don't put down your guns yet

Hello!

People, work is taking its toll. After almost five weeks I can feel that working so much is driving me crazy. The last couple of days were full of stress and emotional ups and downs and eventually yesterday it happened: my keys were gone.

I came home from work, stood in front of the house door and my keys were gone. Nowhere to be found. I was close to tears because it had been a really crappy day already - but the missing keys were the icing on top!

I rang my neighbour's doorbells and someone let me in so I was at least able to enter the staircase. Lo and behold! My next door neighbour had left a note for me on the notice board: I had left my keys on my apartment door in the morning!

I'm such an idiot! Luckily she kept the keys until I came home. You can't imagine what horror scenarios of an empty apartment and all my money and stuff gone went through my head! I actually keep my money in the bank and not at home but I was panicking so whatever.

Now I've decided to go to bed earlier, get more rest and pay more attention to my physical and mental state of health until this stressful time is over. Over the last couple of weeks I've simply tried to get too much stuff done all at once. To avoid key incidents or similar catastrophes I'll write to-do lists and categorize them into different levels of importance.

Speaking of work: my internship has been awesome so far! I've optimized our company's event pages on XING (German version of LinkedIn), created posts for different event blogs, learned a lot about SEO (search engine optimization) and - drumroll - I got my own intern blog, so cool! The website will be launched next week and I'll blog about my experiences as an Online Marketing intern. Doing blogger stuff as a real job and getting paid for it is pretty much everything I was wishing for. Now I definitely know what kind of job I want for the future.

So as you can see my life has been full of positive and negative things (in turns) lately but in general I'm still doing okay enough to push on through and make the best of it until the end of September.

Nevertheless I really can't wait for October because I'll have so much more time again. I'll only work 2-3 days a week and use my spare time to spend it with family and friends to have some farewell celebrations before I hop into the plane at the end of October and leave Europe behind.

By the way the outfit is autumnal just like the weather here. I broke my shopping ban to buy this beautiful floral dress last week... I'm speechless in my own defence here, just couldn't resist the lovely print.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

preparations for a year down under - an update on my australia plans

Hellooo!

I haven't mentioned my move to Australia lately but many of you asked if it's still on, so: yes!

Let me give you an update:

The visa

I received the confirmation for my work and travel visa some weeks ago. It will be valid for one year and enables me to work in whatever job I want as long as I don't work in the same job for longer than six months.

Usually you have to apply for a visa on some government website but I was given the good advice to contact the Australian Shop in Cologne. You pay some extra money and they take care about all the application stuff for you. All I had to do was wait for their email and print it out, so I didn't have any stress at all.

You can find more info about different visas online at the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

The flight

I'm lucky to be friends with a travel agent. She was so kind to find an awesome flight offer for me. The flight is the most expensive part about going to Australia, so I'm glad I was able to book it three months in advance. It's like with other flights too: the earlier you book, the cheaper it will be.

Especially for people with a limited visa I recommend looking for an Open Return Ticket. You pay for both flights (there and back) now and then you're able to freely choose a date for the return flight within one year starting from the day you took the outward flight.

I paid about 1000 € in total now and the advantage is that I don't have to worry about the return flight as it's already safe now.

In total my flight will take about 19,5 hours (including a two hours stop in Abu Dhabi to change aircraft), which is long but still one of the shortest flights available.

If you need some more advice: this little booking guide for flying to Australia is really helpful too.

The plans

I will leave at the end of October and move in with my boyfriend in Perth. He has already rented a cute little house for us, hence I don't have to worry about a thing accommodation-wise. 

I have saved up some money to bring me through the first few weeks there without a job.

However I will start looking for a job as soon as possible (maybe even apply online before I leave Germany) because I'm anxious about being unemployed and broke after a while.

My dream is to find a marketing position or at least another internship but if it fails I'll take café or retail jobs too to stay financially stable.

Jarryd and I also plan to go on trips so he can show me the country. Sydney and Melbourne are definitely on the bucket list as well as lots of places in Western Australia. Maybe even a trip over to New Zealand if I have enough money.

I'm really looking forward to going to Oz so soon!

By the way I'm not planning to move over forever (yet) and also my visa doesn't let me anyway, so I'll be back to Germany after a year (I also wouldn't want to waste the return flight because it's already paid).

Nobody knows what will come afterwards, we will see... 

Here are some more helpful links in case you are planning to go to Australia:

SEEK (biggest Australian job website)

Gumtree (Australia's version of Craigslist)

Australia on Pinterest (to inspire your personal bucket list)

Fit For Travel (advice on vaccinations)

Australian Slang Words (weird and sometimes funny vocabulary)

If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments and I will answer them.

Happy Thursday!

foxes and lace

Hello guys!

It's still August but this outfit shows that I am getting all excited and ready for autumn. It's the same as every year: I can't wait for cozy chunky knit pieces, all the hot pumpkin latte goodness, colourful fallen leaves and wrapping myself up in huge scarves to take a walk through the streets in cold weather. I love it! Hopefully I'll get as much autumn as possible before I leave for Australia.

I see the new collections with lovely coats, boots and cardigans in the shop windows everywhere and feel really tempted to stock up on warm pieces but always have to promise myself to not break my shopping ban. I also won't really need autumn/winter clothes as it will be summer in Perth when I go there. Soon I'll be wearing breezy dresses again, it seems so unreal to me.

What about you? Have you already bought some nice pieces for the colder season? What are your favourite autumn trends this year?

Leave me your replies in the comments.

Happy Thursday!

everybody used to call you lucky

Hello loves!

It's Monday and I have to admit I had to double check if that's correct because I have completely lost track of what day it is since I don't have the weekends off anymore. This morning I thought it was Friday and last Friday I thought it was Tuesday.

I'm trying to smoke less cigarettes, I'm trying to lose some weight, I'm trying to keep up with doing the housework and I'm trying really hard to find a sleeping pattern so I don't oversleep and arrive late for work. Wait a second - did I just say I'm trying to lose weight? Well, I'm snacking on some delicious Dutch Dubbel Vla right now but Shush! you didn't read that.

As for the outfit: I threw this together spontaneously the other morning.

I'm one of these fuzzy girls who prepare the whole outfit for the day the night before. So that night I arranged the denim shirt and belt plus a cardigan and my green skirt neatly on my armchair.

The next morning however I felt really blergh, found the green skirt too short, the cardi too unflattering and hence changed the whole outfit by grabbing the next best skirt from the floor and the parka from the coat rack. I was already in a hurry but remembered I had bought a new necklace some days ago and suddenly I really had to wear it, so I ran back to the bedroom to put it on. Et voilà I was (finally) ready to leave the house. Hey, if I have to run to the bus stop I want to at least look good doing it!

This "necklaces over button-up shirts"-thing is really growing on me. I think I have to keep my eyes open for more beautiful statement necklaces.

Hope all of you had a good start into the new week!

rollin' and tumblin'

Hello people!

I've gotten back into the groove of taking outfit pics regularly - more or less at least.

In the last two weeks I found it really hard to sit down and be productive after I came how from work. The desk still is my favourite place but I rather sat down to watch documentaries or listen to the new The Gaslight Anthem album. Is anyone else out there a big fan?

I fell in love with their music back when The 59 Sound dropped. Man did I play this record on repeat! Of course the first thing that catches your ear is a good melody but I'm also a lyrics person. No matter how awesome a song is, stupid lyrics ruin it! That's why I can't stand most Top 100 songs.

The Gaslight Anthem however always really hit my weak spot with their beautiful choice of words. Then they add the right sound, melody and lots and lots of melancholy to their music and I'm over the moon.

I even wanted a tattoo with a line from one of their songs once but ended up not getting it done because I couldn't find a nice typography. It was "What you don't have you don't need it anymore." from the song "Stay lucky" which was very fitting after a breakup.

Beautiful. This simple sentence has given me so much ever since.

Let's keep the rest of this post short and sweet: I will quickly tell you something about the outfit because it's already past 8 and I still have to do the washing.

So the plaid shirt is a favourite of mine because of the lovely colour combo. My boyfriend called me bogan when I wore it but what does he know anyway?! Bogan at heart forever! The t-shirt is Carhartt (second hand via Ebay for about 5 bucks), the H&M jeans are the best because they fit before and after the 15 kilo weight loss and the shoes are Minnetonka (also a second hand buy, about 30 bucks via Kleiderkreisel).

Have a nice day loves!

time issues

Hello!

I am so sorry for the lack of posts guys! I would love to blog more but two jobs and one internship just don't leave much time to do it on a regular base.

I'm still in the process of finding a new blogging routine between work and the few precious hours of spare time during the week. I have not been successful so far but I'll keep trying, so there will be more posts again soon.

For the moment you can follow the Bad Taste Toast Facebook page to stay posted, I upload snapshots or other snippets there every few days.

Happy Monday! :)

sailing to hyrule

Hellooo!

Long time no see!
It's been a bit quiet round here lately because I've been busy working in my two jobs. In addition I started my Marketing internship today and thus will be working in three jobs for the next two months.
Despite the lack of free time I like working over the weekends. I have been shifted from the café to the frozen yoghurt shop permanently now and I really enjoy meeting so many different interesting people there. A big part of our regular customers is Japanese, which is nice because I get to learn some Japanese vocabulary. The other day they started teaching me all the different flavours. I already know strawberry - ichigo!
Also one of my lovely regulars brought me Matcha Kitkat from her trip to Tokyo, so nice!
Another favourite customer of mine is an old Japanese lady. She is a philosophy professor and the sweetest granny ever. Every Sunday she goes to church and afterwards drops in for cake and coffee with her African friend and church buddy. She is always dressed nicely in matching colours from head to toe and always wears a hat while he is often dressed in traditional African batik suits hand-dyed by his aunt.
They are such a lovely unlike couple.

In the pics (which are from last week) you can see me proudly presenting you my new favourite tote bag: the Zelda bag! With the Triforce! Gold on black! Can it get any better?
The Wind Waker is one of my favourite games ever (but no. 1 is Ocarina of Time of course!) and so I thought it would be nice to pair the bag with my sailboat dress (because in case you don't know: The Wind Waker is all about Link sailing around on a cute little boat).

Ho have you guys been? I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!

Have a lovely day!