past travels part 2!

 so let's pick up where i left off.

when i was in grade 10 (around 15 years old) i had the opportunity to go to europe with a few friends of mine. it was organized through our school but it wasn't like a normal school trip. the teachers that came along didn't really chaperone us, they just came along to be there in case any of us needed an adult. we had lots of freedom to go and do what we wanted which was great. this was the first time i was going on a trip without my parents and it was to a crazy and far away place, excited doesn't even begin to explain what i was feeling before i left. i was so young that i was almost too daft to be scared about it. i mean i was going to friggen FRANCE AND SPAIN! the flight to Paris was  9 hours and felt like an eternity. i tried to sleep but failed miserably. it was sort of a disaster when we got there because of the time difference and everything our tour guide decided it would be best it we just stayed up for the whole day and went on our first few excersions. if i remember correctly i was up a total of 40 something hours, you could say we were dead. i actually started to go a little bit insane during that day, i felt as though i had been drugged and still to this day believe that haha. but i was told it was exhaustion which i guess makes a bit more sense. i don't know why it affects me more than most people, but it does. we visited so many places in Paris, like Versailles, Museum de Rodan, Notre Dame,  the Arc de Triumph and of course the Eiffel Tower. we went to a few other places in France, like orange (pronounced or-rawn-sh) and nice (pronounced like niece).

my friends and i went a little wild and tried to do and see everything we could in between going to the museums and such, that we actually got lost in France at one point! we had an hour break to do whatever we wanted and we separated from our group (the group of students from our school, our chaperones, and tour guide). we had absolutely no. freaking. idea. where we were, and to top it off none of us to speak french. just the odd word here and there is all that we could speak. luckily my one friend had a map and knew where our group was headed to after our break was finished. but, unfortunately we were in a very quiet part of what ever town we were in, there were no people to try and ask directions to! we found a woman after about half an hour of wandering around and tried saying how do we get here? to her in french and then attempted to piece together the few french words we knew that were coming flying out of her mouth a million miles a minute. we thought we were doomed. my one friend knew that she told us to take a right at the end of the street we were on and to turn left after passing a certain shop. so we tried doing just that. but our group was no where to be found. at this point we had a serious conversation as to what we were going to do, seeing as we were lost at large. i was starting to get that nervous tummy ache because it was getting kind of scary, it had been two or more hours and we had no idea where we were or how to find our way back to our group seeing as they were constantly moving from place to place and potentially moving farther and farther away from where we were. this is when the luckiest moment of my life happened, our group appeared out of seemingly no where across the street from us. so, of course, we ran over as happy as can be screaming OH MY GOD WHERE WERE YOU GUYS!? OH MY GOD! this is also the moment we realized they had no clue we were even missing! all three chaperones started to laugh saying that they had done numerous head count and some how managed to miss count FOUR MISSING HEADS everytime. how does that even happen? real reassuring eh? anyways once we were with our group again we stayed pretty close for the rest of the day, until the next day when we went crazy and wandered again, we didn't get lost on the trip ever again though! haha. but a few days later we went for a night walk up this chapel in Paris, it was gorgeous and especially beautiful at night! after the walk we went in to this little town and walked around there and got some mcflurries (we were so surprised they had mcdonald's in france but i guess there's no reason there wouldn't be since they're everywhere) and then we walked through the town and watched people on the merry-go-rounds and all the passers by. this is when i almost got kidnapped. i was approached by a sort of scary man who asked me directions to somewhere, which is when i told him i didn't speak french and couldn't help him and began walking away. as i started to walk away he grabbed the strap of my backpack and pulled me back to him, i screamed and my friend ran over to my rescue, karate chopped his arm, and then we both ran. it scared the beegeebies out of me! but other than getting lost and almost getting kidnapped, France was an absolute blast. i'm going back there for sure.

stay tuned for part 3 where i talk about Espana!

stay cheeky!

past travels part 1!

hey everyone!

i promised that i would make a post about my past travels a few days ago, and to be honest, i forgot to post the first part, so my apologies! i've just been a little busy the past couple of days, so here you have it.

as you all know, i have a habit of rambling on and on and making my posts much longer than they possibly could've been, so i am going to try my hardest to keep this post short and sweet.

i thought since i have talked a bit about my past travels and travels to come that i would talk about all my past travels. i have been very lucky and have travelled to a number of awesome places. travelling is awesome and i love it, but i must admit i am a horrible traveller. the whole process of getting to the place we're travelling too, the waiting in the airports, flights, adjusting to the time changes, all that jazz, turns me into an extremely grumpy bunny. i don't do it on purpose i swear! i just don't function very well on lack of sleep, and that seems to be a thing you have to be able to deal with while travelling. but, aside from that, once i have adjusted to everything, i am extremely excited and ready for adventure!

so, let's start from the beginning shall we?

my very first travelling experience was in the 6th grade (age 11 or 12) and it was to New York. i was unbelievably excited as i had never really been anywhere other than up to Muskoka to visit my cottage. since we live pretty close, my parents decided it was probably easiest to just drive there. if i remember correctly it felt like the longest drive ever. my sisters and i were on the verge of killing each other from being in such close vicinity for so long and my parents wanted to kill us for being so annoying. once we got to our hotel, which was actually in New Jersey we were quick to throw our bags in our room and jump on the ferry that would bring us over to New York City. it was like nothing i had ever seen before, people were so...well...crazy! everyone was so themselves! that is the only way i can describe it, they weren't like the "cookie cutter" people i would describe where i come from. nobody there cared what anyone thought. i loved that about it, it was so free. also the shopping there, absolutely unreal. the stores were huge and sold everything you could ever imagine. i was so young that i only bought stupid things like stuffed animals but it was still an awesome experience just walking through the stores and feeling the atmosphere. we visited time square, the place where John Lennon was shot (sad i know), and spent one day in central park. sadly i can't find one single picture from the trip to show you guys!! i'm always the photographer on trips but i wasn't really into taking pictures back then so whatever few pictures that were taken are m.i.a. right now.

the second trip i ever went on was to Florida when i was 13, we drove there also. yeah, that trip to New York which felt like the longest drive ever didn't even come close to the length of the drive it took to get to Florida. that was by far THE LONGEST i have ever been stuck in a car with my family, i mean i love them and all but i hope i never have to be trapped in a car that long with them or anyone for that matter ever again haha. it was the first trip to a warm place i had ever been though and i loved it. except that it made my freckles come out like they never had before haha! our next couple of family trips were to Florida as well. i've been there a total of 3 times (2007, 08 and 09). all were great but the last time i went, we got to go to DisneyWorld and i felt as though my life was complete after that.

Tampa, Florida 2007

Orlando, Florida 2008

Orlando, Florida 2009 pictures i cannot find :$

in 2008 i also went to Cuba for the first time with my cousins, and thankfully this time we flew. we went to Cayo Coco, Cuba and the resort was awesome. the beach was close and there were plenty of places to just sit and relax. this was the first tropical place i had ever travelled to and i thought it was pretty cool being on an island. i'm really close with my cousins, they're basically my siblings we all grew up together and even lived together for a little when we were younger, so it was especially fun to have them on the trip with us.

me and two of my cousins

as much as i loved cuba, i got the worst sunburn there and was a lobster most of the trip. 

lobster me

after travelling to all these wonderful places i was bitten by a bug...the travel bug muahaha. i got urges to go to places that i never really thought about before, places much further than New York, Florida or Cuba. but you'll have to wait until part 2 to hear about that!

thanks for reading

and

stay cheeky!

food times

happy friday everyone!

so, last night my family and i went to an awesome little place near my house called Fazari's. it's an italian restaurant and although they are small size-speaking, they have so many foods on their menu it's insane. i went the non-adventurous route and just got a calzone with double cheese, green olives and pepperoni. IT WAS UNREAL. by far the best calzone i've ever had. it was the size of my head (maybe bigger) and surprisingly only $10!

the restaurant itself is small, as i mentioned before, so they call it a "take-out restaurant" where you can only get the food to go. no sit-in eating because honestly there was just no space! this was no problemo for us though, there was a beautiful park near by and it was a nice evening so we decided to grab a picnic bench and feast there.

back to the restaurant's location though. it's right in the middle of this residential area which i thought was a little odd, but since the homes in that area are neat old houses it didn't look too out of place! the houses surrounding all had their original stone walls, they're were sick. i love old houses, they have so much character.

my overall thoughts on this place are that i'm definitely going to be craving it's calzones on the daily and i can't wait to go back again!

have you guys discovered any amazing little restaurants where you're from? let me know!

stay cheeky!

another collective haul

bedo: $14 CA

forever 21: $14.95 CA

forever 21: $21.83 CA

h&m: $21.50 CA

forever 21: $7.50 CA

aritzia: on sale for $11.95 CA

sorry for the weird colours the lighting in my house made some of the colours look a little off!

stay cheeky!

ootd

- august 7th ootd -

affordable and cute

dress: wal-mart

bracelet: from Spain but you can substitute it for any bangle 

and if it gets chilly

cardigan: american eagle outfitters

throw on a pair of gladiators or flip flops and voila!

stay cheeky!

ootd

- august 6th ootd -

a very casual tuesday

shirt: forever 21

shorts: american eagle outfitters

bracelet: clarie's

nail polish on hands: lilacism by essie

nail polish on toes (although you can't seem them): commander in chic by sally hansen

have a wonderful week and

stay cheeky!

Update

how's it going everyone?

so, i just spent a couple hours writing this mile long post about my past travels. yes, i know i've already written a post about some of my past travels but this one is supposed to cover all my past trips. but what was supposed to be a short wrap up of all the trips turned into a novel and so i decided to leave it for tonight. i think a better execution of this trip post would be to cut it up into parts so that i can go into a bit more detail about each without feeling like i'm writing a 3,000 page book (i'm a bit hyperbolic if you can't tell...). so since i hadn't made a post in a couple of days and was meaning to give you all an actual post tonight i just thought i'd at least let you guys know what i'm thinking of doing. i'll try and have the first part of this series up in the next couple of days.

til then!

stay cheeky!

collective haul

hey everyone!

this is a very small collective haul but i thought i'd still share it with all of you. i went shopping for the first time in a couple weeks just a couple days ago and was super excited to buy buy buy. however, it was one of those days when you go to the mall with the intention of buying, yet you can't find a single thing you really like. as opposed to those days when you go to the mall with the intention of not buying anything because you are tight for money, but end up buying everything you set your eyes on haha. so, i ended up shopping with my mom for around 3 hours or so and just found four pieces that i thought were cute.

i got two things from Forever 21, but i don't think i've ever walked out of Forever 21 empty handed now that i think about it. they have such a wide array of awesome clothes and styles and for reasonable prices. so, i got these shorts which are crazy but i love. my mom said "leave it to you to find the ugliest piece of clothing in the store," haha! she kills me. but, they are actually super cute with a plain black or white tee and they're super comfy too!

$23.80 CA

and i also got a nice plaid shirt, you can never have too many plaid shirts! this one has pleather patches on the elbows and a pleather pocket which i like. i  have a lot of plaid shirts already but i wanted a longer one to wear with legging and this one is perfect for that.

$21.80 CA

i also popped into PINK which is unusual for me. i don't usually shop there because their clothes are really my style but i've been looking for a nice, plain t-shirt for forever now and i literally have not been able to find one. i mean since when has it been so freaking hard to find a plain tee!? anyways, i knew that pink had lots of nice, plain t-shirts so i picked up this neon orange one. it's so soft i luuurve it.

$22.50 CA -a little outrageous for a tee if you ask me but oh well

and finally i stopped in one of my fav stores Zara. they always have the nicest clothes. but, i didn't really see anything that i liked surprisingly! except for this shirt, i've been looking for a football style t-shirt forever now and this one caught my eye. it's nothing special but still!

$25.90 CA

stay cheeky!