A Cake of Rainbows and Smiles
A Welsh girl waiting to set sail into the big bad world. This is my blog.
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I miss Munich, the times I had there and the friends I met there.
Marienplatz and the Neues Rathaus taken from the Peterskirche.
(via laura-be90)
Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love.
Zooey Deschanel (via sugar-and-heartbreak)
(via bffproductions)
Things I Wish I’d Known
Inspired by this post on HelloGiggles I have decided to write a list of the things I wish I’d known before living abroad and travelling, but had to learn along the way.
- You won’t care about how little money you have when you get home. You will care more about the fact that you missed out on the trip to Budapest or that awesome night in the beer garden or that delicious local food. Don’t worry about money (obviously keep enough so you can get home at the end of your stay there), but don’t think too much about it. I learnt this pretty quickly thankfully. To put it differently: would you rather come home with £500 more or lots of wonderful memories with some great friends you met?
- Be a tourist in your own town. This one I admittedly half-stole from Stephanie Spitler’s HelloGiggles article. However I completely agree with it and unfortunately, unlike the previous point, didn’t realise it until quite late. When I lived in Munich, I became too much like a resident too quickly. Yes, I saw some of the amazing things Munich has to offer, but for most of my stay there, I took it for granted. When I’m visiting other cities, I go into full-blown tourist mode. I love it. I take too many pictures and cram too much sight-seeing and history-geeking into one day. Why didn’t I do it in Munich? It was my home. I also felt like I had enough time to see everything and didn’t need to plan to be a tourist there. Trust me, you do.
- Mix with the locals. This especially applies to you if you’re going somewhere where the language isn’t your first language. You will learn so much more culturally and linguistically if your year-abroad-bff is a local. If you’re studying abroad, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of only socialising with other foreign exchange students. Join clubs, don’t be scared to talk to people in your class. I fell into this trap. I don’t like having regrets, but I wish I’d have made friends with locals earlier than I did.
- Do your dissertation. This also applies to any work you have to do there if you are studying. You will hate yourself when you get back.
- Have fun! This is the most important one. Things will go wrong, your life will fall apart and you will be homeless more than once. (Ok I take back the last two. Personal experience.) My point is that no matter how stressful things get, have fun, see the funny side. The perfect example of this is when Tamara and I were interrailing. We were in Berlin, had checked out of the hostel and planned to get on the overnight train to Amsterdam. We got to the train station in the afternoon to get our tickets, but the train was full. The next available train was the next morning at something-past 6. Instead of stressing about being homeless for the night, we saw it as an adventure. We went back to the hostel, told the story to our friends, laughed it off and decided to stay up all night drinking in the hostel bar. We left the hostel at about half 5 in the morning and were in Amsterdam at about noon. Moral of the story: things are bound to go wrong, but laughter makes it ok.
Kony 2012. I was in tears watching this. The world needs to know and the message needs to be spread. Stop Kony.
“Nothing is more powerful then an idea whose time has come, whose time is now.”
knoy2012.com - Sign the petition, donate, get the kit, spread the word.
While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats.
- Mark Twain
(Source: ericarandour)
And then your Uncle Barney and I had one of our telepathic conversations…
One of the best moments ever.
(Source: marsh-madness, via himymgifs)
This picture came up on my Dashboard. Is this a fucking joke? Why the fuck has this been made? This actually makes me feel sick. Chris Brown should never have even performed at the Grammys.
Three years ago, Chris Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting his then-and-rumoured-to-be-current girlfriend, Rihanna. This assault consisted of him punching her, biting her, putting her in a headlock and threatening to kill her. He was ordered to do 6 months community service and received a 5-year probation. During this 5 years he wasn’t supposed to be allowed within 100 yards of Rihanna. Last year this was reduced to him being allowed near her, but he is not allowed to ‘harrass, bother or molest’ her. So, what? In another 2 years, when his probation has finished, he’s allowed to harrass her? He basically now has the same rights has anyone else.
At the time, and even now, it’s rarely talked about in the media. The fact he was asked to perform at the Grammys, along with the online release of their new collaboration is sending out an awfully scary message to victims of domestic violence. So he said sorry, he’s serving his ‘probation’, she seems to have forgiven him. An abusive partner will always apologise. He/she will always beg for forgiveness. Whether the abuse is mainly physical or mental, this is all part of their controlling ways. THAT DOES NOT MEAN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS OK AND FORGIVABLE.
After doing a bit of Googling to find out if the rumours of them being back together are true, I didn’t find anything to confirm it, but I did find some scary fan comments. During his performance at the Grammys, fans were tweeting things like “Chris Brown can punch me anyday.” To me that’s more than enough proof of how scary a message the music industry is sending out. This needs to stop.
And for the record, I’m unfollowing the blog that posted this.
(Source: listentomebitches, via apoorgirlsdreams)
