Wednesday Wishlist: Bedroom

Being a student in the UK means moving to a new place is on the agenda pretty much every summer. However, unlike most other second year students I am not moving into a house with 5 coursemates, instead after having lived in a house with two housemates last year I decided to get my own little studio flat. I managed to find one that was affordable and could still fit me in it so I'm pretty excited to be moving in.

As the flat is furnished I hopefully won't have to buy too much furniture myself, but I know there will be certain things that I will need to get as I haven't really bough many things for my place over the last year. I have spent many hours on the internet looking for things I might need/want so I thought I'd share them with you on here, starting with things for the bedroom. There will be a bed in the flat but that's about it so here are some things I've been looking at.

1. Quilt Cover - IKEA
Considering I owned just one set of quilt and pillow covers for about 4 months last year (which yes, I did wash) I am quite proud of myself to have this on my list this early. I do now own two sets but I believe three is a good number and this floral one is perfect for me.

2. Floral Throw - Butlers
I've been after a floral throw for ages, I had my eyes on one from dotcomgiftshop for a while but that one is way too expensive. To be honest this one from Butlers is still too expensive but I have hope that one day I will find one I can afford.

3. Cushion Owl - Butlers
One can never have too many own themed items. I already have an owl called Henrietta who sits on my bed during the day so I am sure she would welcome an owly companion.

4. Green Cushion Cover - H&M Home
I'd like some decorative yet practical cushions in my bedroom. Since I won't have a sofa I will probably use my bed for things like watching films or tv shows on my laptop so some more cushions would be very useful. I love the mint colour of this one especially, and it's currently on sale (fingers crossed it stays like that until I can actually order it)

5. Rose Party Lights - dotcomgiftshop
In all honesty I have no idea where I would put these, maybe on my bookshelf? They're not the most necessary items and this version isn't exactly affordable either. So if someone finds a cheaper version please let me know.

6. Bedside Table - IKEA
I definitely need a bedside table this time around, using a pile of magazines wasn't the most practical thing to do but it worked for the last ten months I guess. This little item from IKEA is perfect, it's really affordable and would go with the other pieces of furniture I might buy. Definitely on my 'to buy' list.

7. Green Alarm Clock - dotcomgiftshop
Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while might recognise this item, it featured on a wishlist last year already but I still want it and thought this would be a good reminder for myself to finally get around to buying it. Wouldn't it look lovely on my bedside table?

8. Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch - eBay
I am currently reading the first book of this series, Rivers Of London and I absolutely love the style of it. It combines both crime and magic which are two things I love to read about so I cannot wait to read this second book of the series.

9. Autumn Bergamot & Grapefruit Candle - Flamingo Candles
This is the perfect scent for a cosy autumn evening which makes it the perfect bedside table candle in my opinion. I tried this scent as one of flamingo candles' scent melts and loved it so I couldn't stop myself from ordering the candle version when they had 20% off the other day.

xx

I'm Moving To The UK! Again!

Well I'm not technically moving to the UK again, although I am currently in my hometown in Austria but since I've already moved to the UK once I'm sure it doesn't really count as big news.
What is big news however (at least to me) is that I am going to be moving into a little flat which will be all mine. Well I am renting it, so not technically mine, but you get what I mean right? (yup, no housemates.)

It is a little studio which has everything I really need. A bedroom/livingroom/office, seperate kitchen and bathroom and even a room for storage. Perfect if you ask me.

I will of course be doing some posts of what it looks like once it's all ready to be photographed, but up until then I thought it would be nice to start off with some wishlists. I have been on several websites over the last few weeks and have accumulated quite a few items. Maybe you guys can help me what I need and what I don't really need. And most importantly, what I should get even though I don't really need it.

The first wishlist will be up this wednesday, keeping with the old theme. So I hope I'll see you all then.

Magdalena

Tales Of An Auswanderer #2: the friendly visit

Not seeing the people you're used to seeing every week is one of the things that's most painful about moving to a distant place, even if it's relatively close (aka the same continent). You can't just jump on a plane to go out for lunch or a cocktail with your best friends, well some people probably can but I can't because believe me I would if I had that much money. 

Having some of my closest friends come to visit me is something I'd been looking forward to for ages, I was really eager to show them every part of my new life and my city. Obviously I was amazingly happy when two of my lovely girls booked a flight to come over during their uni holidays in february (which by the way, we don't get here in the UK, why?!)

As the day came closer and closer I got more and more excited but also more and more nervous. What if they didn't like it here? What if they found it too wet and too cold? What if we'll start to argue because we're not used to being together 24/7? I never even realised there was so much I could be worried about, but I did my best to just forget about those things and prepare as much as I could, I cleaned my room, got an airbed, got some fresh flowers, sprayed the room so it smelled nice, you know, all those things.

I don't want to go into too much detail about the whole week they were here because that would just be a very long post, but I'll just mention some things that might be important to someone who is in the same situation. Or someone who is visiting a friend abroad even. 

Firstly, there is no need to try and plan everything, when you're with your friends at home and you meet up in town, most of the time you don't even decide where to go for coffee before you actually meet each other, so why plan everything when they're there to visit you? Yes you should make a list of things you want to show them and ask them to make a list of things they want to see, after all it's not all your job, you're not a tourist guide, you're their friend, they'll realise that eventually. (maybe).

Now, I love my friends because, well, they're obviously my friends so I must feel some sort of positive feeling towards them right? But everyone is different, and some people are more alike than others, some people are extremely easy to deal with and some aren't especially in out of the ordinary situations. When one of your friends is being really annoying while visiting you, maybe because they don't like that you're happy in your new country, maybe because they're jealous, whatever. Just try and ignore it, I'm bad at this but I keep telling myself all over again: I have achieved something by moving here and living my dream (basically) so those of my friends who are happy for me are the ones I listen to and then ones I trasure because it is hard to be so far away from each other and still be friends, but some people do it really well whereas others just suck at it. But that's just life and I try and ignore it as much as I can.

So this was a bit of a random post I guess, I just felt like I wanted to share some of my thoughts, I also want to encourage more of my friends to come here because it's great here (really!) and I'm really thankful for their support. 

Magdalena.

Graze Box #1 (a little intro)

I've been meaining to try Graze box for a while, probably since I first saw one of their vouchers lying around in Smiths. However it's taken me a while (well, and the fact that when I first found out about them I didn't actually live in the UK) but thanks to Tilly and her code I finally got around to ordering my first box. That was a few weeks ago now so I thought it was about time I did a little blog post about it and if you guys enjoy it I might do some more in the future about my boxes and what I think about the snacks.

I am probably a little weird when it comes to snacks. I'm not much of a snack person when it comes to buying things. I don't like crisps (I know, shock, horror!) and I only very rarely buy sweets unless I really really want some (which, luckily, only happens rarely). I do however still really like to have things to snack, I'm just never really sure what would be the right thing for me. So Graze is pretty much the perfect thing for me.

For those of you who haven't heard of them I'll just explain it to you briefly. Basically you subscribe to their snack boxes and you can choose whether you want them twice a week, every week or every other week (which is what I do, you know, the money).

 
You can then go on their website and look through all the snacks they have in their repertoire and rate them as either 'BIN' which means they won't send it to you, 'TRY', 'LIKE' and 'LOVE' which basically define how regularly they are going to send it to you. You also get the option of ticking 'Send Soon' if you are particularly eager to try something (I do this all the time).

Each box is £ 3.89 and you can get voucher codes which means you get your first, fifth and tenth box for free, you can use my code by clicking HERE. You get four snacks per box which may not sound like too much but I think they're reasonably sized and for me they're perfect to take to uni and are definitely all I need for those two weeks they have to last me for.

So now on to my first box.