My Art and My Plans

Art has always been a passion of mine, mainly because it was one the few things I didn't think I was terrible at.  I studied art in secondary school, and continued it through college, loving it so much that I even considered doing it at university. Sadly, I did not have the confidence to believe I was ever good enough to ever make it. To be honest, I still have those doubts now, but if I don't try, I will never know if I will. 

What I plan to try and do is make an Instagram account that will showcase my art pieces, and potentially interest people enough to like it, publicize it, and potentially even pay for it. This is the plan. The account has been created, a name has been thought of, and a logo has been designed. I hope to launch it by early September, once I have enough artwork to present.

Sarah's birthday canvas

I don't just want to show the final finished piece, I also want to reveal the process, however ugly that may have been. Let me tell you, my work tends to be very ugly before it transitions into something deemed acceptable. Before this would dishearten me when what I saw on the canvas was unlike the image in my head, however I have come to realise that with time and persistence it would eventually turn out OK, if not better. I hope to prove that with my posts. I also want to reveal the inspiration behind my pieces, whether that be an artist, an image, an object, a person in my life, etc.

Canvases for my family and friends have been my specialty so far as I don't fear their judgement and they seem to appreciate them.  I usually ask the person in advance for two or three things they would specifically like to be included in the canvas and then work from there. For example, my sister asked for Audrey Hepburn and Amsterdam; below is the result.

My sister's birthday canvas

Over the last two weeks I have created two canvases, one for my friend Sarah's birthday, and another for my friend Tessa's birthday. As they were surprises, I could not ask what features they wanted, I just had to guess. Sarah's favourite image is one of Audrey Hepburn blowing Tiffany blue bubblegum so I painted that for her with acrylic paint. For Tessa's painting I blended a photo of herself with a photo of Frida Kahlo, her favourite artist, not forgetting to give her that famous monobrow! Thankfully, they both loved their paintings!

Tessa's birthday canvas

Two birthdays have been and gone in the last two weeks, but my revived passion for art has stayed. I have requests for two more canvas from my mum and another friend. When they are complete, if all goes to plan, I will share them on my new Instagram account!

Fem

Soap Making Workshop

On Friday, I made handmade soaps with my mum, my sister, and a friend of ours. I wasn't sure what to expect as I had never made my own soaps before, or ever really enquired about the process behind it. Now I know how fun, easy, and simple it is to do!

The Workshop

Our natural soap only needs three ingredients: water, oil, and lye. This it what forms the soap base before we add our oils, colours, and flowers. You could choose between an olive oil base or a coconut oil base.

Olive oil soap base (left) and coconut oil soap base (right)

An olive oil base produces a transparent soap that shows off the flowers better while a coconut oil base produces a more opaque, pastel coloured soap. My sister chose the coconut oil base, and the rest of us chose olive oil. Next, we chopped them up into small pieces and added them to the heating pots. 

While the soap base heated up, we got to select our flowers. 

We could personalise our soaps even further by choosing our preferred scent and colour. After smelling all the options I chose the coffee & spice (it reminded me of cake), while everyone else went for fruity smells (passion fruit and forest fruits).

Once the colours, oils, and flowers had been combined we could transfer them to our desired moulds. We had enough soap mixture to fill either two large moulds, three medium sized moulds, or lots of mini moulds. 

There was a huge variety of moulds from letters to animals to even babies! The most popular mould, the one we all used, was a 100% handmade soap design, as it would be a reminder of our experience. 

100% handmade soap (left), and a heart design (right)

The bear mould was my personal favourite!

My glittery bee soap!

The whole process took around an hour and we had such a great time! Not only was it a brilliant group activity but you also come away with your own soaps that you can use or give as gifts. The place we went to for this particular workshop was called 'Token Studio', where they also do a variety of other craft activities during the week including crochet, jewellery making, and life drawing lessons (something I am eager to try!). In the future, I hope to be able to write more posts about these crafting adventures!

Fem

Interrailing: The 10 Lessons I Learnt

For most of July I traveled around Europe for three weeks by train. On average, me and my friend moved to a new country every three days, meaning the experience was always unpredictable. We had our ups and downs, however 90% of the time it was fantastic! But you don't want to hear me brag about how great it was, instead I will tell you about the negative situations which I learnt from, and potentially this will help anyone else who plans to do a similar holiday! 

1) Don't eat 'fancy food' in 'cheap restaurants'
This lesson I learnt the minute we arrived at our first destination. I have, and always will be a foodie, so I convinced my travel companion, my good friend Caroline, to have a cheap 2 course meal with me (I thought 2 courses for 12 euros ain't bad, especially when a hard boiled egg for 7 euros seemed to be the norm in Paris). Caroline had a safe option of a Hamburger, whereas I went adventurous and ordered the steak tartare. I love steak tartare, despite it essentially being raw beef, so I knew what to expect, but I was not expecting raw beef mince with the addition of some raw chopped onion. Needless to say, it was as appetizing as it sounds. This may have been a case of bad luck, or just a bad experience, either way I'm too afraid to make the same mistake again.

Can you see that it's just raw mince!? (bottom left hand corner)

2) Less luggage will mean more laundry
After researching the top tips for interrailing, the one recommendation that popped up time and time again was to pack as light as possible. As much as I appreciated this tip, no one mentioned the amount of laundry would need to be done as a result of my frugal packing. This may seem like common sense, but that is something I have lacked in all my life. I was moving around every 2-3 days so drying time also was limited. And laundry could be expensive, depending on how desperate you are. Basically, take in account time, money and amount of washes you expect to do when it comes to your luggage. 

Another thing... buy a rucksack with many pockets! I kept losing my socks :(

3) WiFi is never a certainty
I had an important email to send and had a little meltdown when I could not get WiFi. WiFi was guaranteed in the hostel description, so I thought I would be OK, but I quickly came to learn that that does not guarantee a good WiFi connection. To avoid stress, and I admit some tears, then send any important messages in advance, preferably before you go travelling. 

4) Have low expectations when it comes to 'free breakfast'
Many of the hostels we stayed at offered us a 'free breakfast' with our stay. Now I am not complaining, as a free breakfast is better than one that costs you money, although I will advise that it is best to have low expectations. For example, at our last hostel the breakfast basically consisted of cake, again I can't really complain about that, but it doesn't set your stomach up for a day of walking. At another, it was stale bread and warm milk. With low expectations, also comes many opportunities to surpass them, and the majority of the breakfasts did just that. 

Unfortunately, this was not the cake in the 'free breakfast' option.

5) The brilliance of a 'free' tour! 
I had never heard of a 'free' tour until a guy we met in Munich recommended it to us. Essentially, you are given a tour of the city you are in, and only after do you have to decide if the tour was worth any money. If the tour was terrible, you don't have to pay. Luckily the two free tours we did were incredible so they more than deserved a tip. 

Free Tour: http://www.neweuropetours.eu/ 

6) Always bring plasters!
Again, my common sense prevailed here. Who would have thought that you would obtain blisters from 8 hours of walking, nearly every day, for three weeks? I certainly didn't. But I did get blisters, and I did not bring plasters. Thankfully my travelling companion is prepared for anything and bought an entire first aid kit. We didn't use anything else from the kit so I am only going to emphasize the importance of plasters.  Oh, and in her case, also bring bug spray!

Resting my poor feet on the final days of our trip. 

7) Bring a book (or two)
This may sound strange to those who could think of nothing worse than spending time reading a book when you are visiting another country: 'You should be making the most of it! You can read a book at home!'. However, I am someone who needs their downtime, especially after walking on cobbles for 8 hours. My travelling companion agreed with me, although her entertainment of choice was a power nap. Whenever she was napping, I was catching up with my reading.

8) Running red lights is a normality in many places...
Be prepared to put all fears aside when it comes to crossing roads, especially when visiting Berlin and Rome. In Berlin, we heard you would only get a five euro fine for running a red light, so no wonder it was happening so often when we were there. And in Rome, you just have to have the confidence that cars will stop and not hit you when walking a zebra crossing.

Budapest was one of the better places for driving.

9) How much I hate selfie sticks
If you want to take a selfie, that's your prerogative. It's not something I would personally do, especially when travelling, as I'd rather memorize the landmarks than a photo of my face. However, what I don't like are people so involved with selfie-taking that they forget that there is anyone but themselves walking around... shocking, considering that all the places we were in were busy tourist areas. I cannot tell you how many people bumped into me because of this, but I can tell you that I did not appreciate it one bit. 

The landmark that attracted the most selfie stick users. 

10) Do not drink alcohol on an empty stomach.
This is definitely a life lesson, and boy did I learn it the hard way. I'm sure this is not a lesson unique to interrailing, it just happened to be one I discovered on this trip. Let's just say, saving money on food so you can spend more of it on a pub crawl, results in a lot of vomit and regret. This was the first, and last time, I will ever drink on an empty stomach. 

The perfect end to our experience. And see, there is food... I learnt my lesson. 

Fem

Busy Week (part two)

Wednesday

Wednesday was the quietest day of the week. A charity symposium was how I spent most of my day before heading over to Yentes for food, beers, and Netflix. We ended up watching Jane the Virgin for some light entertainment, becoming instantly hooked after the first episode. We loved it so much! It was cheesy, scandalous, funny, emotional... if you liked Ugly Betty, you will love this. 

It was 3am when we reluctantly went to bed after binge watching six episodes. 

Thursday

Thursday was a little more productive. I was moving out of my studio, so I was packing up all the little bits and bobs into boxes before disassembling furniture the next day. Luckily, I had my mum and aunt there to help me out.

A couple of hours later we had worked up an appetite. An appetite for fried food. Nearby, there is a fried food restaurant that sells the best Krokets (a dutch delicacy). We devoured them. 

I went to Yentes, again, to watch one episode of Jane the Virgin to calm me down before my Dutch exam (I had nothing to worry about in the end, I achieved a 9 out of 10!). Although I did not know my result at this point, I felt good about the exam and decided on another premature celebration. This can only mean one thing... cocktails at the Havana!

A couple of cocktails later and we were ready to dance! Coincidentally we bumped into some friends from University who also had the same idea. We joined forces and danced to salsa music for most of the night at Cul de saq, a really cool bar that transports you to a tropical holiday resort. 

Friday

Staying out so late wasn't the smartest idea as I needed my energy to break down and move furniture around. Again, fried food was our fuel and I was more useful after that.

To celebrate the move I went over to my friend Rebekkas house, and soon to be my house (I will be moving into her room in August), to bake cookies for our friend Charlotte's birthday. Me and Rebekka were meant hang out after but I was so so tired from the night before that I crashed on her bed and slept the whole night through.

cookie dough

I realise now after writing this that the second half of my week, although super busy, isn't exactly riveting because the move took up most of that time. Even so, I hope you liked this really late post of my week. I'll try and be more organised in the weeks to come.

Fem

Busy Week (part one)

This week has been so busy! It was my final week at University, a process I am struggling with as I will miss it so so much. Therefore, I decided to make the most of it and fill it with as many fun activities with friends as I could in the time that I had left. Because of this I have not had time to write the blog and this post will be in two parts. I hope you enjoy it! 

Monday

The day started off with a trip to Starbucks. We have one located on the University Campus which is great for my taste buds, and lethal for my wallet. Me and my friend Yente had a round of coffees with our lunch and had a fascinating conversation about the biological differences between men and women, and if there actually are differences of if we only believe that there are because of the gender roles we are meant to fit in to. She's great to have these discussions with because she tries to see things from all perspectives, so we never really found a conclusion but we had fun trying. 

I then went to the Common Room to do some work. Later, my friend Sarah came to meet me and we went and also got Starbucks (I told you it was lethal!). I read my book, Vagina: A New Biography, for the Banging Book Club (and also the source of me and Yente's feminist conversations) while Sarah watched Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

I had to leave Sarah at 5 o clock to go bake Coca Cola Cupcakes with Johanna. We are both in the Last Lecture committee and we wanted to thank our Committee head for all her hard work. They turned out really well, although I have to admit they didn't really taste of Coca Cola.

After I returned to the company of Yente. Our friend Anastasia joined us to watch Game of Thrones with a feast we had prepared. It was a very emotional episode so we were very to have comfort food on hand. When it was over we watched a ton of Game of Thrones theory video before we eventually went to bed.

Tuesday

The next morning, we continued to watch Game of Thrones Youtube videos with a brunch Yente had kindly made for us. She filled us up with omelettes, falafel, bread, fruit and yoghurt. 

I left for class after only to find out it had been cancelled, so me and Sarah (who does the same course) went for coffee again. This time it was at the Esplanade, the main bar at the university, instead of Starbucks. 

We had a nice chat about the differences between a Basilisk and a Cockatrice (a Basilisk is an egg from a toad or serpent hatched by a cockerel, and a Cockatrice is an egg from a cockerel hatched by a toad or serpent). Then I met up with Yente (we can't stay away from each other!) to get our hair done together. We went to my favourite hairdressers, Cosmo, to have our hair cut and coloured. I went a darker blonde, she went a lighter blonde and we both got it cut shorter. We felt pretty fabulous when it was done.

Next I had to rush to University, as the Last Lecture Committee had our final event for the year. We organise events called 'Last Lectures' where we invite speakers to present their final words, lessons, insights, etc as if this would be the last lecture they would ever give. We had organised three this year so we were really proud ourselves! After each lecture, free drinks are provided so we had a couple of those in the Esplanade to celebrate, with the cupcakes me and Johanna had made. Sammi, the head, loved them!

We stayed at Esplanade for most of the night, chatting with people from other committees. At the end of the night, Yente came back to mine for a sleepover (she is very present in this busy week). That's the first half of my busy week done with, the next half will be up soon!

Fem

A Weekend in the Country

Back in February it was my sister's 21st birthday. To celebrate, we traveled to the Cotswold and spent a weekend in the countryside. Our dad's best friend lives there, in a house on a hill, isolated from the rest of the world. This sounds very much like the start of a horror movie, and I must admit it would be a great setting for one, yet the only scares to be had were when I left my baby in Primark! Don't worry, this will all make sense soon...

First, we strolled into town. After working up an appetite from browsing the endless amounts of charity shops we stopped off for some lunch. The weather was grey and rainy so warm tomato soup was ideal. While we were eating I explained to my parents, and Tessa, that I needed to find and buy a baby doll to be a prop in a play I was participating in. Luckily, later that day, I did find and buy this baby.

Once we had met up with the birthday girl, we treated her to an afternoon tea at the Well Walk Tea Room. This had to be one of the best high teas I had ever had, especially considering it only cost £10 per person. I have had far worse, in terms of amount of food that is offered, for double, even triple, the price. The quality and quantity of the food was fantastic! A wide range of vegetarian and meat sandwiches, scones and a variety of cakes were all provided, accompanied with endless amounts of tea. They had even made special vegan cakes and scones for Tessa. It's the first time she has been able to have a proper High Tea without any restrictions on what she could eat. 

Vegan Cakes!

Vegan Scones!

Feeling deliciously satisfied we moved onto Primark, the scene of the drama... It took me half an hour after leaving to realise that I had left my baby there! Top tip: don't exclaim 'Oh god, I left my baby in Primark' unless you want to be given judging looks from the passing public. After retrieving my baby, and realising I was not ready for motherhood, we headed back to the house on the hill.

Tired from walking most of the day, we all set ourselves up in the living room and settled down to read our books in front of the fire. This was made even more enjoyable with the arrival of cheese.

While we were sitting there eating cheese, my dad's best friend had been busy in the kitchen preparing a three course meal for us all. The first course was stuffed peppers, the second course was an array of curries, and the final course was a vegan chocolate cake (unfortunately the sparkler fell and burnt one half of it). Not only was the food really tasty, it was laid out like a banquet such as one you might see in Game of Thrones, so of course that made me enjoy the meal even more.

When the food was demolished we all went up to bed. Sleep was needed as the next day we went for a two hour walk in the countryside. My sister left later that day back to Cornwall, and me back home to London. It was a great weekend, void of any technological distractions, meaning we could fully appreciate each other's company. Try it for yourself! If a house on an isolated hill isn't available to you, try to avoid technological devices, even if only for an hour, and just sit in each other's company. You won't regret it! 

Fem

A Premature Celebration

On Thursday, I had my Dutch oral exam. I was really nervous although I am half-dutch myself. Obviously, this meant I had an advantage but I felt that it also meant I had more pressure to succeed. Thankfully, it went really well and I had dinner and cocktails with friends to celebrate... well prematurely celebrate as I get the results in a couple of weeks. 

Dinner was vegetarian moussaka. My friend Cleo has been trying to avoid eating meat after watching Cowspiracy so we replaced mince meat with quorn mince, and you really couldn't taste the difference! The whole meal was delicious in general. After some catching up (and a juggling lesson), me, Cleo and our friend Jamie moved on to the Havana, the cocktail place from last week. 

As I mentioned it was Thursday so this can only mean one thing... Tiki Thursday!! Wanting to try out different cocktails from what we had last week, I ordered a Cuban Zombie and Cleo ordered the El Presidente. The only reason I chose the Cuban Zombie was that it came with a flaming head! I have always wanted to see that in real life, and it was as awesome as I had imagined... until I had to blow it out. None of us could extinguish the flame and it was made even more embarrassing when the waitress removed it with one single blow. As cool as it looked (the cocktail, not us), it didn't taste very good so I guess I will have to keep experimenting until I find the perfect one. We already plan to go next Thursday.

Although not too much happened on this day, I quite enjoyed writing this short post. I like that I can have a sort of online visual diary of my daily activities for me to look back on, however mundane they may be. So far, this has been my favourite aspect of writing a blog, and I couldn't be happier that me and best friend started this challenge. 

Fem

Mini Holiday in Haarlem

This mini holiday was only meant to be a day out in Haarlem. It ended up being a two night stay there instead. My best friend, Tessa, had just become a work away in the 'Hello, I'm Local' hostel in the centre of Haarlem and I went up to visit her. Unfortunately, I had picked a pretty bad day to see her as it was a public holiday in the Netherlands so everything was closed. As a result we spent most of our afternoon chatting in the lobby with the new friends she had made. Later in day we moved our conversation to a new location, the Bloemendaal Beach. 

One of the guys we had spent the afternoon with worked at a beach bar called San Blas so naturally we were inclined to go there. He was waiting for us with tapas, and we shared some beers before he started work. We then proceeded to order more tapas and nachos and of course, more beers. 

After the beach we went back to the Hostel to continue drinking beers outside on the patio. Sitting by the fire we befriended two guests, a girl from Canada and a guy from Bristol. I decided at that point I was having too good a time to even consider leaving so I subsequently bought a room for the night.  

The next morning we started on the plans we had made the night before and headed out to the Dolhuys museum. It was fascinating and so incredibly insightful that we spent two and half hours taking it all in. I think it deserves its own post, so look out for that in the next couple of days.

Dolhuys Museum

The museum visit lasted much longer than we had expected so we were now very hungry. Pizza had been on our minds all day since Tessa and her roommate had said there was a bar that served the best pizza we will ever eat. With high expectations we arrived at the bar, the Oerkap, and first ordered a few local beers. 

Oerkap

Ongelovige Thomas, my favourite local beer

After a in-depth discussion about psychology (we couldn't get the museum out of our heads) we finally had our pizzas, and I have to say that even my high expectations were exceeded; it really was the best pizza I have ever eaten. 

My two favourite things: Tessa and Pizza

Full but still thirsty, we had a couple more rounds of beers on the raised seating area on the fake beach surrounding the bar. We laughed while people watching and one of us even started snoozing... surprisingly not me this time! I can't blame them, it was such a relaxing atmosphere.

Eventually, we headed back to the hostel. I stayed one more night and we watched a horror film in the night watch room. Tessa had an exam the next day, and I had to get back to my life in Tilburg, otherwise I could have stayed there forever! The location, the company, the food, the drink, the atmosphere... everything was incredible.

Fem