Let's talk: My school experiences!

Hello world!
I'm back with another let's talk! post. I think this will be a new thing on my blog where I tackle several everyday/ rare things and focus on my experience with them, as far as I can. if there are any themes you want me to talk about, just let me know in a comment and I will do my best.
Some of these toppics are going to be more lighthearted and other are going to be harder to talk about, especially for me.
This one isn't that hard though. Today I will be talking about my "high" school experiences.

Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (secondary school or high school):
The town where I did the last two years of primary school in Spain also offered the first two years of secondary school, something quite common in the countryside. So that was where my secondary school adventures began. It was not really a big change from primary school apart from the homework we got. I still had the same people in my class,and let me tell you, I was not happy with all of them but then again I guess everybody has at least one person they don't really like right? Well so did I, but I'm not going to go in detail about her, it's not worth it.
After my two first years it was time for me to leave the school I knew so well and go to a different one. It was a lot bigger and had people form various towns, that all came by bus. It took me 45 minutes to get to school. meaning I had to leave at 7 AM and came back at around 15:30, if we where lucky and the bus wasn't late. I made quite a few new friends at my new school, some with which I stilll keep in touch. of course I still had my friends from my old school, but made new once that I liked better. unfortunatly for me, this school was not perfect in any way. I had friends yes, but only about 3 or 4 I actually hung out with. Most of the people at the school of my age didn't really like me or my friends because we where foreigners. Especially some people in our class, becuase they where jealous. You see, I did my last two years of high school at a bilingual school so all my classes where in Spanish and English. As my friends and I all spoke english very good, we had an advantage, someting they didn't like. However it wasn't really fair as we had a bigger difficulty understanding Spanish, and not anybody could get into the bilingual classes you had to have a certain grade percentage, on all your subjects. So after enduring two years of being calles names and being ignored I decided that for my Bachillerato (A levels in england) I wanted to go somewhere else.
I chose to go to Malaga, the city where I played hockey, so I allready knew some girls my age, that where going to study bachillerato aswell. I decided to try and get in to the school they where in, called San Jose, it was a Catholic private school, but that wasn't the reason why I wanted to go or the fact it was the best school in the province. All I cared about was the fact my hockey friends went there, girls I got along with very good. Especially my friend Sandra (I talked about her in a previous blog post). We both wanted to do similar studies so hoped we would be placed in the same class, which we did. For two years. I recently graduated Bachillerato (2 weeks ago). And can say it where the two best years of secondary education I have had. Nobody cared I was dutch, sure they envied my english but weren't jealous as the kids at my old school where. Knowing Sandra and the other girls from my hockey team helped a lot with making friends, but even with out them I would have made new friends. I must admit I was extremly lucky with my class, there where only 21 students in our class, which allowed us to form a thight bond. The secretary of our school, just so happened to be our religion teacher (Yup we had that subject still). And we convinced him to leave all of us in one class for the following year. With only a few minor changes.

Now what you must understand about Bachillerato is, that all though it seems to be the exact same as english A-levels it is most certainly not. Instead of having only a handfull of chosen subjects, we have 11 the first year and 10 the second. These include 4 chosen subjects and 6/7 mandatory ones, these included Spanish, English, Religion,P.E,philosophy and many more. One of the mandatory subjects was a thing called Integrated Project, which is basically a project that lasts an entire year. The first year it had something to do with english and the second year it was learning tecniches in a laboratory. These projects where different for every class and the depended on the 4 subjects you chose. I chose Biology, Chemistry, Maths (yup I know). and science of the earth and the environment. After finishing these two years we had the possibility of doing Selectividad, which is a bunch of exams necesary to be admitted at university. Just your Bachillerato grades won't do, infact that is only about 60% of the final grade. So after studying our asses of for our finals, we have 2 more weeks of endless studying for our Selectividad, which consist in 6 exams of 6 different subjects. But enough about that no I will talk about my Graduation.

Graduation, It's the thing everybody dreams about from the first day of high school. Finally for me, after 6 years my true graduation arrived. I was nervous and extremly exited.
The venue was a small part of the big grounds my school has. I allready had the dress and hair and make up figured out. The only thing left was the actual act of graduating. Now in Spain we don't have a cap or robes we have to wear, we are allowed to wear whatever we want and generally this is a long dress for the girls and a suit for the boys. To prevent girls wearing the same dresses, we had made a whatsapp group trough which all photos of dresses where sent. We didn't have school on the day of graduation, just so we could prepare properly, or at least that's what my friends and I decided to do. I will include a couple of pictures from the night. Following the ceremony, a small group of my closest friends and I went to a nice restaurant in the harbor where we had a lovely dinner. Afterwards three of my friends came to my house where we watched Netflix all night.

Have a nice day/ night wherever you are.
XxSimonee

Let's talk! Moving to another country!!

Hello World!
So as you all now if you have been reading my blog, I moved to Spain when I was 11. Being born in the Netherlands, a small,cold,rainy country. Moving to Spain, a big,warm and completly different country was very strange. It took quite a while for me to adjust fully to the spanish lifstyle and I would often find myself cursing the spanish for their relaxed nature, something I was not used to at all as all dutch people tend to rush and worry about everything wanting to get it all done quickly but also perfectly. Spanish people are all about, if not today, we will do it tommorow or the day after etc. Having to go to a spanish school where nobody understood me and I didn't understand anybody was pretty hard. The only good thing was that I learned Spanish pretty fast as I had no other choice then to learn spanish. But just as every other thing in life you get used to the changes thrown at you one way or another. I must admit, my sister and my dog (Yup, I said dog) where like my rocks in this period of time. I wasn't the most social person at that time so making new friends was quite hard. Sooner than I expected I made a very good friend though. her name was Gabbi, and she was from Cornwall, England. She had moved to Spain a year before me so allready spoke quite a lot of spanish, or at least I thought she did. We got along great from the start and she introduced me to more people, mostly foreigners but I didn't really care, as long as I didn't have to spend my breaks alone. The spanish kids as I had found out where only really interested the first day or two after that they returned to theit lifes and I had to figure everything out myself. They weren't mean or anything, they just didn't really pay me much attention. The construction on our house was in full swing aswell at this point so there was allways noise around me, which honestly stressed me out quite a lot. But slowly my life started making sense to me again, I always liked being alone and confided in my diary (I was 11 okay?) to talk about my struggles not wanting other people to know and mess with my life more pretending to help me. It's not that i'm antisocial, quite the contrary really, but I am just as happy at a party as I can be alone reading a book or watching tv. Another thing I did a lot when I just moved to Spain, read. I have always been a bookworm, and still am all tough I lack the time to read as much as I would like. In the Netherlands I would go to a library and rent a book, read it and return it. Now in Spain I didn't have that posibility, so I reread all the books I allready had and started reading the once I got as present, both dutch books as the simple little kids spanish books I got to this way learn faster and in a more entertaining way.

Now many years later I have fully adjusted to life in Spain and alltough I still think about my old life in the Netherlands I don't dwell on the past, I don't know where the future will take me, no one can know for sure. But the one thing I do know is, that where ever I end up, thanks to moving at an early age, I am certain I will be able to adjust to the lifestyle and atmosphere that country/city is used to that being Spain, the Netherlands or any other country. I am up for the challenges and curfballs life throws at me and I will face them with determination.

So for anybody out there who is going to move some place new, or just did, if things aren't easy, don't give up. Yes life is hard sometimes, especially for people like us who have to leave everything we know behind for something strange and scary. But every cloud has it's silver lining, so so does yours. And remember, if at first you don't succeed, don't give up! Nothing good in life ever comes easy.
If you have any questions, or just want to talk, let me know, and I will be here.

have a nice day/ night wherever you beautiful people are in the world.

XxSimonee

Here are some pictures of my house in Spain:

Best places to go! Spain Edition, Nº DOS.

Hello world!
So here is the long awaited second part of my "Best places to go! Spain edition."
The previous part included all the best places to visit in Málaga, the town where I currently live.
This one is all about my favourite hotspots in Madrid. The capital of Spain and one of my favourite city trip destinations. If you have an oportunity to go there even if it'r only for a few day, take it! It will defenitely be worth it. Madrid is a very big city but if you get a hotel/apartment in the centre you can get everywhere easily.
First I want to start with a couple of tips before getting to my Hotspots.

Accomodation:
A place to sleep in Madrid doesn't have to be expensive, It all depends on the confort and quality you want. There are a bunch of very fancy, chic expensive hotels. But if what you want is something cheap but not to bad, I reccomend looking at Airbnb, it is an amazing website where you can rent hostal/hotel rooms or apartments for generous prices. I have used this site several times and have never been dissapointed. It allowes you to find good accomodation in the city centre for a fare price.

Transport:
Of course you can rent a car, but parking in the city centre is a lot of trouble, so if you are staying there, especially if it is only a couple of days, it's not worth the money. the easiest way to travel would be by Metro (underground/subway). You can buy a single trip card or a 10 trip card, which is generally cheaper. You can use this card with more than one person. Making it even cheaper. You should remember however that when you leave the airport they tell you to buy a ticket that costs 3 euros, this will be necesary to enter the airport once you return, so don't lose it! Apart from the metro there are a variety of busses and of course there are taxies (cabs). But because the metro network is so extensive, most people use that.

Now on to my favourite hotspots:

Musea:
Now I know not everybody likes musea but I do, so I am putting a few in my hotspot list.
- Museo Nacional del Prado.
I don't think there is anyone who has been on a holiday to Madrid and hasn't visited the Prado, but if they have, It's there loss. Entrance is free for people under 18 and students up to 25 years old. They tend to have special exhibitions which are free of extra charge, you should know that these sell out quickly. For more info check out there website  (available in english),
https://www.museodelprado.es/en

-Navy museum.
I really enjoyed this museum as I like all things that have to do with the ocean and it's navigation. The museum is quite small but great. With a great variety of things on display, from old maps to things found on ships or even parts of the old ships. In the museum shop you can buy all sort of things, I bought a print of two dutch ships from the 16th century and this picture no hangs on my living room wall.
/http://fundacionmuseonaval.com/

There are of course many more beautiful musea but these two where my favourites.

Restaurants:
You can't go on holiday and not eat, I mean it is kind of an essential, so here are some of my favourite restaurants. All of them are fair priced in case you are on a budget holiday.
-Tommy Mel's:
This is mine and my sisters all time favourite restaurant. There is no Tommy Mel's in Málaga so we always go there when we are in Madrid. It is an american 50's diner. Complete with the old classic music and the interior. if you have read my post about Madrid you can find some very nice pictures I took on my last visit, and there I explain a little more about the food and service. They serve all kinds of typicall American dishes but my favourite are of course the burger. There are many diferent burgers and they are all equaly as good. You should defenitly check this place out. You can find them on different locations, but I have only been to the one on the Gran via ( The main street of madrid).
http://www.tommymels.com/

-Wok to Walk:
Now this is a comletly different restaurant then the previous one. But it is defenitely worth it. As you probably guessed from the name, it is a wok restaurant. You get your food in the typicall chinese take away cartons although you can eat your food there. You have some basic ingredients and then you can chose everything else you want, such as the type of noodles you want, what you want in it (vegetables, chicken etc.) and finally what sauce you want. They are very affordable which is one of the main reasons I like it so much and the portions are big, like I can never finish mine. Ever. It is a little harder to find but still very central.http://woktowalk.com/es/localizacion/restaurante-en-madrid-puerta-del-sol/

Apart from these two restaurants madrid obviously has a lot of other good ones. Close to the Prado museum in a side ally you can find "La cocina de neptuno" A cute small restaurants whit amazing food such as pizza, but not your oridnary pizza, no they have strange but nice combinations. The best way to find nice new places would be to just walk around and go into any restaurfant or bar that looks nice.

Shopping:
No anyone who thinks Madrid, thinks Gran Vía and who thinks Gran Vía thinks the new giant Primark that has opened up recently. It is a massive primark that counts 5 floors and is designed in a circular way so that you can just walk your way around the shop. My sister and I obviously visited it and bought a bunch off stuff.
madrid is also one of the few cities in which they have a lush store and nyx. Now I don't own anything from nyx but I know from friends that it is good. I do however own a few products of lush and absolutely love all of them. Apart from these stores, Madrid has a bunch of small shops and boutiques that are defenitely worth a visit. Some are even open on mondays.


Touristy stuff:
One of the things I love about Madrid is the amazing architecture,Literally all buildings in Madrid are beautiful, even the modern ones. allthough the old ones are the nicest. Especially with nice weather it is great to just stroll around the city and take in everything. One of the nicest places for me in Madrid is the Retiro park, a big park in the centre of the city, it is very big and has some very beautiful places, such as 2 palaces and a rose garden. The last time I went to Madrid on the last afternoon, my sister and I spent maybe 2 hours just lying on the grass under a tree enjoying the weather and watching people walk by. There is also a big lake in the middle with boats and other things. The best souvenirs to buy are probably on the big street infront of the Prado museum, which by the way is also a very beautiful street with lots of trees, very tumblr worthy ;)

So that is all for this post, next one in this series will be Valencia.
Hope you enjoyed and let me know if you want me to adress anything specific.

have a nice day/night wherever you are.

Simoneexx
 

Summer favourites!

Hello world!

So summer has come to an end, or atleast here it has. And if apart from this blog you are also following my youtube channel  ( the same name as my blog) you will know that at the end of winter I did a winter favourites. I really enjoyed doing that video so I decided to do a blog and a video this time.

So here are some of my summer favourites:

Kiko Body Spray:

 I love this spray, especially in the summer as you can spray it on your whole body, not just your neck or wrists. It has minimall alcohol so it's very fresh oposed to the heaviness other perfumes tend to have. It also has a very summery sent and it's in a metal bottle, making it easy to take away and minimalizing the risks of it braking. It's by the brand "Kiko Make up Milano" and this particullar scent is called Coral Reef.

Rituals Body Butter/ Cream:

I love to keep hydrated, especially during the summer, as my (and most people's skin) dries out fast due to all the chlorine and salt at the beach or pool. I do prefer to put it on at night or early morning as it's cooler and absorbs easier. Bodycream also helps preserve a tan which is a win win in my books. This on in particular ( the biggest jar) has little flecks of glitter inside giving your body a nice shimmering efect. It makes your body shine and look better. These body creams are by Rituals and are called "Mandi Luhur" (big jar, alltough this on e was part of a summer collection from 2 years ago, so I'm not sure if they still have it)  & " rituals of shakura" ( small bottle).

Dry shampoo:

As it is summer, your hair gets dirty easier. Especially if you swim and tan a lot, or like me, work out 3 times a week. To prevent washing your hair every day, something I don't do ( it's better for your hair). You can use dry shampoo, I guess everyone knows how to use it but if not it says so on the can. This one in particular is from a dutch brand and apart from keeping your hair clean an extra day, it also gives you volume and in my case extra wavy hair. resembling a beach look. It worked so good I went back and bought another spray before going back to Spain. 

Hair serums:

Staying on the topic of hair, with the sun and swimming comes easily damaged hair. To keep my hair shiny and nice, I put in a serum everytime after I was my hair. i airdry it first, to then brush it and apply the serum, especially in the roots and the ends. This serum has been my favourite for over 4 years. I bought it, once again, in the netherlands (you can only get it there, and it's cheap). Alltough I have found one in Spain that is also very good called "Kinessences, oil cream".

 Roses de Chloé:

 

















Now I have been in love with nearly all chloé scents for ages, especially the original one called "chloé". Recently I went shopping with my mom and while we where in one of the shops looking around. We walked past the Chloé counter and I smelled all the scents again ( Yup not obsessed at all). I had heard of this Roses de Chloé scent but never tried it. Once I smelled it, I fell in love. It smells like the original Chloé only fresher with a hint of roses and maybe herbs or something. I finally got the perfume, as a graduation present. ( If not I probably wouldn't have bought it). I got the 30 ml bottle which is the smallest one, as I don't use a lot of perfume. They wrapped it up in a very cute wrapping paper ( Paper under perfume bottle), making it complete. So yeah this is defenitely one of my favourite summer favourites.

Whish mud mask:

I love facemasks in generall, and all year trough. Especially at night, I just take of my make up, put on a face mask and relax. Normally you have to leave face masks on for at least 15 minutes. This one however, you leave on for short periods of time. At the most 2 minutes, making it easy to use if your in a rush or if you hate the itchiness of long on face masks.
This one is called " renewing mud mask" by an american brand called Whish. This is the sample size, it is paraben free and has naturally sourced and organic ingredients. The products are all tested dermatologically, so NOT on animals, something I find very important. So yeah I find it a very usefull mask fro a quick bit deep cleanse.

H&M nailpolishes:

I love a good nail polish, ( actually I am obsessed with nail polish and nail art) but this summer especially I have been loving the polishes from H&M. All the ones I bought where in the sales, so extra cheap. They had very special colours, with or without glitter. Alltough I prefer with glitter as the reflextion of the sun gives it a a very nice shine. The summer is also a very good time to paint our toe nails, making us girls look even nicer, especially in sandals or heels. 

Lastly I want to talk about the beautiful flowers I bought. I love having flowers around the house, they make the place look brighter and make it smell nice. In the summer with the heat however it is hard to keep them looking nice for a long time. but as it is cooling down now here, I bought these flowers the first uportunity I got. And I love them, especially the double coloured ones.

 











So I hope you enjoyed this list of summer favourites.
Have a great day/night wherever you are.
Let me know if there is anything in particular you wanted me to talk about.
 See you next time!

xxSimonee

My new job as a tour guide, sort of... part 2

hello world!
I'm back with part dos of my "my new job as a tour guide, sort of..." series and probably (hopefully) the last one. Unless I get caried away again...
Anyway let's get back to the story telling.

Day 4:
After a long and tiring day in Amsterdam, on saturday we decided to take things a little slower and stay closer to the hotel. I was very excited for today as I was going to show them ( my friend and his parents) my hometown, the city where I was born. 'S-hertogenbosch or Den Bosch. It was about a half an hours drive so not that far. It's a very old city, with a big cathedral and canals just like in Amsterdam. Only I think it is a lot nicer (but you know, I will always prefer the home town). And suprisingly, they prefered Den Bosch aswell. We walked trough the city enjoying all the views and of course visited the cathedral, where we  were met with a surprise. For a limited time, to get awareness to the restaurations necesary to preserve the cathedral, you could climb one of the towers and enjoy the views from above and get a good look at the 30 or so famous little statues the cathedral has made by artists like Jeronimus Bosch ( Who as the name suggests, was born in the same city as I). As it was the 500th aniversary of Jeroen (jeronimus) Bosch's birthday, you could see the city filled with art and his influence was very present. They also had an exibition at the "noord brabants museum" and of course in the "Jeronimus Bosch art centre." We only went to one of these musea as 2 is quite a lot, and we wanted a relazing day.
Also as it was saturday, there was a big market going on in the city centre, as occurs every saturday, alltough it was slightly smaller because of a fun fair going on. The market sells things like vegetables and fruit, flowers,pieces of fabric and especially food. Such as big warm dutch cookies called "stroopwafels" or fried fish and if course chips ( or fries).
We went home not long after and just relaxed.

Day 5:
This was the one day I had off of tour guiding. My friend and his parents went to Rotterdam but I stayed in the hotel as i had to study for my exams :(.

Day 6:
On monday I also didn't have to do any tour guiding as my friend and I where going to the Efteling,which is a famous dutch theme park. I have talked about it in a previous blog post so I wont go in to detail. But just have to say I love this park a lot! (like a lot a lot) And I was very happy when my friend liked it just as much as I did. We had a lot of fun and took a lot of cool pictures.

Day 7:
I didn't do much as I had to fly back home early the next day. So apart from studying, packing my bag and some last minute shopping I relaxed. At the end of the day I went to visit my cousin together with my mom. It was a lot of fun as I had not seen him for almost 6 years. And he has 3 kids I hadn't met either, who, if I can just say, are the cutest things ever!

Day 8:
On wednesday, unfortunatly I had to go home again. As I had my exams early the next day, and my flight was firstly intended to leave at like 11 PM, I switched flights to a earlier one. The only bad thing was that I had to fly alone. I am not a big fan of flying or bif crowded places so I was quite nervous about the whole flying alone thing. I had done it before but still.
Fortunatly everything went great and soon I was back at my trusted apartment watching netflix ;)

So I hope you enjoyed this mini series of my "experiences" as a tour guide.
I'm sorry I don't have anymore pictures but as I told in the other post, my camera broke 1 week pior to leaving, and my phone has no memory...

Have a great day/night wherever you guys are.

xxSimonee

My new job as a tour guide, Sort of... part 1

Hello world!
So I know this post is a little late but i've been on holiday and then I had exams so I was a little busy.
I went on holiday to the netherlands, once again, only this time a friend and his parents came with me. So I had to act as a tour guide, something I absolutly hate as I found out. But I did enjoy showing them around my beautiful country and especially my home town.

Our trip started on a wednesday morning, bright and early having to leave my house at 4:45 AM. The first hour and a half where very stresfull as the people I was traveling with had overslept and almost missed there flight. Luckily for me my mom was going aswell so I wasn't completly on my own. Thankfully they made it just in time and our holiday could begin!
As we flew early, we had half the day to spend in the netherlands, but we didn't spend it together. I went to do some things with my mom and relaxed (flying gives me major anxiety) and they explored the town and fields around the hotel they where staying. We had flown to brussels airport ( yes the same where the bombs went of in march) which was kind of strange as there where large covered parts of the airport you couldn't acces. But apart from that you couldn't really see anything.

Day 2:
On thursday, our first full day here we went to a town called Vught. I lived in this town for a good 7 years and wanted to show them some sights, such as the old nazi concentration camp just on the outskirts of town on the edge of a big forest. It was one of the biggest concentration camps in the netherlands and one of the only ones still sort od intact. It has been transformed into a museum and is also a national monument. I visited the camp a few times when I was younger and this time it was just as impresive as before. Everything was silent, you couldn't even hear the birds singing. My friend who has been to auswitch in Poland, told me the same thing happened there, not even the birsd want to be there, it is silent and you can still feel the impact it had on the world, as if you can feel the peoples pain and fear. After that we walked trough the forest to get to a fusilation place, it is a spot where the germans murdered hundreds of people, it is now a big memorial and every year on the 4th and 5th of may people put flowers there and comemorate the death, to then celebrate the liberation of the dutch from the germans. But I will not go into to much detail as I could keep talkin about it for ages and I would bore all of you.
After walking trough the forest we visited the town and had lunch on a lovely terras in the shade.

Day 3:
On Friday we had to get up really early (5:30 AM) to go to Amsterdam. We had tickets for the Anne Frank house at 9 AM and it took us about an hour and a hald to get to Amsterdam from where we were staying. I had never been to the Anne Frank house but I had read her diary several times and was very excited to go and learn more about this girl who was an example to so many people. One of the things that surprised me was the fact that all the rooms where empty, void of any furniture. I later found out that it had been the request of Otto Frank, Anne's father, he wanted all the rooms to remain empty. It didn't say why but I think is helped you see how small the place truly was and this way you could use your own imagination aswell. It was very well organised and most videos and explanations where in many different languages, not just Dutch and English.
After finishing at the Anne Frank house we wandered the city, reveling in the inmensity of it all. Not many people realize this but Amsterdam is a very big city, and not all famous/ tourist sites are close to each other. I believe we walked about 18(!) km that day, and I can tell you my feet where killing me at the end of the day!
My friend and his parents went on a boat trip trough the canals but I didn't join them as I had allreay been on a tour a few times. So I had about 2 hours to my self. At first I was planning on just wandering the streets and taking some pictures but after about 5 minutes of walking I stumbled across a museum which was all about science and the human body. Now apart from being a history freak I also love science especially biology, so when I saw this exposition I decided it was a good idea to go in and explore, because that just is a normal thing to do (for me atleast). The exposition was amazing and it had real body parts, which could make some people squemish but not me, but just incase I will not include any pictures here. When I was leaving the museum there was a girl outside with a real human hearth you could hold and she would tell you some things about it. I obviously held it and was very happy at the end of the day. I had learned a lot about the anatomy of a human hearth and to then just hold one was very exciting for me.
At the end of the day we went to the Van Gogh Museum which, can I just say, Is A-MA-ZING, the building and the art are both very nice. I also love the layout of the building as it is round you start at one point and automatically end up on the other side where you can go up the stairs to the next floor. This is very easy and you can't really get lost,or have to walk along all the rooms to get to the stairs for the next floor as some musuea have.
After a long and satisfying day we went home and man was I tired!

 I took some of the pictures from Amsterdam last year when I went on a boat tour. I don't really have many good pictures this year as my camera died a week before my trip so sorry.

No I was planning on making it one blog post but I talked so much I'm afraid it will be to long, so i am going to be making a part 2, just as I did with my Italy travel miniseries.

Hope you enjoyed and have an amazing day/night wherever you are

xxSimonee

Best places to go! Spain Edition.

. Hello world!
As it are the summer holidays (for me atleast) i decided to make up a little list with the best places to visit and eat in various cities in Spain.

So let's jump straight in to it, I have to remind you guys that I will only talk about the cities I have visited, and not just any city.

Málaga:
I know the most about this city as I live here fulltime, so this list will be the longest probably.

Musea:
-  Pablo Picasso museum ( kind of an obvious one).
Picasso was born in Málaga which makes it kind of obvious that the museum is in his hometown. You can also visit his birthhouse, but it doesn't have that many paintings so unless you are a art fanatic (which is totally fine by me) you aren't missing anything if you don't visit. The museum is open everyday from 10:00 to 20:00. It's located in the middle of the city so after visiting the museum you can wander around the city or have lunch somewhere close.
http://www.museopicassomalaga.org/
- Alcazaba & Teatro Romano.
The alcazaba is the spanish name for castle or fortress, nearly every city in Spain has one, the one in Malaga originates from the roman time which is why it has the ruins of an old roman theatre in front. Acces is free and it's opened everyday of the year.

There are more musea but I haven't been there or didn't find them interesting enough to write here.

Shopping:
 - Centro comercial Larios.
I particularly like this shopping centre because it has a big variety of shops, which includes shops such as primark, Pull & Bear, Bershka, etc. The best thing is that it is indoors, which in summer means air conditioning. There are also many different café's and restaurants where you can eat and catch a break before continuing your shopping.
-Corte Inglés.
This is a Spanish shop, which sells everything from clothes to homeware. It has classy things, and everyday clothes in all price ranges. There are several in the city but the biggest one is defenitly the one in the city centre, I love this one particularly because they have a wall entirely filled with converse sneakers ( an addiction of mine) which looks sooo cool! The restaurant though, isn't as good as you would hope, they've got some nice things, but I happened to get two not so nice things twice when I went there, and the people aren't overly friendly, something I value a LOT! So yeah. But that's really the only "bad" thing I can say about them cause overall they are great, and one of the only places that sells english books in Málaga (a big bonus for me!)
-Centro comercial Plaza Mayor.
Once again a shopping centre alltough I don't do much shopping there, except for going to the massive Nike factorty store they have (LOVE NIKE!). It is divided in two parts, a clothes section and then the food & recreation section, where I go often. There is a big cinema that shows films in english with spanish subtitles, and a bowling place + arcade, basically the perfect location to hang out with friends. After bowling/cinema/arcade, there are plenty of restaurants to pick from and have a nice dinner/lunch.

Food:
Food may be one of the most important thing in a holiday, esepcially if you go to Spain.  The country is famous for it's Tapas, which if you go to the right place is A-MA-ZING! But of course you need to know where to look. So here a list of my favourite restaurants in the city:

-El pintxo.
First of there are more restaurants like this with different names, but this was my favourite so it made my list. Basically el Pintxo is a tapas restaurant, but instead of having a menu and chosing things from there not really knowing what it is, you get a plate and cutlery (DUH), buy a drink (optional) and then there is a long bar which has a variety of cold tapas, all with different colored and shaped picks. after eating it you save the picks, each have a different price value. There are also people walking around with warm tapas and desserts, and you just pick what you want and later they count up all the picks and you pay. I really like this concept cause you know what you're eating, either because you see it or because you asked (the waiters tell you what it is, or it has a little paper saying what it is). they also have normal food, but all typicall spansih, so a defenit must for foreigners. I know two different ones, one in Plaza Mayor and one in a side ally in the centre. I personally prefer the one in the centre even if it's a little harder to find.
-Kalua.
Now Kalua isn't a restaurant but an ice cream shop, the best one in Málaga I think. They have a lot of different flavours and get a new one every month. the portions are massive and very cheap. they also have custom made milkshakes ( you pick the flavour you want from the ice-creams they make it fresh) and the best lemon slush puppy EVER! my favourite flavours are Nutella, Dulce de leche (Caramel) and red velvet (Altough they don't always have this flavour, which kind of makes it better.) But they have all flavours from Vainilla to Tarta Rafaello. I tend to have a lot of Kalua "dates" with friends where we just eat ice cream and talk, we can literally sit there for 3 hours (ops!) There are multiple kalua's divided all trough the city.
-Mon Rou.
This restaurant is going to be the hardest to find as it is no where near the centre. It is in the Carlos Haya street, I go here a lot, especially after hockey as it is literally around the corner. They have all kinds of food, Spanish or not. There Pizza's are great, especially the margaritha with double mozarella ( So bloody dutch). that kind of makes me like a steriotypicall dutch person who loves cheese but oh well. They are also very affordable, which is why I go there often with my hockey team mates. mostly on friday nights after trainig for a late night dinner and just hang out outside the field.

I know I said at the start I would do multipple cities but I feel like it will get to long and boring, so I am going to divide it in 3 different post. The next one will be about Madrid!

Have a nice day/ night wherever you are.

Simonexx

Beachy waves and Hockey fields.

Hello world!
I'm back with another travel post!
This time I will be talking about my trip to Valencia. The trip was a graduation present for my sister and I of sorts. We went for 5 days, from monday to friday. I just got back which is why this post is a little (A LOT) late. I want to try an upload a post every friday from now on as I have more time during the summer holidays. So back to Valencia, as most of you might know, Valencia is a big city on the east coast of Spain. It has a few very impresive and famous musea apart from an historical centre. And beautiful beaches, lots of them. Apart from going to the beach and to the musea, we went to a six nations field hockey tournament. The last training tournament befor the olympics. My sister and I where very excited as it was men hockey and we had wanted to see a few players in particular before they went to Rio.


Well firstly we had to get to Valencia. It was a 7 hour drive, which my sister and I are used to as we do it occasionally for hockey. Besides we had American Horror Story (Love that show!) season 4 Freakshow, to keep us entertained. After a long car journey we finally arrived in Valencia, at our apartment. It was part of a big complex called Port Saplaya. If you ever go to Valencia I suggest staying there. It is cheap but offers good quality, includes passes to a pool and is literally 5 steps from the beach. The only "bad" thing is that there is no WIFI, but hey we can live without that right?
The first thing we did after dropping our bags of was go shopping for food, there is a big supermarket about a 5 minute walk from the appartments. I was excited to go there just because they have these A-MAZING cinnamon-apple muffins they don't sell anywhere else, or not as far as I know. I am literally obsessed with them so naturally I ate one (Okay maybe 2) every single day.

We where lucky to get an apartment with a big balcony wich had a perfect view of the beach. unfortunatly for us, we where in the west so there where no sunsets from this part of the beach. So my sister and I decided to go out one morning at 6.30 AM to watch the sunrise just like I did the year before. Only this time, my camera's memory card decided to die, so I only had my camera, but I will include a couple pictures I took last year.

Apart from taking lots of pictures of the beach and going to the beach, which caused my hair to become very frizzy and wavy (hence the title). We went to the "Ciudad de las artes y las ciencias." which is essentially a bunch of beautiful buildings designed by the architect Calatrava in the "Jardin del turia" There is 6 different musea but we only went to 2 as we didn't have a lot of time, and wheren't really interested in the other ones.

On the second day in Valencia we visited the science museum which was very exciting for me as I am a big science geek (I also studied science Bachillerato) I was suprised about the amount of things in the museum I actually allready knew. It wasn't as excited as we expected but it was good eitherway.
The day after that we went to the Oceanographic, which is a big marine museum/zoo. There are lots of different acuaria with different sea animals of all different parts of the world. It was a lot bigger and nicer then expected. I have always loved the ocean and marine life, so naturally I was very (VERY) excited. My favourite things was the acuarium with the sharks (I have a strange facination/obsession with sharks.) and the Dolphin show, as dolphins are one of my favourite animals.

Of course we can't forget the six nations tournament!
We went for 2 days/ evenings as there where 3 matches each day that started at 4 PM. There where many different hockeyplayers I was dying to meet, and my sister in true stalker style, where hunting for pictures, we forgot to take anything they could sign so we had to deal with just pictures.
I will not go into further detail as it will be very boring for you guys. I am going to add a couple of pictures with a few players from New Zealand and Ireland, who are going to Rio.

Hope you liked this post!
Have an amazing day/ night wherever you are and I will see you guys next week.

Simoneex

Art overload & fairytale walks.

Hello world!

Recently I uploaded a blog post about my trip to madrid. As it was getting very long and I still had a lot of photos and things I wanted to show you/ talk about, I decided to make a seperate blog post mainly about the things we discovered the last day in Madrid.
So enjoy!

Prado Museum:
Now the Prado Museum is heaven for anyone who loves art, paintings and history. I am a bit of a history nerd, so I simply had to go. I had allready been twice before, but this year at school one of my most important subjects was History, this subject appart from studying things that had ocurred in Spain in the XIX and XX century we also had to analize documents and paintings/photographs from these time periods. Two of which are located in the Prado, which was my main reason for revisiting, knowing I would look at these paintings with a diferent point of view then before having studied them. Apart from these paintings by Goya (spanish painter) there was a piece from Rembrant and various paintngs from Jeroen Bosch (who was born in the same town as I). My sister and I roamed the beautiful halls of the Prado museum for several hours before leaving to get some lunch. unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside so a picture of the building will have to do.

After lunch (Pizza) we went to the Retiro park, a very famous part in the middle of Madrid. It was very big and beautiful, with maze like foresty walks and a cristal palace. After walking around for about an hour we sat under a tree on some towels we brought and enjoyed the last hour or so we had in Madrid. It was very hot by the way (35ºC). The last thing we visited was the rose garden, or at least I call it that. It was filled with different types of roses and fountains with arches covered in roses as well, it was very fairytale like. But I will stop talking now and let the pictures speak for itself.

Have an amazing day/ night!
XxSimone