Hold on Tight!

...like I hold onto this bottle of Nailmatic "Pipa" (I once more shamelessly painted my nails at the office today) that I got from the Empress. She has berated me for my slacking on the post front, but rest assured, my dear friends, that new posts will indeed be coming up. Life (and things like an unexpected fever attack for example) got in the way, but I will be showing off my London bargain haul for example soon. In the pic above you can already see one of my new treasures, a bracelet from &OtherStories that I bought (not on sale) and love. I was really excited to check out this store which so far has branches in very few cities and was not disappointed. Bear with me.

Shores Old and New

Hey! Sorry for the silence, but I've been a) not in a writing mood and b) busy kicking off business travel season. While I didn't really get to see much of it, I was really happy to be back in Prague after a very long time ago. It is not one of my usual haunts for business trips and I was glad to sneak in a little walk downtown on my first evening and have a coffee by the Charles Bridge pictured below. Such a beautiful city and it was a nice change to travel by train as opposed to plane:

Last week I also booked a really exciting trip with the Australian: we're going to be in Singapore for almost a week over Easter. Wohey! Of course I had to go and get a guidebook even though I know that I'll probably not use it when there as I never end up walking around with guidebooks and they are more or less useless baggage in my suitcase.

Why Singapore? I used to always think this was a dead boring place, a bit like Switzerland, but only in Asia and with stricter rules and more expensive to get to, but then I met several people who studied there and really, really loved it. Plus I have been hooked on this hotel ever since reading an article about it. I mean, THAT POOL! A dream for somebody who loves swimming as much as I do. Possibly a little scary for somebody with fear of heights like...me, but never mind. I couldn't get this out of my head and the Australian being as spontaneous as I am, it didn't take us long to whip out our credit cards. Yes, it takes ages to get there from Vienna, but I'm flying with Emirates and plan on watching lots of crappy chick flicks and reading (the guide?) to pass the time I'll be awake. 

Until then, I am happy that I get to revisit other great places this year, such as London this Wed-Sat. I used to go there every year for my girly weekends with L'Italiana, but ever since she moved to the US, this tradition obviously died. I extended my stay as I had planned on meeting up with people who now won't be in London. This means that I'll have to keep myself entertained in exhibitions and, possibly, shops. More soon!

3.5 Days in the Air

One thing I really like about the Frequent Traveller status is that "Miles&More" shows you statistics of all the Star Alliance flights you took in the past year. Turns out I spent 3.5 days in the air (not counting flights on other airlines that are not included here, obviously), which is pretty impressive I find. My "business travel season" kicks off next week with a rare train journey (to Prague) as opposed to air-travel. See you at the airport! 

People. Plans.

So on Friday night I realised I had a long weekend ahead with no.plans.whatsoever and felt like a boring old fart. No, make that smelly old loser. Most people still were away on their Christmas vacation and the "usual suspects", i.e. few remaining single and childless creatures were either sick or had other plans. On the one hand, it was good as I was looking forward to a chilled weekend in Vienna and getting some things I had planned to do at home done. On the other, it felt a bit "wrong" not to have anything liked up.  In the end, however, I ended up with some kind of spontaneous programme every single day.

On Saturday morning I woke up to see a Latvian colleague had contacted me on Google+ and asked if I was in town as he and his girlfriend who had spent NYE in Bratislava were in Vienna on a day-trip. I was indeed in town and spent a lovely afternoon with them, showing them around and taking them to have the best Wiener Schnitzel. On Sunday, I spontaneously met Mr. TD at Café Schwarzenberg and invited him for lunch on Monday. When Mademoiselle texted on Monday morning to ask what I was up to, I invited her along and the three of us then went for a walk in spring weather in the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace (see picture above). I had just taken off my coat and was halfway in the toilet when Snow White called to ask if I wanted to accompany her to the theatre as her subscription-buddy couldn't make it. So no lazy evening at home - I had plenty of those in the past days after all - but 2 hours of culture and drinks with my friend. Overall a very nice and quite eventful weekend for not having any plans!

Rekindled

I still really like my (first generation, unfancy, non-touchscreen) Kindle for reading on the go and also for being able to "dress" it with covers the way you might a Barbie doll, but some things just don't translate that well to e-readers, such as photos or fancy typeset. The two books off my Amazon wishlist that I got for Christmas, Man Repeller and Night Film are perfect examples. I read the former during the holidays and liked being able to look at the pictures on paper. I'm guessing that new Kindles can render colour pictures pretty realistically, but it is still not the same and personally, I only really enjoy reading "text only" books in digital form.

Perhaps this is just another symptom of my recent realisation/New-Years-Resolution-in-disguise that I've been spending way too much time consuming digital media. I don't even want to tell you how many hours a week I spend consuming crappy not really all that interesting videos on YouTube and clicking "refresh" on Instagram and Bloglovin. I really intend to cut down on that this year and spend my precious spare time more actively. Now that my bedroom/study is completed I really have no excuse not to make all the projects I have planned.