BIRTHDAY shenanigans #3

Last but not least, the final part of my birthday- the parteeeey. I made dinner, we had drinks and continued drinking and eventually went to a club. The flat looks pathetic at the moment, most of our stuff is gone or in boxes and  everything just looks really plain. So sad!

 

all of the peeepzzz

      

unwrapping all the boxes that Julia gave me

BIRTHDAY shenanigans #1

I guess I am officially 25 now.
So let's see what happened on my birthday. Obviously, we had to start with breakfast. Not just any, but a really naughty one at The Pantry in Stockbridge. I highly recommend it, the food is super good. 

one friend

two friends :D

ma nommy breakfast

ain't no breakfast without Haggis!

beautiful part of town

super cute tea cups

and then someone brought this over! WHAT?! haha

EIFF Closing Gala Impressions

The Closing Gala for the 86th Edinburgh International Film Festival took place yesterday and was a full success. A beautiful venue in the Edinburgh College of Art with various rooms with beautiful decor and all a little French themed, hand in hand with the closing film, We'll Never Have Paris. (Go watch it if you have the chance!)
I absolutely loved the film, it is hilarious and well written by Simon Helberg himself (or probably better known as Howard Wolowitz). He and his wife attended the party as well and he even joined the jazz band in an impromptu session on the piano. I have the most respect for this guy, let me tell ya.

So here just a few pictures of the evening.

(see me in the coral dress?)

Processing college life.

The last week has been kind of cazy with so many new things going on, I just wanted to wait until I was properly settled in and things have calmed down before I wrote new posts.
That still hasn't really happened but oh well.

It is FINALLY Friday, thank gooooood!
Classes have started and I properly feel the difference from my Scottish Uni to this one- so much more work! Homeworks, quizzes, presentations...aaah!!!!! At least my classes start at 11am, so that is a nice time. I have four classes and they are all sort of cool: one research class with Denise in preparation for the bachelor thesis, one media communication class about media reforms, violence, advertising... all things I have done already but still very exciting to do it here- the classes are quite different in their structure, but I think I will like it. Oh and then there is a class called French Cinema, and one about Social Media in PR. The class size is very small here, so the teachers already know my name- which is something I do like and very similar to Scotland.

In terms of social life- us internationals are still pretty close, we have lunch and dinner together, go out to town, all of that... we are 3 Germans (me and Denise included), a handful of French people, then Argentina, Chile, Italy... pretty fun group. Our dorm is also pretty social and known as the party dorm, but its mostly reaaally young freshmen.
I love going out to 6th Street, I think it's just great because they shut off the traffic and the whole street is just one long party mile, bar next to bar. It's really pretty and there are so many roof top bars as well- love love love it! Austin itself is such a great city with a cool vibe- a lot of young people, fit and sporty people, sort of cowboyish but at the same time really hip.

I have had a couple of freak outs this week because I just wanted to cook something, anything! But the kitchen here is shared by around 100 people, no real pots and pans are available, I don't have a car to go shopping... I love cooking and just being able to make something. Here they are so dependent on the cafeterias on campus. The last one closes at 10pm and that's it. I feel like a baby here that's not allowed to use a knife. Food on campus is quite nice though, always a salad bar, variety of stuff... and I have a "meal plan", so a big chunk of money on my student ID, so paying is easy and it feels like it's for free, which is dangerous as well. 

I feel pretty much settled in so far, I even have a MINI FRIDGE in my room!! Haha, good to have friends that don't need their fridges. Finding the balance between always hanging out with people and doing homework feels hard though. The campus is beautiful, and the weather is WARM!!! around 20 degrees, which just feels amazing. I have managed to escape the cold winter and I am so so happy about that. Not worrying about wearing a coat is heaven for me. Compared to QMU, the campus here is massive with so many different buildings. It's so greeen though and because it is located on a hill (that's why it's also called the hilltop), you can see the Austin skyline. DID I ALREADY MENTION HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS HERE?
Ah Texas, I love you.

 

(this is the campus with the main building that looks like a castle, and then you see downtown in the back)

via x

Catch up! {picture time}

Going through my phone and finding all these pictures I think I never shared- reason enough to post them!

After Halloween I flew to London to celebrate Georgie's 21st birthday- meeting up with these girls is the best thing: It's like we have never been apart. We are all shit at keeping in touch and have such different lives but that is not important. Spooning in our hotel bed, being the loudest in the pub, running around barefoot in Piccadilly Circus- I just love these girls to death ♥

Going to the cinema with all the girls to watch Don Jon | beautiful Greyfriar's Kirkyard | Julia and I shooting a promo film in a posh hotel | Oktoberfest | me being obsessed with Tom Hiddleston's dance videos | our amazing dead body outline for the Halloween party | my new amazing friend fom Texas

Me and my flatmates performing Hugh Grant's dance from Love Actually | a night out with the girls



Christmas party! I wish we had a picture of everyone in their christmas jumpers, it was just too good |  My super amazing hair style, done by Mona  ♥ | Party after party: Second party of the night with some other friends

This week...

...is going to be so exciting!

via x

For my exchange semester in Texas I need another (my third one now) J1 visa, so I have to go down to London for another interview (as if they didn't already have my fingerprints). Julia is going with me and after the interview we are going to the Harry Potter Studios in Leavesden- I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

via x

Then on Wednesday we are going to watch both the first and the new second Hunger Games film in the cinema- this calls for loads of popcorn!

And on Friday some of my friends are having a Christmas party (yes, ridiculously early)- so it's all gonna be Christmas jumpers and nommy food. Yay!

My Halloween costume {drumroll please}

There are so many characters in the Narnia series, but we were looking for a group of three costume- and there are four kids going to Narnia, so that didn't really work. Instead, we decided to go as
The Lion, The Witch and The Warderobe- Haha!
Not too obvious, a bit ridiculous, and super fun to do!

So think of something like this as the warderobe costume and of course the lion is a bit easier to dress as, with big hair and cat eyes... and then me as the white witch...And then all of us together in our Narnia-looking-flat, aaaah I get goosebumps when I think of it!

As soon as I have all parts of my costume I of course gonna share it on here, aaah so so excited!

I'd rather go to Narnia / our Halloween theme!

via x

Not the most innovative, but certainly not the worst! Our flat is going to be Narnia land, with a photo booth, a scary Halloween room and loads of other fun stuff... I seriously cannot wait! I am actually just looking forward to having a great time with our friends but the rest is gonna be so fun! We are going to have some sort of Narnia like entrance of course, walking through coats etc.. then a lot of snow, a christmas tree, turkish delight.. oh and a lamp post!!!!

SOSOSO excited! Just wait for our costumes!

It's that time of the year again {Halloween}

Well I think we all know that I love Halloween to bits- dressing up is my favorite part but it's even more fun to see all the great costumes and ideas that people had (go hard or go home).

 

Now I love Breaking Bad and would love to dress up as one of the guys, but my flat decided to do a group costume (much more fun!!) so I had to let it go. Also I am not sure how I would look with a bold mask on... mhh..

2 Broke Girls is just so distinctive and easy to do, but again there are only 2 Broke Girls and not three. So this one is out as well-

I am not sure if you have seen that stupid 'what does the fox say' video and it follows that whole Harlem Shake path, so meh... but I am sure a lot of people will dress up like this. I was already asked if they could borrow my fox onesie.

However, Mona Margaux and I are going to have a sort of group costume. I am not gonna say what it is yet, but I am soo excited!!! It's nothing new but still pretty cool I think.

 Of course it's movie related, that's just one hint.

 We are also having a Halloween party at our flat which goes along with our costumes (haha) and I hope it's gonna be amazing.

So this is definitely not the last Halloween related post (¬‿¬)

What are you dressing up as this year?

Trip down South {part I}

I am just gonna break this down in several posts, mostly because I am tired but really wanna post these pictures now! So the rest will come tomorrow...

The train ride to Manchester was uneventful but the rest of the day was lovely- we spent some time playing with Fiona's super cute puppies, hung out in the garden with loads of beer and her Scottish friend who is convinced that I sound more Scottish than him.
We had a super nice dinner and even more drinks in town, spent all our pennies on slot machines and finally went to bed. 
It still amazes me how we just went back to being friends after 10 months of almost not speaking to each other.

So we drove down to Cardiff the next day, playing car games and eating way too much crap. We picked up Georgie from a bus stop in Cardiff and ended up in the strangest old men pub, waiting for Banana.

Now I have skipped a couple hours of buying alcohol, making food, getting ready and loads of reminiscing.
We went to Vodka Rev and had a well good time (a grammatically incorrect phrase I picked up from my lovely friends)- I got kinda obsessed with the shot boats and um... might have taken one home with me.

And after walking home for hours (it should have taken no longer than 30min) we found a Kebab shop, made some new friends and came home with our new meaty conquest (our eyes were definately bigger than our tummies as we were full after 1/5 of the kebab. oops)

Alright then, this was the first part of my trip- more to follow!

EIFF Closing Party

So the Film Festival is officially over (except for our staff party tonight) and I wish it could go on just a biiiit longer. It's been so great to meet all these fun people and know that we have this one thing in common: a love for film.

Before the party we were invited to watch "Not Another Happy Ending" in the fancy Festival Theatre (see picture) and walked the red carpet in a very unspectacular way. The film was a really beautiful film set in Scotland, however the story was a bit predictable. 
After that we celebrated one more time with filmmaker guests and everyone else who was invited. There were free drinks, free food and dancing in underground caves. It was totally crammed until the end but after midnight we finally had space to dance until the very last song.

I had a great time and will definately miss these kinds of parties.

Ceilidh at EIFF {and famous people!}

 
 Now as it should, there was a ceilidh event happening couple days ago. Filmmakers, Industry people etc were invited to a night full of ceilidh dancing, whisky and haggis. Staff were allowed to attend as well so of course we went (I just love the free drinks). It was so so so much fun, my arms still hurt from the dancing. I really enjoy dancing ceilidh, especially when it involves a bigger group and the "choreography" is good. We even had one dance where the guys were swinging the girl in to the air (strange picture, but click here to see how)!
And to top it off, Kevin McKidd (Dr. Owen Hunt from Grey's Anatomy!!!) was there and in a veeery awkward situation, we asked him for a picture.
 
And to make it even better- today he came to our reception and the official photographer actually took a picture of us with him. It was a magical day, let me tell ya.

So yeah, that night was preeeetty cool. Now all I wanna do when I grow up is to be invited to those parties. That would be a fun life.


and of course I am gonna share the pictures with the world, I just need to get a hold of them :D

The EIFF Opening Gala

via x

Ughh I am sitting here, trying to find words for the past two days (say what?). In a way, it feels like forever already. It's so strange how you meet all these new people and after such a short amount of time you already skipped the weird awkward introductionary (is that a word?) talks and just... I don't know, start being something else than people who just met. I remember it being the same with camp last year, it's just so different than when you meet in real life and it amazes me every time.
So anyway, last night was the official opening gala. They showed 'Breathe In' and then super fancy people only (and us) were invited to the gala in the National Museum. It is such a stunning location for a party!
And yes, we did see Felicity Jones and also Natalie Dormer (from Game of Thrones which I am not watching but I totally recognized her anyway haha) I am sure there were so many other celebs but man it's hard to spot famous people when you have to walk super slow in super painful (but pretty) heels. So we switched to flats after a while and danced the night away (always wanted to write that!)
And the best part was probably the photo booth (oh and the free drinks! and free food!)

So maybe I will manage to sort out the pictures from my phone and show you pictures of my co workers taking pictures with famous people while I am in the bathroom (fail).

Oh and this little video from the opening night:

New York, New York {travel plans}

via tumblr

It is done, we booked our flights and that means Miriam and I are going to be reunited in New York. Finally! She hasn't been to the States after our AuPair year, so this is going to be even more exciting!
We both fly in to JFK, will go into Manhattan and stay there a few days until we will visit our old host families, spend some time with the kids and then go on a small road trip along the coast, going up to Boston. I am so excited for the beaches, the small towns, Cape Cod, eating fresh fish- did I say how excited I am?




So our trip will start with a couple of days in New York City, and this is what I reaaally need to see (again):

via x

The High Line! It's a park built on an old rail line which leads through the city. So cool!

via x

The Metroplitan Museum of Art-
Never made it there during my AuPair year, so this is my chance now.

via x

Something that makes this trip even better- we are finally both over 21. So this Warm Up party sponsored the MoMa is definately on our list!

via x

I really want to take a picture like this: At night, looking at the skyline from Brooklyn.

The Edinburgh Guide {travel tips}

Now I have thought about writing this post for ages but then dismissed it because I thought I would just write several posts about various areas. However, I now decided to just throw everything in here. Obviously I have my preferences when it comes to all these things and obviously I only have limited knowledge about everything- so keep that in mind.
However, I hope this will be useful for anyone who is visiting Edinburgh.

There are several nice things you can do:
Go and visit the Camera Obscura- they even give you your money back if you don't have fun (~7£). There are a lot of fun illusions, then on the top you get a tour of the camera obscura and get an amazing view of Edinburgh and its surroundings.
To be honest, I do not think the visit to the Edinburgh Castle is worth 15£, unless you are super interested in all that stuff. You can go for free on St. Andrews day or you can go visit the War Memorial for free. That means that you get a certain pass which only allows you to walk to the memorial and back and nowhere else in the castle. We did this once and the lady at the office was a bit grumpy for some reason. Do a bit of research about the war memorial and you will be fine though.

Seriously just walking around Edinburgh will perfectly fine to cover the sightseeing part.  Make sure you see the Royal Mile, Cockburn Street, Princes Gardens, Calton Hill (or Arthurs Seat if you are ambitious), George Street, Greyfriars Kirkyard and the Royal Botanic Garden.

 

I think I have mentioned before that we started bar hopping like a year ago in order to find our perfect bar. We have a form we fill out every time, rating atmosphere, prices and all that stuff. So far we found some nice bars but nothing that lives up to my expectation of THE bar.

A bar I quite like due to its live music is Malones, an Irish bar. Around that area is also Vodka Revolution which can be quite fun. They have a massive selection of vodka, really nice longdrinks and sooo many different shots. All the fruit flavors you can imagine, candy and cake and soo many more. You name it. Then around the corner from them is Frankensteins Bar which is a nice as well. I remember Mona and me just going in there to go pee but we ended up dancing for ages because the music was so fun.

For a bit of posh fun there is George Street. At the weekend it is suuuper expensive to get in, so try to avoid that. Seriously, 10£ to just get in? No way.

Shanghai, Why Not and Lulus' are alright.

The bar Tigerlily all the way at the end of George Street is amazingly posh and very fancy. Fake fireplaces and all that stuff.

Obviously I have to mention Hive, the cheap place where all the underage kids go. Only good if you are super wasted.

In terms of non mainstream music there is Balkanarama, which is a monthly party hosted in various places, quite fun with a crazy live band from the Balkans. For "Spanish" music there is El Barrio, a small but really nice club. A lot of older men trying to dance with you and kiss your hand but still fun.

Broughton Street is buzzing on the weekends as well, starting Friday afternoon. Treacle is a super cool bar with super pretty people and seems a lot of fun. Come early otherwise you won't even fit in. A bar I have never been in is the Basement, which is always (!!!) super crowded and there must be something really cool about this bar. Not sure what it is yet.

Then there are several gay bars in that area as well, CC Blooms and GHQ (they are renovating atm) for example. To be honest, they have the best music.

Places I heard of that are supposed to be fun: Bongo Club, Whistlebinkies, Cabaret Voltaire, Liquid Room...

Another bar Julia has discovered with an amazing live session on Friday nights: The Canongate. Good to just have a drink and listen to the music.

This will just be a list of restaurants I think are worth mentioning. There are so many other nice cafes I have not been to yet, but it is hard not to get stuck on your favorites after a while.

Now in general you can say that my budget is about 15£ for a main dish (maximum) and usually the whole bill should be 20£ or less.
 
Bella Italia is very yummy Italian place, a chain which has two restaurants in Edinburgh.
Treacle has good breakfast until the afternoon and they offer noodles and other fancy stuff.
Yo Sushi is at the top of Harvey Nichols,has very good sushi (a tad expensive though). Has the cool running sushi.
Jamie's Italian is very good food, sometimes a bit too small portioned.
Hamburger Heaven has American burgers which are really good but I do not like the atmosphere very much.
Asti is a really good and small Italian restaurant with nice lunch offers.
Conan Doyle is a super cozy pub at the top of our road. Has good food although the drinks are a bit expensive (4£ for a cider?).
Red Squirrel is a cool burger place on Lothain Road. Very stylish bar that is buzzing at night.
Bar Italia seems like a really authentic Italian restaurant and the pizza is fantastic!
10to10Deli is a great tiny and super cozy Indian restaurant with super cheap currys (and big portions!), brought to my attention by Ilinca.

Phew, this section is going to be a bit messy and I apologize. There are different areas for different stuff and I was not sure how to keep it seperate.Just to mention it beforehand, I love stationary, home stuff and decoration and cheap clothes. So this is what this section is going to be about.

Even though my favorite shopping country is still the States, I love the UK as well. New Look is probably my favorite because I always manage to find pants (aka trousers), which usually NEVER happens. They have super cute dresses as well and mostly they fit quite nicely.
I love the Primark store here because it is just massive (5 floors), but a lot of their stuff just does not fit right. Both stores you can find on Princes Street, which is just the main shopping street and you cannot miss it. It has all the regular high street shops, kind of finishing with Urban Outiftters at the West End. Another tiny shop I love for fun cards is Scribble.
The Princes Mall is a tiny "mall" which has stores such as Republic, New Look, Superdry and Joy, a quite expensive clothing store but they have a nice home section as well as cards and other fun stuff.
Princes Street
The St. James Center has Republic as well, unfortunately only a small store but still pretty good. They also have Internacionale which sometimes has really nice clothes and then again... not so much.
Other than that, there is George Street.
It is poooosh and there is Hollister and other expensive stores I do not go to.
Talking about expensive, there is John Lewis. It is a massive department store and I just love their little gadgets, notebooks, stationary and those things that no one needs but are still so preeetty.
Now moving on to the stores that are special to Edinburgh:
I will start with Broughton Street. There is Dragonfly which has really cute baby stuff as well decoration, gifts, dresses and other really cute things.
If you go around the corner more to London Street, there is actually a new store which is called Life Story and it looks a bit like Urban Outfitters in terms of its simplicity. They don't have a lot of products but well chosen items which just looks really cool.
If you go up Broughton Street a bit, there is Curious and Curiouser. (Everything they have is on their website as well) I love their prints by designers, so many cute gift ideas, jewellery and the whole shop just looks very magical. I could buy so much in there! They also have a funny dog walking around in the shop haha.
To jump to the other end of town now: Papertiger on Lothian Road is horrible. I just want to buy everything, seriously. I mean the whole shop concept is a bit like the other stationary shops I have seen but they just have that little bit of extra amazing stuff you don't know yet. I love it.

A street that I love as well is Cockburn Street (pronouced Coburn street, to avoid awkwardness) and it has Old Town Context which I have mentioned here before. They sell really cool retro and vintage stuff, nice stationary and gifts and especially some Scottish designer products like cards and prints etc.Then on the other side of the street there are several vintage clothes stores that sort of all belong together. If you buy a gift gard there you can use it in all their stores. My favorite is Pie in the Sky (they sell piercings there as well just like those creepy contact lenses for halloween).
South Clerk Street/Nicolson Street has a lot to offer as well. First, there are sooo many charity shops. Very good for cheap books, DVD's and nice posters! Oh and board games. Then there is Finishing Touch, who has a lot of baking accessories and wedding stuff and costumes!
A couple stores next to that is the Edinburgh Bargain store which has everything and nothing. And an actual costume store next door if you are looking for proper slutty American costumes.
In terms of souvenirs: Roman and Patterson and The Works on Princes Street- trust me on that.

A bit outside of Edinburgh city centre is Meadowbank. They have a massive TK Maxx and B&M, which has insanely cheap wall decorations!

I have limited experience here, as you might imagine. Nevertheless I have some tips.

When I came here for the first time, we slept in St. Christophers Inn. It is clean, nice rooms with different themes, not expensive, excellent location and they have a good pub and bar downstairs. Whats not to like about that?
There are several cute hotels on Broughton Street and in the side streets that all look very good, especially the Broughton Town House. Also Mona's parents stayed in the Holiday Inn on Picardy Place and they liked it there. There are so many hostels around the city and if you are not too picky I am sure everyone will find their perfect match.


Piercing/Tattoos
I got my piercing directly on my street at the Den Of Iniquity Tattoo Parlour on Broughton Street. Their shop looks clean, the people are friendly and especially on Facebook they have continuing offers, sometimes even free tattoos for certain motives. 
I have heard good stuff about Old Town Tattoo as well and I know their prices for piercings are pretty cheap.




Leaving Edinburgh
If you are on a longer visit in Edinburgh it might be worth checking out the surrounding areas.
In terms of beaches and cliffs, North Berwick is just amazing.
You can take the train from Edinburgh which should be around 8 pounds round trip and spent the day walking on the beach, having a picnic or checking out some of the cafes on their high street. They have a seabird centre as well where you can book boat trips to go and see some cute puffins for example.

If you want to go to the Highlands but don't feel comfortable renting a car (I sure as hell don't want to drive here), bus tours are a fantastic option. There are so many tour operators and so far I have only tested two of them but I am sure most of them will be just fine. For those who like smaller tour busses and more individual experiences, go for Rabbies. Their busses are smaller and can only hold around 16 people. The other company I went with was Scotline Tours and their busses are just proper massive ones. I still don't know how they manage to drive on these tiny roads (a side note: if you tend to be car sick, you will feel a bit queezy in the busses. They drive insanely fast given these tiny windy roads and will stop so abruptly that it will make you hit your head on the seat in front of you. Sit either in very first or just take seasickness pills).  

With Scotline Tours I went to Loch Ness and even though it was very fascinating as it was my first view of the Highlands, the tour in general was very rushed and we spent hours in the bus just to get there. Loch Ness is just a tad too far away from Edinburgh for a simple day trip. I would suggest going on a 2 day trip or just chose one of the other trips.

With my parents I went on this tour and it was just as nice as going to Loch Ness. There so many nice lochs out there that you won't miss out. Loch Lomond was cool and we were able to stop several times for pictures because the whole day was not rushed at all. We were super lucky with the weather and had shiny blue skies which made the pictures even prettier. The tour guides are just a nice way of getting to know a bit more about Scotland and not just seeing all these lochs and bens without any explanation. What I love is all the film references they make, especially Harry Potter ones.

With Rabbies Julia and I went on a tour in November last year and because it was completely out of tourist season, we were the only ones on the bus. It was crazy. However, we could totally individualize out trip because the bus driver let us decide. Due to the weather we had to change our route a bit as well but it was just really cool to have our own driver. We stopped for so many pictures which was quite nice. 

Alright,
I bet there are so many other things that I am going to remember once this is posted. So maybe there will be a second part, who knows.
For now, I hope you have enjoyed reading it and some tips might even have been a tiny bit useful.

♥