Let's talk! Bucketlists!

Hello world!

So, first I have to start by apologizing for not uploading in ageeeees. I have a valid explanation: I had my first university finals so I was very busy studying and stressing out and decided to take a break from writing on this blog so I could focus on my studies. But now I am BACK! and I am here to stay :)

I’m back with another let’s talk post. Today I want to talk about bucket lists, in particular mine. Everybody during their live makes a list of things they want to achieve and places they want to visit. So I thought it would be a good idea to give you a little inside on mine and maybe give you guys some advice.  Now I for myself have 2 different bucketlists, a travel one and a normal/achievement one.

One thing you should know about me is that I love to travel and if I could I would travel around the world and go to every single country (Well almost every country). But as that is very hard, I made a selection of the places with the most priority to me. The ones I want to visit the most. It is quite a long list that includes places form all over the world. I will write a simplified version here and maybe add a photo.

TRAVEL BUCKETLIST:

-          Australia, especially Sydney

-          Riga, Latvia

-          New York

-          Paris

-          Lisbon

-          London

-          Berlin

-          Poland

-          Hawaii

There are obviously many more places I want to go and there are fortunately a few places I can cross of, like Lisbon a beautiful city I visited recently with my hockey team. And Riga, a place I visited with my sister. My actual list is a lot longer but I will stop here so I don’t bore you with my entire list ;).

Apart from a travel bucket list I have a normal bucket list that just has a bunch of things I would like to achieve/do in life, either with family and friends or alone. I guess most people would just have one list but I prefer dividing them as it gives me a better view of them and yeah, for me it is just easier. I’m a perfectionist and a bit of a control freak, I also want to have everything organized at all times so making lists is a big part of my daily life. I literally make lists for everything, those things could be groceries or things to do or just things I take with me on a trip. If I don’t write it down, I will have the constant fear I’ve forgotten something and I will be unable to relax or sleep if I pack my things a day before travelling. I always triple check all my lists, yes I know it’s a bit of an obsession but I can’t help it this is the way my mind works and there’s nothing I can do about that. Anyway enough about me, let’s get back to the thing at hand, my goals bucket list. Once again I’m only writing some things down.

Bucketlist:

-          Make a stranger smile.

-          Adopt a dog.

-          Decorate my own house.

-          Live near a beach

-          Do a photo shoot with my sister.

-          Get married.

-          Do volunteer work.

I guess my bucket list might be different from others; I don’t have things like win the lottery or things like that on it. Not because I wouldn’t want it but I will die happily without winning it. I guess for some people this would be a dream achievement but I think there is so much more to live then win a lot of money and even without a lot of money we can do great things. There’s a saying that goes “she believed she could, so she did.” I really like this quote as it really represents that when you truly want something you are able to achieve it no matter what your status or condition in life. Of course, some things are harder to achieve then others and not everything is possible, we have to be realistic but if you have a goal that is achievable, then by al means go for it! Don’t stop when things get hard, stop when you achieved your goal. There have been many times in my life when things where hard, especially with hockey, and I wanted to give up but luckily I never did and this has given me a lot of great opportunities. Another setback was when I wasn’t given a spot at my dream course at university last year. Instead of giving up and doing something else I didn’t like and possibly throwing away a lot of money, I decided to take a gap year and retake some of my university access exams this year to be able to still get in to my dream course (Criminology). I am now in the middle of my first year at university and even though I unfortunately didn't get in to criminology ones more, I am now doing something else that I really enjoy. I am studying English philology, or English studies with German as a second language. As I mentioned before I have just finished my first term finals and passed all of them with excellent grades so I am very happy with the choice I have made. Despite this I know there will be many stupid mistakes, and I have already made many, many terrible mistakes just as about anyone. One other piece of advice I could give is ones more to never give up and use these mistakes you will make to learn and do better next time.

Well I think that’s enough talk for today but I will see you guys very, very soon. I am going to make a blog post about my trip to Lisbon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Have a great day/night wherever you are!

XxSimonee

Back to the Wild West!

Hello world!

First of sorry for the incredibly long wait! My laptop broke then I was Ill and then I was on holidays. I probably won't upload for the next month or so as I have my finals very soon but I just wanted to have a quick update for you guys.

Today’s post is another travel post. This time I’m writing about the day I spent at a place called “mini Hollywood”. Mini Hollywood is a place in the Tabernas desert in Almeria in the south of Spain, now it is an attraction park but it used to be a big film set where most western movies were filmed. It has been the set for most Clint eastwood movies such as The good, the bad and the ugly; once upon a time in the west and my name is nobody among many others.

 There are three different sets all within 5 km from each other, the biggest one where I went is no longer active as a film set but the other two that I didn’t visit are still used regularly. Episodes of doctor who have been filmed there, together with parts of an Indiana jones movie and Exodus. We didn’t visit the other two sets because we spent the entire day in the biggest one. The place we went to is a permanent attraction park that has the old film sets used in lots of western together with a cinema museum a carriage museum and a big zoo full of endangered species. The cinema museum was very interesting as it had the film poster for every single film made there as well as old camera equipment and projectors used in the 19^th century. The floor is covered in sand and it’s very dusty just like in the films. The set pieces are actual buildings you can go inside, or climb up and twice a day there is a can can dance show and a Wild West show.  I especially enjoyed the Wild West show; there were horses and gun fights and people flying everywhere. 

The zoo was also beautiful, the places the animals were staying were big and well kept, nearly all, if not all animals were endangered species in the zoo for a special breeding program. It’s hard to explain everything as it is so surreal. I honestly didn’t think it would be this nice, I thought the set was just that, a bunch of cardboard cut outs but no they were real buildings. The surroundings are also amazing, you really feel as if you have gone back in time, walking through a town thinking any minute a bandit on a horse comes galloping in. The saloon had the typical doors you see in all the movies. For most people it might seem a boring trip especially as it was a 3 hour drive from my house but for a cinema fanatic like me, it was amazing! When I got home later that night, we watched an old western filmed there and it was really fun to see all the sets we had seen that day in the movie. 

I’m going to add some picture and see if that can do more justice although I doubt it as you should really just see it with your own eyes. Soon hopefully I’m going to visit the other two sets that are still in use and a lot smaller than the one I visited.

I hope you enjoyed and I will see you all soon!

Have a great day/night wherever you are.

XxSimone

 

 

Spiderman: Homecoming review!

Hello world,


I'm back with another movie review, this time I am going to review the new Spiderman film. I know it is quite late as the film/movie came out about 3 months ago but it came out a month later in Spain as it did in the rest of the world and I have been incredibly busy with work and sorting out things for university.

But now without further ado and more excuses ( even if they are valid) I will get on with the review.

First of, I am a big Marvel fan, I haven't read all the comics but I have seen all the films and am quite up to date with everything going on. Spiderman has always been one of my favorites mainly because he is young, like me, and he loves science, also like me. I was quite excited for this Spiderman film as I am quite a big fan of Tom Holland and loved his performance in Captain America:Civil War. I was a little apprehensive about there being another Spiderman movie as I had never been the biggest fan of the previous films, they were good don't get me wrong but they didn't have the WOW factor I was expecting from a superhero movie.

The first thing I noticed and liked was that they skipped how he turned into Spiderman, this is universally known by any comic book fan and way overdone in my opinion. I also loved how it took of were CACW ended and the way Peter had to get back to normal life. I don't want to spoil anything but I think this is quite obvious, that after such a big battle Peter is going to have some issues adjusting. I was a little thrown of by the title as I wasn't to sure what it meant. At first I thought it was because of the fact he came home after going to Germany but during the film I figured out it was because of a Homecoming dance Peter and all the people at school where working towards. As we don't have dances like those in Spain I was confused until the last moments. Another thing I loved about the film was the "father" role Tony stark aka Iron Man plays in this film, he has alway been a great character in the films mostly because of his funny and most times sarcastic nature.

I don't want to give to much away and I also don't want to make this review to long so I will get to the point and leave my ramblings aside. Without giving any spoilers, in my opinion the film was great! Tom Holland did an amazing job as Spiderman. I liked Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as well but in my opinion they where only good in portraying either Peter Parker or Spiderman, not both characters as Tom Holland did almost perfectly. I understand that everyone has their own opinion and some might not like Holland saying he is to young or whatever, but what we have to keep in mind is that Peter Parker is only 15/16 years old. The younger an actor is, the younger the character this way more people, especially teenagers can relate to these characters more and can learn from them. To summarize this review I thought the movie was very good and it had a lot of plot twists and unexpected things, it wasn't your everyday superhero film where the good guy defeats the bad guy and gets the girl, I mean that sort of happens but not in the context we expect making it very good and different in my opinion. another thing that cracked me up was the post credit scene, the first was a normal one as seen in every other marvel film, but the last one after all the credit were over ( which we watched BTW) was very funny and good although not relevant to the film.

Anyway, this was my Spiderman:Homecoming review, I hope you enjoyed it and if there are any films you want me to review, both new and old let me know! I am probably going to watch IT in cinemas really soon and I also want to watch Goodbye Christopher robins so I will review both films when I have seen them although it might take a while. I'm starting university on the 2nd of October so I will try and write some posts in advance to return to a regular uploading schedule of once every 2 weeks or maybe even return to once a week.
If there are any series you want me to review let me know as well! I know I said I would do game of thrones review or Teen wolf but I think these series are going to be to hard, especially Teen Wolf as I still have to start the 6th season but if you want me to review the first 5 seasons let me know and I will.

Goodbye for now and have a great day/night.

 xxSimonee

Baby driver review.

Hello world!

So as it is summer and there are a number of good films coming out and I actually have time (and money) to go watch them, I thought I would write some reviews about the films I watched and give my honest opinion on what I thought about them. In no way do I want to be negative or discourage anyone from watching the mentioned films, I just want to say what I thought and if I believe they are worth watching or not. If you still want to go and watch it then you definitely should. All I want to do is help you if your not sure about going to see it or not.

So without further ado, here is my first film review.

Baby Driver.
First thing you notice when watching the trailer, the music sounds sick! Every trailer is filled with music and one of the main songs was radar love, a song I like a lot and listen to it all the time with my dad in the car. However watching the film, the song only featured for about 15 seconds which was slightly disappointing but I'm not going to let one song ruin the film of course. In the end it's all about the film allthough the music was a very big part of it.

So the story is that baby (Ansel Elgort) is a young man driving the get away car of criminals. He records nearly all conversations and turns those into cassettes.  He meets a girl and well, everything changes. Every scene basically has a different song attached to it which makes it seem even more like you are actually in his head. He meets new people along the way, makes friends and makes enemies. It may seem as your everyday action comedy but I think all the music they added makes it different from all others. I loved the movie, however I did think that the music was what made me like it so much. I know I keep going on about the music and mention it a lot but really it was the main focus of the entire movie. The theme that should have been central, a young man redeeming himself in his own eyes and those of others, was slightly pushed to the back whenever the music plays. Which was basically every scene. nevertheless I still think it is a great summer movie worth watching, especially for those with a taste of "old" music. there is a complete playlist on Spotify that has all the songs and I have found myself listening to at least half of them on a weekly basis.

So yeah, this concludes my first review, I hope you liked it and want to see more. If there are any movies in particular you would like me to review, let me know as well and I will go and check them out. I am also thinking about doing something similar with Game of Thrones and Teen wolf as they are some of my favorite series ever and new episodes are coming out weekly on both of them! I know this might be short but there wasn't much else I could write without spoiling anything big.

Have a great day/night wherever you guys are!

xxSimone

Grief

Hello world,

So as some of you might have noticed I have been absent from this blog for over a month, and despite what people may think I have a very good (or at least in my opinion) reason for it. So a little over a month ago I got the news that my granddad had passed away. Losing a loved one is always tough (even those who don't have a good relationship with said family member). As was the case for me, I am one of the few lucky people whose grandparents where all still alive, until recently that is. I have never been very close with my dad's parents and generally only saw them 2 or 3 times a year when we still lived in the Netherlands. When we moved to Spain, three times a year changed to once in 6 years, which is a very long time to go without seeing family. The last time I saw my granddad was almost 2 years ago, and the worst thing is I didn't really miss them that much. As we where never really close not seeing them was an easy thing to deal with for me. This didn't mean however that losing him didn't hurt me or the family around me. The day we heard the news I was meant to go to work and hang out with friends later on, that however quickly changed to packing and getting on the first plain to Germany (no planes to the Netherlands on that day). My sister was away on holiday when it happened so apart from comforting my dad I had to lie to my sister and pretend everything was okay, which was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done. Being in the Netherlands with just my dad and my grandmother was a strange thing, and it opened my eyes to a lot of things that had gone on in my family that I didn't even know about. My grandmother has always been a bit cold and detached, not really one for showing emotions, when I was younger I didn't really notice it much but as I got older I noticed she was very different to other grandmothers and sometimes resented her for not being nicer to us. I know realize these emotions where stupid and that she did care for me and my sister but she just has trouble expressing said feelings. One of the "good" things that came out of my granddad passing away was that I got to see my aunt and uncle again. They live in Greece and I hadn't seen my aunt in about 9 years and my uncle in 14 years, which is very strange as I was 6 the last year I saw him so I didn't really know him anymore. We used these days together to bond bit and are know planning on visiting them in Greece hopefully sometime next summer.

As my granddad was the first close family member that I lost, I got my first experience of what goes in to arranging a funeral and all the other things that need to be done, which, let me tell you, is a LOT! My granddad was a very popular and loved men in the town he lived in, he did a lot for the community and worked for a lot of sport clubs, such as the local football (soccer) club that he practically prevented from turning bankrupt and having to close. He was also an avid ice skater and would have loved to compete in the "elfstedentocht" which is a 200 km ice skating course through 11 cities in the north of the Netherlands all on natural ice. It has to be very cold to be able to do the course which is why you never know when the next one will be (the last one was in 1997). he never got to compete because in 1963 his wife (my grandma) forbade him from going, which ended up being a good thing because the weather was terrible, so bad they even made a film called "the hell of '63. After that he was part of the organization managing a part of the course meaning he wasn't allowed to compete, he was responsible for a bit of ice that he had to check every day to see if the ice was thick enough etc. The response and support we got from all the people in the village was astounding, from a phone call or a card to a message on a website or in the newspaper, it was more then we expected. the first few days we didn't get to many messages but when the announcement we put in the newspaper was published tons of cards arrived, sometimes even 20 or 30 at once, which is a surreal experience to be fairly honest. As I had never really been through something like this I wasn't sure how to act or react but in the end I did what my granddad would have wanted, I kept going and remembered all the good memories I had with him. Because my granddad was one of the happiest people in the world and he, just as anybody else that loves you, would want me to continue loving life and making new even better memories.

I know I'm rambling but I really needed to explain why I had been absent and because I wanted this blog to be more personal I thought I should just explain it indent. it has been hard to write/talk about this which is why it took me so long to actually write it all down and upload it. I probably wrote and rewrote this post about 10 times and was never happy with it, but I think this is acceptable. If you don't like these kind of posts I apologize and I promise the next few will be much happier and easier to read and write. As it is summer here know and I have finished my exams I want to try and upload once every two weeks. I will probably do some film/ book reviews and talks some more about places I have visited. I will talk about some more serious stuff that I think should be discussed and continue talking about my experiences with moving to another country.
But for now, this is it for today. I hope this cleared things up and maybe even helped someone who is dealing with personal stuff.

have a great day/night wherever you are and I will write very very soon.

xx Simone

Changes

Hello world,

This post is going to be a lot different from the others and I am sorry for that but I think it is necessary for the continuation of this blog. I haven't posted anything in over a month and the true reason is that I have lost interest in the post I made. I have not for any reason lost interest in this blog but for me to continue I want to make some changes. first of I changed the name, it just seemed nicer and more personal then the previous name. I am in no way going to delete my previous posts or am I going to change the main purpose of this blog. The only reason I made it was so I had a place where I could write and by doing so be of help to people all around the world going to similar situations as mine. As of now I promise more regular post, which might be shorter but are more personal and closer to what I wanted to achieve on this blog. There might also be some post in other languages (Dutch & Spanish) but I am not entirely sure yet. From this day forward this will not only be a traveling and lifestyle blog but a place where I can empty my mind and speak freely without the fear of being judged (Although not really). I want to adress things that other people do not want to talk about because it is not right or not a popular theme. I have also been quite busy writing stories lately, both a longer story I intend to make into a novel as short stories I wrote just for fun. I intend to from now on use this blog as well to publish some of these stories to see what people think so I can continue to improve my writing style.

If you have ignored this entire rant about this blog I won't judge you to hard, (who am I kidding, I totally will). Or just ignored this entire post that is fine, it really just explains the changes I have made and will make to this blog to hopefully enjoy it more myself and so you guys ( & girls) reading it will enjoy it more. Anyway I think I should just stop rambling and let the new posts and new layout of the blog speak for itself.

I will also change the amount of times I upload a post, once a week was to hard to do and it caused me to lack a lot, so I will try and upload once every two weeks. this way I can make post with better content and quality instead of rushing to upload something, reducing the quality drastically. Wow and I am rambling again...

Anyway, I will write again soon!

Simone

Going to Hogwarts!!

Hello world!

About 2 weeks ago I was in the Netherlands and while I was there I went to the Harry Potter Expo in Utrecht. No I am a BIG potter head and have read all the books (about 5 times) and seen all the films (about 20 times). So to say I was excited is an understatement although the same can be said for my sister who is an equally big fan as me. Our dad got us into Harry Potter years ago when he got a box set with the first 4 films as a gift from somewhere ( Honestly can't remember where from).

The day started great with an hour long drive to Utrecht where the expo was in a big cinema called Cinemec. Getting inside was a bit of a struggle as I was walking with crutches (Still am) and there where a lot of stairs and no lift... But as soon as we where inside and gave our tickets to the lady it was worth it! we had to wait a little while bit where soon let inside and towards the sorting hat. All the things we saw in the expo are real props used in the film that where transported from the Warner bros studios in England.

We started the tour with the sorting hat and a few kids where sorted into different houses which was pretty cool to see. After the hat we went to a different room where all the trailers had ben mixed together to form a short film which was beautiful and of course my sister and I quoted all of the lines of the films ( we have annual Harry Potter marathons).

Now I am not going to describe the entire tour because if any of you are going it would ruin it all but I will state my opinion and show some pictures I took. The pictures aren't the best quality as it was dark and we couldn't use flash. Anyway on to explaining and getting all excited.

After the short film we saw the Hogwarts express or atlas part of it. It was just as magnificent as I imagined but very dark so we couldn't see it that good. After the train you enter the real expo and take a walk around different sets and learning more about the making of the films. There where a few interactive things you can do as well as pull out a mandrake root or throw a quaffle. Overall the experience was great but it was quite busy as it was a Saturday so a tip for anyone who wants to go: go early like we did or go during a weekday when there are less people. It didn't bother us to much as we where still able to see everything and we where lucky as when we left there where a lot of people waiting in line to be able to enter. After you finish the expo you enter a gift shop that is completely in Harry Potter style which makes you more inclined to buy something. After much debating I decided to buy a wand as that was something I really wanted, they weren't cheap but the quality is AMAZING! I got Sirius Black's wand as he has always been one of my favorite characters allthough I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly why. My sister bought a big poster and a luggage tag and for our dad we bought a mug which we will give him for his birthday. There where a lot of the typical sweets but we didn't buy any as it was very busy there and they where actually quite expensive.
Anyway enough writing as this post is getting quite long and possibly boring. I will add a couple of photos (definitely not all) of the Expo and I will see(?) you soon with another blog!

 My sister and I next to the Weasley's flying car.

Sirius Wand in a beautiful box!

Have a great day/night wherever you are!

xxSimonee