simple smiles #44

And just like that, my countdown to Europe has reached the single digit of 5 days. I'm a little burnt out from the daily 7-3 work grind to the point that I fear I'll spend half my vacation snoozing away like an old lady to catch up on sleep (though getting a free daily coffee from a teacher for the past three weeks has definitely helped!). At the same time, I'm excited to soak it all in - the culture, the food, meeting The Boy's family, food, exploring castles, food, going shopping, taking a gazillion photographs, FOOD. I know I'll be missing these following things though, the things that bring me those simple smiles:

BOOKS. (click here for a larger image) I'll admit, lately my 'reading' has been trying to do the 'medium' section of my Sudoku puzzle book, but books will always have a soft spot in my heart. Plus, my sister who just recently returned to the blogging scene has a section called "bookshelf love" and she wanted me to join in! All my novels/textbooks/comics are pretty much scattered ALL OVER THE PLACE but here's a peek at just one of my shelves - you'll find Harry Potter, some Shakespeare, required reading from university that I ended up loving, and a couple of books I haven't even read yet - whoops! I'm going to try to take a couple of books with me on my travels but I know I probably won't have time!

SUMMERLICIOUS. Every winter and summer, Toronto hosts a 'Winterlicious' or 'Summerlicious' where restaurants have set menus for lunch/dinner that are $15 and up. Two online friends that I've known since I was about 13 (so 10 years!) meet up every year and decided to try out Cafe California - it was AMAZING. Above is the warm pasta salad, which was an assortment of everything and was bursting with flavour. And after we checked out a Salsa festival, which made me wish I knew how to dance (though I'm great at the waltz) :P

ESCAPING TO THE BEACH. I finally had a day off this past Friday and got to catch up with The Boy; I owned him at skipping rocks and then had another couple of our friends join us for random times at the beach. One of the main reasons why I'm so excited for Europe is because I'll be able to actually spend time with him, since it's been such a rarity this past month. 

SURPISE BIRTHDAYS & FRIENDS. Yesterday we hit up a local conservation area for a surprise birthday party for one of my closest friends and it was a blast! :) I know what I'll miss most in my month away is planned & spontaneous get-togethers with friends. We BBQed, caught up, explored behind a waterfall and just enjoyed the sun, making it the perfect three-day weekend.

My final day of the three-day weekend has been spent getting those last-minute items for Europe, trying my hand at EXTREME COUPONING ($10.99 Venus razors on sale for $6.99 + a $2 off coupon = $4.99 razors, baby!) and err ... fighting the urge to take a nap and sleep away the rest of the afternoon. Gotta start packing!!

How has your weekend been?

And what would your ultimate Europe souvenir be?

(I'm planning a giveaway at the end of August with a European souvenir!)

wednesday wishes: wish come true!

Whoa, where'd the rest of June and the first half of July go? Since resuming my five-summer streak of working in the office of a summer school the days have become a bluuuur - a mostly fun, but kind of exhausting blur. Tomorrow I'll be waiting in line with two of my best friends to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 at midnight and waving farewell and adieu to what's left of my childhood once the credits start to roll by (and probably saying "accio tissues!" A LOT). 

I've been both anticipating and dreading the arrival of July since this means the end of an 'era' (for Harry Potter anyways) - but I've been able to fill up these past few weeks with a lot of happy times (too many to recap in one post!). Here's what I've been 'obsessed' with or up to recently:

I decided to put the vain, beauty-related one first haha. Since getting my hands on the OPI Shatter nail polishes and looking up different things to do to your nails I've been hooked on 'nail art' - like cutting bits of newspaper and applying it to your nails with alcohol! Since I'll always bite my nails if I don't have them painted, I'm always looking for new things/polishes/designs to try out.

This one has kind of taken a back seat now that I'm working five days a week but I got bit by the cooking bug a couple of weeks ago which meant lots of cookies, cupcakes, and loaves. Nom nom nom.

I both blame and thank my sister Margarita for introducing me to Pinterest ... it's kind of like having a page of bookmarks except it's images and you can organize them easily and see what other people have 'pinned.' At first I thought, "Oh, like Tumblr" except it's on crack. If anyone else is addicted to it like I am, I'd love to see your boards, as weird as that sounds (here's my account).

Spontaneity might seem a little broad, but it's basically just random days and nights out that have pretty much little to no planning involved but turn into amazing moments, like walking along the lake with The Boy, seeing X-Men: First Class (AWESOME FILM, EPIC BROMANCE) and checking out a fair, and then making s'mores at a friend's BBQ (and looking crazy while doing so).

Hmm, counting down to what, you may ask? Well, since the dawn of this blog I've almost always had this in my description: "Dealing with university life, an amazing Boy and the friends, with a strong yearning to travel around Europe anytime." Well that 'anytime' has turned into a definitive amount of time:

IN 16 DAYS
I'M GOING TO EUROPE!

It was one of those "yes I want to go, please make it happen even if we don't book the flights until three weeks before the trip" kind of deal. But it's FINALLY HAPPENING. For the whole month of August (and the last couple of days in July) I'll be hitting up Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Transylvania, and hopefully Austria and Croatia, too. In other words: A HARDCORE (EASTERN) EUROTRIP. I can't wait to pose by more statues, admire the architecture, eat the FOOD, and meet all of The Boy's family while seeing my relatives again for the second time in my life :) I've kept this a bit on the downlow since I didn't want to jinx it, but you'll bet your bottom I'll be writing about it a lot now!

So finally a 'Wednesday wish' has come true and now I'm just hoping for a bit more time to relax, catch up on some amazing blogs, and get everything ready before we're off! :)

What have you been up to lately?

Anything you're obsessed with?

And who is going to be sobbing at the end of Harry Potter like me?

Hope you're having a great mid-week!