Ballinskelligs Beach

Hi guys!

Today I'd like to share our luck with you. On our second day here in Ireland, Patrick and I went down to the village's beach in the evening and found a place that was more beautiful than we had ever expected: the stunning beach landscape plus the deep blue water plus perfect lighting plus a rainbow! Yes, a rainbow! We felt like the Leprechauns wanted to welcome us to their stunning country :)

Isn't this just breathtaking?

Now I know that the postcards I bought the other day (with similar pictures on them) are probably not even photoshopped.

If you walk along the beach further outside of the village you get to an old burial ground where there are really old headstones and the ruins of a monastery directly by the sea, it's amazingly beautiful there as well! I will show you some pics of it soon.

By the way, while I'm writing this post I'm sitting in our cottage and sipping on a cup of black tea with milk - that's a nice habit I will take back home with me. I know it's totally stupid, but I feel a lot more Irish since I have switched from coffee to the black tea with milk routine. Actually it only happened because they make such a strong coffee here, that even the cafe latte is too much for me (I only like coffee that doesn't taste like coffee haha).

Alright, more about my Ireland adventures in the next post.

Have a lovely day everyone! :)

 

The Hive - I won!

Hi guys!

Between the Ireland posts I'd like to squeeze this one in: THANK YOU SO MUCH! Many many thanks to all you amazing readers out there who kept clicking my little green Kleiderkreisel social plug-in in the last two weeks! Thank you so much for the support, it was really worth it because:

I WON! YAAYY!

How awesome is that?!

Kleiderkreisel, a German clothes swapping website, sponsors a trip to The Hive in Berlin for me and a friend!

The Hive is the first European blogger conference ever.

"The Hive created a blog conference where design and lifestyle bloggers in all their forms— foodies, photographers, mum bloggers, travelers, fashionistas, interior designers, product placers, adventurers — come together, share ideas and connect."

(text and pic above borrowed from the The Hive website)

I can't wait, this is so so cool! Lucky me! :) I'm so excited!

Thanks for clicking guys!

And thanks to Kleiderkreisel for this great prize!

Have a lovely day and prepare for more Ireland pics in the next posts!

first steps in Ireland

Hi guys!

How are you doing?

I'm having a fantastic time here in Kerry, Ireland at the moment, Patrick and I are totally enjoying the beautiful landscape!

Here are the first couple of photos, first of all some pics of our accommodation (poor quality because they were taken with my mobile phone, sorry about that):

Our lovely little cottage is called "Solar Lodge" and it's located at the very end of a narrow dirt road outside of a tiny village on the coast. It's magical here, the panoramic view, the landscape, the food and the people are amazing! :)

The day before yesterday we drove around and came across this little beach called Kells Bay:

The weather was rainy and grey on our first two days, but it has gotten a little better by now. However, as we're on the coast, there are some crazy winds everywhere we go, but we're still enjoying ourselves :) I have a warm coat and my new floral rubber boots with me, so everything's alright.

On our second day here we drove up to the next bigger city Killarney. Actually we had planned to visit the National Park there, but we went to the city center first and forgot the time while shopping at Penney's (a.k.a. Primark) and at the lovely little souvenir shops. We have delayed the National Park trip to today and we'll hit the road as soon as I've finished this post here.

Here are the only two pics I took in Killarney, they show the main street and our lunch at a coffee shop called O'Brien's:

I hoe you liked the little overview of what we did on day 1 and 2. Actually we also visited another beach in the evening of our first day, but we took so many photos of it, that I will put them into an own post later. I promise you these are the most amazing photos ever because we were so lucky to have a beautiful beach, sunset and a rainbow, all at the same time. :)

You'll see it yourself soon.

Have a lovely day!

Greetings from the Emerald Island!

guest post over at Madline Quaint

Hi guys!

Today I'm guest blogging over at my friend's blog Madeline Quaint about my dream closet and about how I restyled a look from one of my wishlists with pieces that I already own.

If you have a few minutes it would be so nice if you head over and take a look or maybe even leave a comment?! :)

Have a wonderful day!

Bad Taste Toast goes Ireland

(photo borrowed from here)

Hi guys!

Just a quick post tonight! I'm only dropping in to let you know I will be in beautiful Ireland for one whole week starting from tomorrow! :)

I know we have internet there, so you can expect some really nice landscape photos and Ireland posts in the course of the next days.

Wishing you all a lovely day!

in the streets of Maastricht

Hi guys!

Ah, I'm so in the vacation mood already because I'll be going to beautiful Ireland next Wedsnesday! :)

So to make the most of the fact that Patrick has already taken an extra week off at work, we decided to escape the daily grind by going on a little city trip to Maastricht.

Maastricht is a small city in the Netherlands, actually it's the most Southern city of the whole country if I remember correctly. It's the capital of the province Limburg and only has about 120.000 citizens, but it was granted with the awards for "best shopping city" and "most beautiful city of the Netherlands" in the last years.

Furthermore I had not been there for over 10 years (last time on a school trip in 6th grade or so) and everybody kept telling me that it's so nice there, hence it was time to check it out again.

I live pretty close to the Dutch border, so it is only a one hour car drive away.

♥ jacket: new yorker ♥ scarf: primark ♥ cardi + dress: h&m (both 2nd hand via Ebay) ♥ necklace: china souvenir ♥ bag: fleamarket ♥ flats: thrifted ♥

We were lucky with the weather: it was pretty chilly but at least it didn't rain! At the moment there is this crazy unsettled weather torturing us here in the very Western part of Germany, we have a saying that goes something along the lines "April, April, does what he wants" (freely interpreted) about April weather.

Anyway, so no rain means I could wear comfortable flats for walking around. Furthermore I really wanted to wear my lovely "new" dress that I got dirt cheap via Ebay, so I built a comfy, yet warm enough outfit around it.

I've been living in Düsseldorf for several years now and some of the things I appreciate most about living here is living near a river. Seriously, it's amazing to be able to walk along the river and I love how the bridges and riversides make the cityscape.

Maastricht has the river Maas that divides the city in two parts and their most famous bridge is this picturesque cobble stone bridge called "Sint Servaasbrug", located right in the city centre. It's so pretty, a great place to take photos. Then we walked along the riverside promenade and later entered one of the lovely little alleys to roam the old town and do some (window) shopping.

The city centre and old town of Maastricht is a lovely place, everything looks so pretty, there are so many cute traditional brick houses, decorated facades, ornate window frames and doors etc.

It's a bit like I imagine Welsh small towns to look like, however I've never been in Wales so I cannot guarantee for the correctness of this compare ;) 

I didn't do too much shopping there because I'm a bit short of money at the moment (end of the month...), but let me tell you Maastricht really is a great shopping city. Like I mentioned before, it got an award for this - justly! I have never seen so many shoe stores in such a small city! They have anything from Jeffrey Campbell to sport sneaker stores like Sidestep to Tango and many more, shoe paradise! I also spotted the usual suspects H&M, Esprit, Bershka etc. and some stores we don't have here like Didi, Dept, Scotch & Soda and so on.

My absolute favourite was a non-chain store called Sissy Boy (and I found out they also have an online shop yay!). Their shop window immediatly caught my eye, everything looked so pretty and was decorated amazingly. They offer clothing (men, women, children) and home accessories and everything looks like it came straight out of the famous Impressionen catalogue - light colours, natural materials, pastel florals, shabby finishings, ah beautiful!

Before we left I also had to have a waffle. There was a bright pink candy shop selling freshly made waffles with caramelised sugar crust, mmhhhhhhh yummy! The perfect bad weather alternative to ice cream :)

It was a really nice day we spent there, I can recommend visiting Maastricht if you ever have the chance. it's rather small so you won't need all day to see everything, but of course there also are museums and cultural sights outside of the city centre that we didn't visit, so maybe you would need more time to additionally check out all of them.

I think Patrick and I will return when the weather is better, because I'm sure it's even lovelier by the riverside in the summer (this time with ice cream!). Furthermore we should return when I have more money left to go shopping ;)

Have you guys ever been to Maastricht? Do you have any recommendations or go-tos for it? Or maybe other recommendations concerning Dutch cities around the border area?

Have a lovely Sunday!

now playing: the gaslight anthem - changing of the guards

simple business

Hi guys!

How is everyone doing?

I'm back home from a nice but really exhausting day off that Patrick and I spent in the Netherlands.

We went to Maastricht in the morning because I heard it's lovely and I had not been there for over 10 years, so I was curious.

Afterwards we also made a detour to Landgraaf, which is also in the Netherlands, to a big knick-knack outlet store where they have everything, from clothes over garden furniture to kitchenware and whatnot.

Of course I took lots of photos ;) I will post them in the course of the next days.

♥ sweater: forever21 ♥ blouse: promod ♥ jeans: esprit ♥ shoes: h&m ♥ watch: casio ♥ necklace: jewelmint ♥

I wore this outfit from the pictures to work earlier this week. On Monday and Tuesday I knew I would spend the whole day at the office, from 9-6, so I went for a very comfy yet not too boring look. Jeans and comfortable sneakers are definitely a must on these "dressing simple" days and the layered shirts came together because I recently bought this sweater in the sale and wanted to try out how it looks with a longer blouse (btw the blouse has light blue stripes, you just can't see it because of the overexposure).

I've never been a big "shirts layerer" because normally I don't freeze so easily, but at the moment there is this moody cold April weather which is driving me crazy and makes me feel cold quicker than usual.

To put a little eyecatcher into this simple ensemble I added my beloved sparkling "Poseidon Disc" necklace.

(yay for unintendedly tucking in the blouse with my legs)

Alright, nothing more to tell, pretty unspectacular post this time.

Now I have to wrap some birthday gifts for a friend that I'm going to meet tomorrow.

Have a lovely Friday! :)

P.S. Oh and by the way, could you do me a favour and click this little thingy below please? It helps me to stay in a ranking where I can win a tip to a blogger conference.
You don't have to do anything else, just click it:

♥ ♥  THANKS!  ♥ ♥

make life a computer and get with the program

Hi guys and welcome new readers!

As it has been a stressful week for me so far,  I really appreciate that you all beared with me and that there were even some more new people thinking my lil' corner here would be worth following. Thanks for that! :)

Related to this I can already tell you that there will be a nice giveaway for my followers coming soon...

Oh and also thanks for your comments, they always make my day! I couldn't manage to get back to all of them, but I surely will catch up with this in the course of the next days.

♥ jacket: forever21 ♥ dress: h&m ♥ necklace: six ♥ belt: primark ♥ flats: ebay ♥

Like i said, this week has been so stressful - but today came the unexpected end of the stress: at noon my university classes were over, so I was on m way to the office to work some extra hours in advance because I will be on holiday next week. I had almost reached the bus stop when a colleague called to tell me that we had a complete computer system breakdown and that no one was able to work, so they had sent home all student assistants. I didn't have to come, awesome! And suddenly I had the afternoon off - oh how I love such unexpected changes in the daily grind! :)

To use the time well I headed downtown to run some errands, got some knick-knack for a birthday present and  treated myself with a new t-shirt and a new sweater from the sale. Lovely afternoon!

Speaking of new stuff: the dress and jacket in the pictures are pieces I purchased online recently. The dress is from the latest H&M Divided collection and this awesome jacket (my new favourite!) is one of the pieces from my very first F21 order. I didn't know that F21 has an online shop for Germany, I just found out about it a few weeks ago and since then my wishlist there has gotten longer and longer, they have such lovely stuff!

I fell in love with the lace jacket at first sight, especially because of the colour - besides my all time favourites navy and brown, deep red is one of my new crushes ;)

So, lace, polkadots and leopard print, can there be anything better than all three of them together in one outfit? Well, not for me.

Tomorrow Patrick and I will both have the day off and spent it on a one day short trip to the Netherlands, to Maastricht to be precise. We just need to get out of our normal surroundings from time to time and the Dutch border is only a half an hour car drive away, so we will stroll along the Maas riverside, roam the picturesque streets, go shopping and eat ice cream. Can't wait, hope the weather will be nice there.

Have a wonderful day!

 

now playing: raised fist - friends and traitors