Geeezzz, I haven’t done one of these in over a month! I’ll just do a little recap of the really small things that happened this last month that made me happy, ok? The Weekly Small Pleasures is a weekly feature created by A New Life Wandering.
1. Vacation with the nephews and my mom! It was a nice few days with the kids and my mother in Serra da Estrela, Portugal. Obvious there were some problems, some kids get more jealous than others, but in the end, it was very cool. The hotel was super nice, the pools were amazing and heated… and there were days of doing mostly nothing except putting on the swimming suit and the bath robe.
2. I tried a Gin for the first time and loved it. What the hell took me so long to have one, I can’t even understand why… while on the hotel above described, with both girls at a night walk with the entertainment people, and my nephew sulking in the bedroom, I decided I could have some alchool… lol… I tried a portuguese Gin, with apple and cinnamon, and it was amazing.
3. I cut my hair (a while ago). I now have it quite short as you can see in the picture. My hair was already shoulder length, so it was a big cut, the girls at the salon were a bit worried about my request, “but are you sure?” “that’s a lot of hair!”… yeah, I know, that’s why I wanted it off.
The why is quite funny, so I’m gonna lay it out here. I always had my hair short, or kind of short, but I’m lazy as hell, so I go cut it once or twice a year (and that’s the amount of times I enter a hair salon!). When it gets longer, it falls a lot – i have a lot of hair – and I have 0 patience for it. One day I was working, and a friend of mine came to talk to me on facebook “Hi, I was thinking, you should cut your hair!”. I laughed. Why? Because of everyone she knows, I’m the one most likely to cut it, because I don’t care! She has known me with short hair on and off forever. But she went on “yeah, but shorter this time”. So I said, “ok, do you want it today? You got it!”. Three hours later my hair was short, which is perfect for this weather. No regrets!
4. I immersed myself in book blogging. And I’m loving every minute of it. The book blogging community is awesome, and it has kept me entertained and quite happy for the last few weeks.
5. I decided to buy a Kindle! (Thank you mom and grandmom for agreeing to give this to me as an anniversary present) This is a huge deal for me. I never read on an e-reader, but given the amount of books I’ve gobbling down lately, I thought it was best if I maybe tried some e-books and try netgalley and stuff like that (and maybe save some money…). Then I only have to buy the books that I really love 😀 !!! It will be here sometime this week and I can’t wait!
6. I bought my ticket to go to South Korea and Japan in the fall!!! This is a huge deal! For a while I didn’t know if I would be able to join my mom in her yearly trip, because I wasn’t sure if I had to go to Canada for 3 months, but that fell through (unfortunately), so I took the opportunity to do something else I really wanted to instead. I always wanted to go to Japan, and it’s those things where you have a once in a life chance to go (if you’re from Europe and have no connections what-so-ever to the country). So I’m super excited about this :D!
7. Green Tea Ice-cream. Have you ever tried it? I have two flavours of ice-cream which are absolutely my favorites: green tea ice-cream and black bean ice-cream. both of which I tried at different Japanese restaurants. Last friday, with everyone leaving early to go on vacation – while I will stay working the whole month – I decided to treat myself to Japanese food (still on high because of the point above). So Gyozas and Ramen, followed by green tea ice-cream… perfect!
(yeah, mom, there more to japanese food than just sushi!)
The haircut looks great!!!
I’m glad you’re having fun book-blogging. You’re doing a great job with it!
Korea and Japan :O THAT SOUNDS SO AWESOME!
Thank you! I was finally able to take a picture today that didn’t turn out “mehhh” 😀
Korea and Japan, I’m so freaking excited! I still haven’t told my advisor, because I need to make sure that my Germany dates don’t coliide with it, but yay, super happy! 😀 😀 😀
You’ll have to document your trip as well, so that I can live it through you hahaha
I will 😀 Japan is supposed to have the most amazing colours… I’m starting to plan the trip tomorrow, cities, excursions and what-not 😀
Uuuuh, you go into this with a lot more structure than I ever do, which is probably a very good idea!
it depends! LOL, within europe I relax a lot, if I need to get to places I check the transportation and stuff, but I don’t usually plan it.
Asia is a whole other business. And given the language barrier (and the fact that I’ll be with my mom), we have to book trains and hotels and that stuff 🙂
Okay, that is very true. I’d probably do that in this case as well.
I think we have it quite easy in Europe. Wherever we go, we are never that far away from our country…
by the way, when I was looking for options for my ticket, one of them was with a stop in Vienna 🙂 (something like Barcelona – vienna – china (somewhere) – South korea)
Very true! It’s like Americans traveling from State to State.
Uuuh cool, but I don’t know if I should recommend the Vienna airport hahaha they’ve done some remodelling but it always feels like running in circles to get someplace to me.
oh no, I went with just one layover, I’ll do Barcelona – Paris – Seoul, and then Tokio – Paris – Barcelona 😀
That sounds like a good plan! The less airports the better!
yes! And I’ll be doing my 18 hour travelling by myself 😉
Oh man, travelling to another continent takes so much time. Take as many books as you can carry!
why do you think I bought a kindle? It’s not my favorite method of reading, for sure, but it will be so practical…
oh right, I almost forgot! That will come in really handy!
i hope i can get used to it. at least I thought that for really large books (outlander and such) it will be easier.
Shelf-space-wise it will definitely help. I’m assuming you’ll still miss the paper, but I often read scripts on my iPod instead of printing them out and you get used to it.
it will help money wise as well (i hope). I think I can handle it, I will still have my important babies when I need the comfort of the paper.
So, totally random, do you follow Katytastic and BangadyBangz on youtube? What’s your take on it? Are they dating? lol
Oh it’s official! Didn’t you see the #Bangtastic relationship reveal on Snapchat, Twitter and in their Vlogs? They almost crashed the internet.
oh, I didn’t!!!! I saw his video yesterday of them in LA, at disney, holding each other and stuff, but I’ve missed the announcement!
ohhhh 😀 they’re so cute
Here you go:
https://instagram.com/p/5Qpn3bJ50W/
😀 I went to look at their instagrams, they’re so cute! I mean, I totally thought they were together, because why else would they be reading to each other via web cam, but this is so good 😀
Is this weird? shipping them like they are characters or something?
Nope, we all do it! But I love that one video where Kat was like “You all just made Bangtastic a thing, it could’ve been someone else. I have a life outside of the internet. You may not know these people, but it could’ve been possible.” Everyone shipped them immediately!
LOL, I really like her, from the booktubers I follow she’s probably my favorite
I really like Raeleen and Ariel and Jesse too. Did I ever mention that I named my main character in the novel I wrote last year Raeleen? It’s not because of her, but I do love her name.
the name is beautiful 😀 I need to watch more stuff of her and Ariel, though what I did watched I liked. Jesse is the best! Christine is a big loud and erratic at times for me, but it’s always good if i need to laugh. Sasha is adorable!
Christine is a bit too much for me too sometimes, but I love her enthusiasm. Almost all booktubers are great!
Are you participating in the BookTube-A-Thon?
I was tempted, but I could never finish 7 books in 7 days, that’s crazy! are you?
I don’t have enough books with me and I won’t buy any more, or at most only one. It’s not the right time I guess. But I thought about doing like Booktube videos as well for a while and I wondered if maybe there is a video challenge thing that I could participate in. I always change my mind as soon as it comes to the actual filming though. Like my brain finds all sorts of excuses. We’ll see.
next time maybe? there a lot of these things right? 😉
I might one day actually participate in the reading, as for the filming, I kinda doubt it hahaha
lol
I always have the very good excuse that I neither have the equipment nor any kind of editing program. So, that’s not that bad of an excuse in my opinion lol
ohhhh, it might be! Nowadays the editing software is easy enough to find. the equipment, if you’re starting out and not sure if it’s something you’re going to keep doing, most phones work well (if they’re stationary)
My phone can’t even make photos hahaha
I do have a camera though, the sound is only mediocre it’s terribly annoying to edit videos on my computer, because I have to download a software to edit the sound and the video seperately and then there’s always the question of which music to use because it has to be royalty free and I would want a sort of intro-animation. I want to do this right from the beginning … I think mostly I’d have lighting issues in my room.
so you’ve given this a LOT of thought! 😀 the lighting can probably be fixed, right? a lamp in the right place? the sound/image stuff is the worst part… I have no idea what it all entails, but it seems like you do, so why not try it? 🙂
The lighting is actually really hard. I’d have to buy an actual lamp lol. The light in my room is terrible and it’s pretty dark.
I have thought about it a lot though. I was told that I’m very enthusiastic when I talk about things I am passionate about and that my presentations in school were always better than most of the others. Also, I always had to do the radio spots for school projects, so I figured my voice couldn’t be that terrible either. I’m still scared though and as soon as I set it up, I’m like blank and have no idea what to talk about.
but it’s not live, so no matter what goes “wrong” it can always be edited out. I think you should give it a go, and if you don’t like what you’re able to get, you never have to share it, right?
yeah, that’s true. I might try it when I get back home. I certainly don’t want to do the first video in a hotel room with white walls hahaha
on the plus side, probably that helps with the lighting?
no, the light is still pretty dull and yellow-ish. Also, I want to film in front of my books 😦
oh, yeah, so wait till you get home 😀 books are always good
Exactly! And I don’t feel like talking about any of the books I have with me right now anyway.
understood 😀 you should start with something you’re passionate about
I’m looking to go to South Korea and Japan next spring! I can’t wait to see how your trip goes, and maybe get some pointers! 🙂
🙂 I’ll post about the trip here
I love the hair, that’s so cool that you can just say, “cut it all off!” with confidence. I couldn’t. I’m sic” of having my hair short!
And kindles are a great investment. They are really good if you want to read a ton of book but don’t want to pay full price for all of them, especially if you dont know if you’ll like it. And netgalley is honestly so great! 😁 xoxo
I never had a close relationship with my hair, lol. Don’t get me wrong, I always loved it, and it curls a lot and it’s cute, and I love that it’s almost black. But the length?! Never bothered me – probably because my mom also has short hair?!
I’m really excited for my kindle 😀 Now I need to set up my netgalley profile and hope I get approved for books
So glad to see you’re loving book blogging, I agree with you, everyone really is amazing in this community! 🙂 I love your new haircut, it really suits you! 🙂
thank you so much 🙂
Wow that is a lot of great experiences!
I am glad you enjoyed visiting my country. You should visit Serra da Estrela in the winter too, btw.
You look great! It is good to know someone else who does not have patience for hair salons.
Hope you have a great day 🙂
Oh and yay for the Kindle! It was a major change for me as well but now I could not live without it.
And I cannot begin to tell you how.much I love Netgalley. The money it has saved me!!
I’m so happy! It got here yesterday, and i was already approved for 2 eARCs, so i’m super excited 😀
Awesome! Just don’t forget to download the file as soon as you get the notification. Most Netgalley books get archived after a while and you can no longer get the file after that.
oh yeah, they are already on my kindle 😀
I have, several times, mostly when i was younger. Serra da Estrela is kind of mandatory if you wanna see snow (at least for a kid from Lisbon!) 😉
True, true… Most tourists only know the Algarve but there is beauty all over the.country.
I only go to Algarve because my sister (+husband and child) live in Albufeira, otherwise I would not set foot in there…
I lived for 4 years in the north of Portugal, which I find much more beautiful than the south
I absolutely love.Gerês, I only visited it once but immediately fell in love!
I can’t even remember the last time I was there – it was such a long time ago – but yeah, it’s the most beautiful place 😀
We have an amazing country! I wish I could know Portugal way better than I do
Same! Maybe next year, if I get to take two weeks off, save up and get past my fear of driving long distance to places unknown!
I wish you luck! The problem with driving in Portugal is the shear amount of hills and those narrow secondary roads within the mountains… =/ that always puts me off 😦
I know, right?? I put off driving to Sintra because of that, even though I live so close to it. I am glad I finally did it last year.
🙂 I have the exact same problem… I always hope that someone else might want to drive 😉
Yeah, if I were travelling with someone who could take the wheel from time to time I would definitely be more up to it!
These are great! I got a kindle a couple of months ago and I love it, and I was one to always enjoy paper books. I love a good gin & tonic too! Apple and cinnamon sounds delightful. And your upcoming trips, how exciting! Thanks for sharing!
thank you 🙂 I was absent for a while, but I intend to keep it regular now 😉
Apple and cinnamon was delicious! 😀 I love travelling, and I get so little chance to go to Asia, that I’m really excited that I’ll be able to do it.