London - Tuesday

Tuesday started with a visit of the British Museum, just a five minutes walk from our hotel.

We even had to wait inside a bit, because they open up the rooms at 10 o'clock and we were a bit early. The British museum is huuuge, it takes up almost one city block. We wandered through the exhibitions as long as we liked (ca. two hours) and tried to see as much as we could.
Many pictures came out blurry because of the lighting, but here are some okay ones:

 From the European section, where they had so much beautiful jewellery from past times *___* 

Unfortunately, the two or three pics I've taken of them are reaaally blurry .__.

 

 They have a whole room full of mummies and the like! A bit creepy~

 From the Greek and Roman exhibition

 China 

The ghost behind the cabinet is my sister :D 

In the Japanese ward they had a life-size, authentic tea house! A pity you can't use it ^^"

I think, it's really great, that many museums in London have free entrance :3 They have very many spots where you can donate 5 pound though xD After  so much culture we were hungry and took a break at the restaurant chain Wagamama, where we had some delicious Japanese food ♥

When our spirits were fully restored, we made our way to the Horse Guards, but oh - no horses or guards, except for two patrolling by foot were in sight. So we took a loooong walk through the near parks: St. James's Park, Greens Park, a stop at Buckingham Palace and then on to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, where we also saw Kensington Palace, but only from outside. 

Horse guards with no horses and no guards

At Kensington Gardens we wanted to drink tea at the Orangery, but unfortunately they had closed already because of private occasions.

It looked way too exclusive for our present looks anyway xD I'd have felt pretty uncomfortable, I bet, wearing something less than some elegant dress or suit. At least not casual clothes^^

As you can see, the sky lit up in the afternoon and the sun came out :) We were so thankful for that, because it was freezing most of our time in London >___< 

So no tea for us, at least there, so we decided to go to Harrods, where we spent a good deal of time in the food section and had tea and scones in their tea room. I love scones and I loved their tea! ♥ 

Afterwards I wanted to take a look at the toy department. It's like heaven \(*^*\)  

The decoration is awesome and they have so much stuff! But my sister forced me to go, she was afraid I'd go home with a life-sized plush gorilla or giraffe T___T 

So we bought some sandwiches for dinner and went back to the hotel, our feet hurt like hell from all the walking D:

That's our second 'real' day in London!

Thanks for reading,

Anni♥

P.S.: Seems like uploading photos is working again/still. It's just awfully slow and takes an eternity to start loading in the first place -.-

London - Monday

Of course we wanted to see as much as we can in those three days, so my sister and I started off right after breakfast. Our first stop was Leadenhall Market, where we took a look around and bought postcards for our friends.

I really like Leadenhall Market's architecture, it has that touch of former times *___*

We had planned to take part in a walk at 11 a.m., so we walked slowly in the direction of the meeting point, but there was still plenty of time left, so we walked on until we reached the Thames and strolled a bit alongside. 

As you can see, the weather wasn't the best!

There were some stone benches, engraved with flowers. At first we thought, they were just painted on, but no! 

 A really pretty ship :D

  The "Winchester Wharves". I wonder if they hunt demons by ship?

After a while we returned to the meeting point where our guide was waiting and when everyone had assembled, we took off on our tour. We walked quite far and learned a lot of interesting facts about the area. If you're ever in London and want a unique walk, without just seeing the major tourist sights, I recommend London Walks to you! We took the "Hidden London" walk and it's just 9 pound per person, 7 if you're a student like me.
 For example, we saw St. Paul's Cathedral and Shakespeare's pub.

 Shakespeare bought this pub!

The top of this church (uugh, I forgot the name v__v) is the original inspiration for the form of wedding cakes!

We paid a short visit to the Millenium Bridge after the walk and took the underground to Temple, but we didn't stay long, because it started raining.

I don't have any photos from the rest of the day - good for you :P 

But we spent an hour or so at Starbucks where we wrote our postcards, then went to Covent Garden and had a look at the shops, bought some tea for our mum and drove to Waterstones. I love that book store *___* They have so many books and a huge section for fantasy, sci-fi, grafic novels and so on <3 They even have a corner for lesbian and gay literature, but I didn't want to go there with my sister :D

I bought the BBC Sherlock casebook there. I still haven't read it, because I need to finish "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" first. But that's how it looks like:

A bit confusing, but Sherlock's on the front cover and John is on the back. I'm curious about the book, you can read John's blog posts about the six cases from the series and many more things!     

At last we went to Masala Zone in Soho for dinner, where we ate authentic Indian curry. It was so delicious, but some things were a bit too spicy for me :D

Thanks for reading,

Anni♥

Bloglovin

Reading it quite often recently that the GoogleReader retires on 1 June, 2013 I made a Bloglovin account, too. It would be really awesome if you'd follow me via Bloglovin from now on. Or not, in case you don't want to read my blog anymore (I know I've been lazy lately, sorry D: I promise to better myself!).

Thanks for reading,
Anni♥

International Lolita Day

Happy belated International Lolita Day to everyone!

I spent the day with my friend Tabea. On Friday, I took the train right after university, because we had a little sleepover. Of course I chose the outfit for which I need the most pieces of clothing, so I had to carry a huge bag to university and my stuff bulged out :D It was kinda heavy...

At Tabea's house, I played Guitar Hero for the first time and I played the bass. It was fun, but I'm a bad player, even in easy mode xD

On Saturday, we took some photos in her garden first and drove to Düsseldorf later, where we ate onigiri (seaweed and sesame *__*) and drank some bubble tea. The hot coconut chocolate is so delicious <3 Tabea picked hot gingerbread soy milk, which tasted quite yummy, too.

Mine's left, Tabea's on the right 

 

 

Tabea looked so adorable in her new coat from Rose Melody ^__^ I wore my old AP Jumperskirt, my coat is from Bodyline and pretty much everything else is offbrand. I wanted to keep it casual, I wasn't in the mood for my giant matching headbow :'D

Oh yeah, and it was so coooold D: 

How did you spend the International Lolita Day? Did you freeze your frills off to get some nice photos? :) 

Thanks for reading,

Anni♥

Btssb Heart Pochette

Oh my god, how could I forget to post about that? o__O
I've told you, that I won Harlyharlekin's giveaway, but I failed to tell you, that my prize already arrived last Thursday!! *O*

The Btssb Heart Pochette is so cute and now claims the title "Smallest bag in my possession" :D
It's really small, there's only space for my mobile phone and some money (without purse), I guess. I hope, I can bring it in a coord soon.

It came in the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright / Alice and the Pirates bag, I'll keep it. The handle has to straighten a bit, so I hung it on my door.

Inside was Harlyharlekin's card, she's so pretty♥ Thanks for the great prize again! ^___^

Thanks for reading,
Anni♥

Floriade 2012 in Venlo *photo-heavy*

Last Saturday my parents, my sister and I visited the Floriade 2012 in Venlo. But only from 5 to 8 o'clock, because the entrance is cheaper after 5 p.m. This way, we only saw not even 1/3 of the area. We already decided, that we have to  go there again, maybe even with a 2-days-ticket and earlier :)

From our decision you may be able to tell, that the Floriade is really worth a visit ^__^  Or, in this case, even more than one...

 The bridge from the cashpoint to the Floriade grounds

There are different districts and so many beautiful flowers, it's amazing *__* We were all very thrilled about it. Of course, I had to adjust my outfit to the location:

My dad couldn't believe, how people stare at you, just because you're wearing a fluffy skirt... people.
There are also gardens and houses of different countries and in some of them, they were really excited about my look xD So, if you're visiting the Floriade in lolita, make sure, you stop at the houses of Spain, Sudan and Sri Lanka :D A woman at the Sudan house asked me, if my dress was for dancing and wanted to touch my poofy skirt, the women at Spain just smiled and talked a lot in Spanish, so I just understood the word 'Harajuku' and a woman from Sri Lanka said, I'd look very beautiful, like a doll ♥
 That made me very happy :)

Now, I better let the photos speak for themselves:

 I want to take a ride with the cable car - but a single ride costs 6€ oO

 Huge stork's nest on the left

 India

 Indonesia - they copied  the traditional houses from the different islands

 A mini version of a famous temple complex

 The Floriade theatre - concerts take place on several days

 China

 Nepal

Another thing well worth seeing was the film shown at the "Earth Walk". It was only 5 minutes long, but it was shown in the floor and it made you feel like you were flying over the landscape in an airship *___* 

Visit the Floriade 2012 in Venlo! I definitely recommend that!

Thanks for reading,
Anni♥

Millingen tea house

Now some catching up with the recent events.
Somehow I have the feeling, that I spent most time of the weekend in the Netherlands xD

On Friday morning, my parents drove with me to Millingen, where a tea house is located, set up in an Asian inspired garden. The "bad" thing was, that you couldn't drive up to it, we had to park at a parking lot and then walk 2 km through the pampas :D It was really warm and there was a lot of beautiful nature around :)
And there were quite a few cowpats, but we didn't see any cows running around ^__^

My mum claimed, that it was more than 2 km to walk, but my dad and I don't believe her :D
The tea house was quite expensive, you had to pay 5 euro for entrance and we paid 27 euros for some buns with cream cheese, cola and a coffee. Yeah, shame on me, I drank cola at a tea house.. v___v  But it was too damn hot! No hot tea for me with these temperatures.

Inside the house

 

The house lies in a big garden,  with many different corners. There's a terrace with low sofas, little fountains, a big lawn with tables, a small bamboo forest and many flowerbeds. It's really beautiful, but I was also a bit disappointed, because my mother told me before, that it was supposed to be a Japanese tea house and I expected something different. 

You can see a tiny glimpse of my alpine green hair at the back of my head xD

The way back was much worse :D Additional to the heat there were many gadflys now D: 

The flew around us and I still have a sting at the back of my left thigh... they made it through my tights! It's so itchy from time to time... but still it was a nice walk through the nature!

Thanks for reading,

Anni♥