Brugge

I brought back some lovely things from Brugge. There is definitely more to Brugge than just a great thrift shop!  The hat is from Veritas and the little crochet deer rattle from a sweet little shop called Luna Bloom.

Count Your Blessings

Last weekend Marlous, Cristian, Anki and me took a little trip to Zeeland. A weekend spent chatting, laughing, eating, (thrift)shopping in Brugge and just relaxing by the sea.

I don’t really count blessings that often. But I’m very blessed to know these crazy, funny and sweet people (and even though you missed this trip,that includes you Iris!)

A funny thing when hanging out with other bloggers is everyone’s obsession with their phone and/or camera. We’re all just a bunch of weirdo’s… 😉

Berlin, I Love You

My Berlin trip with Anki, Cris, Iris, Marlous and Philomeen was like a little present that I didn’t expected to get (christmas is still a long way down the road). We had such a lovely time walking around Berlin and just taking it all in. The city has so many faces from stately to graffiti and back again,  just beautiful!

Berlin was like the best host we could have asked for, we had  great food, good cocktails, we laughed our asses off and ended up with some great/funny/good/hilarious memories.
And some cool stuff too, but that’s for later!

Next Stop: Berlin

Tomorrow I’m leaving for a couple of days Berlin with some pretty awesome blogfriends. I’m super excited to go! Mostly because Berlin is definitely one of my favorite cities I’ve visited so far.
The photo above is from my last trip to Berlin, when I visited the beautiful museum of modern art the Hamburger Bahnhof which is literally in the old railway station. And last time I actually saw Yoko Ono there!
I guess that after this weekend there are going to be quite a lot of Berlin Blogposts so check out: Anki, Cristian, Iris, Marlous and Philomeen for more Berlin goodness. Especially check out this hilarious post of Philomeen, she turned our little group into lego figures and even matched the lego’s hair colours to ours!

Istanbul II (the part with a bit of everything)

I really didn’t only see old stuff in Instanbul. Promise! Today a little glimpse. I must admit, I haven’t been waving my camera all around the Grand Bazar. Mainly because standing around long enough to take a good picture to the salesmen meant that I was interested in purchasing something from their little shops. Or that I could be persuaded to do so. Also it was a bit dark and crowded, so a good shot with no people in it were hard to find! Here are some images of the that I did manage to take. And some photo’s of all kinds of bits and pieces of IstanbulOur Istanbul this trip wasn’t just any trip It was carefully planned! Ever since Mini was born we haven’t taken a proper vacation yet. So it was the first one in over 2 years, and we really needed it. Also, where I live it was carnaval a 4 day event where everybody gets dressed up and drinks a lot. As an innercity girl this means the whole celebration is kind of in my face. If you join in, that’s fine and you won’t really mind everything thats going on around you. But if you want to stay out of it, then the whole thing is really just a lot of noise, mess and irritation. That’s why I decided to just leave. And than the third reason: last week was my birthday. And at this point I don’t really feel like celebrating it anymore.(slowly approaching the end of my 20’s) I though it was beter if I just treated myself to a little break instead of a party.

Then on my birthday we were just walking along the streets of instanbul, when we passed a museum, that I had no intention of visiting. I saw the poster for the current exhibition. Turns out, it was a Frida Kahlo and Diege Rivera exhibition! And I’m a big fan, so this was the best unexpected birthday gift I could have asked for!

 

 

Istanbul I (the part with the old stuff)

So much to see, so much to tell. I hardly know where to begin! I guess I’ll start with a our hotel:We selected our hotel from the Lonely planet website, It said something like this: Like a boudoir from a ’70s porn-flick, they’re decked out with deep maroon satin bedspreads, heart-shaped pillows, ruffles on ruffles and over-the-top painted mouldings. And spotless. Desperate decor, seductive style, lascivious luxury. We’re getting faint just thinking about it and may need to lie down.’ That just sounded like all kinds of cool to me. I love a good kitschy décor and a bit of humor. And as you can see Lonely Planet wasn’t lying, we even had a canopy bed!

We started of with the sites, being an art historian (can’t get used to that word yet!) I’ve read so much about the mosaics and  monuments, that I really was looking forward to actually seeing them myself in stead of in some college book. And the Weather Gods even gave me to very different perspectives on the monuments. One on a pre-spring weather day at the beginning of our trip and one with a more mid-winter feel to it at the end:The snow wasn’t really what I expected, but the again, how many tourists get to see both the sunny and the snowy side of these buildings? 😉

Topkapi Palace took up a big part of our time but it was so beautiful! Especially the Harem part (the Sultan’s private quarters), this place had the most beautiful tiles and domes. Also I loved their ‘build-in closets’.

We also saw the archeological museum and some of the original mosaics of the palace that Justinian I build (the guy who also build the Aya Sophia). I was just in awe, the intricacy of those mosaics, they were so beautiful. I think I took a picture of just about every one of them!Well, this post has gone on long enough! I’ll leave the old world behind and try and show some more modern stuff tomorrow….