*BARCA BARCA BARCELONA* {part-2}

DAY 2: As you might've guessed, after the first proper night out we were totally SHATTERED. It was so unreal because one minute we're walking to the metro station, and the next we're running around on the beach with sand filled shoes. After fighting off a bunch of random Pakistani men who were trying to sell us beer for 1 euro, we finally caught a taxi back to our hotel. For a second we thought we wouldn't get back in because it was something like 5am Barcelona time (one hour ahead of UK time) and the hotel doors were locked! But we still managed to get in and have a good few hours sleep.

The next day we decided to check out the more local places, cafes, shops etc. So we caught breakfast at a small nearby cafe with a lovely old woman who didn't understand a word we were saying! My Spanish is very verrry weak so I let Nandini do all the talking. I was fascinated by the tall coke cans they had, as many people will know i'm a coke addict (the softdrink ofcourse lol). After that we decided to get off at a random metro stop and walk our way back to where we started. It was a good way of exploring and finding many more interesting shops. The backstreet streetwear shops were the best ones, ace stuff and cheaper than London. Also, they had a lot of bakery shops which looked absolutely DELICIOUS and we even treated ourselves to some yumzzzzzy cakes. Riding a bike is also very popular there and we were thinking at some point to go for a ride but eventually left the idea!

We got off at the metro stop Jaume on the yellow line! As well as shopping, we were site seeing around the city, walking around being our own tour guides ;) The weather was lovely that day and got a chance to grab some icecream too! We should've gone to the beach that day but totally got lost with all our exploring! Anyway, strangely enough we used to get hungry at the exact same time and thought of having tapas! By this time we had walked to Passeig de Gracia and found a nice tapas bar there. It's hard to pick out the quality places because there are hundreds of places to eat! Just like London, it'd be hard to spot a good place to eat for foreigners because it's so congested with restaurants! The place we ate at wasn't too bad (don't remember the name) and filled us up quite abit!

For that night we decided to do a pubcrawl. The American guys we had met the night before invited to us to go along with them to Travel Bar and get a chance to meet other people from different places. It was 15 euros which included free drinks at 3 or 4 places then ending up at a club practically on the beach! We met the guys that night and chilled for abit, but it turned out that the pubcrawl we joined was pretty shit. Marc, who was one of the American's, knew of another pubcrawl happening at the same time and took us to join that group. VERY GOOD DECISION *claps for Marc*. Met a BRILLIANT bunch of people from all over, even someone who lives like a few roads away from me here haha. GREAT night, great people, ACE music, and woahhwoah funtimes. I'd definitely recommend a pubcrawl because you get to meet so many different people, its awesome!

Shoot to kill..

And this girl does exactly that.

Location: courtyard, Central Library
Model: Ida Nasiri
Designer: Izzy Bassil

Photographed by yours truly.

Wasn't really given a brief, but the industrial theme sort of tallied up.

Badmans lurkin'.

*BARCA BARCA BARCELONA*

I've been so excited to write this blog that I completely forgot about it for a while ;) Hahaa!

Let me begin.. BARCELONA. I'm sure many people are thinking 'what's the damn hype about?' but trust me, even I was like that before the visit.

Nandini and I were planning a quick get away for a long time now but everytime we were ready to book, something would get in the way. We finally decided to go to Barcelona as we had heard many good things about it from people who recently went. The offer was open to anyone who wanted to join us, but I guess it worked out to be much better that it was only me and her, "BARE JOKES." It probably would've been good if Saj and Raj came along too, but I guess we'll leave that to next time ;)

Okay so we book a week in Barcelona. We got tickets to Girona which isn't very far from the heart of Barcelona and we would enjoy the bus ride too. As soon as we arrived it was POURING down with rain. It was weird because in Birmingham it was nice warm and sunny.. I think we brought the rain with us. OOPZ. The best thing was it was still warm so walking around in hoody chasing after a taxi was perfect. We got a taxi to Selva De Mar where our hotel was just before midnight! We done the hotel booking online too and got lucky with a great deal at a 4 star Vincci Condal Mar hotel.

So we walk into the hotel and it's DEAD quiet because we're sooo late. Get our hotel room key thingy and went up to our room. Well scary because I was wondering how the room would be.. But when we walked in it was like WOAH. GOODTIMES MAN, good times. We went absolutely crazy and enjoyed our first night running around the room leaving the hinz&nani mark everywhere.

DAY 1: Like a classic bunch of tourists, we woke up early (well nandini did anyway) and left our room to explore the wonderful streets of Barcelona. We weren't too sure about the way transport worked and were adviced before hand to by a T10 ticket which is abit like a tube travel card. This came in very handy indeed and we jumped on the metro service straight away. The route was pretty simple to work out, everything was colour coordinated and we hardly got lost ;)
We got straight into the heart of Barcelona, Catalunya. This is where all the high street shops are like HnM, Mango, Zara etc. It was nice to shop around, but got boring very quickly as we have all this in the UK. and BOY DID WE GET ATTENTION. every other guy was either whistling at us, shouting out HOLA or just following us with leaflets. Not sure if it was because we were Asian.. hmm LOL jahhookkesss.
Everything was just amazingly different, but similar in a random way. Small streets, people standing in their balconys, little market stalls etc were all wonderful to see. I mean you wouldn't see anything like that in the center of London lol.
We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe and shopped around until our legs gave up. God bless the iphone, if we ever thought we were lost, it'd take us to the right route. DAMN roaming though GRR.
We headed back to our hotel quite late and decided to chill inside for abit then go out for a couple of drinks later that evening. Someome recommended bar Nevermind which we were eager to check out so that was top of the list.
So we got ready and headed out again, this time in thin cardi's because it was still quite warm at night! We found bar Nevermind and chilled there for a while.. Great atmosphere and NICE fit people hmm *hola*. After a few drinks we thought it'd be safe to head back to the hotel incase we just got a little out of control. Better to be safe than sorry ;) But as we were walking back we hear someone saying "HEY GIRLS!" THAT was the beginning of an excellent night.
We met a bunch of American guys who were also on holiday, or vacation as they call it. We then went back to a place called Travel Bar. A great bar for travellers to just chill, socialise and meet new people! After a few drinks we decided to walk to the beach (which is about a 15min walk form the center) and ended up on the beach, at 1am dancing to some GOOD music with complete strangers. Felt very unreal but tons of fun. It was more than random, it was FAN-TAS-TIC.

Pat Butcher.

An apt title?

So my blog's up and running again, no more distractions.

Involving anything from up and coming fashion trends, the best ipod music collection you can have, kicks, tricks, pics, you name it!

But for now, we'll take it one step at a time.

Got my first dslr couple of weeks ago, maybe even a month. Standard Canon EOS1000D, 18-55mm lens. Showcasing pictures from it in all my blogs until informed otherwise.

Enjoy.

Standard procedure with the sugars really.

Thass' the lean vision right there.

Garmentual agreement.

tcahw sith esacp.

if you didn't work it out already, thats an anagram. only a certain percentage of people can figure it out quick enough to realise it says, 'watch this space'.

because i'm blogging again.

bigger. better. badder. blogger

FANCY A SNOG?

"less talk, more snogging."

When karen, nandini and myself came across this huge poster, we kinda thought nothing of it.. Other than "LET'S TAKE A PICTURE." But how obvious is it that 'SNOG' is actually a name of a frozen yogurt shop. It's healthy, sweet and refereshing. A selection of natural, green tea and chocolate fresh yogurts with a variety of toppings which is definitely better than icecream.. hmmm :p

SNOG is such a catchy name but i'm not sure if many people know about it? So check out their website and see what you think! There is one in south kensington and in soho.. Covent garden and westfield are gonna have one opening pretty soon :D The snog experience can surely spread.. FUNTIMES.

http://www.ifancyasnog.com/

Karen and Nandini.. What did you think of your first snog experience? Ratings please.. ;)

Frivolous Objects of Fancy

Why in such times of financial destitution am I finding the most attention-demanding objects to buy?!

So I decide to share the empty-pocket torture with you all, presuming that we are all in the same position (if not please do not depress me).

The French are a mighty conceptual bunch I would say, they sure do have a bunch of really good ideas. Their transport system is mighty healthier than ours (everybody repeat after me "Teh-Jeh-Veh" or "TGV") and Mr Gustav Eiffel was a genius (I mean...cam'orrrn, just look at it). So with such everyday objects of brilliant design it's a no brainer that the people behind ATYPYK are coming up with various ways to creatively spend your ££s or €€s.

Who knows why it's called ATYPYK, I really haven't done my research that far, I was just entranced by the objets d'art...

Some are more frivolous than others...I mean why would it be a good idea to buy a gold plated "security tag" brooch, or a gold plated necklace in the shape of macaroni pasta (takes you back to childhood and the ever long list of decorative possibilities for pasta) but it's a GOOD IDEA, a potentially USELESS idea, but a good idea none the less, and I'm a graphic designer student so therefore THE IDEA IS KING!! (Imagine me pumping my fist clutching a 2B pencil violently into the air with a pad of A2 layout paper tucked under my other arm with the backdrop of those of people cheering - Che Guevera for the visual generation perhaps...)

There are more practical items though, my favourites being the coasters in the shape of spilled water or the restaurant table cloth sketchbook...I'm sure you can find something that you will really, really, unexplainably, want. Knock yourself out children!



Something about it...just...makes...sense...?

100% YES!

Yes it's 100% Reggae, Soul and Funk Selection!

Catch this fine event every second Sunday of each month at Cafe 1001 from 3pm-11pm, presented by Soul Jazz Records Sound System. With an exceptional collection of Reggae, Soul, Funk, Dancehall and Old Skool Jungle, we ask you to get on your dancing feet!

Since its debut in October 2008, 100% Dynamite has shown great popularity with its friendly atmosphere. This killer venue is sure to match the music, with its red brick walls and dedicated dance-floor in the main room. Furthermore, 1001 boasts a lounge/chill-out area which is hosted by a up-front diet of Funk and Soul!

To top it off, its free admission! It's the perfect place to be for those chilled-out Sundays!

For further information check out www.cafe1001.co.uk

See you there rasta's!

MOB Movements...

Wow. I haven't posted in ages...my bad, my bad.

Wellllll one of the first things I would like to put on my wishlist would be some hotness from Married to the Mob (marriedtothemobnyc.com), their Spring 09 collection is painfully seductive as usual...

If you don't know, MTTM is a New York outfit that are quite skilled at providing garments that make you wanna up sticks and move to New York, at least to get your "shop" on. But unfortunately we can't afford to do that, but you can still buy their produce online (if you can afford to do that, not that their ridiculously expensive, but everywhere I look I seem to read "broke").

You might of seen one of "sneakers" they collab'd on (so far with Nike and Reebok to the best of my knowledge), and since for some reason I can't upload some beautiful pictures of their garments and fab styling, I'll leave you with a picture of their Reebok collab (my favourite one) and tell you to head on over to www.marriedtothemobnyc.com and check out Spring 09 for yourself, it will be well worth it. Even if you haven't got mon-aaay.

It's a SNOW BLOG.

OH MAAAAYN.

I think we'll all agree when I say, I have never seen so much snow in England in my entire life!

It was absolutely beautiful! I know of some people who really hate snow, but cummmmmon.. you know it was magical!

Saj and I were walking through central when it slightly started to rain. Slowly it became icey and started to rain a bit more heavily. We got into the tube and by the time we came out, it was PROPER snowing down. Bloody hell, like WOAAH ITS FUCKING SNOWING MAN. I didn't think it would settle, but we practically got stuck under the snow.

Here are some crazy pictures of the snow and different snowmen! Seems like everyone really enjoyed it.. Nice! :)