Tag: hollister

February 20, 2020 – City of Dragons (OOTD #613)

Published on by lensembledujourLeave a comment

Sciences Po winter break: day 6

I technically made my way through probably four separate countries on February 20.

The first was Hungary, where I caught a night bus late in the evening. I slept for most of the journey, so I’m not actually sure how many hours of the wee morning that I was in Hungary, but I’ll wager it was a few. The second was Croatia, where we had to wait out a several hour layover (is that what it’s called when it’s a bus?). Funnily, I’m pretty sure the bus we took from Budapest to Zagreb was the exact same one I took the previous summer. I think we took the same route and went through the same checkpoints and everything.

We only spent a few hours in Zagreb as we waited for the next bus, but I honestly remember almost nothing of it. I spent most of it unsuccessfully trying to sleep in a hard plastic chair. Eventually, as some of the bus station shops began to open up, I bought one of the most disgusting sandwiches I’ve ever had in my life and barely finished half of it.

From there, it was a few hours on until our main destination, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Like Frankfurt, this was just a day trip — less than a 12 hour stay before we had yet another bus to catch.

After finding a place to store our luggage (something I got very good at — who knew luggage storage facilities would become my new best friend?) we headed towards downtown.

Ljubljana is a very small city, though it’s the largest in Slovenia. If you’ll remember, I’d actually been to Slovenia once before, for a brief stop in Brežice while my friend’s cousin picked up medication. Ljubljana reminded me in many ways of Brežice: a small but quaint town nestled in even more beautiful mountains.

Slovenia is known as the “city of dragons” but other than the famous Dragon Bridge, I’m not sure if there’s any history or mythology that goes along with that reputation. We didn’t do a tour or visit a museum at this location, which meant my actual knowledge of the sites I was seeing was scant.

After doing a brief overview of the Dragon Bridge and the iconic pink Franciscan Church of the Annunciation, we decided to take the hike up to Ljubljana Castle. Or at least, that’s what I wanted to do. After having spent the previous 12-ish hours sat in a bus, sat in a bus station, and then sat in another bus, I was eager to stretch my legs, and a hike — that is, a walk through somewhere other than a busy tourist street — sounded wonderful to me.

But it didn’t sound wonderful to some of my friends, so instead, we took the funicular lift, which pleasantly surprised me. I thought it’d be lame to just ride up to the top of the hill, but being in the funicular car actually allowed us some really beautiful views of the landscape and the city below.

At the castle, we met a lovely British man who agreed to take our photo and also gave us some recommendations for lunch options. I wouldn’t have been against trying something else authentic, especially having indulged in sushi and humus in Vienna and Budapest, but my friends weren’t feeling it. Instead, we went to a Mexican restaurant. Because you know, those Slovenians are so known for their authentic Mexican cuisine.

Our last stop before we got onto our bus to our final destination of the day was the Metelkova neighborhood. From what I gathered from my friend, Ebba, who was the one who suggested that we go, Metelkova is a lot like Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen in that it’s a small artist community within the city bounds that has its own autonomous status. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to look around much. There was a group of men playing soccer who didn’t seem interested in having tourists walking around taking pictures, which, you know, I get. I don’t think they would have given us any trouble if we’d kept walking, but my friends didn’t want to risk it, and besides, we had one final (!!!) bus to catch.

Our last country of day was Italy. We got to Venice after sunset, and by then, we were really so tired from walking around and taking buses all day that we weren’t interested in doing much sightseeing. We ended up getting much more of a tour than we bargained for that night, though, as our AirBnB ended up being on what seemed like the exact opposite side of town from where the bus stop was.

It was a Thursday night during Carnevale, but I was too exhausted to really pay close attention to the colorful costumes and loud music. I think there may have been a parade going on somewhere in the city while we were hunting for our AirBnB and trying not to get our bridges confused or fall into a canal, but I’m really not sure.

Once we finally made it to our apartment, we crashed for about an hour to decompress and relax before we dragged ourselves off the floor and crawled to a restaurant for dinner. After dinner, I think I could’ve had enough energy to venture out again and see if we could discern where all those costumed people were heading earlier, but we ultimately just went home and went to bed. We figured we’d have (yet another) big day ahead of us.

Blouse: H&M

Jeans: Altar’d State

Coat: A vintage shop in Budapest  (thrifted)

February 17, 2020 – “I’ll Be Back,” Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1984 (OOTD # 610)

Published on by lensembledujour1 Comment

Sciences Po winter break: day 3

I sure would like to go back. I spent about 1.5 days in Vienna, Austria, one of the longest stays in a single city during our trip, but I still didn’t get to see as much as I would’ve liked. For one, I never got around to the Schönbrunn Palace, which I’d really been hoping to see. We also never saw Salzburg, another city in Austria that is home to Mozart’s birthplace, which is still on my bucket list.

After spending a glorious night sleeping in real beds in Prague, we caught a bus onto our next destination, Vienna. Our bus left in the late morning, which allowed us to sleep in a little bit. The real luxury though was that we didn’t have to take a night bus, which meant we weren’t forced to try to get a full night’s sleep on a bumpy bus. It was still a long ride, but it was significantly less miserable than some of the previous ones.

The downside though to taking a daytime bus was that it ate into the time we were actually able to spend exploring during the day. We didn’t have time really to do anything in the morning in Prague, and by the time we got into Vienna, settled into our AirBnB, and did some grocery shopping, things were already beginning to shut down for the night.

Processed with VSCO with c1 preset

And that was my primary complaint about Vienna — there was nothing open past 5pm! If you’ve ever heard the Billy Joel song, “Vienna,” you’ll know it’s all about slowing down and not allowing yourself to get stressed out about work and life. I just thought he was using Vienna as a metaphor because the people there were laid-back. As it turns out, not only are the people of the city laid-back, but their entire city is too, because everything closes down at sunset apparently.

Apart from restaurants and bars, there really wasn’t anything to do on our first night in Vienna. We walked past the Museums District, peered into the darkened windows of some closed thrift shops, and admired the almost completely empty streets. You’ll notice I hardly even have any pictures from this day — there simply wasn’t anything to take pictures of at night. It’s possible we would have found more to do and see had we continued to walk towards the City Centre, but by then, we were tired and ready to head back in order to be well-rested for the following day.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life during my semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest,Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Sweater: Vintage (thrifted, Street Scene Vintage)

Jeans: Hollister

Coat: A vintage shop in Budapest  (thrifted)

February 16, 2020 – Czech It Off the List (OOTD #609)

Published on by lensembledujour2 Comments

Sciences Po winter break: day 2

I think Prague was honestly my favorite city that I visited during my week-long backpacking trip through Europe. And that’s saying something, seeing as there was some pretty stiff competition from cities like Venice and Budapest, which were also captivating in their own right.

I think perhaps part of the reason why I remember Prague so fondly (apart from its beautiful architecture and colorful rainbow buildings) is that it was the first night I got to sleep in a real bed after two nights of sleeping on buses. We did the whole night bus gig thing on purpose in order to save time and money, but it certainly took a toll, and by the time we hit Prague, we could really feel the fatigue setting in. I think I was holding up better than most of my friends, partially because I think I was able to sleep the most comfortably on the buses on account of being the smallest, and partially because I think I’m just a generally resilient person.

We arrived too early in the morning to check in to our AirBnB, so we started the day in the train station café for about an hour before calling what was possibly the cheapest Uber I’ve ever taken in my life to get to our apartment. From there, we freshened up, enjoyed the experience of laying in a real bed, and then headed out for another long day of walking.

The one thing I was absolutely certain I wanted to see in Prague was the famous John Lennon Wall. It was on our way to the Old Town Square plaza, which was the starting place of the walking tour we booked, so it ended up being one of the first things we saw.

I guess I was spoilt on the graffiti of the West Bank Border, which is huge and sprawling and stretches all along the checkpoint between Israel and Palestine, because I wasn’t hugely impressed by the John Lennon Wall. Apart from the portrait of John Lennon at the center, there weren’t really any other major works. I did think it was cool how contemporary and diverse the issues represented in the graffiti were though — in comparison to the West Bank Border graffiti, which really only covers the injustice in Palestine, the John Lennon Wall depicted political struggles all over the world. The most recent one I remembered seeing in February was the Free Hong Kong slogan. I wonder what has been added since I was there earlier this year.

Though the landscape of Toledo, Spain perhaps gives it some competition, I think Prague’s Old Town Square and Charles Bridge that leads to it was perhaps my favorite sight of the whole trip. I wish I had photos that did it justice, but I was honestly so in awe of it that I forgot to take pictures. What I’ve included here are actually some of my friend, Ebba’s, photos.

In Old Town Square, we saw the Prague Astronomical Clock, famous for being on the list of the top 3 most disappointing tourist sites in the world. Comment down below what you think the other two on the list might be. I’ll give you a hint — I’ve seen them and have even posted about them on this blog before!

While I generally hate tours for the way that a big group of people speaking different languages following a conspicuous leader carrying an umbrella or a flag immediately gives you away as a tourist, I will say, I appreciate actually getting to learn about the various buildings I see when I travel. I think if you can stomach the mild discomfort you feel when a local glares at your group for standing around and clogging traffic, it’s worth it. I’ve done them in Jerusalem and Bordeaux. If you’re a solo traveler (which in this case, I was not) they’re particularly valuable as a way to meet people and make friends.

Our last stop after our walking tour concluded was to cross the bridge and hike our way up to St. Vitus Cathedral. Because a trip to a European city wouldn’t be complete without a visit to a church, right?

Honestly, even more spectacular than the church itself was the view from the top of the hill where the church is located. And that’s quite a statement for me to make, as the St. Vitus Cathedral is perhaps the most spectacular church I’ve ever seen, at least from the outside — and that includes the Notre Dame (though perhaps it’s unfair to judge that one, as I saw it from behind a construction fence), the Sacré Coeur, St. Peter’s in Rome, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

That evening, we tried to go out to an ice bar, where the entire room is supposed to made of ice, but the ice room ended up being closed. We instead headed to a different cocktail bar, which was motorcycle themed, though that wasn’t really any of our styles. I enjoyed my martini though.

Finally, after a long day, we headed home and slept possibly as well as I ever have in my entire life in a foreign country in a bed that’s not my own.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life during my semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest,Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Blouse: H&M

Turtleneck: FreePeople

Jeans: Hollister

Coat: A vintage shop in Budapest  (thrifted)

January 22, 2020 – Parisian Uniform (OOTD #599)

Published on by lensembledujour1 Comment

I wish I had worn this blazer more while I was in Paris.

Okay, there are a lot of things I wish I had done more of while I was in Paris. I’ll try not to harp on that too much. But after I’ve had a look through the photos on my phone, I believe this is the only set of pictures I have in which I’m wearing this beautiful yellow blazer — and that’s really quite a crime.

I also don’t think I wore this scarf much while I was in Paris either — another terrible offense. It was a Christmas gift from my Uncle Tim (yes, the one who has gotten referenced a few times before in this blog — for example, as my tour guide on my day-long layover in Philadelphia before I headed off to Rome last summer or as the giver of some of my name tag shirts), and I’m very fond of it. I also think its well-suited to France — the scarf is a depiction of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, and, while Van Gogh isn’t French and while The Starry Night is housed in the MOMA rather than the Louvre, the painting itself depicts Van Gogh’s view from his asylum room in the South of France. Plus, the painting is pretty heavily inspired by the Impressionists, a movement which began in France.

This outfit is a pretty good example of what my day-to-day uniform in Paris was like. These pictures are from pretty early on in my semester, long before I had fully masted of the “Parisian look” (if I ever really did master it) but I was beginning to get a grasp of it.

Here’s the formula: Blazer or jacket of some kind, turtleneck sweater, trousers (see, the jeans here are much too casual for a French woman — especially with the tears, which are a dead giveaway that I’m American), and round wire-frame glasses. A cigarette à la main can’t hurt your chances of being mistaken for an authentic Parisian either.

I wore this outfit out to a club after the Welcome Programme activities at Sciences Po were over for the day, and I think it held up pretty well. This was actually one of my only nights out properly clubbing — as you’ll find out later, I spend most of my subsequent weekends traveling out of the city (and sometimes out of the country) so I really didn’t to go out dancing much.

(Don’t worry — I’ll stop myself before I end that paragraph with “I wish I had”).

Still, I think this night was one of the best ones I spent in Paris. The club, a place called La Rive Gauche, was pretty small, and the only people there were other Sciences Po exchange students. The DJ played a mix of international music because of the diverse crowd — I think they even played “Party in the USA” once.

I think one of the reasons why this night stands out so much in my mind as well as that it ended up being some of my first meaningful encounters with the people who became my closest friends over the course of the semester. I’d been getting to know them a little during our Welcome Programme activities, but it’s hard to really get to know anyone until you interact with them outside of the formal classroom setting. I was hesitant about the Welcome Programme at first — I thought it was silly to show up literally 2-3 weeks earlier than the first day of classes just to go through orientation — but I’m so glad I did it. It helped me make friends beyond the few Notre Dame girls I shared an apartment with, and making friends outside of that bubble was what really made the whole “study abroad” semester special to me. Wherever I go, I want to feel as much as I can like a true local, like someone who’s at home in the city she’s in — and you can’t feel at home in a city without friends who live there too.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life this semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Express

Top: FreePeople

Jeans: Hollister

Scarf: My Uncle Tim

 

January 15, 2020 – Bienvenue à Paris (OOTD #596)

Published on by lensembledujour4 Comments

Finalement, je suis ici à Paris! 

It’s hard to believe that I finally made it here to Paris. It’s been a whole year since I first committed to study abroad at Sciences Po Paris for a semester, and it’s been over a year since I first submitted my application. My arrival in Paris has been a long time coming.

It almost didn’t happen either. My last blog post, I wrote about going to the Chicago visa office to submit the last of my paperwork. I thought that was going to be the end of it — I’d hand it my papers at the office, and then they would issue me my visa right there. I was deeply wrong. As it turns out, after I handed in my papers, I had to hand in my passport as well, leave it with in Chicago so they could send it all the way to Washington DC, and then, finally, they would send it back.

You can imagine how anxious I was as my flight departure date grew nearer and I still didn’t have my passport back from the DC visa office. I braced myself to have to reschedule my flight, potentially missing the Sciences Po Welcome Programme in the fallout.

I got lucky though — my passport, with my visa attached inside, arrived literally one day before my departure. A word of advice, though, if you’re going to be studying abroad in France and don’t want to deal with the stress of waiting for you passport to be returned to you via snail mail — do your visa appointment early! Don’t wait until the last second like I did.

Believe it or not, this is actually my first time in Paris. I feel like almost everyone (at least, those of my friends who had to go on international family vacations when they were kids) has been to Paris. It isn’t the number one tourist destination in the world for nothing.

My first few days in Paris were relatively uneventful. The grève, or strike, against the retirement pension reforms was still going on, so the RER and several métro lines were down, making getting from CDG Aéroport to my apartment in the 14e arrondissement more difficult that I had anticipated it being. In the end, rather than braving a taxi or a bus, I called a car service to pick me up and drive me to my apartment. It was perhaps the less “authentic” choice, but it got me where I needed to be.

After arriving at my apartment, I spent a good chunk of the day asleep. I was hardly able to sleep on the plane, despite my attempts, and so I was exhausted when I arrived. Unfortunately, since I arrived in the morning (7am to be exact), I still had a full day ahead of me to try to stay awake — a task that I admittedly didn’t do amazingly at.

When I was finally able to stay awake for more than five minutes at a time, I decided to take the bus into the city to walk around a little, as well as to get some paperwork from my landlord’s office. Completely unintentionally, as I was wandering around, I ended up bumping into the Eiffel Tower.

I still think la tour Eiffel looks a little like an overhyped telephone pole, but don’t tell the French I said that about their most iconic architectural structure. I’m sure it’s gorgeous at night when it’s all sparkling and lit up, and I’m sure it offers a beautiful view of the city if you go to the top. During the day, though, when viewed as a spectator from the ground, I think the romanticized idea of the Eiffel Tower is cooler than the reality.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life this semester abroad in the Paris, France. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Jacket: Thrift (Goodwill)

Turtleneck: Express

Jeans: Hollister

August 16, 2019 – End Times (OOTD #549)

Published on by lensembledujourLeave a comment

I’m really on a roll with these religion-themed blog titles.

IMG_6026.jpeg

The reasoning behind this one, if it weren’t clear (which, to be fair, it’s probably not on the surface) is because this was my last day in Israel-Palestine, and I visited the Mount of Olives — the location where some faith traditions believe the end of the world will occur.

IMG_6150.jpeg

Another layer of meaning you could derive, if you so choose to, is that I also visited the Garden of Gethsemane, the place where Jesus stopped and prayed before the end of his life. It was also a Friday, the end of the working week and the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, Shabbat. 

After my big tour the previous day, I felt like I had pretty much seen everything within Old City that I wanted to see, so I decided to walk a little beyond the bounds of Jerusalem city center. After consulting the Internet for ideas of things to do in Jerusalem for free on Shabbat, I decided on the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives.

IMG_6012.jpeg

And I wasn’t disappointed. I don’t know if I’d say either of them were my favorite sites from the whole trip (to be honest, I don’t know if I could choose just one) but they were a perfect way to get away from the insanity that is Jerusalem. Jerusalem wasn’t Rome insane, but, like Rome, it’s an ancient city that modern people live in — as a result, the limitations of architecture that was only built to accommodate donkeys and foot traffic is  constantly coming into conflict with the demands of 21st century life. I can’t tell you how many times I was almost run over by a scooter trying to drive through the narrow, winding streets of Old City.

IMG_5986.jpeg

Gethsemane wasn’t much to look at as a garden — sure, it was lovely, but it’s no grand botanical conservatory, like what Copenhagen has. It’s simple and small — you can walk the perimeter in about two minutes. There’s an attached church, as with all of the “holy” Christian sites in Jerusalem, but it’s no architectural marvel.

What makes the Garden of Gethsemane great is that it’s one of the only sites in Jerusalem that actually looks somewhat like what it might have looked like in Biblical times. You can visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but there will be no traces of the stable that supposedly used to stand there. You can visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Old City, but there’s no geographic indication that is was once a hill where the crosses stood. In fact, as I understand, many historians question whether these are the real locations of these famous religious events at all — or whether they’re just based on tradition stemming from an era of Crusaders who were desperate to claim they’d discovered the location of Jesus’s first carpentry classes.

The Garden of Gethsemane, however, actually is the garden from the stories. And furthermore, the olive trees may even potentially be the trees (or at least, descendants of the trees) that were there in Biblical times. Though the trees are too old to date precisely, scientists have determined that it’s possible that several are at least 900 years old, possibly older.Compare this to the (in my opinion) somewhat gaudy Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Jesus was supposedly crucified, that’s surrounded on all sides by apartments and shops that prevent you from visualizing Golgotha as it might have looked 2000 years ago, and you see why I liked Gethsemane so much. A local caretaker for the garden even offered me some clippings from the olive trees and some saffron (which he instructed me to make tea out of in order to attract a boyfriend). IMG_6011

The other site I liked was the Mount of Olives. I wish it weren’t so hot when I made the climb from Lions’ Gate to the Church of the Ascension  (which I didn’t even go into because there was an entrance fee), but it made for a beautiful panoramic view of the city from the top. It made for the perfect end times to my Jerusalem trip.

IMG_6056.jpeg

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my trip to Israel-Palestine this summer. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

T-shirt: Forever21

Turtleneck: Amazon

Jeans: Hollister

August 11, 2019 – The Promised Land (OOTD #544)

Published on by lensembledujour1 Comment

Here we are, the very last of my summer break 2019 travels!

I think the Galàpagos to Jerusalem flight sequence was one of the longest I’ve ever experienced. It went a little something like this:

  • Take a panga boat from the cruise ship in the Galàpagos to the shore, early morning August 9
    • Take a ferry to another part of the island
    • Take a bus to the tortoise reserve
    • Take a bus to the airport
    • Fly from the Galàpagos back to coastal city in mainland Ecuador, midday
    • Fly from the coastal city to Quito, afternoon
    • Fly from Quito to Atlanta, late night
  • Arrive in Atlanta, early morning August 10
    • Fly from Atlanta to New York JFK, morning
    • Fly from New York JFK to Tel-Aviv, late afternoon
  • Arrive in Tel-Aviv, early morning August 11
    • Take a shared cab from Tel-Aviv Airport to hostel in Jerusalem
    • Arrive at hostel in Jerusalem, late morning

By the time I made it to my hostel in Jerusalem, I was exhausted — but not super sleepy. I was tired from all of the traveling, from moving from boats to buses to ferries to airplanes to taxi cabs over the course of 48 hours, but I had actually managed to get a decent amount of sleep during the commute. It maybe wasn’t a great quality of sleep, but at least it was sleep.

Arriving on Israel on my own was rather scary. I mean, I’ve done it before — arriving in airports in new cities in new countries and having to make my way into the city — but Tel-Aviv was different. I’ve traveled on my own in Europe, but not before in the Middle East.

The remarkable thing about traveling and being nervous about doing new things is that, assuming you actually do the thing, your nervousness doesn’t matter much. Being afraid to try something new affects whether you’ll actually do the thing (say, try to find a sherut shared taxi from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem), but it doesn’t affect what happens after you’ve decided to do it. I was nervous to approach the cabbie and ask if he was going to Jerusalem, but that didn’t change whether or not I was going to have to do it or not. I had to make it from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, and that was that.

And I did make it. The cabbie wasn’t exactly a friendly guy, but thankfully, we didn’t have to talk long. A 45 minute drive later, he dropped me at my hostel, and I was on my way.

I was actually a little too early to check in to my room, and so I decided to go for a walk around the city to pass the time. The hostel had a place to store my bags, which was nice, and the concierge was able to point me in the direction of a free tour I could take later in the afternoon.

Before the tour began, I wandered around the area a little to see what there was. I had arrived during a holiday, which made it so that most of the shops and restaurants were closed. As it turned out, though, I didn’t mind — that also meant the streets were emptier, which made taking pictures like this, on a shopping street that might have normally been  busy, possible.

My free walking tour covered the four quarters of Old City Jerusalem — the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, the Armenian Quarter, and the Christian Quarter. Since it was free, we didn’t actually go into any of the sites, like the Dome of the Rock or the Western Wall, but that was okay. I ended up seeing those later. Our guide took us to see a beautiful view of the city from a rooftop and to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (honestly, one of the least exciting “holy sites” I visited — and that’s the one that was supposed to be most important to my religion). For free, it was everything I needed.

The one thing I was hoping to do on my tour that I didn’t was make friends. I was supposed to go on this research trip with someone else from school, but she didn’t end up getting the grant to go. I wasn’t looking for like, a best buddy, but I was hoping to talk to some people and maybe get to know someone from my hostel whom I could travel a little with. But to no avail.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my trip to Israel-Palestine this summer. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Top: Forever21

Jeans: Hollister

Sweat: The Middle Eastern sun

August 8, 2019 – Birb (OOTD #542)

Published on by lensembledujour1 Comment

On August 8, I saw a lot of birds.

img_4616-2

For a while there, birds were my favorite animals (but cats are more my taste now). There was no particular type of bird that was my favorite during my bird phase — just whatever had wings and could fly (sorry ostriches and penguins). I’m 100% a girl who would have gotten a tattoo of birds in flight on my collarbone back in 2013 or whenever that was trendy. Bonus points if it comes with an inspirational quote about wanderlust.

I’ve never had a flying dream in my life, though I’ve always wished I could have them. Flight as a concept is just so cool to me — like, you just flap your wings and away you go. Maybe that’s why I like traveling in airplanes so much.

The main feature of both islands I saw were the birds. There were some sea lions and cool rock formations too, but the birds were really the main attraction. They were literally everywhere — in trees, on the ground, in the air, in the water. I guess that shouldn’t shock me — of course birds are populous on a pair of uninhabited islands. There are no humans to bother them and few predators to hunt them.

Because of this, they’re not nearly as skittish as most birds and will let you walk right up to their nest if you don’t make any loud noises. I got more cool bird photos on this day than I think I’ve ever gotten in my life.

The babies were all so big and fluffy! I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d told me that they were full-size, and the blue-footed booby babies just looked like giant cotton balls for their entire lives. They’re the sort of animal that you just want to reach out and pet — you can’t, obviously, or else you’d ruin the whole point of not disturbing them so that they don’t become skittish in the future. Still, they were so cute. I’m having a hard time deciding whether the bird babies or the sea lions were the cutest creatures I saw on my trip — and yes, that includes the giant tortoises, which I’ll write about in an upcoming post.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my trip to the Galápagos Islands this summer. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Outfit 1:

Top: Zara

Coat: Forever21

Jeans: Hollister

Outfit 2:

Dress: Forever21

July 15, 2019 – London Layover (OOTD #533)

Published on by lensembledujour2 Comments

Best. Layover. Ever.

Here it is — the last blog from my summer European adventure. And what an adventure it was. Fitting that it should end with one last big adventure, right?

View this post on Instagram

another day, another airport

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

Croatia was not actually the last country I visited on this trip — it was actually England. After departing the Zagreb airport at around 1pm in the afternoon (though I’ll mention I arrived at like 7am, on account of my friend’s flight departing earlier than mine), I made it to London Heathrow a little over an hour later.

And then I sat and waited.

My next flight, the one that would take me to Chicago, wasn’t going to leave until the following day at 7am. I had a 16-hour layover to wait out. Thankfully, if my traveling has taught me anything, it’s how to handle long layovers in the airport — and the best way to handle a long layover in the airport is to leave.

And how do you leave London Heathrow? Why, you take the Underground of course!  If the tube was already my favorite public transit system in the entire world, it just got even better when I realized it was directly connected to the airport. I love metros that connect directly to airport terminals, like Copenhagen or Chicago. Having to take a bus to the nearest metro station — or worse, having to take a separate metro and pay an additional fee on top of your regular metro ticket like you have to do in New York JFK — sucks.

It certainly wasn’t a short ride, but it was much cheaper than taking the fast train, the Heathrow Express. And it got me where I wanted to go — the Westminster tube station.

View this post on Instagram

eye see what you did there

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

View this post on Instagram

best 16 hour layover ever

A post shared by Meilin Scanish (@meilin_scanish) on

I don’t really know what I was looking for out of this stopover. I mean, I’ve already been to London and I’ve seen the majority of the tourist sites that one can see in an afternoon while waiting for a connecting flight. I’ve seen Big Ben and the London Eye and Westminster and all of the major sites that were in this particular area. I just wanted to go again, to feel what it felt like to look across the bridge and see all of the tourists clamoring to get photos with the ferris wheel. I even joined some of the tourists and got a few photos of my own.

From there, I went to see something I hadn’t actually seen on my 2017 London trip: Hyde Park. Amanda and I had originally had this on our to-do list, but it got cut for time and because everything we read online suggested that it wasn’t really that spectacular of a park.

And to be honest, from what I saw on this tour, I agree. I think perhaps, I just went at a bad time, as it looked like whole sections of the park were closed off for a music festival that was about to park. I also didn’t have enough time to walk the whole thing.  I did get to glimpse some of the gardens, which were lovely while they were in bloom. It was no botanic conservatory, but for a free place to walk around for an hour and get some pictures in the fading light for my blog, it was perfect.

View this post on Instagram

london bridge is falling down 🎶

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

My last stop before heading back to Heathrow to spend the night sleeping on a bench was Tower Bridge herself. This was another site that I think I may have glimpsed in passing during my 2017 trip, but I never got around to paying a proper visit to. I don’t know if walking across the modern London Bridge and snapping some pictures as the sun set counts as a “proper visit,” but it was very pleasant nonetheless.

And even if it doesn’t count, I guess that just means I have all the more reason to go back to London one day. Oh well. You don’t have to ask me twice.

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life in Europe this summer. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Coat:Vintage (thrifted, Ecseri Bazaar in Budapest)

Top: FreePeople

Jeans: Hollister

June 15, 2019 – Not Florida (OOTD #518)

Published on by lensembledujour2 Comments

Wait, this isn’t Naples, Florida.

View this post on Instagram

wait, this isn’t florida

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

I’ve actually never been to Naples, Florida. I haven’t actually traveled much around Florida, despite it being the go-to vacation destination for every family that lived south of the Mason-Dixon line from about 2006-2015. I’ve seen Orlando and Destin and Panama City Beach, but otherwise, that’s about it. Don’t tell anyone from Florida, but I don’t actually like Florida that much.

View this post on Instagram

mall rat

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

So while I’ve never been to Naples, Florida to compare it to Naples, Italy, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Naples, Italy (also known as Napoli in Italian) is the better of the two. If you’ve been to both and have an opinion, feel free to fact check me.

View this post on Instagram

twisted my ankle twice on these streets

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

As I discussed in my post about my trip to Florence, Northern and Southern Italy have extremely distinct cultures, a distinction that even I, an uncultured American, noticed in comparing Florence and Rome (both of which are actually more Central than Northern or Southern). Naples, the southernmost location I visited in Rome (and furthermore, considered by many to be emblematic of what makes the South of Italy unique compared to Central and Northern Italy) blew the Florence-Rome comparison out the water.

View this post on Instagram

i’m having a moment

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

Naples was very different — both from Rome and Florence, but especially Florence. It’s like comparing a gated community with a private school that Felicity Huffman paid for her children to go to, to the neighborhood that Kelley Williams-Bolar falsified her address in order to prevent her children from having to school in. Can you guess if Naples is the Felicity Huffman or the Kelley Williams-Bolar?

In fact, when I returned to Rome from Naples, the first thing a friend said to me was “Oh, you didn’t get mugged! I guess you didn’t get an authentic tour.”

View this post on Instagram

not a bad view

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

Actually, I don’t think Naples is as bad as its reputation. Sure, it was a little sketchy, especially that first night after I arrived after sundown and had to find the AirBnB. And the beach weren’t the cleanest. And one half of our friend group got kicked out of their hotel room after it turned out that they’d booked through a fraudulent website. At least the roads were better than Rome’s — no twisted ankles for me!

Plus, Naples had a beautiful castle — the Castel dell’Ovo, “the castle of the egg.” Don’t ask me why it’s called that. I don’t know (though I’m certain it was explained on one of the signs, I couldn’t read them as they were all in Italian). It was beautiful though, and I got some sweet photos on the way up.

View this post on Instagram

sea you around

A post shared by Meilin || L'ensemble du jour (@lensembledujour) on

That’s about it for today. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one with more updates on my life in Europe this summer. Don’t forget to check me out on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Bloglovin, Twitter, and Tumblr! For business inquiries, shoot me an email at lensembledujour@gmail.com!

Outfit 1:

Swimsuit top: Hollister

Swimsuit bottom: Target

Outfit 2:

Top: Zara

Shorts: H&M