To avoid end of semester work I decided to throw a Christmas party. This was the first year I had a whole apartment to decorate so take a look:
For decorations I made paper chains out of a holiday JCrew magazine and added newspaper snowflakes using soda can tabs as hooks.
For added festivity I went out into a mysterious wooded area behind my building and cut greens and bittersweet. As for food my roommate and I made reindeer cookies, and peanut butter cup peanut butter cookies. I also made guacamole because everything is way better with guacamole. It’s not in the photo below, because it’s shy and also I forgot to take it out of the fridge.
For invitations I again took inspiration from Kerry at the Tragic Whale with her homemade present tags. I had made a holly stamp last year, but of course threw it out once I was done. The new version of the stamp was made with an eraser and a kitchen knife… and amazingly I still have 10 fingers!
I obviously have no pictures of the actually party since that would be logical, but here is one from before the party of our two fireplaces! Few places have a need for that much fake warmth.
If you wish you had a TV that doubles as a fireplace check out the movie on netflix “Fireplace for your Home” There are two episodes.. I like the first one best, but you can spend hours watching it by yourself to decide.
And no party would be complete without a snow globe of me in the bathroom.
I spent this weekend visiting my friend Katrina in Amherst. It was super fun… and as hot as the complete opposite of freezing. We ate more ice pops than any human has a right to. Here are a few photos from the weekend:
Someone’s in the kitchen with dumplings.
A vintage carrying case that I got at the Brimfield Antique Show. I am planning on turning this into a crafting case (photos may follow if all goes well). I also got shorts and a dress and Katrina found some good looking opera glasses.
Katrina took this picture of eggplants while we were at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday. As you can see the eggplants are sort of breaking a sweat, as was I.
After I turned into a total heat zombie we went to Puffer’s Pond, which I believe saved my life.
A couple more notes on the weekend: Honey butter is what the gods put on their crescent rolls. Bring a water bottle everywhere, cause you could die without it. That’s what I call a weekend.
I am back. And this is an honest, “I’m back” not an absent father’s “I’m here right now, so enjoy it cause you might not see me for three months.”
Well I know I never ended up posting my photos from Berlin, so sorry for the cliffhanger (remember that neopets game cliffhanger?) Here they are with bonus commentary because these are more than a month overdue:
A beautiful canal with restaurants that double as clubs on the side.
Gorlitzer Park, which was right near the amazing hostel I stayed at, JetPak Berlin.
A pretty canal near Berlin Cathedral.
Bode Museum, which was joked to be the Boredom Museum. They apparently have a very extensive coin collection. Before I went I had seen this beautiful photo on pinterest of it.
This is just a playground, but they made it super cool by just adding paint and immense amounts of talent.
Ada and I spent a lot of time rocking the Flea Markets. We got these delicious tarts at one and then sat on a river and ate them.
We were in search of a beach and saw a ferry running, so we hopped on. We ended up on Pfaueninsel, translating to Peacock Island. We saw a lot of peacocks, but sadly didn’t find a beach there. Also, turns out I am sort terrified of gigantic colorful birds. Now we know.
This is the beach we ended up at. This was the only day of my two weeks in Berlin that it was remotely cloudy.
This is 4am in Berlin, with some nice street art in view.
One of my favorite panels of the East Side Gallery.
Tacheles the super cool artist gallery/ squat spot which was full of amazing art.
Ada and I popped by a cultural fair thing. We ended up walking by this super fun band, Orchestre Miniature in the Park, for short OMP. They only sing songs that have to do with the sun. Check out OMP’s soundcloud, my favorite is ‘All Summer Long’ closely followed by ‘Komm Raus Zum Spielen’.
My last day, Ada and I met up at this restaurant Nest. The sandwiches were delicious, but the waitress thought we were idiots.
After yummy food, I rented a bike and we biked to this cool abandoned amusement park, Spreepark. We had to climb through a wire fence (I felt like a badass and have a scar to prove it) Here is a strange Charlie Chaplin-esque bumper car thing. Those things were all over the place in a creepy The Great Dictator way.
There was a full waterpark, filling all East-Berliners needs for Log Flumes.
This was a railroad that went all around the entire park, as well as over this very unclean pond and into a very scary looking tunnel. Wish we could have stayed there longer, but we were found by a guard and he walked us out. In walking us out he ended up showing us most of the park, so there were some positives.
So there it is, my trip to Berlin. If you are considering going to Berlin, do it. I think it is one of the most amazing cities. I also found the blog She Thought Outside the Box very helpful for knowing what flea markets and parks to get at while you’re there.
There is tons of stuff I am forgetting to mention so feel free to comment and say, “Hey Kendra, what about the Ping Pong club?” and I will respond saying, “Yeah it was really cool.” and probably add some more details.
So as some of you know I am in Europe for 3 weeks. Well now I am only in Europe for two weeks. The first week I spent in Paris, visiting my friend Katie. Now I am in Berlin and I feel the need to post photos of Paris so that I can post photos of Berlin. It’s a complicated cyclical process. Here are a few pictures:
And that is a lot of photos. Final conclusion: all of these places are awesome.
And the slug I found on my phone last night. I left it near a house plant that has not seen the outdoors in months. He was just looking for someone to talk to him.
Here is a new series I am entitling “my nails looking good with things”. Although it will be my nails looking good with things, it will be generally be my nails matching things, while looking good… let’s begin.
When I put my contacts in this morning I noticed this magic.
Old suitcase, just happens to also be magic.
John Steinbeck has really good taste in font colors.
My breath is fresh and so is my nail polish color.
Today, was one of those days that just felt like summer. Everything was completely wonderful.
Went to a lake with Ada and Katherine, which was not only beautiful, but the water was fantastic. There is something remarkable about swimming in clean, clear, still water. It is impressive that after centuries of people doing who knows what, it still remains pure.
If our lake trip wasn’t enough fantastic summer fun for you no worries, there’s more. We went…
ohijustdontknow 