Europe - Part 1

I'm finally back and rested from our European adventures! I have so much to write about this trip that I'm going to have to write it all up in a number of posts. I'll also be doing some reviews on the airline we used and the places we stayed because it was a little difficult to find accurate and decent reviews, so if anyone comes across mine, they may find it useful.
So lets start from day 1... We (my mum, dad, sister, Sam & I.) arrived at Tulla airport in Melbourne at 6am to fly to Paris via Guangzhou, China. We were flying with China Southern Airlines (no other reason aside from it being the cheapest to fly all 5 of us). It was about 9 hours to China and then a 5 hour stopover. This being my (and my family's) first time flying overseas, we were shitting our pants. Not because we were afraid of flying, but because we're all so fidgety ha ha. We managed to get through that flight with little stress, but once we arrived in China, it was terrrrrrriiiiiibbbblllleeeee! I cant even begin to explain! We completely forgot to factor in that china was going to be stinking hot because it was summer there, so we walked off the plane in our winter gear only to be punched in the face with 35 degree heat and 99% humidity. We fought through the heat for the 5 hour stopover time and were finally on our flight to Paris! 12 hours and a lot of mini, restless sleeps later, we were finally there! It was smooth sailing to our hotel and we were all ready to battle each other for first dibs of the shower. We were staying at the Hotel Alexandrie which was located in Bastille in the 11th arrondissement (which we later found out was the lower-middle class area of Paris, according to locals of other arrondissements. Its kind of like the Maribyrnong of Paris. Fancy stuff, but not as fancy as any other places. Mediocre, but a perfect distance away/close to all the good stuff). When we got to the hotel we found that there was something going on with our room and it was just a big mix up and wouldn't be sorted for what turned out to be 5 hours. We were too exhausted from the flights to explore, so we just sat in the lobby. At one point, I nearly fell asleep so Sam and I went to explore. We saw heaps of lovely things and picked up some food, but that triggered my cold to begin...
We finally got our room sorted and settled in then went to explore some more but before we knew it we were back and had fallen asleep before 6pm. So much for not getting jet lag...

 Gare De Lyon train station which was a 5 minute stroll from our hotel which had local trains underneath in the subway, but on the ground floor there were international trains that travelled through Europe.

 We were only a 5 minute walk from this monument in Bastille and this was where all the crowds were when they elected the new French president. You could hear the hooting and champagne bottles popping from our hotel room so loudly until 4am the next morning. It was like New Years celebrations. I cant imagine what it would've been like if the president had stayed the same... eep.

Sam being cute

 This is Mum, Dad, Me & my younger sister, Paris. Can you tell how obsessed my mum is with this beautiful city? My sister was pissed at the endless "Paris, how are you enjoying being in Paris? eh, Paris?" jokes I was making. I'm still not done with those jokes... muahaha!

 The creepiest moving masks you will ever see in this magic/gag shop.

 This store was dedicated to Michael Jackson and played his music super loudly. I don't think you could even buy anything there. Probably just a gigantic, creepy M.J shrine...

Australia themed cafe we didnt get to go to. Coz in Australia crocs run amok and have their own lane on our roads... *sigh

Our first proper day in Paris was spent walking heaps and managing to walk to Galleries Lafayette which is pretty much like David Jones, but like 400 times more expensive and flashy. It was so beautiful architecturally on the inside and the brands they sold in there were overwhelming. It felt like literally every designer I have ever heard of in my entire life had part of their line selling there. We also went to H&M which I was DYING for because we don't have it here in Aus and I've got to say I was super disappointed. There were heaps of things on the French website that went up to a sz 18, but all I saw was sz 10s. That being said, I did find 2 things and a bunch of jewellery (all of which i"ll be wearing in the next few weeks and taking pictures of), but otherwise, Paris in general wasn't being so nice to me when it came to clothing in size 18/20.

On to part 2!

Freaks & Geeks getup

 

 

 

This jacket always makes me feel like I'm Lindsay Weir and the day I wore this outfit (continuing on to today) I've been feeling like a burnout. Being unemployed (yet again..) sucks. I've gotten into this slump where all I do is stay at home searching eBay for amazing finds, eating cheese sandwiches and watching trashy tv shows online. And putting this dress on made me see how much weight I've gained in the time I've been home. I feel too depressed to go outside and be active so I stay couped up inside eating and wearing tracksuit pants and then when I realize what I'm doing I think 'Dita Von Teese would be disgusted that i even own tracksuit pants. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MYSELF?!'. But then I get distracted and do some housework and go back about my day. I need to get my ass into gear and become a sz 16/18 again not a sz 20/22. I have fabulous dresses that are waiting to be worn on my old body goddamnit!


Jacket: Cotton On (from over 5 years ago)
Dress: Forever 21 via eBay
Necklace: By the wonderful Natalie Perkins via Fancy Lady Industries

Cotton On Online Store

Eventhough we're trying to save up some money for Europe, I'm still making online purchases to rebuild my wardrobe. While searching for things I could add to my new wardrobe I realized that I never really look at the online stores of chain shops. I had a look at Cotton On's online store to see if they had anything cheaper than their already redic cheap prices. Thank god I did because I found the shoes I've been eyeing for the longest time on sale!

I'm usually not one for heels, but for some reason I just love these and I can walk in them perfectly fine. And of course, I couldn't just buy one thing, I had to buy all the good things that were on sale haha
I'm so pleased with how fast the package arrived. It wasn't even a week before I received my goodies. Cotton On, you've done it again ;)

OOTD - Waste of an outfit

Ugh. I was meant to go somewhere and plans were cancelled at the last minute so I was left sitting at home dressed up and bored, BUT I did find a tripod in the house that I forgot we had, so that means... PROPER OUTFIT POSTS! haha Im still pretty crap at this and don't really have much room in the house to actually take pictures, so my cramped little bedroom will have to do for now.

I hate that damn Keep Calm & Carry On poster my mum put up in my room while Sam and I were still in Newport. I need to hang up all my pictures so these walls aren't so bare.

I'm so boring when it comes to my everyday make up especially now that I'm growing out my brows to make them thicker and longer. Lesson learnt. Never over pluck again!

Top: Cotton On
Skirt: Thrifted
Belt: Thrifted

Breast Reduction Part 2

So I mentioned how I wanted to reduce my boobs a few posts ago and I got the doctors verdict. I can't get the surgery subsidised by medicare unless I can prove I have back problems. Now, I cant really physically prove my back problems (which I have anyway, but I cant prove that they're breast related), so I got a referral to a plastic surgeon with a practice in Coburg and Kew. I called up to see how much it would cost for a consultation with a referral and she said it was something like $200 but I can claim back $150 through medicare. That sounds fine enough, but I don't want to go to a plastic surgeon and pay all this money just for a consultation and then find out that the work they do is crappy. Seeing as though I cant get the surgery for maybe a year or two (which is going to suck so bad), I have a lot of time to search for reputable surgeons. But I'm really struggling to find places online that will show before and after photos or at least have some honest feedback from patients they've worked on. I really wish I didn't have to wait because I'm sick of getting rashes that turn into scabs and then blood on my bras and just messy shit happening. WHY CAN'T I JUST WIN THE LOTTERY?! Ugh. Tomorrow I might go to magnation and see if they have any plastic surgery magazines or something. Or if anyone has any good surgeons they know of, let me know!

Vitality's Hair Color Plus Pink Dye Review

At the beginning of the year I did an image overhaul and changed my hair completely. I had been waiting patiently for a chance to dye my hair an unnatural colour again and the chance finally presented itself when I began searching for hairdressing apprenticeships. Since then I have been testing different brands and colours and trying to find something fabulous. Right now I'm on the search for the perfect pink, so I decided to give Vitality's Hair Color Plus a shot. It was $18.95 AUD for the small bottle.

I had almost completely washed out the previous pink dye I had in my hair, so before I put the Vitality colour in, it was a bit of an apricot blonde. Even though my hair is short, it is ridiculously thick and would take 2 packets of supermarket hair dye to cover it all, so I was nervous that I would run out of this dye half way.

I nearly peed my pants when I saw how gorgeous the colour was in the bowl! It was a really runny consistancy which i usually dont like, but the runnyness seemed to work well while I was applying it to my hair and allowed it to spread a lot easier.

This was my wet hair after shampooing twice. When I washed the dye out my hair was a very bright fuchsia, not just a 'hot pink' like most plain pink dyes. On the bottle it reccomends not to shampoo the hair after colouring, but since I wanted a more dulled out fuschia/fairyfloss colour I rinsed my hair and shampooed it twice. After drying it looked like this.

I'm extremely pleased with how it turned out even after shampooing and I'm even more pleased with how long its lasted. I've since washed my hair a few times more and the colour is still remaining a gorgeous fairyfloss pink. One of my mums friends came over who hasn't seen me in a while and literally called it fairyfloss hair haha
I surprisingly don't have a criticism for this dye at all. It was fabulous and I cant wait to try out all the colours that they have on offer!

From what I know, you can only buy these dyes in speciality hair supply stores and not in shopping centres, so they're not exactly easily accessible if you run out and need to re do your hair quickly, but when you find them, stock up!

Jesus is my Homeboy, yo.

I have been the busiest little bee these past few weeks. We have officially ended our lease so I've had to do a lot of running around trying to organize people to come and clean the property so we don't get stuck having to get money taken out of our bond (at this point, even if we do, I don't care. I just want this to be over!). Its about an hour and a half commute by public transport from my folks place (where we are now staying) to the house we were renting which sucked. But I thought, if I'm going to be out all day I may as well look cute.

Wearing this shirt made me laugh because people thought I was actually some Jesus fanatic and they'd say 'oh, yeah. Jesus is cool...' and trail off. Then Id have a giggle when I walked away. I'm a Laveyan Satanist (Don't freak out. I'll write a post about that so you people can understand that I don't sacrifice animals or weird stuff like that), so I obviously don't take the concept of Biblical religion too seriously. I love collecting funny/ironic Jesus related things (my jesus mug is my pride and joy. I'll have to show you guys some time). I've wanted this shirt since it first came out when I was just a youngun. I begged my mum to buy it for me, but she refused because it was something like $60 at the time, so I just hoped that it would go on sale and I could finally have it. It never did. 10 years later I found it on ebay for 99 cents and now I'm never letting it go.

I love filling in my brows thickly with fierce arches. Sadly my boyfriend does not, so when he saw me with my fabulous filled in brows he just shook his head. WHATEVZ, BRUV. Usually I use a old Nutrimetics brow pencil in a light brown and cake it on, but this time I tried using some black eyeshadow. I used M.A.C's Disney Villains Collection eyeshadow in Carbon (Matte). The one with the sassy bitch Cruella DeVille on the lid. (The one in the middle of the below picture). I used a angled brush that I had swiped over one of my make up face wipes to get it a bit moist to pick up the eyeshadow (I refuse to dip it in water. And for some reason when I use the face wipe on the brush beforehand, it turns out better.) and then outlined the shape I wanted and filled her in. Babetastic!

I've also been contemplating closing my gap teeth up. Or getting caps when we go overseas in a few years. I probably wont because it such a hereditary thing, but I'm just worried that I'm going to appear as a child for the rest of my life because of my teeth.
 

Top: Teenage Millionaire via eBay
Skirt: Vintage via eBay
Pin: My old diaper pin from when I was an un bebe & green dummy from a novelty vending machine.