Travel Style - Hungary

One of the biggest questions I ask myself while getting ready for a trip is this: What clothes am I going to pack? And: What am I actually going to wear? What’s functional, but at the same time stylish? After hours spent in front of my closet, packing and unpacking and repacking bags, these are some of my favorite outfits from my trip to Hungary. Tip: if you’re ever near the Balaton in late May, do not bother bringing sweatshirts. 

Dress: H&M

Top: Aeropostale
Cardigan: Ann Christine
Shorts: Fishbone Sisters
Shoes: Converse

Dress: Hollister

Dress: H&M

As you can tell, brightly printed dresses are one of my summer wardrobe staples, and they were perfect for sunny, 25°C-35°C days by the water. I was also never seen without a hairtie on my wrist or sunglasses on my face- a.k.a. my summertime essentials. 

In general, one of my rules of thumb when packing is always this: Can you envision yourself wearing it wherever you are? Is it practical? Does it make you feel good about yourself? If the answer to all these questions is “Yes”, then go for it! 

The Hymer Museum

If you’re ever stuck on what to do on a rainy sunday, here’s an idea: how about visiting a museum? It’s inexpensive (some are even free), informative and fun, so pick something that interests you, look for a museum on it and check it out. Something that I love is travel, and I’ve travelled through quite a few countries in a caravan (Sweden, Norway, the UK, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, just to name a couple), so last sunday I decided to visit the Erwin Hymer Museum in Bad Walsee, Baden-Württemberg. 

The first thing you notice is the amazing architecture of the building.

The Hymer Museum showcases not only vintage Hymer RVs and caravans, but old mobile homes of other brands as well. Many of the caravans are attached to old-timers, making the museum attractive for car and travel enthusiasts alike. 

My favorite part of the museum, however, isn’t the caravans or cars or RVs, but the way it showcases different countries and cultures. The museum is broken up into several different sections: when you come in, the first thing you do is go on a tour through the alps, complete with cowbells to ring and a giant wall mural. 

I was in love with the colors and the little lace curtains of this one. You can see a bit of the mural in the background.

A better shot of the mural

This was the CUTEST CAMPER EVER. The color is gorgeous, and the rooftop thing? Dying.

The next section is Italy, and this is where the real fun of the museum starts: Photo booths.  There’s a backdrop, a bunch of cool accessories and a camera which you stick your ticket into that takes a picture for you. There are four different photo stations throughout the museum, and when you’ve taken all your pictures, you can go to the front desk and buy a postcard with all four pictures on it as a souvenir. 

Trying to tie a Sari for the India photo.

India is super high up on my bucket list anyways, and seeing this ratty VW bus filled with trinkets and souvenirs just made me want to steal and ride off with it.

Being cowgirls & indians at the North America photo station. Stereotypical, yes, but still fun.

This is actually my favorite picture from that day. Just chilling at the beach in the south of France. 

At home with the (slightly blurry) postcard. It's such a nice souvenir from a great day.

In the Italy, India, the North Sea, Morocco, North America and France sections, there were giant booths set up that you could enter that simulated some of the sights, sounds and smells from the respective regions. In the Italy tent for example, you can sit in lounge chairs and listen to the sound of the waves whilst watching surfers on a giant screen. In Morocco, you smell foreign spices and see the people of Marrakech passing by as you sit on squishy embellished sofas. The North America tent lets you sit in a saddle and watch cowboys rounding up cattle. It allows you to transport yourself into a completely different part of the world for free, and awakens a lot of wanderlust (I, for example, am now dying to  visit northern Africa).

Getting ready to take the North America photo, with the respective tent in the background.

When we were all done, we had a drink and a piece of cake in the museum café before heading back home. Even that had a beautifully clean design, and the cake was homemade and delicious. 

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and had a great day. The Hymer Museum is definitely a place worth a visit for anyone passionate about travel, camping, or just taking silly photos. 

Better Habits

Yesterday marked the beginning of Lent, and despite the fact that I’m not at all religious, I usually find something to give up for it- sweets, time on social media/the internet, whatever. But because most of the things I cut out of my life- or consider cutting out- are either far to easy for me to live without (like alcohol), or far too difficult, (to the point where I already know I’ll fail, like in giving up chocolate), this year, I’ve decided to use those 40 days to build some better habits. 

The first problem I’ve decided to tackle is my eating habits. They’re pretty bad- I eat irregular amounts of food at irregular intervals. If I’m stressed or running late I might forget to eat, or grab something to have on the run, and the next day I’ll have too much time and spend all of it in the kitchen. Then I’ll have a healthy phase where my nutrition is on point for a couple of days, and in the next week I’ll be having junk food again. It’s a mess. 

In an attempt to better this, I’ve decided to document what I eat and when I eat it until easter. Hopefully after a few days I’ll notice patterns and be able to fix things, and by the time april comes around my goal is to not cringe when I look into my food diary. 

Excuse the mixture of English and German- my food diary is something I write quickly, the same way I think, which usually results in a hot mess between multiple languages.

Bedsheets & bedspread- Ikea

Another goal of mine is to exercise regularly. I enjoy running, and now that the weather is slowly getting warmer I want to go out on a run at least twice a week. I also want to take time to do extra cardio and work on my stretches at least two nights a week. I may be aiming a little bit high, but it’s definitely in the realm of possibility, so I’m going to try my best to go through with it.

So those are my goals- what are you giving up/changing for Lent?

What's Been Cool? | January

So due to my lack of traveling for the next few months, this blog won't be seeing a lot of posts about far-away places anytime soon. But because of my determination (and New Year's Resolution, haha) to keep this blog alive and running- and also the fact that I just love to write and share things- I found myself thinking: "Hm, since I'm not in the position to run a full-time travel blog (due to various things, the most obvious of which are my being underage and lacking funds), what other kinds of posts do I want to put up? What do I enjoy? What do I enjoy writing about?". I came to the conclusion that I enjoy so many different kinds of things, I might as well just share a bit of everything I love- thus spawning the idea for a new mini-series on my blog called "What's been cool?". I plan on  writing a post like this at the end of every month, sharing things I've been particularly enjoying that month- Books, Films, Songs, Foods, whatever. So without further ado, I present you with the first installment of “What’s Been Cool?”!

 In English class, I'm currently reading a book called "Half-Broke Horses", which is the life story of a woman from Arizona in the early twentieth century. Even though it's a bit more modern than the Little House series, a lot of elements in HBH (The main character teaching in a one-room schoolhouse, the family living in a dugout and on the prairie for a period of time) reminded me so much of Little House on the Prairie that I decided to re-read it. It's been quite a few years since I've last read any of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, and doing so reminded me of why I fell in love with them as a child in the first place. Any book this good clearly deserves a spot on my first list of favorites. 

One CD I've been loving this month is Moon Landing by James Blunt. I got this for Christmas and it's basically been on repeat since then- In my opinion, it has a perfect mix of melancholy and feel-good, upbeat songs. My favorites are Satellites, Bonfire Hearts, Miss America and Postcards. 

Speaking of music, my favorite song at the moment is definitely "Elastic Heart" by Sia. I didn't think she'd be able to top Chandelier, but I find the lyrics and the Elastic Heart music video so powerful that it's hard to choose a favorite between the two. Sia, keep doing what you do. I'm obsessed. 

The last thing on the picture is "Warm Cinnamon Nights", a.k.a. the best body lotion EVER. It's by a company called Treacle Moon, whose other products I've already been loving, so when I saw this on the shelves I decided to go out on a limb and just get it right away. Needless to say, it was a good decision. The body lotion sinks in quickly (there's little I hate more than using lotion, and then feeling sticky for the rest of the day) and it smells so cinnamon-y and christmassy and good. 

I may possibly have found my all-time favorite tea. It's called New York Chai, and is the perfect blend of lemon and honey and spices with a roobis base. I've been drinking ungodly amounts of this the last few days. Just don't add sugar- it's definitely sweet enough without.

And yet another New York thing: my black and white NYC calender is something else I've been loving as of lately. I have a very thin strip of wall between my window and bookshelf, and a lot of square calenders don't fit, so I'm very happy I found this long one that combines my love of travel, black and white photos, New York City and room decor. 


So that's it for my first "What's Been Cool?" monthly favorites post! I hope you've enjoyed seeing the things that I enjoy, and maybe you'll enjoy some of them too. This was fun to make, and I can see myself making a lot more of these non-travel related post in the future…at least, until I get back into the car, train or sky!

:)

Happy New Year!

What a year it’s been. 

Although I didn’t post nearly as much as I should have on this blog (cough, cough, three posts in six months) quite a bit has happened that I’d like to share with you anyways. 

I started my year with a 3-day trip to a city called Leutkirch, a city in the waaay south of Germany (just a couple miles from the Austrian border) along with three other friends to visit a friend over New Years. There wasn’t much sightseeing to do, but we did visit a castle called the Schloss Zeil, and managed to take some pretty spectacular pictures of the sunset. 

Schloss Zeil, with some pretty cool-looking clouds thanks to the sunset.

The next trip I took was my first trip to Edinburgh, Scotland in may. It was without a doubt one of my favorite places I’d ever been to- seeing as it’s the only thing I blogged about this year (oops) you can read all about it in my previous posts! 

Two weeks after I got back, on the first weekend in june, I spent three days in a place called Hopfen am See, which is close to Füssen in Bavaria with my entire family. It was a belated 50th anniversary present to my grandparents (shoutout to them- being married to the same person for 50 years is definitely something to be proud of!) from both mine and my mother’s brothers family, and since we’re rarely ever all together, it was nice to be able to spend some quality family time with all of them. The weather was gorgeous- it was sunny and really warm the whole time, and we were able to go hiking, pedal-boating and swimming in the lake. We stayed at the Landhaus Kössel, which was close to town and had great, clean rooms, genuinely friendly and helpful staff and a “natural pool” (which was basically a mini-lake, water plants, creatures and all, but insanely beautiful). 

Landhaus Kössel, where we stayed.

The "natural pool"

Downtown Füssen

It was an incredibly relaxing and throughly enjoyable weekend, and Hopfen is definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in southern Germany, especially in the summertime. 

Barley a week after getting back home, we packed our bags again and headed off, this time with our caravan attached to the back of our car. In one day, we made the drive from Stuttgart all the way to our campsite in Vichy, right in the center of France. We spent three full days there, visiting downtown Vichy, an inactive volcano called the Puy de Dom, and a city called Moulins. 

From Vichy we drove back to Germany to a city called Rust, which is home to the Europa Park, the second-largest amusement park in Europe (after Disneyland Paris), for my sisters 13th birthday. We stayed on the campground that belonged to the Park, which we soon found out was a mistake. It was insanely crowded and noisy, no one seemed to know where one spot ended and the next began, and not all of the spots had electricity or close access to water. We circled the campground for quite some time until we finally found a spot big enough for our camper (and our camper really isn’t that big), but were lucky enough to eventually get a good spot when an RV left. 

When we went into the park the next day, it was just as crowded as we expected, but we still had a good time. We had all-day passes, so we were able to leave in the early afternoon, but come back in the evening, just a few hours before closing- at which time the park was much emptier. It was a great end to our vacation.

It wasn’t until early august that we packed up our camper again, this time to head to a place I’d recently been: the UK. The drive up to Edinburgh, the first stop of our Scotland Road Trip, took three days. The first night was spent in Belgium, about half an hours drive away from the Eurotunnel we would need to go through to get onto the island. We opted for the Tunnel rather than a ferry for one simple reason: we were traveling with our dog, and didn’t want to have to leave her alone in the belly of the ship, because on the ferry, it’s mandatory (for people) to leave your car, but animals aren’t allowed above deck. So tunnel it was. 

In total, we spent three weeks traveling through Scotland and England. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I let my photos do the talking in my last blog post: A Summer Road Trip- Scotland in Pictures. 

Another place I got to see this year that’s been on my wish list for forever was Amsterdam. I spent a long weekend there in early September, at the Camping Zeeburg campground, which I can only recommend to anyone. It was clean, friendly and only a ten minute walk from the next subway station that takes you straight into the city. 

The remainder of my year was spotted with day trips to cities like Cologne, Dresden, Leipzig and Prague. 

The famous Kölner Dom in Cologne

Leipzig

A pretty powerful mural in Leipzig. It's full of sayings like "The wall must go" and "We are the people". 

The Frauenkirche in Dresden.

Beautiful Prague. Unfortunately, we didn't have the best weather- it was pretty rainy and overcast the whole time.

Czech architecture is pretty amazing.

2014 has taken me to so many amazing places and given me so many opportunities. I feel like I’ve grown a lot more independent, confident and optimistic and learned a lot in the last year, and can’t wait to see what 2015 brings- Ireland, England, Hungary, maybe Sweden, and if I’m really lucky even Kenya. One of my resolutions for the new year is to post more on this blog, so hopefully I’ll take you with me everywhere I go. I wish you all only the best for 2015, and (even though I’m totally not qualified for this) want to give you a piece of advice to make this year the best one yet: live your life in a way that when time machines are invented someday, 2015 will be the year you’ll want to come back to. 

:)

A Summer Road Trip- Scotland in Pictures

This summer, I went on an amazing road trip through England and Scotland with my family. I could sit here, four months later with the snow falling outside my window, and write pages upon pages about how beautiful it was: but a picture is worth a thousand words, so why tell you when I could show you?

The first night of our trip was spent in Belgium. We had an amazing campground right by the beach, so of course my sister and I took about a million photos by the water- this one is probably my favorite.

After three days of driving, we finally made it to Scotland!

Our first stop was the capital, Edinburgh.

Edinburgh as seen from The Mound. 

Of course my sister and I went into Camera Obscura and took a bunch of silly pictures...

…but there's no denying that the view from the top is one of Edinburgh's best.

The Grassmarket is also always worth a visit- two streets stacked on top of eachother isn't something you see every day.

Our next stop was Aberlour, in the Highlands.

It's not a trip to Scotland if you don't hit up a Whiskey distillary- or five. This was the Cardhu Distillary in Aberlour.

We also took a tour of the Glen Moray Distillary, where we learend a lot about the process of Whiskey-making. 

Some of the casks where whiskey is stored to mature over several years. Two had plastic bottoms so we could see the difference that a different type of cask makes- the whiskeys are completely different colors.

Wow, something not whiskey-related! We took a day trip to the town of Pennan, where the movie "Local Hero" was filmed. 

Loch Ness is a must for a proper Scotland road trip, so next, we spent three days in Inverness.

After Inverness we stayed in a town called Fort Williams, in the west of Scotland. From there we took a day trip to the Isle of Skye. 

Kilt Rock on the Isle of Skye, a waterfall that empties right into the sea.

One of my personal highlights from the stay in Fort Williams was taking a ride on the Jacobite Train (aka the Hogwarts Express)... 

And crossing the Glenfinnan Viaduct.

On our last day in Scotland, we visited Oban. We wanted to tour the Whiskey distillary, but they were all booked out for that day, so we just walked around and explored the city.

We ended our Road Trip with three days in London, a city that’s been on my travel bucket list for as long as I can remember. Even though we couldn’t go to the Warner Bros Studios  (which I had been looking forward to), I still had an amazing time- and there’s always next time, right?

We did all the typical tourist-y things, like visit Tower Bridge... 

...see Big Ben...

…and take a ride on the London Eye!

There's just something about the black cabs.

A guard in front of Buckingham Palace.

I mean, obviously I had to visit go to King's Cross as well.

Hyde Park. It actually started raining about two minutes after this picture was taken. 

I truly had a great time exploring the UK with my family. Of course, not everything went smoothly- we got lost a few times,  had to change plans because of stormy weather and don't even get me started on the long discussions about what movies to watch in the camper- but aren't those the small imperfections that make a road trip perfect?