Welcome to America...and my first post of 2016!

Happy New Year guys! Uh, bit late I know. I'm not sure how much I've mentioned but the last few months have been quite hard for me and I've taken an extensive blogging break. I didn't want to do any half-hearted posts so I thought it was better for me to take the time for myself and figure out myself and what I want from life. Anyway, fast-forward to now. The beginning of this year has been of a mixed bag; I've been off work due to depression and anxiety yet I've just been on a pretty much life changing holiday. 

I booked a trip to California to get away for a week and sort my head out. A few days ago I flew from Heathrow to LAX and picked up hire car from the airport. I planned on getting a Ford Focus; a smallish but effective car to get me from A to B but low and behold this is what I ended up driving away...

So this upgrade was bloody ridiculous! I've never driven or even been a passenger in a car this fancy in my life so getting to drive this is America of all places was a bit daunting. After an 11 and a half hour flight with very little sleep, two hours in immigration and picking up my luggage, I had to to try and navigate myself 2 and a half hours down the West Coast to San Diego. It's safe to say this was such an adventure. I've never driven in another country before, let alone one where you drive on the opposite side of the road. It took me a good 45 minutes to get to grips with the car before I drove off. I feel really proud of myself for jumping out of my comfort zone, trying something new and going on a complete adventure. 

Driving in California was surprisingly easy! I had weeks of anxiety before I arrived, worried about it. I Youtube'd American driving lessons (I know right) to get to grips with driving on the right hand side of the road but all the worrying was for nothing. I found it a lot easier to drive in the states to be honest! There are hardly any round abouts and mostly the roads are in a grid system. 

One of my favourite spots in San Diego was a place called La Jolla. Here you can find seals moping around on the rocks and beaches and get up close and personal! I was a bit scared because some of them kept barking at me but it was hysterical really. The area was absolutely stunning as was the scenery!

Of course what I was really looking forward to on this trip was the shopping! I visited a couple of Malls in San Diego and my favourite was called 'Fashion Valley'. They had loads of designer shops such as Burberry, Louis Vuitton and the big department stores such as Bloomingdales and Macy's. I finally got to visit Bloomingdales and even though I've been to New York twice, I never went there.

I also loved hitting up all of the fast food places such as In-N-Out Burger, IHOP and Denny's. I literally ate my weight in pancakes and burgers. One of my favourite places that I went to was in an area of San Diego that was I staying in called Ocean Beach. Hodad's was a surfer themed burger place where your eyes will most definitely be bigger than your belly. The burgers are the size of your head and you get these crazy big onion rings and wedges. I've definitely put on 5 stone haha.

During the week I managed to snag free tickets for the Conan O'Brien show which is filmed at the Warner Bro's Studio in Burbank which is just north of LA. I thought instead of driving, I would try the Amtrak train which takes you up the coast with amazing views of the ocean.

The photo of the buildings is the view of Downtown LA from the train. For those of you who haven't heard of Amtrak before, they're these MASSIVE double decker trains which run all over the U.S and as I work in Railway in my day job, I was slightly geeking out at getting to ride one of these. The entire journey from San Diego to Burbank took 3 and a half hours in total! 

I arrived in Burbank in the morning so the first thing I eager to eat was IHOP. I needed all of these pancakes. Whilst I was there, I also visited Pinup Girl Clothing, Besame Cosmetics and Unique Vintage. 

I pretty much used Uber everywhere whilst I was in Burbank because it was the easiest way to travel around and most journeys only cost me around $5-9 in total! I couldn't get to Pinup Girl Boutique QUICK enough. I was full on fan-girling! I was so excited when I got there and the staff were incredibly friendly and helpful. I jumped on the sale racks like mad and managed to nab this Jenny skirt above in the sale for $60. I also managed to get some super cute B.A.I.T footwear shoes on sale for $32 and took a couple of belts home too. I really hit up the bargains which I wouldn't have got at home. 

Across the road was Besame Cosmetics. Literally the MOST amazing cosmetics shop I've ever been in. It's a pinup girl's dream. Besame are a vintage style make up brand that creates beauty based on the 40's and 50's. Again, the staff in the Besame store are literally incredible, they could not do enough to help you and were really sweet and attentive. They definitely made my trip memorable. I walked up to Unique Vintage, another repro store I couldn't wait to visit and I didn't really realise how far the walk was. Even though it's on the same road, the walk took me almost 20 minutes. Damn you America and your large roads! It almost made me late to get back to the Conan O'brien queue at the Warner Bro's Studio. I have to come back again and revisit the shop as I didn't have enough time to look. 

Conan O'Brien was loads of fun! It was really interesting seeing how a talk show is filmed and I was really suprised how quick it was. I really find Conan funny so it was awesome seeing him in person. Even if I did get told off by security for checking my phone. Woops! 

I'm already bordering on making this post far far too long and boring any of you reading it. I've tried to keep this as brief as possible! I apologise for all the pictures but I think pictures speak better than words for this trip. 

I'm entirely grateful to Fatima who graciously let me stay in her apartment for the week I was visiting. She was an incredible host and showed me all the best places and took me out with her and het boyfriend Luke - who spent a small time teaching me to surf! It was really cool to hang out with some people in America as I didn't feel alone. I feel so happy to have made some new friends! 

This trip has done me a world of good. I adventured out of my comfort zone, trying things I never thought I would dare and I feel so bloody happy. 

Now I'm home, I'm concentrating on saving as much money as I can. I want to keep coming back to America and having more trips. I eventually want to take 6 months off of my job and move to California for 6 months. 

Have you been to California? let me know your thoughts!

Turkey: Blue Lagoon

 

I've been quiet on the blog this week and if you haven't seen - it's because I'm on holiday. On Saturday morning I arrived in Dalaman airport in Turkey where we were picked up and transferred to Hisaronu, Fethiye. We arrived SO early, like middle of the night early, of course we went straight to bed. 

Over the past few days, we've not really done much aside from exploring the 'strip' as they call the centre part of town, trying out places to eat and of course lounging by the pool with a good old beer. I think I've had enough 'Efe's' to last me a lifetime at this point but it's just so damn tasty and easy to drink and what else are holidays for?

Embarrassingly enough, the hotel I booked is basically just full of old people so we've essentially come to the quietest holiday resort in existence which I suppose worked out well for us because there are no kids anywhere to be seen. Chuffed! As for the weather, it has been glorious; from about 27-29 degrees in the day time and a bit cooler of an evening. It was supposed to rain but thankfully we've avoided that so far. 

I thought I'd share these photos from our trip to the Blue Lagoon in Olu Deniz today. I'm so proud of how they look actually which is why I'm writing this so soon but I feel like I got really good use of my camera. 

I pointed out to my friend who's come away with me that I absolutely adore holidays for this particular reason; when you're sitting around the pool or the beach, you see women (and men) of all shapes and sizes and additionally, people really do not seem to give a second glance as to what other's look like. This has given me a big boost in body confidence because you only have to look around at each other on holiday to realise how beautiful we are individually. Moreover, I think I've really found myself getting to the point where I stop caring about people wanting me to lose weight. I have felt sexier than ever on this holiday and I damn proud of my body carrying me through all the problems I've had. Honestly though, to actually walk down the beach or by the pool in a bikini and feel confidence radiating through you, it's an incredible feeling and one I'd never thought I'd feel in such a long time. 

Here's to continuing to feel like this in the long term! 

(Bikini from Primark)

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Disneyland Paris: Photo Diary

So back in August myself, my mum and my niece all set off to Disneyland Paris. Yeah I know, a bit late writing this now, eh? Okay excuse my lateness but it's better late than never right? Well anyway, I feel like this is a kind of post that requires more pictures than words but I have a bit to say regardless. 

We travelled by Eurostar from St Pancras to Disneyland directly. My niece bless her, she's only 4 and she was so well behaved the entire journey. The Eurostar staff were brilliant from the moment we checked in down to the service on the train itself. They were friendly and informative and interacted with my niece which was lovely. We arrived into Disneyland about an hour and a half later than expected because of delays but we were okay with this as the staff were attentive and refilled our refreshments. I couldn't believe Sophie was so quiet the whole time!

We stayed at the main hotel in the resort called Disneyland Hotel. Although it was a bit pricey, I don't regret a single bit of it. The inside of the hotel is spotless, absolute pristine with an old world theme to it. Almost every staff member in the hotel is dressed from an old world and it's a mixture of bizarre and kinda cool. We checked in here on Friday afternoon and the staff on hand to help with the luggage were so helpful and kind.

After checking in we checked out the park and got a few rides done! Sophie did really well as I know she must have been absolutely exhausted. 

Included in the package with the hotel, we got two free vouchers for a dinner or lunch. We could exchange these for dinners in the restaurants with the characters so obviously we went for that. We opted for a dinner with Mickey and Friends on the first evening and then had dinner in the park the next day with the Princesses. The food shown above was in the buffet restaurant on the first night and as you can see it was superb. The quality of the food, right down to the meat and fish, was out of this world. Normally I'm a bit funny about buffets but the food was presented so beautifully and everything was so clean, even I was impressed.

I'm not sure who was more excited to meet the characters; me or Sophie! We met quite a few but so I don't make this post the longest there ever has been, I'll just leave a selection. I was most excited to meet Mickey and Minnie. When you sit down to dinner, they arrive in the dining area and then they make their way round all the tables so you get a chance to have autographs and photos taken. Minnie was my favourite because she admired my dress and that's always a plus. It always amazes me how much these characters can do without even saying anything. Sophie was just in hysterics and loved every single moment so that was amazing to see.

The hotel has a very cute piano bar so after a very long day of travelling and as the weather was so beautiful, we sat down on the balcony of the hotel bar and enjoyed a cocktail. I went for my signature Mojito, you just can't beat them. Our waitress was so friendly and helpful, offering us complimentary snacks and some colouring for sophie and even offered to take our photos for us. 

To finish off the long day, we went and saw the Frozen stage show. Bearing in mind I'm not particularly a fan of Frozen, it was magical and just the most emotional and atmospheric show I've watched in such a long long time. In fact, I've not seen anything like it before; for a free show in a theme park, everything was magnificent. The characters and the acting felt so real! I wish I took more photos to show you but then this post would never end. 

Sadly, Sophie loathes fireworks and they really frighten her so we didn't catch much of the light at the end of the night so we walked off to bed. After such a long day, we were so grateful we only had a minute's walk back to our hotel from the park. 

Day 2

On the saturday, we got much more of the rides done. Since we booked into a Disney hotel, this meant we got to enter the park at 8am instead of 10am with the rest of the public. This makes SUCH a difference; we got a total of 5 rides out of the way in this time which meant we could relax and take things easy the rest of the day. 

We went on all of the younger orientated rides and admittedly, Sophie didn't like them so much. From the Peter Pan ride and the Buzz Lightyear laser ride to the Snow White ride, she was frightened of them all. Perhaps because they were too dark and loud for her. Once we got back outside and queued for the outside boats, she loved that. Then there was the mini frozen parade which she adored as she's obsessed with Frozen; insert screams of "There's Elsa! look look look!" and it was cute.

Time to mention my outfits briefly because you know this isn't all about my 4 year old niece...ha. So I purposefully made an effort to dress pinup the entire weekend because I wanted to make the most of the experience. What I wasn't really expecting was the kind of attention it would bring. By now, I'm so immersed in the pinup world that dressing this way isn't shocking to me or anything like that. That does tend to mean I automatically think everyone else in the entire universe won't really make much of it. On the other hand, what actually happened and I know this sounds big headed, was I got a lot positive attention. I wore both a Pinup Girl Clothing dress and a Lindy Bop one and both dresses received favourable attention from random park-goers to even characters. I was a little drawn back whenever something nice was said to me because I'm so not used to it! Forever Amber blogged about this recently in regards to her trip to America, dressing a certain way sometimes brings attention you're not otherwise used to but it wasn't bad in anyway, in fact it was self-esteem boosting. I did find this strange as I was always under the impression that the French, much like us Brits, can be quite reserved when it comes to paying people compliments. Instead, I was asked for a selfie and during the Magic Parade, loads of characters came over to me to interact thus resulting in the entire Mad Hatter's Tea Party pretending I was Alice in the above dress. Honestly? it just felt magical. It made the experience at Disneyland an incredible one for me. People aren't used to seeing people dressed from the 50s and that really is easy to forget when you're surrounded by beautiful pinup women on your social media. 

This is the moment the Queen of Hearts came over to kiss me on my cheeks! Eeek

Needless to say, the parade actually made me cry. It was so emotional and it really does transport you to another magical universe for half an hour. 

We ended the evening with a dinner with the princesses. This restaurant is located in the park rather than the hotel and is actually a 3 course 'luxury' dining experience rather than a buffet. However, me and my mum both agreed that the buffet restaurant was far better as the food selection was more expansive. With this meal, you got given a set meal and to be honest, it was trying too hard to be posh. Sophie didn't touch any of her food but whether that was down to the underwhelming food or she was just too excited to meet Snow White is a mystery. 

We went back to the hotel after this because having a 4 year old with you means a tired, grumpy little munchkin at the end of a fun filled day. 

The Sunday was spent getting an early train back into Paris to have a little stroll!

This is just a small-ish summery of what Disneyland Paris was like. It's long as it is! Thank you if you made it through all the photos but I promise you, I had about 50 more I had to refrain from adding into this post as it is. 

Have you been to Disneyland Paris or any of the other ones? What did you think? Let me know in the comments 

x

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