where to begin...

Yesterday, I returned home from a month-long amazing trip to Europe. To say it was flawflee would be a bit of a lie, but experiences like food poisoning from a sketchy hot dog stand in Transylvania complete with a trip to a Hungarian hospital for an infusion where your boyfriend is translating everything just makes me love The Boy even more ... and want to avoid hot dogs with a passion for at least a good six months! Honestly though, it was an incredible month I will never be able to forget and will definitely recap over the next month :)

Today, it's my 23rd birthday! My twenty-second year was pretty darn awesome so here's hoping my next year is just the same but better! It'll be a jetlagged one for sure, though I already have a Starbucks gift card (I didn't see a single Starbucks in Hungary, felt so weird!) from my sister to stay awake when I go out for dinner tonight with girlfriends and then spend the night with The Boy. But the celebrations and parties can't go on all night, because ...

Tomorrow, I start teachers college. It won't be official classes, but the first two days are mandatory and full of orientation and meeting with your group and it's definitely a bit nervewracking. I know a bunch of people (including The Boy) who are going to the same college, just with different classes, so at least I'll have someone to share lunch with. Seems weird to get right into the busy with things but that's life, right-o?

For now, here's a brief glimpse into how I spent the month of August ...

I kissed a boy in front of a fountain ...

And kissed some fountains in my spare time, too.

Took some leaps in front of Heroes Square ...

And then just relaxed at a spa (Szechenyi Spa in Budapest).

Took a ferry across the Danube almost every day in The Boy's hometown ...

And also took a cruise along the Danube bend to Esztergom.

 Gave some speeches when I was in the mood to enormous crowds (cough cough) ...

But most of the time, just enjoyed cobblestone roads with an amazing travel partner.

How's your month been? I'm going to have to start playing catch-up on everyone's lives since I've been so out of the loop and my apologies for being so MIA but ... I am so grateful that I was able to spend a month in Europe and am looking forward to the next great adventure :)

I've missed you all!

Hope your September is full of great things, too :)

groundhog week

If there was one week I could choose to be my groundhound week (i.e., reliving it over and over), it would be the past week. And surprisingly the main reason is not because it was my birthday - thanks for all the birthday wishes, by the way! - but because I was able to spend so much time with the friends and the significant other whom I love.

With September comes the new - a new school year, going back to work, a new season - and everything seems to be scheduled which is why I covet my vacation time, where everything can be spontaneously planned. That's exactly what happened last week and I loved it to itty bitty pieces.

Sunday I had an early birthday celebration with my closest girlfriends - we went to a nearby park with a huge waterfall, ate the most delicious cake ever with banana bread and chocolate (it almost rivals my favourite tiramisu), played Partini (the best game), explored behind the waterfalls and then went off to an amazing dinner before spending some downtime at my one friend's house. 

 Corny slicing of the delicious birthday cake photo :)

About to climb behind the waterfall!

♥

Our "Dawson's Creek" photo, if the cast was all-female hehe.

Half classic pepperoni, half bacon & scallions = YUMMY.

Quick wardrobe change for dinner - it was a restaurant we've never been to before but I want to go to again and again :)

During our scrumptious dinner we made a little Bucket List of things we all want to accomplish - either together or personal dreams that we can root each other on for - I might share of my own personal things later this week :) Either way, it warms my heart to be connected to four incredible women and that no matter how busy we get, we make time for each other.

My actual birthday was spent greeted by my parents in the morning and then getting ready for a surprise from The Boy. We had only gone to the beach once before this summer, so he planned a full out road trip to Lake Erie, one of the great lakes of North America.  ROAD TRIP!

The Boy was counting on me to be the navigator with the directions and it was only about halfway into the road trip through that he realized I didn't have my glasses on and was kind of half-guessing the road signs - but we made it there after one detour to this amazingly sand-combed beach for some romantic times :)

Birthday pizza = nom nom nom :)

Making some sand castles without the tools - what an architect.

Cheesy sand shadow photo - a specialty of ours :D

After spending a good hour in the water and lounging on the sands, we headed back to get some ice cream where I discovered STRAWBERRY-KIWI ICE CREAM. It was like my birthday wish come true or something, it was heavenly. And then I tried my luck in getting a free Starbucks drink but apparently they send you a coupon in the mail or something once you register the giftcard? Phooey. Either way it was an amazing day :)

And then the boiling first of September was spent braving the heat with another close friend who I met at school and has made my uni experience infinitely better. She treated me to a day at the Toronto Zoo and it was loads of fun - our legs got a workout but it was well worth it! Her amazing parents treated us to a Mongolian grill all-you-can-eat afterwards and happy birthday in English & Chinese blasted over the PA, woot woot! 

 Posing tiger! (hidden dragon?)

Rockin' out on a hippo.

Little collage of moments - such incredible creatures.

Annnd my impersonation of a flamingo.

While the rest of the days were lowkey, those days stand out in my mind as days I'd love to relive. Ahh, fare thee well summer vacation ...

Is there a particular day you'd like to relive? annnnd...

What are you looking forward to most in September?

As weird as this sounds, I'm looking forward to more a routine when it comes to blogging - though I only have one full semester left of uni, I know I'll be filling up the breaks with writing! 

To those who celebrate it - happy Labour Day weekend!

/long post is long

i'm a palindrome (22)!

After ten years of waiting in anticipation (okay, not really) I have reached the age where I am a palindrome again - I'm 22 today! The eve of my birthday was spent reminiscing about the amazing day with my friends on Sunday (more details in a future post), cooking myself pasta and making home-made bruschetta while watching the last episode of K-drama Coffee House (tear), blasting the Mumford & Sons CD and then ...

... looking through old photo albums. One of my biggest fears is to lose my memory which is why I seem to take a gazillion photos of just about everything - so that when I glance at these photos decades from now, memories will come flooding back to me. While I remember birthday celebrations from the last ten or so years, my birthdays from the toddler/early childhood era are somewhat of a misty haze in my mind. This is why I love cameras:

 Go shawty, it's your birthday! I got swagger on my 7th birthday, haha =P

Cuddling my teddy bear on my fifth birthday - look at that awesome casette player!

SURPRISE! Okay, not really birthday-related, but I've always loved this photo.

(especially the flashing-her-butt doll in the background, lolz)

Today's a bit of a mystery/surprise as I'm spending most of the day with The Boy, who has kept his lips tightly shut regarding any details of what we're actually doing. But either way, I can't wait to celebrate with him :)

But before I bury myself under the covers and have my first set of dreams as a twenty-two year old, here is a picture which shows how far I've come fashion-wise and the beginnings of my crazy facial expressions:

C'mon Barbie, let's go partay!

Hope you've been having a good week so far - 

it can only get better from here :)

my simple smile

The simple smile of this week is: TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY! I'm now the ripe old age of 21. Legal to drink everywhere, even though I haven't visited the States in about ten years (that desperately needs to change)! Today is going to be rather spontaneous -- I'm having a bit of a "me" morning where I'm going to cook some breakfast up and then exercise, but the rest of the day will either be spent with some of my dearest friends and/or at The Boy's house, watching Drag Me To Hell (what a great movie to watch on your birthday, eh?).

But for now, just wanted to show an assortment of pictures from celebrating last Thursday. The beach was rather chilly and windy but we still had fun and made the most of it. And my first grilling session of hamburgers and hot dogs was a success! Whoopah!

It was such a fun day full of random pictures and beach-ball/card-playing times. Afterward, The Boy decided to head home so that we could have a "girls night in" (so kind of him!) so we hit up Blockbuster and Dairy Queen for some movies and treats before we headed back to my place. My advice: never rent Pathology unless you're into gruesome films, and rent Confessions of a Shopaholic but don't expect it to follow the book at all, but rather be a nice cheese-fest! It was great just chilling with them, though. A low-key day compared to what I have planned for this Wednesday, that's for sure.

And don't forget to enter my giveaway that's opened 'til this Saturday, and while you're at it, head on over to the lovely and spunky Nicole who is having a 200-follower giveaway! Congrats :) I just hit 50, yay! Big smiles all around!

Now I have to ask:
What are you looking forward to today/this week/this month?

Me? I'm looking forward to eating my birthday cake, Cappuccino Torte, which is the recipe of the week and spending time with those I love!

a celebration to remember :)

First off, 10 points to pretty much all of you who guessed that my last title entry was courtesy of *NSYNC ... and my last one before that was Britney Spears. I think I was on an early 00s trip! Secondly, this entry contains major picspam from yesterday, so you've been warned!

Yesterday, The Boy decided to treat me to an early birthday celebration since the weather is going to be crappy next week (boo) and most of the surprise activities were going to be outdoors. Since his car was off getting some repairs done, we were doing things the old-fashioned way and met downtown via the city bus.

I had no clue how we were getting to the next destination -- but then remembered this antique-looking bus that runs for free downtown, which drives down to the bayfront of our city. So off we went!

We are way too stoked for free transportation!

So we get there, and next thing we were supposed to take was this adorable trolley and we were supposed to eat ice cream while we were on it -- but we missed the trolley by literally a minute ... and instead had to walk 2 1/2 km to our next destination. Wowsers! I didn't mind though, since it was the perfect invitation for more pictures.


I got a haircut Monday, you can really notice it here, yippee!~

We ended up eating some delicious bacon wraps courtesy of The Boy and then hit up one of those ice cream trucks to get this delicious-looking thing. I felt eight years old again as we devoured it up -- it went all over my face AND my shirt (thank goodness for water!).

We then set off on a walking adventure, getting a nice tan as we walked, climbed stairs, and took one too many drink breaks (I get dehydrated easily). It was active to say the least! He made me pick from two options in his hands and I chose The Rock Garden.

Confession: People usually think my city is nasty, full of steel-industrial-factory sort of things. So believe me when I say, where we were was b-e-a-utiful!

As soon as we got there, we were starving once more and had a couple of more wraps -- and made friends with Chippy the Chipmunk!



He was SO adorable and kept posing and staring at us from the rocks, waiting for us to chuck him a few wee pieces of bread (which we complied to). And then it'd dart around as I scrambled to take pictures. Love those little critters!

The place itself was magnificently stunning. So many flowers, so much dedication to make the place look like an oasis. We found ourselves stopping every couple of minutes to relax on a bench and just look around or take tons of pictures.


Like this pic 'cause it shows off my nail polish, haha.
(OPI's 'Ate Berries in the Canaries')


Beautiful scenery all around!


I abused my ten-second timer so much on this outing :)


Gorgeous statue; and upon looking at the set of stairs, I accidentally blurted out, "This would be an amazing place to have a wedding!" to which The Boy hugged me after giving me 'the look' (a.k.a. you might be thinking about this a little too soon but I love you so much that I don't think you're crazy).


We stumbled upon these 'xylophone bells' made out of -- you'll never guess -- recycled propane tanks! We had so much fun playing with 'em!


Totally didn't get the memo that this was supposed to be a silly picture -- love the way the sun is shining on us, though :)


<- That picture is begging to be made into a 'DAT ASS' macro, fo sho!
After we looked around the Rock Garden in its entirety, we took a shuttle bus that goes throughout the several gardens in our city and ended up at Royal Botanical Gardens (the most-heard of attraction, garden-wise). I liked the former a bit more since there was so much to explore, while this one was more open-concept and had a lot of paths. But the statues were absolutely hysterical!

There were several throughout the garden, and they were all on sale, some of them for thousands and thousands of dollars. Who would pay $9,900 dollars to have a sculpture of a dog digging in the ground, so that all you can see is half of its body? It was crazy but fun to see :)


Another sculpture was a metal tricycle!

We then headed indoors to the Mediterranean garden, full of enormous plants, little ponds full of koi fish, and much more. The Boy joked around that since so many things were influenced by Japanese culture, I should put up these pictures on Facebook with the title, "JAPAN WAS AWESOME!" and see how many people thought we actually went to Japan. Should I go along with that? Haha!


Loved this place!

We then took the shuttle bus back to the original garden and, you guessed it, walked 2 1/2 km back to the bayfront, since that stoopid trolley didn't have any stops and wouldn't let us on. :( We got pretty exhausted by the end -- my leg muscles were seizing up, and he had blisters all over his feet -- but it was amazing being with him. And, he provided me with a little motivation by revealing the final surprise/destination -- Williams, the coffee shop where we had our first 'date' (though the one we went to was on university campus and this one was on the lake, but no matter)!



He had a slice of Lemon Meringue Pie while I had a slice of Strawberry Shortcake, which inspired the recipe of the week. After that, we took that lovely piece of free transportation back to the downtown and hugged for fifteen minutes before our buses came to take us home.

Such a beautiful day full of memories -- definitely my simple smile of the week and my Wednesday wish is that I could relive that day over and over again!

Hope you enjoyed the picspam!

And my next entry (planning it for Friday, since tomorrow I'm doing another set of early birthday celebrations with my friends) will be my 50th entry, so stay tuned for the giveaway! So excited for it :) Have an awesome hump day!