Saturday, August 31, 2013

Taking it SLO-ly

Now what a pun, raaaajt? So I was in Ljubljana from Wed to early this morning. Due to the fact that a colleague from another office didn't make it onto his first plane from Warsaw to Munich on Wednesday morning and couldn't rebook for that day, I more or less had an afternoon to myself. Since my hotel room literally was a single room this time and felt rather claustrophobic I had the perfect excuse to explore the city centre which I hadn't been to properly for quite some time. I discovered that there are several companies advertising boat-trips on the Ljubljanica river and got said colleague to join me a "cruise" on Friday evening. Also on Friday, I made an unexpected purchase (or two) just when I thought that 2 Revlon nailpolishes for 50% off would sum up the damage. Oh well...my little bargain-hunter I spied not one, but two reduced pairs of flats I couldn't resist at Ljubljana's fancy department store Galerija Emporium (pictured in the second night-shot below). And, yes, this is the 4th pair of shoes from the Pretty Ballerinas brand, they are just so comfortable and I have bought every one of them when they were on sale and thus below €100. Here are some impressions from the Slovenian capital in late summer plus my shopping exploits. Oh, and according to a Slovenian colleague, those shoes hanging across various streets in the old town are not art installations, but a tradition where students hang up shoes to mark graduating from high school. Who knew!
Do you find these buggers as hawt as I do? I love the pointed metallic green flats in particular!

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Neon!

When this post goes live, I am hopefully (safely) on the way to Ljubljana to kick off "business travel season" again after a longish summer break. The weather has been quite autumnal this week, too and yesterday I decided to combat the grey outside by wearing one of my favourite outfits as shown in this post. I also paired it with my new enamel bracelet and the chain link necklace I pimped with a neon band. It is super long and I can wear it in three tiers. Only a few years ago, I would not have touched these 80s throwback colours with a bargepole, but thanks to a certain fashion amnesia (or amnesty, rather?) I have been embracing the bold colours of my teenage years with a vengeance this spring and summer...

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Soft Targets

I don't know about you, but I tend to have a kind of mental to-do-list when I have a day off or am on vacation at my parents'. It hardly consists of demanding tasks and I don't tear out my hair if I don't get around to doing it in the end, but there are always some things I intend to tick off that imaginary list. Here's what I had in mind for my 10-days vacation in KLU:
1. Visit all my friends' new apartments and houses (done: see previous post) and an old (literally) family friend.
2. Try to stay away from shoe-stores and other traps where I usually spend money (well...also see previous post. Didn't buy any shoes, though!)
3. Get my car serviced and clean it inside and out (all done, yay)
4. Make some bracelets (I had so much pent up creativity, I ended up making about 15)
5. Check out furniture stores and organise stuff for my bedroom revamping project (ordered a new bed and bought lights for my future walk-in-closet)
6. Diminish my pile of reading material (in this case my backlog of Monocle magazines - I am a subscriber, but never find the time to read it - and the Steve Jobs biography I left at my parents' 3/4 read): quota achieved!
7. Learn the cyrillic alphabet. Postponed. I didn't open the booklet I recently ordered from Amazon and took along optimistically. I bought it as every time I'm in Bulgaria or Serbia it bugs me that I can read about 60% of the letters and almost get a headache from trying to decipher street signs.
8. Don't check work e-mail and stay largely offline. Managed the first part (and am slightly dreading an inbox on fire on Monday...) and hadn't opened my computer since Tuesday night when I wrote the last post, but still kept checking the usual suspects on my phone (Instagram, Bloglovin, my private GMail).
9. Spend as much time outdoors and at the lake as possible. Thankfully, the weather was co-operating!
10. ?

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

So Far: Architecture, Trea-Hugging, Grammar and More

I've been in KLU since Thursday, when I arrived with la Mademoiselle in tow. We had a great if too short time together (at least she claimed to think so as well!) and I really enjoyed playing tour-guide in the town where I spent the first 18 years of my life. I even showed her my school, which is not any old school, but housed in an 800-years-old former Cistercian monastery and surrounded by a beautiful park complete with river and pond. Don't believe me? Here's a picture of said school:
The park that is adjacent to my alma mater houses some seriously impressive trees, such as this fellow I'm trying to hug:
I've managed to tick off every item that was on my "architecural tour list" already, the new apartment, house and penthouse of 3 good friends. All three were very, very nice in their own way and since I didn't ask permission to post pictures of any of their homes on the internet, I hardly took any and will merely show you the view from Frida's summer apartment overlooking the beautiful Wörther See to get an idea that they were in fact more than just "nice". Here you can see the Mademoiselle deep in conversation with Frida, picture taken from behind the blinds in the living room:
As a regular reader of this blog you will remember that visits downtown and popping into the local Peek&Cloppenburg in particular spell D.A.N.G.E.R. (to my bank account). Well, today was no different and I first picked up the Furla bag that already had caught my attention when I innocently showed my visitor one of my favourite bag stores in town. It was still waiting for me...clearly fate! Then I was idly perusing the sales racks as my Mum was trying on stuff in P&C when I found a gorgeous Marc O'Polo cotton dress (made out of a Liberty fabric Need I say more?!) It was a size larger than my usual one, but 50% off so I tried it on. Well, it has a nice loose fit and what's more, goes with the bag that I bought half an hour earlier. See for yourself in my changing room selfie:
At home, I took a picture with flash to give you a more accurate idea of the colours:
The bag can be worn cross-body or with the strap adjusted to shoulder-length and shorter. Love! It was reduced as well. I felt semi-justified for the purchase as I had previously sold a bunch of my DIY bracelets to friends of my parents and thus earned a bit of "pocket money".
This morning as I was waiting for my car to get its first annual check-up (happy to report that Flocki 2.0 doesn't have any ailments whatsoever), I went into some furniture stores that are in the vicinity of my Toyota garage. At one of them, I took a double take when I noticed these posters that were all over the place:
Notice anything strange here, you German speakers? Well, I at least thought "WTF!" when I saw the plural of Lager spelled with an umlaut. However, a little online research showed that even the Duden, THE authority on German grammar lists is as a plural variation. You live and learn. Well, at least it rhymes with Schnäppchenjäger (bargain hunter)...
In other "news", I have swum in two lakes, made several bracelets, ate some of my favourite homemade food and overall enjoyed some chilled out days. I hope the worker bees don't hate me too much. Your fate will be mine next week.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Bits and Bobs

Well, it has been cooler for some days now, but I was still too lazy/busy to post. Here's a collective haul of all my (summer sale) finds from the past 2 months before I go on summer vacation #2, 10 days in KLU.

I accidentally deleted the pic from my SD card, but I also wanted to show you a photo of the cool and very practical 4-wheeler cabin baggage trolley I got from Lipault for €65. I guess nobody else wanted the metallic surface I chose. 
On my first day in Nice, I hit the shops and bought this pair of nice (and very comfortable) studded leather sandals from Comptoir des Cottoniers (60% off):
The morning of the day when I departed for Nice, I got a French pedi at DM as part of a free 3-hours pampering package for having accumulated 1500 loyalty points. I liked the look and wore it for 2 weeks, but as an avid hater of long toe-nails (shudder!), I'm not a particular fan of this look on the toes as it creates the illusion of longer nails...
At Galeries Lafayette, I bought a nice floppy hat for the beach and also picked up two scarves for around €10. They are both huge and extremely lighweight cotton. I got one in blue for my mum and this neon-rimmed one for myself:
Speaking of neon, I was quite intrigued by a brand I had never noticed and which is obviously for a target group 20 years younger than me, but anyway, I popped into a Mim store one day and walked out with this cool jacket for...tadah!...€9:
Back in Vienna, I finally jumped on the "statement necklace" bandwagon, having been to stingy to buy any for full-price. This beauty was 19,90 at Hallhuber and looks very grand and royal...in an edgy way. I also picked up this neon yellow bangle for €9 while there. It has a hinge, which is important for me as my hands are strangely un-flexible for wriggling into bracelets despite actually having quite small hands and thin wrists. The purple bag in the background is from Kiko, which was the reason why I went to the mall that has a Hallhuber store... 
I've been loving dainty, stackable rings recently and after having seen "Love" rings at many blogs, was quite thrilled when this gold-plated beauty was back in stock at New One. It was ony €25 and I love it. Here, you can see it with Chanel "Cinema" nailpolish that I bought upon recommendation by the Empress:

As you should know by now, I am a Marketer's dream creature, ordering immediately when somebody sends me an e-mail with a voucher or promises free shipping. Well, Westwing lured me with a voucher and I bought 2 machine-embroidered pillow-cases (with pillow) in this pattern that reminds me of Japan:
This is it for now. On this Wednesday-that-feels-like-a-Friday (as tomorrow is a public holiday here) I am very tempted to wish you all a very happy weekend and I probably won't post before that anyway as the Mademoiselle is accompanying me to Carinthia. 

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Hawt

Hey! I'm still alive and haven't covered myself with nail stickers entirely in case you were wondering. Even though my office is nice and chilly and I am actually really enjoying this scorcher we're experiencing, my handful of remaining brain cells does seem to have become even more sluggish and I can't motivate myself to post at the moment. I need all that motivation to do work stuff and don't switch on my computer at home in the evening or on weekends. In fact, I try to get home to my non-airconditioned flat as late at night as possible when it has already cooled down. The Australian's friend who joined the gang in Nice on my last weekend there just sent us some pictures and I really liked the one above, where (from left to right) the Australian, the Mademoiselle and yours truly have almost reached the Promenade des Anglais after a walk through the Old Town of Nice. 
I promise I won't be MIA for too long. Keep checking back or add me on Bloglovin. My Instagram feed will be alive and kicking as I am truly addicted.

Friday, August 02, 2013

Conversation-Starter Nails...

When I was in Nice last week, I of course had to stop by Sephora. Nobrainer. I didn't buy much, actually, but was glad to see they had the same nail decals on sale for € 2 that I already picked up in Paris.
They already look a bit worse for wear and my cuticles aren't their sexiest in that photo taken on the beach, but you get the idea. Back in Vienna, I replaced those that had chipped and wore them in the office until yesterday. Never ever have so many people commented on my manicure! What was really funny was that some of my male colleagues were particularly fascinated by them and couldn't grasp how you could just stick those on and then get off again. When I paid in shops, staff remarked on them and one lady exclaimed "How adorable, just like the bed linen", which I found interesting as my associations would be more along the lines of dresses, aprons or table linen. Be that as it may, I found that these innocent little nail stickers were the chat-up equivalent of walking your dog. Well, perhaps not chat-up in a romantic sense, but anway...
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