C is for Centro Commercial

 In all noble intentions of wanting to travel, I have a real superficial one: shopping!

 'La Roca Village' has the 'cultural' experience of Loewe!

On the intellectual scale of being I don't score that low: I learned the word 'centro commercial' before 'chiringuito' (beachbar- sp). In fact, I had no clue what a chiringuito was until this year! Hence, shopping before boozing up is my mantra. Even when it's sizzling hot outside. Perhaps especially when the weather is warm.

In Barcelona, nay, close to Barcelona, is a Designer Outlet named La Roca Village. It has the usual designer villagy stuff like Burberry & Versace. However, it also harvest the cultural experience of visiting Loewe:

BAGS! Still terribly expensive, even for a snobby addict like myself. I scored myself a pair of Loewe sunglasses instead to pretent to be hautain.

Or a gorgeous outlet with (almost this seasons's) Bimba y Lola:

my latest Puppy

Some puppies are just too adorable to resist!

Hence, I guess my shopping addiction rises to a higher temperature in Spain. I'm more laid back in countries where you cannot shop as much, think Cuba or Mexico. But Spain has one of the better selections of shops and Centro Commercials around.

So do you love shopping on holidays, or are you more of a beach-&-cocktails person?

★ ✩ Merry Xmas ★ ☆

✰ ☆ ╰☆╮ Have a fashionable one... ★ ✩ ✮ 

Holiday Cats

Blue Eyes was spotted on the streets of Havana...

Vanity Friday

*beauty wishlist* I really love a beautiful lipstick and this Givenchy totally fits the bill.
Scental Memories:  I'd love to have a full-size of Prada Infusion d'Iris I wore the fragance from a sample the first time I visited Havana.
This lace-embossed Dolce & Gabanna bronzer evokes Sicilian memories, and the matching Sicilian tan. I should get it from the UK or France, as they don't have D&G Beauty in Holland.
This bra from Helena Christensen embodies quirky beautiful.
I wish my hair was as voluminous as my hips: this L'anza Bamboo travel set looks like the ultimate hairset to give it a shiny and healthy appearance.

Playa del Mamey

I couldn't resist stopping at this beach when cruising around in Matanzas, Northen Cuba. My reggaeton playlist often talks about Mamy's and I think I have a slight idea that they are not mother figures. Although my Latino spanish is still not that good. I'm still not really tanned here: nevertheless, pale girls have gotten more fashionable since styleicons like theblondesalad.

A butterfly maxidress: I always love the opportunity to dress up more feminine on holidays as it suits my personality more. Holland is lovely, but sometimes cold and unpractical for being continuously dressed in a dress. I hope my hips will ward off any rumours of me not being born as a woman, although Simone de Beauvoir would say: "one is not born a woman, one becomes one".

Outfit- Silk Butterfly Dress: Warehouse | Sandals: Topshop | Bracelet: Balenciaga in Lagon | Watch: O'Clock

Sormiou

Summer 2012

Sormiou has been one of the Calangues around Marseille I visited this summer: gorgeous, reminding me of the French Caribbean with the kaleidoscope of turquoise hues of the sea.

It was quite difficult to get access to this little bay. French people will say "Pfff, it'zz not difficulte" when they know some English, or a stream of words I haven't gotten in my highschool French classes. But when they say that you bet it's going to be impossibly difficult!

My first time I blagged myself in: you have to reserve for the restaurant in Haute French to be let in by a sternlooking, goateed monsieur standing like a Royal Army defender by the gate. Somehow I managed to get accross that I would go to the restaurant and they let me in...

And then....BLISS by ocean water surrounded beautiful Elite French people

(yeh, I kinda miss this part of summer, so what do you miss?)

Bikini Chatter

Doing the beach or pool in style isn't that easy. As a travelista I thought it would be handy to give out some pointers of how to look original, comfortable and still fashion-savvy in your tiny suit. ..

1. Go shopping out-of-season in sales for a expensive one for a lot of %%% off. Or go to clicktini for a designer brand on sale

Chloë grey & gold polkadot bikini @ clicktini for $70

2. Mix-n-match different pants with tops

Being unmatchy is quite fashionable right now and separate pants/bikinis are often cheaper than buying in in pairs.
You can also vary your bikini wardrobe better like this. Because why would you wear the same bikini for 7 days in a row but could NEVER do that with a dress?

3. Get a cute cheap one, but not one that is too available in your country.
I love British webshops for this reason and there's just one Primark in Rotterdam that is, obviously cheap, but still trendy. However, for this reason I would stay away from H&M because it's so obviously present here that it would be easily recognizable. On the other hand, when I went to Brazil last year there was no H&M to be found so do you research when jetting of to another place. Or, do 4


4. Get your standard and easily available bikini, but alternate it by DIY:

past project: H&M bikini/fabric glue & lucky Brazilian bands

applying studs, applications, feathers, leather, anything you like.


5. Dress for your shape and not only for fashion.
Yeh yeh, fashiongirls know this advise over and over because all the women's magazines preach this one like mad. But it still works...Neon might be all over and last year I saw it on  that-Italian-Salad-girl but when I tried the American Apparel version on in neon-yellow I decided it wouldn't suit me.

6. Classics aren't called classics for nothing. 

Brigitte Bardot in "The Girl in the Bikini" (1952)

  A LBB or red number is priceless.

7. Consider your skintone too:
Back to the neon bikini which didn't do favours for my pale skintone, try to find a bikini for the days you are tanned (if you decided to get tanned) and one for the first couple of days. Red often looks sizzling on any skintone but red also gets lots of attention so consider that as well.

 8. Take a bikini for the kind of activities you are planning

conch-hunting with mr Bond? A sturdy bikini (knife holder optional)

Posing bikinis can be frillier and with less support than the ones you like to get your activity going on.

9. but don't take no 8 too seriously.
Also seen this bathing suit that reminds me of funky surfer girls from H&M?

too bad of that kitchy gold zipper because I kinda liked this one

You don't have to be a surfer to get cool swimming suits like that. brings me to 10

10. Don't underestimate the originality of a one-piece.

Ok, you don't get that tanned as with a bikini (just add your fake tan over the white parts to make up for that) but it can be just the type of swimming wear you are after.

Ok Jim, not everyone should go one-piece

The people of 2011: Francesca & Eduardo

 

 Same boat and same Brazil. However, sometimes you can connect to some persons in a short time.

Posing for me, both of them

Francesca & Eduardo were, and hopefully still are, a Brazilian couple that were on the same boat as me and my boyfriend. The whole boat had a kind of couply element, even the two boys seemed to be together, although in Brazil the whole coming-out process would be more complicated than in Holland. 

"Come into my arms, you photographer girl"

Francesca let her boyfriend pose a lot, and I think he had more camera time than her...she called him 'Lindo Lindo...' (beautiful masculine form) all the time, and the pictures of him were 'Lindisimo'. Quite the flatterer, that Francesca.

yep Eduardo, sometimes boys have to sit still, be pretty and pose nicely...

In coupleness, you find often the two to be of a mutual attractiveness...that is defined biologically, to go for people with similar beauty. Men, often, can get a prettier girlfriend by means of their money, humour or succes and the peer-pressure to get a sort-of-trophy girl encourages them to aim higher. As for women, they are often too modest to go for a prettier specimen of men.

That implicates that Eduardo was the prettiest one of the two. But I really liked Francesca in a high extend and her radiant self made her to be just as attractive as her boyfriend, if not even more.

Francesca, snapping pictures of her Líííndo boyfriend

Personally, I dated boys that were better looking than me. My very first date was so ridiculously attractive that I said no to him a couple of times, just to realize he must be somewhat interested in me (somehow) so I said yes...So for girls I would always advise not to miss out on a person because you think he'd be too attractive for you, attraction and what the other finds to be attractive is so much more dependant than just on the mere spectrum of the visual and voyeuristic part.

Eventually, both Lindos, really social, although Franchesca was the better one in English, and really sweet together....

Both together: posing for couple-photographer on the boat