Barcelona

So moving on to the next city of my holiday - Barcelona!
I still don't quite know what I think of it, half the time I was so conscious of what everyone, including the hotel (which I highly recommend), had said about pick pockets etc that I think it might have partially clouded my judgment, but in saying that we (my mum and I) had no problems at all and had a lovely time.

I found it so fantastic seeing the Gaudi building's, particularly the Casa Batlló, very cool and I wish we had gone inside but the line was so long and we had already lined up for the Sagrada Família. The Sagrada was a bit incomprehensible for me, the ceiling inside is beautiful but how does someone's brain come up with that, and the fact that it is still being worked on was interesting too.

We visited the Picasso museum housed in a lovely old building and I saw some of his ceramics for the first time, which has been the start of my new found wish to learn how to do that myself! And we had a wander around the botanical gardens in the rain and I learnt that after following my mother around plant nursery's all my life I'm not too shabby on some latin names.

The other big discovery for us in Barcelona was not the architecture or art but finding the COS store! All I can say is my bank balance was a lot lighter after visiting there, and I am heartbroken that there isn't one in Australia : )

The food that we had was a little hit and miss, I had a fantastic cocktail with vodka, apple and ginger and some lovely tapas but a somewhat disappointing paella.

I'm sure there is so much more to do in Barcelona and we only scratched the surface but it was definitely worth visiting.

Today is the day I can finally let you know about a project my friend Sam Shelley and I have been working on for a little while now...it’s called Island Menu and it is our food and photography blog!

I am really so excited about it and we hope to use as much Tasmanian produce as we can source or in Sam’s case (being an enthusiastic fisherman) catch, and we will do individual posts as well as working together.

I really hope you will stop by and take a look!

This weekend...

...disappeared so fast, I feel I need a weekend after the weekend! I had a new hall cupboard delivered on saturday from store & co. I have been looking for a while but this one it fit the bill so perfectly (there's another shot here). Love the green and off white/cream and I can't wait to spend a bit more time putting things away in there.

I also did some work on another project I've been working on with a friend but more about that tomorrow, right now I need to go sit have a hot chocolate and read a book for a while : )

I hope everyone had lovely weekends too.

Paris

My first destination for my trip was Paris! I spent just over a week there and my mum and step-dad came along too. We rented an apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Prés in the 6th with a fantastic roof top balcony that was really great and so convenient, much nicer than staying in a hotel. The weather was beautiful and warm and sunny, we were exceptionally lucky!

We did a lot of sightseeing and walking around the city, the Musée d'Orsay, Versailles, Monet's house and garden at Giverny, lunch at Ladurée, shopping at Le Bon Marché (Prada loafers to be exact, they were a birthday present to myself! eek), Merci (one of the best stores, with the sweetest cat desperate to spend some time inside) and so much more! Anyway I thought rather than write a day by day account of what we did I’d just post some of the things that I liked most:

• the amazing buildings! I have a big soft spot for those grey roofs, and they were just everywhere, I still couldn't quite get my head around that and kept imagining how great it would be to have an apartment in one.
• the theatre in the garden at the petite trianon and the petite trianon itself – seriously one of the most outrageous things you can imagine and yet quite beautiful

• eating the best crème brulee I've ever had (and I’m not one who normally goes for crème brulee) at a restaurant just near our apartment
• this may sound crazy but I loved the supermarkets, the Monoprix with it's catchy music and yoghurt in terracotta tubs and La Grand Epicerie with its far too affordable bottles of Moet that I seem to have developed a taste for
• looking for the 'sortie' on the metro
• the boat tour on the Seine in the sunshine, so good after nearly 24 hours traveling
• the fact that the cafe chairs face the streets and not the person you are with
• spending a sunday afternoon walking around le Marais, sitting in a lovely little (non-dusty) park and listening to an accordion band play
• seeing a Rousseau in the Musée d'Orsay, absolutely beautiful

and for good measure here are a few more photographs:

The Merci car and our morning tea there, some serious pain au chocolat and lovely fresh drinks
View from our apartment and the view from the balcony in the evening


Monet's house and garden at Giverny, the wisteria was out and looked amazing

Birthday roses

I celebrated my 30th (yikes!) birthday while I was away in Paris, but on saturday night I had a dinner at home with my friends, we had the juciest pan fried stripey trumpeter, swedish potatoes, champagne, lethal cocktails and cake.

Despite the sore head on sunday I had such a good night and have the most amazing and generous friends. One of my gifts was a bunch of roses from Rose, they are from her nanna's plant and are so so beautiful. Her nanna was just like my surrogate grandmother in many ways so they mean a great deal to me.

Home

Hello!

After over a month off it kinda feels strange to be blogging again, but a good strange. So yes I have returned from my trip, and yes I want to go right back again! It was wonderful, so many things to see and do, the warm sunshine and long hours of daylight, the different languages and landscapes. I'll do a few more specific posts over the next week or so of the different cities I visited but wanted to check in and say hello! I am looking forward to catching up on all your posts and sending out some emails that I have been a bit slack with.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend?