Amsterdam

The final year of university seems like it is going too fast yet too slow at the same time. We celebrated the ending of the winter term with a trip to Amsterdam! It's so scary to think that this could be the last Christmas holiday we get! 

we were blessed with the most beautiful sunrise ever on the plane..

and immediately found ourselves devouring gigantic pancakes 

Amsterdam is literally the most beautiful, peaceful city to just stroll in, so we didn't get a single tram the whole time we were there. We walked for hours every day, just taking in the surroundings and discovering new places along the way. 

We did start a free walking tour which was very interesting... but got distracted by the sparkly offerings at the flea market (Waterlooplein) 

 

Definitely worth checking out, everything is so cheap and unusual! Something I did learn on our short tour was that Amsterdam have their own banksy of sorts, a guy who is creating giant statutes and dropping them in the river... only the government know who he is and have been sworn to secrecy . 

This was in their City Hall, it had just been found in the canal! 

The coffeeshops are very fun in Amsterdam - they are basically just regular coffee shops with the addition of space cakes and joints! It must be why everyone is so chilled out and happy in Amsterdam :) 

December is a great time to go because all of the Christmas markets are on, especially if you go over a weekend as the usual weekend ones are on too! 

This Christmas market we found was much more of a FOOD market but we certainly did ourselves proud and ate something from every stall. Above are basically deep fried brioche balls, 1 euro each but the lady liked me and gave me 5 for a euro. Not really realising how bad they were, I devoured all six. Then the next day, after a feeeew more I sort of realised they are deep fried doughnuts. SO GOOD. 

The food in Amsterdam is generally amazing. We went for this really amazing dinner in Spui one night, at a dutch restaurant which was advised to us by our hotel (ask for non touristy areas!) and we all overestimated the size of our stomachs. 

Have a wonderful Christmas! xxx

Birthday

The past week has been a very busy week, filled with friends, family and food because... I turned 21! Last year I was in Disneyland Paris for my birthday so I was not expecting this year to even compare...
best day ever

However this birthday was actually even better very good because it was spent with the people I love most. (and really excellent food and presents!)

On the night before my birthday my agency very luckily had a dinner party at Blake's Hotel, which does a-maaazing food! We ate tartare, steak and.. cake! Where they very nicely sang to me :)


Then very drunk on champagne, I went to Dima's who tucked me into bed. We woke up at 7am (I got quite excited) and he gave me the most beautiful camera ever, in the hope that I take proper pictures as opposed to snapping literally everything I see with my iphone. I have had to buy a 'dummy guide' to it, it is quite overwhelming but it takes wonderful pictures :')
My other friends bought me a polaroid camera this year, so I have understood the hint - I take a lot of pictures.


After a hearty breakfast of pancakes we headed out to the Natural History Museum (in the pouring rain, cheers London) for some ice skating with two of my bestest friends, Katherine and Nicola. Luckily the rain held off for the hour we were on the ice, and we managed to teach Nicola how to ice skate on a penguin - I later made all 3 of them follow me skating on penguins whilst singing happy birthday :D



We then went for a leisurely stroll around Harrods, followed by the BIGGEST AND BEST PIZZA I have ever eaten. I have had Homeslice pizza before in a slice form, so after to escape the rain we popped in for a quick bite. The whole pizzas are 20 inches, but I don't think any of us really understood the 'actual' size - Dima got one to himself and me and Nicola shared. For £20 it is really good value to share as it is quite impossible to finish one off alone. A large slice is £4.

 
We waddled home, meeting my family ready for our next food adventure. My dad very nicely took us for a family meal to Hawksmoor, which is my go-to for steak and their salted caramel and chocolate tart with popcorn ice cream. Dima also really loves their Sunday lunches, but I am more of a dessert girl.

We were still in the midst of a food coma from the pizza, but free food = ordering a whole lobster and forcing yourself to eat it. Followed by ordering the above tart (which was not in its normal form that evening but a souffle-type thing, which is good because I love souffle but bad because I really love the normal tart) and the salted caramel rolos to take home. Because it was my birthday and I GET TWO PUDDINGS IF I WANT. But I very nearly passed out on the table trying to eat all this food. (Also, do not go to Hawksmoor on a weekend evening because it is very loud indeed).


My dad bought me a BEAUTIFUL Michael Kors watch/wallet which I shall treasure forever and ever.


and on Sunday I had a sort of food-party with my bestest friends. We ate A LOT. Monday was naturally, at Mahiki where we were delighted with massive drinks in seashells. I went with Central list who are always brilliant <3



It was also a pyjama party.

 
And that is almost all. I dragged myself to the last food adventure of the week with Stephanie and Aji on Tuesday, to an overdue dinner at Medlar, Stephanie's favourite restaurant. This is saying a LOT for someone who eats out every single day without fail. She very nicely managed to coerce the waiters into putting candles on our desserts in honour of mine and Aji's birthday :)

The food was incredible.
 
That pretty much concludes my 21st birthday! It was really, really lovely and I feel so lucky to have such amazing people to celebrate it with :)))
xxxx

Lasagne

This is for Lisa who came over on Monday for Made in Chelsea, Revenge and Lasagne. (and chocolate cake because chocolate cake is just a necessary part of life). She asked me how to make lasagne and i told her it was literally the easiest thing ever (because I am a cheat and do not slave over my white sauce or whatever for hours stirring it every 30 seconds because THIS IS JUST AS GOOD) and she asked me to write a blog post about it. As she is the only person who reads my blog I can do her this favour ;) 

Ingredients
- 500g mince 
- 1 onion 
- Dolmio Red Lasagne Sauce
- Dolmio White Lasagne Sauce
- Lasagne sheets (mine are from Tesco)
- Cheese

the above I think costs under £10 so it is a very good/cheap meal to cook for a group of friends, who assume that you have put loads of expense/effort into it when it actually takes like 20 minutes top to cook and 30 in the oven. 

Set your oven to warm up at 200* (that * is meant to be degrees)

basically,  you need this 

 ok I will put it into steps because for people like me, who cannot cook, steps are good. 

Step 1: cut your onions (try not to cry) and put them in a big frying pan (I use a wok) 
Step 2: put your (preferably NOT FROZEN like mine was meaning that I had to awkwardly scrape off the cooked bits of meat.. as it cooked) mince into the pan and brown it 
Step 3: put the RED sauce in the pan with the meat
Step 4: put your meaty-oniony concotion into an ovenproof dish in a not-too-thin  but not-too-big layer. 
Step 5: place the cute little lasagne rectangle sheets over your meat, try not to let any sauce come through 
Step 6: cover this pasta layer with lots and lots of white sauce yuuum (and also add some cheese if you love cheese, i put some casual mozarella balls in here) 
Step 7: repeat the process over again (so meat ontop of your white sauce etc) 
Step 8: when the dish is full up COVER IT WITH CHEESE (if you like cheese)  
Step 9: put it in the 200 degree oven for half an hour
Step 10: remove and EAT 

SO THERE YOU HAVE YOUR EASY PEASY LASANGE. And it tastes great. meat covered in cheese and pasta is pretty hard to not taste great. 

  



the optional last step is to eat this whilst watching crappy tv like Made in Chelsea (And then instagram a picture of your food and tag MIC and Jamie Laing will like it, worked for me) because you feel all fuzzy and warm inside knowing you are not a complete dick like spencer who probably never eats lasange. 

Enjoy! xx

Update

I have been quite crap at updating this because of the avalanche of university which has come crashing into my life and the very difficult lack of internet I have had for basically the last month. (It was seriously hard). However all is good now as I am reconnected and have actually ventured out of my flat lately for things other than university!

Starting with work (not university work, don't speak to me about that) I have been shooting a lot for Fabulous Magazine this past week. I really like shooting for them because it is nice and easy and they always have great catering, as well as every single person being completely lovely.

I did a giant fashion-awards shoot on Monday

really really really really want this dress (everything from Miss Selfridge) but I would just buy it and hang it in my wardrobe and look at it occasionally and never wear it.

which was very fun, even though we did a lot of outfits, because I had wagamamas chicken katsu curry for lunch which is my favouritest meal ever and they had wifi at the studio, which I did not have at home (therefore I could get Revenge to watch when I got home - how weird is it getting lately?)

Then on Tuesday I did another Fabulous shoot which was in association with Debenhams (which made me very very very very very happy),  I think they are having some party with my face on it which is nice?




 and for lunch... I had chicken katsu from Wagamamas again (grilled because that made me feel a teensy bit better about my upcoming obesity). When I got home on the Monday my boyfriend had come over from Cyprus and brought me back a kebab and a Cyprus sandwich as well as a tonne of bakery food so this has not exactly been a 'healthy' week. But I started Cheerleading so its fine xox

Coincidentally my friend found this the other day

that is all for work at the moment, I have a Charles Worthington show tomorrow (which means I can't go to Cheerleading which means that all of the unhealthy food I ate this week/will eat is not cancelled out) and appaaaaarently quite an exciting one on Tuesday, but I don't want to jinx it.

GQ Awards

On Tuesday I had possibly the best job ever.. to greet celebrities at the GQ Men of the Year Awards!





 

There was a lot of preparations..

and then we were ready to greet away! The likes of David Gandy, Pixie Lott, Rita Ora, Ellie Goulding, Emma Watson etc walked past us all lining the red carpet and I had to try very hard not to freak out, and just smile gracefully.

then it was time for the afterparty!

 



I made friends with a lovely fellow who took me to his table in the awards where Rita Ora and Ellie Goulding were casually sitting... shell shocked can not even explain. He introduced me to them and we all hung out upstairs, before going on to the Groucho Club. The paparazzi were literally insane and it was very surreal!

When Groucho closed I decided to go home because it was 4am and I had work at 8 the next morning! I  was in the car with Rita and Cara Delevingne and went and got their Mcdonalds for them because I am 'not famous' - the paparazzi were not happy :p

Moving

This has been a pretty busy week as I have moved into my new flat in Whitechapel! I am really upset to leave Kensington and my boyfriend but will be super convenient living five minutes from university :( (and i most definitely would never go in if I had to travel 45 minutes a day!)

The flat is super nice, though in the most ghetto  interesting area ever... here's hoping to not get stabbed!

My new flatmates (Louisa and Arianna) are super lovely and they both have really nice boyfriends, so we had sort of a couples night drinking Moet and playing Articulate! 

my new bedroom has been quite stressful to sort out as I am a major hoarder and have had to get rid of loads of clothes, and choose between an extra wardrobe and a desk! 

The desk won... which Dima very nicely put together for me! We went to Ikea which started out fine, found a beautiful desk and chair... then found out they were sold out *meltdown* .. then found another desk (below) and chair.. although the chair was not actually a chair, and was just a random desk put in that area! The effort of taking it back is too much so we have just kept it! 

Also the checkout guy overcharged me by £30 for something, super annoying! Ikea is not as great as it seems :'( Although their meatballs and super cheap food was prettyyyy good! 

For now I am back to Kensington because my flatmates haven't properly moved in yet! It is as beautiful as ever :) 

Work

This week I have been lucky enough to be working nearly everyday!



starting off with a behind-the-scenes picture from our shoot for Ballad Of magazine (I'm the one on the right!). It was in Kent, so I had a trek down there in the morning and then met everybody. I'm never really sure what to expect with editorial shoots as sometimes everybody is lovely, sometimes theres food, sometimes the clothes are fantastic.. and sometimes they are all not. Luckily, this shoot was really lovely! Everybody was super talented, and really nice. They were all starting out so all wanted to get good pictures! It was the photographer's first editorial shoot and she took some really great pictures. Her mum fed us all really cute sandwiches and crisps! :')



On Sunday I had a loong day working for Tyla Blade S/S 14, her look book. This was on a completely different level in terms of experience and how hard I had to work! we did about 40 outfits all together, after ten hours on set! Luckily there were lots of Marks & Spencer cookies to keep us going, and the clothes were amazing.

 
Tyla Blade S/S14 preview

On Tuesday I was lucky enough to be selected to be a model for a photographer called Lara Jade's photography workshop! It was a really fun day, set in an old spice factory in Greenwich with completely amazing rooms and props! Everyone was really nice and there were two other models there to hang out with so we didn't get bored! We got there at 8.30 am and didn't work until 2pm! So not too hard of a day ;)



Eliza, me and Ida :)



Then a couple of days ago I had a hair and make up test, which was really quick and easy so it was great! These are the best because you are basically being made up to look pretty :') then taking a picture and redoing it!




Today I have a fitting for Erdem - though I'm not entirely sure what a fitting consists of so I suppose I will find out! :)