Red flow

Another beautiful spot: South Perth. The river, the amazing skyline and funny pelicans (always wondering why it's called swan river when all I see are pelicans), makes it a wonderful place to hang out.

Photo diary Lebanon

LEBANON

A few weeks ago, I visited Lebanon for the second time. It was great to see my boyfriends lovely family again and simply to enjoy this beautiful country. Temperatures were perfect, especially after weeks of heat in Perth and then Dubai, it was great to cool down a little bit. Hightlights of the week I spend in Lebanon were probably seeing the mountains of my boyfriends hometown in East Lebanon (see picture 3,9, 11, 14 and 16), a day trip to Faraya (see picture 6, 15 and 18) and my birthday dinner with the most amazing view (see last picture). Oh, and let's not forget a great night out in club "Life" in Beirut. I've once seen a travel program about Beirut and its nightlife on the Dutch tv and ever since I've always wanted to experience it myself. I can tell you: it's awesome. I enjoyed the simple everyday things of Lebanon as well: good food, a bit of strolling through the city centre and spending time at home with my boyfriends family. 

I've been away from home for an entire month, but time has flown by so fast that I can't believe it's almost april. Luckily for us, just a few days after getting back into our routine, we have a four day easter weekend. As we still have some sleep to catch up on, we woke up extremely late today, had a huge breakfast and later today we'll drive to the coast for a walk. Life isn't that bad at all.

The pictures below are a mix of pictures from instagram (@fashioncontainer) and from my canon 600D, hope you'll enjoy!

It girl

HELLO JETLAG

Being wide awake at 2.30am and feeling exhausted in the afternoon, that's how I've been feeling the last days. Yup, someone is jetlagging. My journey back to Perth didn't went entirely trouble-free as we almost missed our connection flight from Dubai to Perth. We were running like fools and almost hit by one of those airport caddy's. Finally we did manage to catch our flight (it was a matter of seconds), but unfortunately our bagage didn't make it to Perth. Because I have quite a history with losing suitcases, I was fearing the worst. Luckily everything turned out fine, because the suitcases were delivered at our home the next day. We took these pictures sunday, the day after we arrived back in Perth. I look hugely tired, but these Karen Walker look-a-like sunnies from Dotti do a good job at covering up my tired eyes. My journey to Dubai, Lebanon and Holland was simply amazing, I'm so grateful for all my new experiences and so happy to be surrounded by so many lovely people for a whole month. Yup, and now I'm back home in Perth. It feels good. Photo diaries are coming soon, as I still haven't had the time to sort out all my pictures. 

On the go

FARAYA

When people think of Lebanon, they usually don't think about snow and mountains. Well, I can tell you that during the winter it can get pretty cold and the mountains there are simply amazing. As a day-trip, my boyfriend, his brother and sister and me went to Faraya, a beautiful city in the mountains. There's a ski station, you can rent a snow scooter, or you can just have coffee and enjoy the amazing view like we did. It was a really sunny day, so thankfully we weren't very cold. That same day we also visited "Jeita Grotto", which are limestone caves with an extraordinary look, I never saw something like that. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, but I can tell you that it looked like a dream.

As you all know, I've been Holland for over a week now but due to the non-stop snow and extreme cold I haven't been able to take any outfit pictures. But hey, I still have very much to show you from the last weeks of travelling. I hope you don't mind! I'm really not used on this extreme cold weather anymore and to be honest I can't wait to be back in Australia. Grey skies, extreme cold wind, snow and rain: it's not for me. I'm gonna meet up with a couple of friends and enjoy some drinks in town tonight. Fun!

Brand new

GRAPHIC 

Something I always enjoy very much is wearing an all new outfit, it just makes me feel great and... brand new. I've been shopping quite a bit during my stay in Dubai and Lebanon, which enabled me to wear a lot of first-time outfits and I love that. I basically left Perth with an empty suitcase. Well, 24 kilo's. But for me that's very little especially considering the fact I'm away from home for an entire month. The dress I'm wearing today is from Mango and I love its graphic print. I took these pictures at my last day in Dubai and I have to say I already look back at the Dubai pictures with a lot of nostalgia feelings. The awesome city, great shopping and the weather. Holland has been crazy cold the last days, ever since I've arrived it has been snowing, which is very unusual in march. I now realize once again that I really don't like living in this country, the freezing weather has such a bad effect on my mood. I'm still having a great time seeing my friends and family though. Hours of chatting, drinking coffee, good dinners: that's what my days here in Holland look like. Funny enough, returning to Holland after living in Perth for 8 months, makes me say once and for all: Australia is home. It took me some time to feel this way and now I finally do, I'm more than excited and motivated to organize my life in Australia in the best way. 

Beirut city

HOLLAND

Right now I'm in Holland with my family, but I still have plenty of pictures to show you from my journey to Dubai and Lebanon the last weeks. For instance these pictures, which my boyfriend and I made when we spend a day strolling in Beirut. Some sightseeing, shisha breaks and shopping, that's how we spend the day. Travelling the last weeks was a great experience, but at the same time very exhausting. A few days before I flew to Holland I started to feel unwell and I really had to take a break to not become very ill. I made sure I went to bed very early a few nights and now I'm feeling a lot better. The 7th of march was my birthday as I said before. I had a great day: a big birthday cake, some nice presents and a lovely dinner with my boyfriend at night. The next day when I arrived in Holland, my family gave me the birthday feeling by taking me for a nice dinner. It was so lovely to see everyone again and so strange to see my nephews and niece who have all grown so much. I'm staying at my sisters place by the way, which gives me a chance to spend a lot of time with her kids. I used to live in this place with my mom and I never saw this place with my sister living in it. It's funny to see my old room transformed in a boys room. I'm going for dinner tonight with two of my lovely friends. The weather here is horrible by the way, I woke up this morning in a white world. Snow? in march, really?! I'm off to get ready for tonights dinner, talk soon.

Dubai part 2

DUBAI MALL

Yay, finally a second Dubai post! Going through 1300 pictures, yes really(!), isn't an easy job. Anyway, I finally managed to organize it a little bit. These pictures are all taken at day 3 when we went to the Dubai mall (again) and visited Atlantis, a super luxurious hotel on top of the "palm". See picture 11, to understand what I'm talking about. Just outside the Dubai mall there is a fountain show every half an hour and it's truly amazing (See picture 5). The Dubai mall, the Burj Khalifa, the fountains: I love it all. Dubai is crazy good! I'm so sorry for the bad update at my blog these days. Blame it on the unstable internet and my busy days here in Lebanon. Busy days in a good way: I'm having a lot of fun! I promise that my blog update will go back to normal as soon as I'll be in Holland. I'm leaving to Holland in the very early morning of 8 march and will spend there 12 days before returning to Lebanon and then Perth. Tomorrow is my birthday by the way, I'll be 23 and I'm not sure if I should be happy about that or not, haha. I'm feeling pretty exhausted of the last days, so I'll go to bed early tonight. I just wanna make sure I'll be feeling clean & fresh at my birthday! 

Beirut Marina

BLUE SHADES

Yesterday afternoon my brother in law, my boyfriend and I decided to go to Beirut Marina to have a walk. I've never been there before, it's such a beautiful place. I'm wearing an all new outfit (jacket, pants and top) which I bought during a shopping spree in the Dubai Mall. All sale buys, so a very low budget look. After the marina we went into town where we did some shopping. It's so good to be back in Beirut, I really love this city a lot and can definitely see myself living here in the future. Love the shopping streets, the sea, the café's, it has such a great atmosphere. The only thing I don't like about this city is the fact that warm water and electricity are not reliable and neither is the internet. After our shoppingspree we spend a long time in of the café's in Hamra (popular neighbourhood in Beirut) drinking tea and smoking a shisha. Right now I'm preparing myself for a night out, we're going to a club called "Life". I've heard a lot of good stuff about the nightlife in Beirut, so I'm looking forward to that a lot. Tomorrow we're going to the other home of my boyfriends family which is about two hours driving from Beirut and we'll probably spend two days there. Just wanted to let you know what I'm up to, more pictures of Dubai are following soon. 

Dubai part 1

THE DESERT

Wow, time flies when you're having fun! I arrived to Beirut yesterday evening and now I just came back home from a very fun day in town. Dubai was truly amazing, I feel so happy that I got to experience this beautiful city. The very first day we went for a safari in the desert which was quite an experience. Cruising through the desert seems great, but my stomic couldn't handle it. Yep, I've been throwing up, haha. Once we arrived at our destination, a cozy place in the middle of the desert, I knew the tough ride was worth it. We had a great dinner, cuddled camels, saw desert gazelles and enjoyed the sunset. And ofcourse: shishaaa!

Day two we went to discover the main things that Dubai is known for: the Burj Khalifa (highest building in the world), the Burj Arab and ofcourse the Dubai mall. Oh gosh, how much I love that place. A mall which is THAT big that even in two days you can impossibly see all the shops. Also, I was finally reunited with my beloved Zara and immediately developed an obsession for a pair of boots which were unfortunately sold out in my size. I've been looking at 4 different Zara's so far, but without any result. I bought a lot of great stuff in Dubai, it's truly a shopping paradise. Unfortunately we didn't have internet at my boyfriends cousin place, so I was unable to update my blog the last couple of days, so sorry for that. Well, I'm not even sure if I would have been able to update whatsoever, because we were outside everyday from morning till very late. Amazing city, amazing people, amazing food, what more can I wish for? To summarize: Dubai was a great succes and I can't wait to back. Stay tuned, because I've got so much more to show you. For now, enjoy the pictures.