Blogmas 2016: week 1

 

Happy December, everyone! ❄️

I am still amazed by the fact it is the last month of the year already. However, I am very glad Christmas is here, as it is my favourite festive season, so far. This year, I have less spare time than last December, and although I can´t make a daily post, I don´t want to stop enjoying Blogmas. So my solution is to post at least once a week this month, with a little sum-up of the main events, and holiday activities. 

These were some of the highlights of our first Christmas week. I hope you enjoy the reading!

Blogmas Day 8: Bucharest Christmas market.

Welcome back to Blogmas Day 8.

 Last Saturday The Gentle One and I had a little walk to the city holiday themed market. This is something we truly enjoy, as we don´t have those in Spain (I think it is a central European tradition rather than a Mediterranean one). We took the chance to wake up early, have a quick breakfast and head to the beautiful University Square, where the market is placed. We spent the morning looking around, shopping for wood tree decorations, drinking mulled wine and eating Kalács (a typical Hungarian seasonal sweet which is my new favourite without discussion! I am a bit afraid I am quickly turning addicted to it, and a bit worried I won´t be able to find it once the holiday is over).

Blogmas Day 6: The Christmas tag.

 

 

Hello, this is Blogmas Day 6!

 I stumbled upon the Christmas tag last night on Twitter and I thought I could make it for you today, as I never did this one before. I am not a "tag post" kind of person usually, but as the whole Blogmas thingy is new to me, I guess we can make a little exception here. So here we go, I hope you like it. I must confess I had some fun by answering the questions. I wasn´t expecting that, to be honest!

Blogmas!

Hello Everyone!

November (& Autumn) are almost over, which only means Christmas is around the corner!  How crazy is that, right? It looks like it was yesterday when I visited Spain last December. But anyway, as we will stay here in Bucharest in December I am feeling super festive already (I always try my best when The Gentle One and I are alone for the holiday), and I thought it could be nice to reflect a bit of that sparkling spirit here too.

So this year I am going to join the whole Blogmas thing! 

❄️ I´ll be posting every single day from December the first until Christmas day. ❄️

Sometimes it will be a long or more elaborate post, sometimes it will be just a little impression, but my idea is that you get a glimpse on my Winter walks, seasonal meals, cozy reading nights, and basically anything related to my daily life during this month.

Please, feel free to let me know if there´s something you would like me to post about.

I formally invite you to be with me this Christmas. 

 I hope you’ll stick around for the ride!

  

Late Christmas loot (third edition)

It´s being a while, but I am back from my Spanish Christmas holiday (which consisted on

tons of social interaction, and food too. Actually, it also consisted on tons of drugs against influenza, but that´s a far less interesting story unless you enjoy fever & chills horror stories), and this means I am back to upload about my latest adventures too. Althought it´s been a while since Christmas Day, I thought following my old January tradition would be ok.

I already told you about my festive season presents back in 2013 and 2014, and for some reason people looked to like those, so I decided to go ahead this year.

Bucharest Christmas market

A couple of posts ago I mentioned one of my current favourite things about Christmas are traditional street markets. We don´t have those in Spain, so celebrating the holiday with mulled wine, sausages, candy apples and hot chocolate while having a walk around is totally new to me.

 At the very beginning I couldn´t understand why people would enjoy just spending the evening around a bunch of shops, listening to some seasonal music and trying their luck at traditional games (silly city girl, right?) but after a little while we finally managed to pay our own visit to the place in proper conditions AND without being in a hurry because of the fear to get hands totally frozen (this is a hundrer per cent literal, last December was so chilly, you could feel your fingers hurting even with wool gloves...).

Welcome to Narnia

Well, well, well, it looks like Christmas are around the corner.

 You can feel it in the air (or you can simply enter any shop, where seasonal goodies have been around for a whole month now, which is kind of CRAZY).

 Personally, the main sign for me is the end of this semester professional duties.
Yes, darlings, I am pleased to say I am officialy on holiday!

 On Friday evening I threw my boring office clothing, embraced comfy clothes, favourite tea and good book. And then next morning, we put up our Christmas tree.
This is the first year we decorate the house with actual snow outside. I have no words to explain how christmasy it feels the first time!
For me, it was like finding suddenly finding myself in Narnia.

Late Christmas Loot (second edition)

It begins to look like a tradition to me posting about my Christmas presents when the new year has already begun. 

But you know, I´m the kind of person who spends the holiday jumping from one to another, so planning a proper blog entry during Christmas is actually difficult.

So here I am again this year, merrily showing my Yule loot to you in the first fortnight of January.

I hope you enjoy it!

Small vices (and some afternoon tea)

First goes first, so Happy New Year everyone.
I hope you all had a memorable day accompanied by your beloved ones.
The last few days of the year have been a relaxing balm of happiness to me and my partner as long as we decided to leave stress behind a have a good time together.
These pictures are an illustrative example of it.

Its beginning to look a bit like Christmas

Instagram pictures: 1) Snowflakes on my tree. Those are the first snowflakes I could find onn my entire life/ 2)Wrapping The Gentle One´s presents/ 3) Huge Christmas Day dessert/ 4) Sparkling red nails/ 5) Nut latte at Starbucks/ 6) Early gifts with black orchid scent.

Christmas concert at the Romanian Atheneum

As a child I received a very strict musical education, nearly Victorian.

I used to study sol-fa, piano and voice practice because well, one of my uncles is a musician and he thought I was sensitive and could easily learn. After some years of non-stopping practice, I decided music was not my vocational path, but I always kept a tender love towards it deep in my heart.

Late Christmas Loot Post

I dont´know if you think the same about yourselves, but sometimes I feel like a terrible blogger.
I mean, I seriously try to keep clear that very attractive post schedule that I continuously delineate in my mind, but it looks like, somehow, there´s always something trying to frustrate my golden plans.
Call it whatever you want: seminars, deadlines, job, academic reading timeline...
And finally, at the beginning of 2013, I decided I had enough of this.

I am not the kind of person who makes too serious New Year´s resolutions, but If I was, one of them would be stop complaining about the conspiration of the faerie of bad luck and start doing what I really want to.
In this case, honouring myself and my ideal post schedule (which would include, at least, one post a week).

So, in order to begin doing so (and after finding the perfect inspiration in Bella Morte´s lovely blog), I am going to tell a little bit about what was under the Christmas tree this year.
Because I have the cutest family ever, and even though many days passed through since Christmas´ Eve, it hasn´t been so long since 6th of January (which in Spain is another oficial date to be given presents) ♥

♥ This beautiful spiderweb necklance is one of my favourite gifts ever, not for its big value, but for it was given to me by my youngest sister. She is just thirteen years old (her birthday was last week) and she deeply knows my personal tastes and always does her best to find something genuine.

♥ Here you can see the precious ringstone that forms the body of the spider a little better, as well as the precious Venetian mask that The Gentle One bought for me. A girl cannot posibly have too many masks. Ok, I know I say that every single time about opera gloves, shoes and dresses but what?
Raise your hand if you don´t have one several personal fetishes. Shoes, pencil skirts, bags? Yes, then you know what I am speaking about. My man also got me a new blouse and a fake fur shrug. But I´ll show them to you in some future outfit post.

♥ Continuing with my legendary little sister´s contributions, she also got me a huge Yves Rocher Christmas pack. It basically consists on three awesome body milk lotions (vanilla, raspberry and Malasyan coconut) and three matching fragances. Once again: she is totally amazing! She knew I do love Yves Rocher organic products, not only beacuse they are free of any potential animal ingredients, but also because they leave a soft fresh touch in your skin.

♥ My mum, meanwhile, gave this great skin care regime products to me.
I have to confess that I am not a big fan of  L´oreal bussiness politics right now, however their products are still awesome and though I won´t be giving more money to them myself, I cannot reject a present like this from mum, right?

♥ This gorgeous pearl tiara is another gift from mummy.
She is always giving tiaras to me, mainly because (as she says) I am still a little princess to her eyes. Yes, my mum has to be the only one in the world for whom a grown up gothic lady is nothing but a little princess.
Yeah, you´re right, she´s the best!
Daddy contributed with a pair of wellies and a good quality vaccum bottle. Because if mum sees my like a little girl, for dad I am the girl with the eternal cold.
And do you know what? Damn, it´s true!

♥ Going back to The Gentle One he got these two second hand books to me. They are special because Anne Bronte´s works are really hard to find in Spanish, and the edition of Those Little Women is the one of my childhood, so many emotional memories are connected with it.

♥ And finally, my boss gave this cute box of handicraftsman soap just before holiday.
They smell SO good which is hard of define (strawberry, vanilla, lavender...).
I am still trying to avoid to eat them!

I have to say that I received an extra gift last week from my mother-in-law.
She got me a great coat with furry neckline, but ey, you´ll see it here someday, so no worries!

So tell me darlies, were you in Santa´s nice list?

Another Year in the Jar

Now the candles are extinguished and the golden days and nights full of champagne, roses and treats are over, I can sit down and think.

It looks like magic how fast this 2012 has flown away.

Sometimes I wonder if, by some dark spell, I am sleeping in a high tower as the time goes by. 

But ey, that would mean that I am not getting older anymore (and unfortunately I am, that´s for sure darlings).

No regrets, though.

Glancing back,I can see how many things I´ve done this year without even noticing:

• I passed some tedious exams, so I am really close to get my degree now (in the past some subjects were pretty much a bunch of Horror Cruxes to me). 

•  I found a great job that helps to mantain this gorgeous apartment and my quiet lifestyle together mith my better half.

•  I met new friends. It´s so nice when you are able to connect with people who are just your cup of tea.

And what do I wish for this new 2013?

Good question, indeed. I´d like to think that I will be totally finished with my degree and my academic research by the end of this year.
I also want to find a good opportunity to move to the UK (my boyfriend and I have several projects about this).

Adulthood is a funny moment in life, because basically you never know what you are going to find in the path, right? I hope all of you find your own destiny this year.

I send you all my love.

                                                               

Please, don´t forget to check charming Victorian Kitty´s blog as long as she is organizing a month event about New Year! 

Yule around the corner

I cannot believe it but It´s been a year since I returned from UK.
Sometimes I still have a strange feeling when I look around and realize that I am not walking by the Thames side anymore. Long walks through the hills have been replaced by the constant view of old inclined towers and narrow stone streets.

However, the same mist hangs in the air.

Yule is just around the corner, so I cannot feel sad anymore.

Sadness is replaced immediately by a pleasant sense of familiarity when Christmas arrives and I can meet my loved ones. Unluckily, I am not meeting all of them. I will be specially missing my sister, who is not able to come to Spain from Japan this year (miss you, darling). Thanks to the providency (and the wonders of modern technologies) we´ll be chatting on Christmas day via Skype.

Anyway, despite this I feel happy about the last days of the year.
I do appreciate the opportunity of having a delicious dinner with family, drop my youngest sister to ice skating by her very first time, drinking hot chocolate with my parents and enjoying the most of the holidays with The Gentle One.

The first Spanish edition of The Hobbit rescued from a vintage store for my little sister.

Many people do not feel comfortable with the radical commercial mood of Christmas nowadays.
I can see their point: we do not need to spend hundreds of euros just to demonstrate our love. I think we don´t need every single thing we see in the mall to be happy though society tries to convince to us we do. For me, personal details are more accurate and I prefer to find one perfect gift rather than a mountain of impersonal stuff.
This year I got just a few things but very special. I bought the first Spanish edition of
The Hobbit for my youngest sister (she is just eleven years old and is discovering the pleasure of reading) in a vintage store. Then, I chose a wonderful artisan paper on a beautiful violet color to replace the old fashioned covers as long as they were a little damaged. I also bought a pair of Sweet Lolita inspired leggins for her and a pair of funny strawberry earrings. She does not have earholes but she´s dying for.

I became a big fan of Whittard of Chelsea this winter.



I had two or three good ideas for my parents but not too much to spend (charming writers graduating have small salaries as teachers), so I spoke to my other lovely sister and she decided to help with the presents (thank you once again, darling). So we could finally get something gorgeous for our parents. They are fond of staying home in the weekends and spending long hours having hot drinks and never ending conversations, so what more accurate than a luxury selection of teas and chocolates?
Normally they prefer the kind of gifts they can share with the others (being generous as they are), which converted this idea in the perfect one. Besides, they are chocoholics!

Big variety of treats for a chocoholic couple.

In the last weeks I also found the perfect gifts for my fiancée but I am not posting pictures or a description here at the moment. He is a little gossip, so he will be probably checking this place for some information. Sorry, dear, you are not lucky today ;)

Yummy, I am sure!

Extraordinary, this year we are not celebrating Christmas at our parents, but they are coming home. I am really fond of spending these very special days in my city. The medieval town will be beautiful with all the lights. Actually, I am dying for holidays. I have not enjoyed too much in the last weeks and I do not have spare time at all. To break up with the routine, I attended a Lolitas´ meeting on Saturday and met lots of nice people. I will be giving more details as soon as I get some pics. Stay tuned!