - Sara

Travel diary Croatia day 6: Driving in Dubrovnik vs me 0-1

Halloooo!!

Today was proper roadtrip day. We drove from Split to Dubrovnik, which was about a 3hour drive. Not insane hours of driving, but we did travel through Bosnia and Herzegovina x)

Most part of the day consisted of driving and sitting on our ass at a beach. In Podaca we found a little beach to chill in the afternoon. The original plan was to visit the most beautiful beach in Europe in Brela, but it was too crowded and you had to pay 30KN to park your car on the side of the road. Yeah, not happening. So we drove on towards Dubrovnik and along the way we found that little beach in Podaca.

The only downside at the beach was that a little breeze was missing, so we spent most part of the day in the water in order to cool down. I looked like a proper granny by the time I got out of the water x)

From Podaca to Dubrovnik, I had the honour of driving. Everything went very smoothly up until we had to find our hotel in the city. Dad, I think you'd have been very very proud of me! Stopping and starting on a hill, turning in a small street,... I did it all in Dubrovnik with a car I'm not that familiar with. I only need to practice my S parking again... ? ;) Anyway, in the end we had to call the owner of the apartment/hotel to give us some directions and luckily we found it easily after a quick explanation. Pfhiew, if you can drive in Dubrovnik, you can drive anywhere. The hell with Brussels.

Anyway, I was able to snap a quick picture of the most gorgous sunset. Whilst it was raining, I might add.

So yeah, I'm currently in the city that was/is the decor of King's Landing in Game of Thrones. Tomorrow we'll discover more of the old town so I can garantuee that I'll have loads of pictures to upload and plenty of Game of Thrones talk. So far, my first impression of this city: gorgous! But a lot of stairs x) I'll give a more refined update tomorrow ;)

Thank you for reading!!
xo - Sara

Travel diary Croatia day 5: Map vs us 1-0

Halloooooo!!

Finally, I've found time and decent internet to upload yesterday's blog post. As expected, the internet connection failed when I wanted to upload that blog post. But tada, here it is, with only one day delay :)

So yesterday we discovered old town of Split. Our first impression wasn't a positive one, so it could only improve. And it sure did. Old town is a labyrinth of little streets and very very old buildings. We walked on the very fancy boulevard. Palm trees and all.

Marjan hill in the background.

And we visited the Palace of Diocletian. Did you know that in the old palace cellars, HBO filmed some scenes for Game of Thrones? I believe it was a scene in seaon 5 with Danny and her dragons. Awesome!!!!

We also visited the Crypt of st Lucia, the Jupiter Temple, the treasury, the Domnius cathedral and the bell tower from which we had an amazing few over the city. And that only for 45KN or 6,5EUR.

View on Marjan hill

In the afternoon we walked up the Marjan hill to reach a beach at the foot of the hill. But our lovely (not) map wasn't accurate, so we kept walking, and walking, and walking and we couldn't find a way down. We even tried to just walk straight through the woods (into the woods, it's time to go, I hate to leave, I have to go,...) but without success... We had to walk all the way back and from there all the way to the beach. But the moment my toes touched the water, boy, it was worth every step. To end the afternoon well, we had a beautiful sunset.

Also the walk from our little beach to our hotel was beautiful. Split in the evening sun. Very idilic.

Unfortunately the battery of my beautiful Canon D450 died during the morning, so I couldn't take high res pictures :( You might have noticed. If so, my apologies!

Dinner was once again delicious, between the ruines of old town Split and some lovely live music on the background. Temperatures at 11pm were still around 30°C. You've been warned if you ever decide to visit Croatia in August!

Voila, that't is for this blog post.

Travel diary Croatia day 4: Split beach vs us 1-0

Hallooooo !!!!

Warning: picture heavy blog post!!

Soo soo soooo sorry for not uploading this blog post yesterday evening. I have one legit excuses and that is: no internet. Yup, our new 'studio' in Split has not the best internet connection in the world... I'll try to upload today's blog post as well, but no garantuee!!

Not a lot of text in this blog post, so you're in for a treat if you're not a fan of reading ;)

So, what happend yesterday? The Plitvice lakes! Yes yes, in order to beat the crowds, we got up pretty early, had breakfast and headed to the 3rd entrance to the lakes. Everything went very smootly and our tour started with a beautiful boat trip on one of the lakes. Once we got a shore with the bizillion other people on our boat, we started the tour trying to snap a picture here and there. But always very hasty as we didn't want to keep people waiting. Mind you, not everyone was this considerate. That meant that I always had to snap quickly, hoping that I made a nice shot. You can say it was a test for my photography 'skills'. See for yourself :)

Did you know that the water contains calcium carbonate which makes the water incredibly blue and makes the trees laying in the water look incredibly spooky. Unfortunately you're not allowed to swim in the lakes, so after our tour we drove to Split, our next stop on our roadtrip. We saw so many beautiful landscapes along the way.

We hoped to go for a swim once we were installed in our new 'hotel', but we were immensly disappointed by what kind of beach we found...

Not our scene. The beach was incredibly dirty. Ugh. So we headed back to our 'hotel' to get ready for dinner and that was the end of our day. Our first impression of Split was: dirty, smelly and not very tourist friendly. 'Marginaal' as we would say in Dutch is another word I would describe our fist impression of this city. Very disappointing. Wait for today's blog post to get an update ^^ Hopefully later this evening!

Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara

Travel diary Croatia day 3: SatNav vs us 0-1

Halloooooo!!

It's going to be a picture heavy blog post today, since we hardly did anything today. We walked a bit, we swam a bit and we drove from Zadar to Poljanak.

It was boiling hot (yet again) and we decided to leave old town of Zadar behind for the day and headed up to new town in search of a lovely piece of beach. First we passed a beautiful harbor with beautiful (and less beautiful) boats. After a 45 min walk we finally reached our destinantion and hopped straight into the sea.

The Sea Organ from another point of view

The original plan was to stay there for about an hour and than walk up further on the beach to find the next spot, but we ended up staying put. Too damn hot! Around 3.30pm however we headed back to old town to get our car at the villa. But not without eating a cone first with the most delicious ice cream ever oO

In the evening we left Zadar and headed to Poljanak, a small town in the area of the Plitvice lakes, which is scheduled for tomorrow. So be prepared for another photo heavy post ^^ It was only a 2hour drive, but we saw some beautiful sceneries. I did my best to snap the best pictures possible in a moving vehicle, but, well, see for yourself x)

I'm not gonna lie, my legs started aching when I saw those mountains!

Our SatNav could not find the address of our next hotel, so we kind off winged it. We just hoped that we would find our way in Poljanak easily. But that turned out not to be so difficult. This town is like, 2 streets big x) The owner was so sweet as he explained us the best route to go to the lakes, beating the crowd, so we're going to try that tomorrow. We're going to get up early though, just to be sure :)

I'm currently sitting on a bed, sweating my ass off as the room just does not want to cool off and we don't have any aircon. Sleeping will be interesting x) So, night night.

Thanks for reading!
xo - Sara