Category: Lifestyle

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food of barcelona 

Here’s a rundown off all the food we ate in Barcelona:

LUNCH/DINNER DAY ONE: LAS RAMBLAS

calamari, pizza and sangria

SNACK DAY ONE: FONT DE MONTIJUIC

ice cream 🙂

LUNCH DAY TWO: EN ROUTE TO PARK GUELL

fresh bakery tuna salad sandwich

DINNER DAY TWO: GOTHIC QUARTER

veggie paella

SNACK DAY TWO: MERCADO DE LA BOQUERIA

chocolate covered strawberries and assorted truffles

LUNCH DAY THREE: GRAN VIA

veggie sandwich

DINNER DAY THREE: LAS RAMBLAS

tapas!…we tried more than just the 3 pictured here

SNACK DAY THREE: GOTHIC QUARTER

bakery goodies

Note: There are no pics of food from breakfast becasue it was provided at the hotels throughout the trip.

cheers.

~meesh

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post update

So I know what you are thinking… Where are all my travel posts? …Well my intentions were to blog about my travels while I was abroad. I even brought my computer with me and managed to get my London post up while there. But, I underestimated the amount of time that I would actually be spending exploring different cities each day.

Now that I am state side I will be starting to post about my travels within the next few days. I’ll also be posting some other travel tips and tricks plus I have some hopefully exciting news to share with you all.

So stay tuned because the travel posts I promised are coming!

Here’s a little sneak peak…

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cheers.

~meesh

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post grad travel

Ok so as promised I have some exciting news to share today! Although I have know for a little while I’ve been so busy with gradation that I haven’t had time to share the news. So here goes….someway somehow I am going back to Europe for a few weeks this summer!

If you would have told me I’d be going back to Europe after graduation in the fall I would have laughed in your face. But, after hearing of all my friends travel plans I started to feel a little FOMO so I had to make it work and I did.

So what does this mean for you? Some more travel posts yaya!

It’s been a while but I’m excited that I’ll get to share my travels with you all once again. On tap for this trip is a little bit of England and a little bit of Spain. And, becasue there will be no studying involved I’ll be sharing a whole lot more, from food to fashion, things to do and pictures…lots of pictures!

So cheers, becasue takeoff is only a few days away!

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cheers.

~meesh

~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest ~ Bloglovin’ ~

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graduation…

I still can’t believe that I graduated college on Saturday…there are so many different emotions that I still have sorted out how I feel about all of it yet.

I will say I’ve enjoy every minute of my time in college from sorority life, to study abroad, to my classes and the friends I’ve made along the way. It’s bittersweet to be ending that chapter and starting a new one out in the real world.

But, before I enter the real world for good I’m going to share some of the special moments from my graduation here.

Forewarning: There are literally hundreds of photos that were taken, this is just a snapshot of those…


Thank you to my family and friends for making it such a special day! It was a wonderful celebration that I will never forget!

cheers.

~meesh

p.s. Head back tomorrow for some exciting news!

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a weekend in columbus

My final spring break it finally here…it’s bittersweet but regardless it’s so nice to have the week off.

I started my break by visiting my sister out in Columbus with my mom over the past weekend. We got to see and do a lot while we where there so I decided to share some of the highlights here including some of my fashion and lots of the food…

FLOWERS

FASHION

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FOOD

Full outfit details coming soon…

cheers.

~meesh

~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest ~ Bloglovin’ ~

 

 

 

 

 

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the not so weekly update 2/14

Since I haven’t done anything to super crazy of late I figured a little update would be good enough.

This past week has been a bit of a roller coaster….

First off on Monday my room light goes out….so I was living in a cave until maintenance fixed it on Wednesday. And let me tell you living in the dark is not fun. You have no idea what you look like when you go to class and it just brings you way down, because you’re just sitting in the dark alone.

IMG_3957Photo: hump-day slushy, this definitely helped me get through the week…

Second off, there is this black cat that is always roaming around right outside the complex (I don’t have a pic for obvious reasons) and each time i see it, I’m like “oh, great…something is gonna go wrong today…” Well, on Thursday I just so happened to see this particular black cat twice……both on the way to and from class. And although nothing particularly went wrong, Thursday was not my most shining moment. But, I did make some awesome news friends in class an ate the best fish n’ chips I’ve had so far.

IMG_3955Photos: yum.

S/O to Bridget and Kate for an awesome afternoon and late lunch at Revolution.

Also, tg I didn’t see that black cat yesterday (you know, on Friday the 13th) or else I think my life would have been over. And speaking of Friday is was probably the best day of the week because we celebrated Galentines Day….Leslie Knope you are a goddess. Anyways the day was everything that is was supposed to be…a day to celebrate 4 girls from Illinois killin it in England.

IMG_3963 IMG_3967Photos: Galentines hot coco and dessert

Then there’s today….v-day…which has been pretty much the source of my “bi-polar” esque mood this week. I’m not really a fan of the holiday, I think it’s a total cope out for people in relationships, like why does saying “I love you” on Valentines day mean so much more than it does on any other day of the year? IMG_3970 IMG_3971 IMG_3972

 Photos: thanks siri…

So I’m obvi spending the whole day in the my room eating chocolates an avoiding people in general. That and I’m always home from school this weekend 1. to spend the day with my family and 2. to celebrate my goddaughters birthday. It’s been really hard knowing that I wouldn’t be able to be there this year. I guess you could say I’ve been a little homesick knowing that that’s where I would normally be right now….

But, I just have to keep looking forward because next week marks the official one month of being in England which is super exciting and crazy. I can’t believe I have lasted this long, lol. So then, let’s hope next week has better things in store….cheers!

& Happy Birthday little e, wish I could be their to watch you blow out your candles.

Enjoy.

~meesh

P.S. I promise I have some more exciting posts to come…

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it’s all about the bacon

Today marks the first official day of classes here at Uni (it’s what they call University…I’m trying to adopt a first words from their lingo). Although I didn’t have any classes schedule today I had a few administrative items to take care of on campus.

First on the list was picking up my I.D. card so I headed over to campus with my Illinois crew to student services. We were to get them on level nine….and when we walk in, on the ground level, we were on level 9….so we were a little like ‘ok then….lets hope this is the right place.’

IMG_3391Photo: The walk onto campus, to the right is Student Services

Now instead of taking a photo there, like you normally would, we were required to upload a photo before hand, which was also quite strange…But, anyways we got our I.D. so yay! I guess we are official students now, before it was as if we had no sense of purpose without our I.D. cards.

Then we went on to tackle bigger and better things like changing our class schedule because class on a Friday just wasn’t going to cut it. This is where things get tricky because as a study abroad student you can’t just go in a register for any class you want like you would at U of I. You have to go through the schools administrative office to do so. And because the different schools don’t work together it’s a lot easier to take classes that are all in the same school or else you have to go from school to school…and literally like walk from school to school…to get approvals.

IMG_3418Photo: Leeds equivalent to U of I Alma

Lucky for me I was able to add and drop a class in the same school so I was able to kill two birds with one stone. And it’s actually a huge relief to have my schedule all sorted out because now I know for sure what I’m taking and I can stop sending emails lie crazy to get in touch with people about making a change. It was literally driving me up a wall, I was emailing like 20 a day trying to get answers.

So, now you’re asking why is it all about the bacon. well that’s because here there really is no center of campus. There’s nothing substantial to base yourself off of when you are trying to find certain buildings. But on the walk into to campus there happens to be a sculpture that looks a whole lot like 2 pieces of bacon.

IMG_3401Photo: The infamous bacon

Now of course it only looks like bacon to us Americans because the bacon in England is WAYYYYY different than in the USA. So of course us Americans base all the building around the bacon. So today as we were finding the buildings we needs to go to we were like ‘oh it’s across from the bacon.’

It’s basically become our “quad” in a sense even though it not nearly as big of a space. But in terms of getting to class it really is all about the bacon…

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Photo: Outside the Union, so festive IMG_3402 IMG_3404

Photo: Back entrance to Union IMG_3406 IMG_3407 IMG_3411 IMG_3421 IMG_3383

Photo: Harry Potter like staircase….IMG_3386For more photos, check out my flickr.

Enjoy.

~meesh

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the pubs rules no. 1

After like 24 hours of no sleep and our last meal having been on the plane the night before around 11, needless to say we were starving Thursday night after we had gotten all settled in.

We had wanted to go to the Old Bar in the Union because we had heard the food there was pretty good. And that way we would be able to walk through campus a little bit and see how to even get there from our flats. Somehow we managed to find our way over there, and it’s really not far at all. I really think it’s a shorter walk than what I used to walk down at U of I.

Anyways we make it to the union and of course the Old Bar is jam packed…there was no open table and it’s kind of like you just find a place to sit, you don’t wait to be seated.

But, this isn’t really the point of the story….so because that place was pack we headed up the street to find another pub. And because we were so hungry we literally picked the first place we found…I think it’s called The Eldon.

IMG_3292Photo: It wouldn’t have been right if I didn’t order fish and chips as my first meal in England…

We got in and got a table, sat down and started waiting to be served. So….this is where pub rule no. 1 comes into play….

We had sat there close to 15-20 minutes and no one was coming to take our order or anything and of course I’m like “Omg I’m so hungry I’m going to die,” you know just making complaint after complaint. Then we see other people going up to the bar and ordering and we were like mmmmh maybe you have to go up there to order?

Of course I wasn’t about to jump up and be the guinea pig, but one girl decided to just go for it and what do you know…you have to be assertive if you want to be served in England. If you don’t go up to the bar and take matters into your own hands then you will go hungry because they won’t come to you that’s for sure.

IMG_3293Photo: We ended up going to the Old Bar for lunch the next day, after orientation and I got the Mac and Cheese…i think there was literally a block of cheese in it…

Knowing that there was food on the way were all relieved to finally be getting a good meal in. And with that we learned the first of many pubs rules we still have to learn.

Enjoy.

~meesh

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getting there….

Oh my gosh…I can’t believe that I’m really here.

After a quick flight to Philly we (as in the other U of I students I traveled with 🙂 ) were anxious to get on the plane and head to Manchester. Although I almost had a panic attack after we were FORCED, literally forced to have our carry-ons checked on the flight to Philly because it was full. And because we got stuck in boarding zone 5, we had no choice….I was basically in tears while I was getting on the plane…(all my luggage it made it so it’s fine).

gt7Photo: Sky Mall mag…I couldn’t resist, it’s just too funny

In Philly we happened to come across a group of Wisconsin students heading to Leeds as well, small world! But let me tell you this was the longest journey of my life. The plane was suppose to take off around 9, but was delayed due to a mechanical issue, lucky for us the let us board before the repair had been logged aka we had to wait for it to be logged before take off. So finally we get the go ahead, but wait….the plane had been sitting at the gate all day and was all icy due to the weather there….so then we had to wait for the plane to be de-iced. By the time we finally took off it was an hour and a half later.

gt5 gt6Photos: The plane being de-iced and our flight journey map

Since it was a night flight I had hoped to get a little sleep, I knew I wasn’t going to get a lot but I figured I’d be able to sleep off and on….but of course I get stuck in front of an old man who apparently doesn’t need sleep and was playing a game on the screen that was attached to the back of mine. And because it was a touch screen every time he touched the screen I could feel it…so much for sleeping.

gt4Photo: The food was actually pretty good, and you got a decent portion.

Ok, so we finally land, finally and we are all anxious and tired to get off the plane but had to wait AGAIN because the jet air way wouldn’t attach to the plane properly for us to walk from the plane into the terminal. We waited another half hour for them to attach a stairway. All in the flight was supposed to be about 6 hours from Philly and we ended up being on that plane for close to eight. Needless to say we were ready to get our feet back on the ground literally.

gt2 gt3Photos: The clouds looked like the trees from the Lorax, idk why I made that connection and our ending flight journey map.

Lucky for us the journey didn’t end there, we still had to get a train from Manchester to Leeds. And as luck would have it the station connected to the airport was temporary closed because it’s getting a new platform, so we had to be bused from the airport over to the station in the city. The ride wasn’t too bad, it was nice to get to see a bit of Manchester but we stood out like sore thumbs when we got off the bus to walk over into the station because we had all this luggage…

gt1Photo: Train ticket, it says airport because the bus fee was included in the ticket price.

We finally got on the train headed for Leeds and were relieve to be on the last leg of the journey. It happened to be an express train and took less than an hour to get there. We got to see a lot of the country side and hillside towns. It was so picturesque, there was a bit of snow too, so everything looked that much more beautiful under a little blanket of pure white snow.

FINALLY we arrived in Leeds from there we split a taxi over to our residence hall, and I have to say it’s much prettier than I thought it would be. Then again everything here looks like it’s straight out of Harry Potter, there’s red brick everywhere.

gtPhoto: The view from my room, I’m slightly obsessed.

My room is just fine, has everything that I need including a sink and mirror. My flatmates are cool to…one is actually one of the people we had met from Wisconsin on the flight so really same world, one girl is from Holland, there’s another girl whom I only met quickly in passing and another guy from Singapore that I have yet to meet.

gt8Photo: Unknown, but pretty campus building.

It sure did take a while but I got here safe and sound and I’m starting to get all settled in. I have another post in works that should be pretty funny and I can’t wait to see what else Leeds has in store for me and my new U of I mates!

Enjoy.

~meesh

P.S. I will be uploading some picture I took today to my flickr in a bit.

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packing list

With my trip just about a day away, I’m pretty much packed and all ready to go… it’s so crazy, I don’t believe that it’s really happening. Anyways I figured I’d share some on the items that were a must on my packing list for my ‘journey.’

Disclaimer: I would have used my own pictures in this post but in seeing that I have already packed all of these items it was best just to use the internet.

Filtered Water Bottles

This way you don’t have to go out and constantly buy packages of plastic waters bottles. Basically with a filtered bottle you can get good water from any tap. Not only will you save money but it will just be less of a hassle and you won’t have to worry about the quality of the water.

Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 9.22.24 PM

I picked up 2 Brita water bottles and extra replacement filters (not pictured) for all less than $25 from target.

Gum/PB/Ranch

These really don’t seem like items that you would be concerned about taking with you but…from what I’ve heard…The gum in Europe is horrible, it lasts no more than a few seconds. They don’t sell peanut butter because I guess it’s like not a thing there…and if they do sell ranch dressing it’s sold at an outrageous price.

Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 10.49.15 PM Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 10.51.32 PM Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 10.52.15 PM

Being me, I’m almost always smacking on a piece of gum so I bought a ton of it, because I’m going to need enough to last me like four months. And although I can survive without pb and ranch I picked up some of the to-go packs of both just in case I’m craving the good stuff while I’m away.

Blanket Scarf

This a perfect wear on plane piece. Although I will be wearing half my closet on the plane, a blanket scarf is perfect because if for some reason you do get cold you can use it like a blanket, hence blanket-scarf.

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Asos has a huge selection…Something similar to mine at asos.com.

Blazers

A blazer is the ultimate dress up/ dress down piece, and if you’re like me and don’t have a little bomber or leather jacket for going out a blazer is a great substitute. I feel like I talk up the blazer at every chance I get buy you can literally throw is on over a tank or a t-shirt. And, it’s just heavy enough to keep you warm but won’t make you over heat when you’re out either.

Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 10.46.10 PM

I packed 2 one that’s more of a cropped cut and one that is a bit longer. Both are black and can be found at Macy’s.

DO NOT PACK: Straightener or Blow-dryer

Buy cheap ones when you get there…because the voltages in Europe are different than in American your hair styling tools will not adapt correctly…even if you use and adapter or converter. If you try to use one of you styling tools with an adapter/converter it will either burn off your hair or blow the fuse…so just don’t even try.

I really wanted to give a full list of everything that I packed (i.e. how many shirts, how many pairs of jeans) but I didn’t think that would be of benefit for you guys… so I just decided to pick a few things that you wouldn’t necessarily think to pack but definitely should.

Bon Voyage…almost..

~meesh

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