Recap

Catching up: Spring Edition in 2018.

/ Christina / 3 Comments

It’s June already, so spring is more or less officially over. At least here in Vienna, where we’ve been confronted with 30°C lately. And that’s a summer temperature if you ask me. The first five months of the year have gone by like a whirlwind (or is it only me?) so I thought I’d be writing one of the recap editions and give you guys a heads up on what’s been going on in my life from January up until now.

January

I started the beginning of the year quite optimistic in terms of content for my blog as I ended 2017 super motivated. For my first January blog post, I went back in time (more or less) and took you on a mental visit to a place that I visited during my bachelor exchange in the UK: Edinburgh.

View this post on Instagram

One of the cutest but also saddest stories that I've heard while traveling was the one of Bobby, the Skye terrier of Edinburgh. His master had died and he stood guard over his grave day after day until his own death. At least he's got his own statue (and a pub named after him!) now. 🐶 . . . #edinburghspotlight #weloveedinburgh #hiddenscotland #thisisscotland #scotlandlover #loves_scotland #capturingbritain #scotland_greatshots #scotlandsbeauty #ig_worldclub #picturesofedinburgh #greyfriarkirkegard #bobby #greyfriarsbobby #goexplore #igersviennaontour #passionpassport #living_europe #beautifuldestinations #exploretocreate #seeyourcity #ourplanetdaily #neverstopexploring #wanderlust #adventuremore #justgoshoot #getoutandexplore #neverstopexploring #finditliveit #whatabeautifulworld

A post shared by Christina (@northern_sunlight) on

And I did a lot of my Vienna exploring and was enjoying the architecture of the city to the fullest.

Being busy at my job at the startup, with content creation for the magazine, Vienna WĂźrstelstand, and rather frequent visits to my family, I ended up not having a lot of time for the blog for the rest of the month. But it was the beginning of the year, and January has always been a slow month for me in terms of creativity.

February

February was definitely the busiest month at work as we launched a Kickstarter campaign at the startup (and you gotta try for perfection in order to have a successful campaign). In addition, a few nasty things with my teeth happened, so I had some issues with my dentist and ended up going to a new dentist way too many times for my liking. Again, hardly any time for blog adventures, but I wrote a piece on what to do in Vienna when it’s cold outside. Taking a walk on the empty SchĂśnbrunn palace grounds or hopping on a tram that takes you past beautiful buildings are on the list!

March

In March I was finally able to visit one of my Moscow friends in Lyon, France. I spent some days with her and she showed me the city that she’s currently studying it. I had some wonderful days there and immediately fell in love with the town and had to take hundreds of pictures of the magnificent architecture there. This is probably also the reason why I haven’t really gotten around to writing about my trip, but there will be some articles coming, I promise! ;)

I got to spend some time in the kitchen though and ended up sharing one of my go-to recipes when it comes to an easy and quick plant-based dessert recipe: the mini chocolate cheesecakes with raspberry sauce.

northernsunlight_dessert_vegan_chocolate-cheesecake_3

Other than that, I kinda took a hiatus from social media and my blog. I just didn’t feel like posting. I wasn’t all too happy with social media in general and I guess I wasn’t happy with what I’ve been doing lately. That’s a tough cookie if you gotta be online because of what you’re doing in your job but you’re not liking what you’re doing. And throw in health/teeth problems, and then you got a fine mix there if you ask me. Yay!

April

April arrived and things turned sunnier, both weather-wise and in my life. April’s my birthday month, so things are always kinda sunny for me in April anyway, no matter what’s happening. I finally started to feel more comfortable with social media again. And as my temp job at the startup was ending in April, I started an internship at yet another startup (haha) that is finally bringing me more into the direction that I wanna go.

Besides changing my job, my sister had her first baby, so I spent a few lovely spring days with the family. As every year in spring when I’m home, my family is super into Wild Garlic and I ended up harvesting way too much for my flat in Vienna so I had to come up with a way of preserving it (besides filling up my freezer…). That’s what brought me to share my plant-based Wild garlic recipes that are perfect for spring.

May

I finally got around to writing about the Old Town in Lyon. My first article on my trip to France from March! So I’m slowly getting around to sorting through the masses of photos that I took.

So May was another good month for me, it kinda gave me a motivational booster that I desperately needed. I enrolled in a weekly yoga class, decided to try other sports out and just got more active in general. In addition, I kinda feel at home with my new job now. Oh, and other good news: I finally saw my dentist for the last time, yay me!

So the start of the year wasn’t the shiniest moment during my life, but not everything can go the way I wish it would. But that’s fine. I was fine with taking a break from my blog’s social media accounts and from blogging on a more regular basis. There are things that are way more important than social media or the online world in general. You gotta take care of yourself first. I’m still working on accepting that my day only has so many hours and my week has so many days. But I’m taking steps in the right direction I guess :)

Catching up: autumn/winter edition 2017.

/ Christina / 10 Comments

It’s time for a small update once again. I’ll be sharing with you what I’ve been up to recently, starting from September until now, end of December. So it’s a mix of autumn & winter, travelling and staying at home, starting work and making the most out of Vienna and life in general :)

September

September was a beautiful month regarding the weather (or am I mistaken? September seems to be so far away though). And life was beautiful as well. The month was full of mini-travel-adventures. I spent a day in beautiful but touristy Salzburg where I met up with my friend Viktoria who I haven’t seen since leaving Moscow.

With my mom and sister, I took a boat trip to Bratislava (actually from Bratislava to Vienna, but we’re not dwelling on the details here). It was my first trip to Austria’s neighbour Slovakia, and despite the fact that Bratislava is relatively small, it’s a very interesting city nevertheless. And the boat trip was great, just saying.

I finally made it to the last city on my see-all-9-province-capitals-from-Austria list, St.PĂślten! Technically, I’ve been there a few times, but never took the time to go on a sightseeing trip through the city. I emust say it’s rather sleepy, especially on a Sunday when everything’s closed, but it was a good meeting point for my friend Madlene and I, and we had a good time there.

 

Oh, and another crazy and adventurous thing that happened in September was that I joined the crazy, weird, wonderful, magnificent, beautiful team of the magazine Vienna WĂźrstelstand (and no, it’s not about sausages). Whoop whoop. So check out the magazine and see all my contributions there!

October

The month of October was pretty relaxed, not a lot was happening, I was busy with writing for the magazine, and I just enjoyed Vienna in its beautiful autumn colours. I shared my easy DIY all-natural detergent recipe with you and I wrote about a small park of my neighbourhood, the Liechtenstein park in Vienna’s 9th district.

 

 

A rather unpleasant thing happening in October was the election of the new parliament in Austria, but let’s not talk about that. Sad memories.

Let’s just focus on the good things. Like the beautiful foliage in the Setagayapark.

November

As those things happen sometimes, I had a writer’s blockage on my blog and wasn’t putting much out there really in November. I was still figuring out life in Vienna, and I also started another job as a Social Media Manager for a startup. At the beginning of November, I shared my small quick & easy dessert recipe collection with you, and I also stumbled over some unpublished pictures from my time in Moscow which I put in my post about Park Pobedy in Moscow.

However, at the end of November – when the city was being dressed up in pretty Christmas lights already and the many Christmas markets opened – fresh ideas came to my mind and I found my blog spirit again! Let’s hope that it will stay like this for a while ;)

 

 

 

December

December was the month where I was fully immersed in the city’s beauty. I went to several Christmas markets and wrote a mini-series about that – check out part I (Viennese Christmas Dream in front of the City Hall), part II (with Christmas market at Spittelberg & Christmas Village Maria-Theresien-Platz), and part III (Art Advent on Karlsplatz & Christmas market SchĂśnbrunn palace) if you’re interested in them. And I also shared my all-time Christmas cookie favourites with you – check out the recipes here.

In general, I did a lot of city-exploring, and by that, I don’t mean that I went to new corners of the city, I rather went to places that I’ve been to many times before. But recently I realised how much I was focused on other things and  that I wasn’t noticing the area around me, that I wanted to take a step back and enjoy my surroundings a bit more.

As you can see, in the last few months I was unable to really do much travelling (September’s the exception here). I was kinda stuck in Vienna. Don’t get me wrong, I love Vienna and it’s been really nice to explore the city after being away for almost 2 years, but my feet are itching and I can’t wait to travel some more. Hopefully, the new year will bring some new travel adventures ;) And let me tell you, I’m currently planning a few trips… yay!

Catching up: Summer Edition 2017

/ Christina / 4 Comments

I thought it was time for a small update about what has been going on in the past few months and what I was up to. There has been a lot going on lately: I graduated from university, I moved apartments, became an aunt, did some travelling, and am currently figuring out what my next steps in life should be.

In my last update – the Spring Edition – I was ranting on how little travelling I had been able to do but ended up discovering that I’d actually been doing a lot. In this post I could go in a similar direction as I have had the constant feeling of being restricted to my desk at home with the occasional family visit here and there. However, I think this is the typical feeling students have – always being tied to their laptops with the need to write a paper or study for an exam. Despite being the truth this time as I just finished my master studies and had to write my thesis during spring and early summer, I know that this is not true and I was able to actually do some travelling and there has been something going on in my life. So no ranting this time hopefully! ;)

May

At the beginning of sweet sweet May my friend Carina and I finally handed in our thesis (yes, at my university we had to pair up and write a thesis together). I guess we were both surprised how satisfied we were with our final version in the end, and that we managed to be done two weeks prior the official deadline so we could have it printed properly and sent via mail to our uni. I still remember one of my first ‘free’ weekends that I spent in Vienna – just taking a stroll after a rainy day in the tourist area of Vienna after a month of hardly any joyful activities. I also had time again to do some proper cooking and baking – yay – for example the mini versions of the traditional Austrian Nussschnecken.

Together with my friend Madlene I flew to London to visit our friend Daan, so I had my first little Moscow reunion over there. We had a great weekend where we explored some parts of London, went on a Street Art & Graffiti Tour, and Madlene and I even took a train down to Brighton for a day.

June

In June my friend Carina and I had to fly to Copenhagen for one last time to defend our thesis, and to finally finish our studies there. Everything went down smoothly, we spent some great last days in the capital of Denmark, visited friends, spent some time in the beautiful Botanical Garden of the city and pondered about life, the past, the present, and the future on the beach.

In June I went on my first solo trip ever. Nothing big, nothing dangerous. Just to the Culture Capital of Europe 2017 – Aarhus – located on Jutland in the west of Denmark. It was a great trip to a great small city with a cute canal and a beautiful museum – the Aros.

July

In July I spent a great deal at home with my family as I became an aunt at the end of June, and I had my family try a summer cake that I had included in my recipe repertoire. I also moved apartments in Vienna, so there was a lot of packing and unpacking happening and many IKEA visits necessary. It was a relatively unspectacular and unproductive yet busy month for me.

I was able to do some travelling (besides going back and from Vienna & Upper Austria) in July. I spent 24 hours in Graz, the capital of Styria, to have brunch together with my bf and some of his friends.

Another Moscow reunion was taking place in July, and this time it was in Vienna. My former Russian travel buddies Marcel (NL) and Frederik (DK) came to visit Madlene and me in our beautiful capital Vienna. We did some great sightseeing over the weekend, went to a traditional Heuriger, and had a few drinks while listening to some good local music at the Popfest. I really got to see my own ‘home town’ through a tourist’s lense with them.

August

August was my travel month. Together with my friend Julia I took a train from Vienna to the western end of Austria. We did some exploring in Bregenz and took the Pfänderbahn cable car up the local mountain, spent a day in the town Lindau which is situated on an island on the Lake Constance, and on our way back to the east we stopped in Innsbruck. There we got to see the beautiful capital of the alps and we took a cable car up to the Nordkette where we had a beautiful view over the city and the surrounding alps.

Back in Vienna I was finally able to do some exploring in the city and its surrounding, and was able to hike around the northern parts of Vienna and explored the Leopoldsberg, Kahlenberg, and Hermannskogel.

At the end of August my friend Carina and I spent 2.5 days in Amsterdam, where I was meeting another friend from Moscow – Katharina! We did some exploring in the city, had a lot of fries and sat in cozy cafĂŠs to enjoy the great weather. A very good ending of August I must say. Check out my blogpost about my trip ;)

As you can see I have been rather busy lately, there has actually been a lot going on in my life in the past few months. It’s been quite hectic and busy at times – especially during the process of writing the thesis – but I could definitely see the progress that I was making – not only when talking about the thesis, but also in my personal life :)

 

 

Catching up: Spring Edition 2017.

/ Christina / 4 Comments

I haven’t been able to post as much or as regularly as I wanted since the start of 2017, especially in the past few weeks, as the end of my master studies are near and I am about to hand in my thesis so I was pretty much glued to my desk and haven’t been able to do anything else. No socializing, no trying new food places, enjoying the spring weather, no nothing for me but writing writing writing and the occasional Sex and the City episode in between to get my mind of things. So of course there was no time to do much traveling much to my dismay. However, this will soon be over, and I have already planned and booked some trips, so there’s something that I can look forward to!

Nonetheless, I thought I wanted to give you a short update on what I’ve managed to squeeze in in the past few months.

January

January was the first month back in Austria after my time abroad in Russia. I spent a lot of time with my family in Upper Austria, but also some time with friends and boyfriend in Vienna. It was freezingly cold in Vienna, and it was the first time in my life that I saw the Danube being frozen. I even walked on it! I sorted out my exchange things so I could close the chapter ‘Exchange Russia’ and finally started with my thesis.

February

In February I had the possibility to go and do some exploring in a part of Austria that I am not really familiar with (despite its closeness to Vienna) – Burgenland. I visited the capital of Burgenland, home of composer Haydn, for the first time, which you can see in my post about Eisenstadt. A week later I had a delicious, yet slightly expensive brunch right at the seafront of the Lake Neusiedl, another great place in Burgenland. It was so beautiful and still partly frozen so it was such a nice location for having a nice, relaxed morning there.

When talking about February I can’t skip Maslenitsa – Butter Week – and the fact that I had pancakes almost every day in one week. I guess I should feel a bit ashamed? But to my defense – the pancakes that I made are at least vegan and healthier? At least that’s what I am telling myself… Here you can also find a traditional Russian recipe for some type of pancakes that they make – Syrniki.

March

March – the beginning of spring! The beginning of the ice cream season (for me there’s actually ice cream season 24/7/365). And the beginning of beautiful flower bouquets.

My thesis brought be once back to beautiful beautiful Copenhagen so I could have a quick meeting with my supervisor, plus meet a few friends, enjoy a few drinks, and go and see a cool light exhibition at Ofelia Plads. Despite the bad, rainy weather I enjoyed a nice weekend there. It was good to be back!

April

April is usually one of my favourite months as it is at the beginning of spring, and the beautiful pink cherry blossoms are everywhere. I found the time to spend a few hours in a beautiful Japanese garden in Vienna, which unfortunately has been the only exploring that I was able to do lately. The rest of April – even my birthday – was full of thesis thesis thesis. Oh and a quick Easter weekend that I spent in Carinthia, Styria, and Upper Austria. So at least I saw a bit of Austria, revisited the beautiful Lake WĂśrth, and had a lot of local food at relatives’ places, such as the nettle cream soup that I talked about it in my last blog post.

Today’s my birthday and as I am writing this and thinking about what I have been doing in the last few months I realised that it was actually more than I remembered :D A lot has happened in the past few months, and a lot is going to happen in the next few months. A new chapter of my life will begin sometime soon, and a huge chapter of my life – my student time – will come to an end. I am looking forward to new challenges, new experiences, and I hope you will be part of my journey :)

Catching up: June Edition.

/ Christina / Leave a comment

June was a month full of university related stuff due to final hand-ins and oral exams. It was also the month of my sister’s wedding and a week without proper Internet.

June in terms of: Travelling.

In my last blogpost I already wrote about that I had to take one final trip up north to Copenhagen due to my final exams. I couldn’t take a direct flight from Vienna so I had to travel to Munich via car-train-bus and then take a plane to CPH. So exhausting! Unfortunately, I had to do the same when travelling back – but this time instead of driving to my parent’s home I stayed on the train even longer to go to Vienna and visit my bf & friends. 14+ hours travelling was so exhausting… But at least I got to enjoy breakfast with Carina at Munich airport and we drove past Chiemsee in Germany.

Munich_above_sky_blue

Travelling_Breakfast

Travelling_Chiemsee

June in terms of: University.

Right at the beginning of the month my group members and I had to finish our last written paper (about Lego and Airbnb, in case you are wondering). Also, we had to prepare ourselves for the oral exams that were based on our written projects. Unfortunately, there was so much confusion until the very end regarding what would be asked and what not. However, both exams turned out to be okay-ish, the examiners were not too bad and we got good pieces of advice for our master thesis. A good end of the semester/year.

Processed with VSCO with hb1 preset

June in terms of: Food.

At the beginning of June I attended a food festival in Vienna. The location was beautiful as it was in the courtyard the town hall of Vienna. I tried a burger from Die Burgermacher, a Burrito from Wrapstars and a famous portuguese Pastel de Nata from Nata Lisboa.

Another food highlight of June was that one time that I cooked vegan for half of my family. They got to enjoy a cucumber-apple soup and a burrito bowl, and they liked it (:

June was also the month where I got to try my own home-grown cress for the first time. I haven’t had cress in years and we kids used to eat it quite a lot when we were younger. So it was a little throwback to my childhood :D

My love for Pizza is not unknown, and due to all the free time on my hands I decided to make some from scratch myself (together with my bf). Delicious, of course ;)

Last but not least, I also need to mention the delicious Pad Thai that I had at Wagamama and the strawberry muffins at Shaneel’s, if you remember my last post.

townhall_

Food_Vegan_cooking

Food_cress

Food_Pizza

Food_cupcakes_strawberries

June in terms of: Life.

Definitely the most memorable life event of June was my Sister’s Wedding. After 10 years of dating and 1 year of being engaged, she got married to (I suppose :P) love of her life. I wish them all the best (:

This June was the first time ever that I swam in the Danube. Crazy, even though that I grew up so close by it, and it is pretty common in Vienna to take a refreshing swim in the river on a hot summer day. I just never got around to it and I have to admit that I’d rather stay inside in a cool house than broil in the hot sun. But taking a refreshing swim isn’t too bad, I have to admit… :D

At the end of June there’s always a (music) festival in Vienna that millions of people have been enjoying for quite some time now. As it’s at the end of June I have only been there once (or twice?) before as it was usually the week right before finals at uni. No time for fun, eh?! As my exams were over mid-June, I finally got to enjoy the Donauinselfest guilt-free, yay. Gudrun von Laxenburg was definitely my favourite act, Samy Deluxe and Frittenbude were pretty cool too. Also, I got to watch and more or less hear (terrible sound engineering) a few songs of Sean Paul. AND EVERYTHING FREE OF CHARGE.

June 2016 is also more or less equivalent to Euro2016. I am not a huge soccer fan but I like watching the ‘bigger’ games, especially with other people around. Naturally, I had to watch at least one game with the Austrian national team in a public viewing place. Sadly, ‘we’ lost and this was the end for our team for Euro2016. But I never expected them to be any good, so I am ‘officially’ rooting for Iceland and France now. Go either one of them!

The end of June did not mean well with me as everywhere I travelled to in Austria there was a problem with the wifi connection. What was there to do with all my free time when everybody around me in Vienna was studying and it was just too hot outside? And at home – when I needed the internet for scholarship/uni stuff and my blog? Stupid UPC and stupid thunderstorms that damage modems -.- Thankfully, this torment is over now and I am back online. :D

Bride_me

Life_danube_bathing

Life_danube

Life_dif_gudrun

Life_DIF_fourowls

Life_football

June in terms of: Home.

After months of studying, travelling and more or less living in two countries (at least for the past two months), I finally (more or less) settled in Austria again (at least until the end of August). However, I’ve already made future travel plans, and big things are planned for the time after August, so there’s a lot going on at the moment. Still, it is good to recharge batteries at home. Enjoy the nature, enjoy the pets, enjoy the family. All the things that I never/hardly ever have in my beloved cities.

Home_stm

Home_cat

Home_dog

This happens when you try to take a selfie with your dog…

Catching up: May edition.

/ Christina / 2 Comments

May was a month of having visitors, doing final work for university, and saying my first goodbyes to places and people.

May in terms of: Life

At the beginning of the month I just got back from a two-week trip to Austria. If you remember from my April chatching up edition – I stayed at home for two weeks due to my sister’s bachelorette party and my own birthday. When I got back to Copenhagen Carina and I went straight to see the last cherry blossoms of the season.

CPH_cherryblossoms.jpg

At the beginning of May two friends of mine came to stay with me for a few days. We had a lovely time – full of sightseeing, beach relaxation and food!

Beach_selfie

CPH_people.jpg

Another very exciting (?) event happened in May: Eurovision Songcontest! After Austria’s victory in 2014 and the big event in Vienna in 2015, Austrians are kind of crazy about ESC. I got invited to a small ESC-party where a few of my fellow BCM people came. However, despite the craziness of the event, we couldn’t wait for the result and decided to go to a club instead … ;)

People_ESC_songcontest.jpg

May in terms of: University

May was the month where all my courses came to an end – the only thing left are two group projects that I have to hand-in in the next few days plus oral exams in mid-June. yay. Hence, a lot of productivity was needed, no time for procrastination you’d think… :D But even in times like that there’s always time for cake!

Tietgen_meeting

May in terms of: Food.

Food is a big part of my (I guess everyone’s) life, especially in May as I had to say my final goodbyes to some of my favourite spots in town. Okay, this all sounds overly dramatic, and yes, i will already be back in June and also for next year’s master thesis defense and all that stuff but still…

CPH_food_burger

Moving out also meant ‘getting rid’ of food products that I still had. I just couldn’t take everything with me in my suitcase :D So I got to eat quite a lot of frozen fruits and oats. yay :)

CPH_food_chiapudding

CPH_food_christianshavn

Shaneel – one of my friends from BCM ( who also made the delicious chocolate cheesecake that I mentioned in last week’s post) – invited a few people over to her place(including me of course) and cooked lunch. Pakistani lunch! We were all so excited to try the stuff she’d made. She even cooked something vegetarian for me palak paneer (basically spinach and cheese. yum!) which was so damn delicious that I immediately asked for the recipe. I’ll give it a try myself soonish.

CPH_food_Pakistani

CPH_Food_Pizza

there’s also always time & room for pizza…

May in terms of: Home.

I moved out of my apartment in Copenhagen and moved back home. It’s cheaper and I have to be at home during the next couple of weeks anyways, so it would be a waste having a room in Copenhagen where no one lives in.

Austria_flight_home_2.jpg

Instead, I got to spend a lot of my time at home with my family and beloved pets in May, enjoying nature & food ;) I guess I had my fair share of asparagus this season…

home_flowers

home_haska_dog

home_cat

home_asparagus.jpg

Also – hello beloved Vienna!

Austria_Vienna

Austria_naschmarkt

my beloved Baklava <3 long time no see! :D

Another very important and exciting thing happened: Austria selected a new president! An election has never been this exciting or controversial like this before in Austria.

header.jpg

It’s good to be back – even though it will only be for a short amount of time. The next chapter of my (study) life awaits me :) But first, I have to finish all my exams…

Catching up: April edition.

/ Christina / 2 Comments

April: spring came – the sun was out and blossoms bloomed everywhere – and was gone again – with rain and snow showers. Luckily, spring returned again. Fingers crossed that it will stay with us!. But the return was not fast enough – I still got sick during those few colds days :( But on a more bright side – it was my sister’s bachelorette party and what better reason is there for going home than to attend my sister’s bachelorette party? Actually, I was the planner of the party, so I kind of had to be there anyways ;). I also got the chance to go out for drinks with a few close friends for my birthday and spend a couple of days with my family at home. Here’s the rest of my little April update :)

April in terms of: University

Two final papers were due in April and even though I had visitors I guess (or hope?) that I did okayish. So there are only two other courses left which are group papers/exams. This will be interesting! :) And then I am done with the semester :O I can’t believe how time flew by…

April in terms of: Life.

At the beginning of April my sister and cousin visited me in Copenhagen. It was so nice to have family in town – especially short after the Easter break that I spent without family in Denmark.

Visitors_Family

Copenhagen_dinosaur

Hello Mr. T-Rex? (sorry for the bad quality – had to zoom in quite a bit)

Also, as I am about to finish Gilmore Girls I had to find another TV show to watch. I started a new one – and no, it is not Game of Thrones (well actually, yes, I watched the first two episodes of the new season but I did not choose to do so on my own). It is Shaun the Sheep. It is available on Netflix and it is just the cutest thing ever! And the song is stuck in my head almost 24/7. One episode contains kind of two mini-episodes and it is about 15 minutes long. I don’t even want to google how many episodes there are… :( But I am trying my best not to binge-watch it :D

For those of you who are interested in the German theme song – there you go:

April in terms of: Traveling.

I spent half of April at home in Austria due to my sister’s bachelorette party and also because I only had one class that I’d miss during those two weeks. So why not spend the time abroad?! So off I went. I even got to see a beautiful sunset on the plane.

Plain_Copenhagen

Bye bye Copenhagen!

Plain_Sun_again

Plain_Night

Flowers_birthday

Flowers were waiting for me (:

Back home in Austria there was so much to do and so many little things to organise for the bachelorette party and the upcoming wedding in general. But I still had time to go for nice walks and have lots and lots of my favourite dishes and go out for drinks.

Danube_bridge_me

Drinks_25hourshotel_city

Great view from the 25h hotel bar :)

There was also the Long Night of Research which I didn’t want to miss! I got to hear interesting things about nuclear energy & the International Atomic Energy Agency and I got to see the ‘stars’ (and much more) at the Planetarium in Vienna.

LNoR

People

I also saw this man at the Long Night of Research… :D

Ferris_Wheel.jpg

Ferris wheel next to the Planetarium

My birthday was in April and I decided to celebrate it only with a few friends in a nice location where we had a couple of drinks. No big party or anything. I might be getting old. :D

Birthday.jpg

A friend surprised me with a cake. yay! :)

For the first couple of days in Austria it was so warm and almost summer-like! My ‘thin’ coat (although some people called it wintercoat?!) was way too warm :( But after a couple of days there was a complete turnaround and it was snowing and we had temperatures below zero during the night. Not to my surprise I got a bad cold which came in handy right before my sister’s hen party. Not. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun but I will spare you the pictures ;)

April in terms of: Food.

I had the whole flat in Copenhagen to myself for most of the time which meant I could experiment quite a bit in the kitchen due to the spaciousness of the empty flat/kitchen. yay ;) This also lead to a lot of ‘healthy’ food options :)

Food_Vegan Pasta

Vegan avocado broccoli pasta

Food_Veggies

Veggie bowl

Back home I took the chance to go to places and eat dishes that I miss in CPH – mainly Pizza and Gyoza. Not that they don’t have them here in CPH but they just don’t have the same places as they do in Vienna. :D Also, it is asparagus season at the moment and of course I had to get as many dishes with asparagus as possible ;)

Food_Gyoza

Gyozas from Ra’mien

Food_Pizza

Selfmade Pizza!!

Food_Suppenwirtschaft

Asparagus soup and baby-potato salad from Suppenwirtschaft

Food_Bagel

French Bagel from OrangeBar

Food_Birthday

Asparagus risotto for my birthday!!

April in terms of: Home.

Every time that I am in Austria I spend most of my time in Vienna as many of my friends and my boyfriend are living there. However, my real ‘home’ – where I grew up and where my close family lives – is on the countryside and around 3 hours (by public transport) away from Vienna. This is where I can go outside and truly enjoy nature and especially spring with all the blossoms :)

Flowers_nature_tree_light

Home is also the place where I can spend time with ‘my’ dog (technically my father’s and brother’s dog, but who cares about technicalities).

Home_dog_outside

My dog’s favourite spot in the house – the windowsill

Home_dog_plant

This was my little April update. I hope you liked it! :) I am already back in Copenhagen and busy with university. Stay tuned for more updates ;)

 

 

Catching up: March edition.

/ Christina / 4 Comments

Another month has passed. I was quite busy – university and traveling were the main things on my agenda. Easter holidays are over and spring is finally here! Here’s my little March update :)

March in terms of: University.

March has been the busiest month so far at university in 2016. Two courses finished and two exams started. I can’t believe that the semester is almost over – only two courses are left! But there is still a lot to do for the courses so don’t worry, I won’t get bored. Unfortunately.

March in terms of: Life.

March was also the month were we had our little Easter break. I decided not to fly back home for various reasons and instead stayed in Copenhagen for the holidays. This was my first easter break where I did not go home for at least two or three days :O However, I got to spend a couple of days with my family earlier in February and I am going home in a couple of weeks for my sister’s hen anyways, so it wasn’t that big of a deal after all ;)

I used the holidays for inviting a few friends over at my place and cook dinner for them. I made broccoli soup and a sweet potato & green rice burrito bowl (inspired by cookieandcake). My friends brought wine, cake, chocolates and flowers. We had a great night! :)

Food_Dinner_Flowers

Food_Dinner_Soup

Food_Dinner_main_Bowl

Food_Dinner_Cake

March in terms of: Food.

Regarding food March was great for me. I tried quite a few new recipes and cooked food that usually only my mom cooks at home :)

Food_Avocado

Avocado, hummus and tomatos on crispbread – my go-to dinner of the month ;)

Food_Rest of dinner

Dinner-leftovers with cake :)

Processed with VSCO with a4 preset

Rice pudding with almonds

Easter_Food_spinach soup.jpg

Spinach soup with roasted pumpkin seeds

Food_Sweet potato bowl

Sweet potato – broccoli – feta bowl

For a course at uni we had to work in a group. However, as we all are food-lovers (who isn’t?!), we decided to go have burgers at Cocks&Cows instead of doing stuff for uni. ;)

Food_Burger.jpg

Treehugger at Cocks&Cows

Food_Dinner

Perfect instant picture selfie skills I must say…

March in terms of: Traveling.

At the beginning of March I got to spend a few days with my boyfriend in Hungary’s beautiful capital Budapest. I ate way too much food and saw so many beautiful spots in the city.

Danube

Danube_me

March in terms of: Copenhagen.

Spring finally arrived in Copenhagen! The sun has been shining a lot, I packed my winter clothes away and I could finally use my sunglasses again. I even bought a new pair – yay! What a great time to be in such a beautiful country at that time of the year. Walking around in my neighbourhood is really great! :)

Enjoying the neighbourhood

Copenhagen_black diamond

Enjoying Copenhagen

Copenhagen_bridge

What have you been up to lately? Are you happy that winter is gone and spring is here? :)

Catching up: February edition.

/ Christina / 2 Comments

Long time no see! I’m finally back on the track again with blogging on a more regular basis. I’ve missed doing it but I also couldn’t bring myself to sit down and commit myself. There was not much to blog about; and writing only half-heartedly about stuff that I am not sure that I want to share is just not my thing. Instead, I took a short break and am now sharing the most interesting bits and bobs of the past few weeks :)

As mentioned here, eating healthy (or at least healthier) has been on my to-do-list during the past few weeks. I tend to eat very unhealthy when it comes to exam time or other stressful times. I tried a couple of new recipes; broccoli & bulgur have become my go-to ingredients lately. Also, I treated myself to some very delicious pancakes that only contain bananas, oats and almond milk. I think that I’ve never mastered any types of pancakes the way I did them! YAY. :)

Healthy

Veggie-bulgur bowl

Pancakes_1

Healthy version of pancakes

Although we had a short ‘winterholiday’, we had a lot to do for university. However, we also used the time to get a good, delicious and reasonably-priced breakfast at Paludan BogcafĂŠ.

Brunch

Vegetarian breakfast

My boyfriend was the sweetest one ever. He sent me a little care package of stuff that I really like and it arrived just at the right time and day. Too bad that the snickers he got me should have been sent back to the producer due to an international recall (55 countries). Apparently, someone found a plastic cap in a snickers bar which was in the same production as mine, but we were told way too late and half of the snickers were gone by that time. haha. I’m still alive though.

Carepackage

A little something from the boy.

You can’t always live a healthy life and pizza is just one of the most delicious dishes ever. So Carina and I spontaneously decided to go out for Pizza to this Italian place ‘La Perla‘ in the city centre of Copenhagen. Very cosy, very small, very Italian servers. But come on – serving coca cola in the plastic bottle? Not classy at all. But anyways, I would definitely go there again – delicious pizza plus they served bread beforehand.

Pizza

Various circumstances led me to a short trip to Austria. So goodbye Denmark…

Goodbye Denmark
hello ugly & brown Austria?!

… and hello Austria!
The flight was way too early in the morning, but I got to see the sunrise (too bad that I chose to sit on the wrong side of the plane…). Also, I got to eat at my favourite (vegan) burger place in Vienna – Swing Kitchen!! – before taking a train to my family.

Swing Kitchen

Best burger place in town!

My mom and me got to spend a lot of time together (just the two of us) and it was good to finally be able to catch up and enjoy a cup of coffee & cake. We haven’t been able to do this in forever!

Coffeebreak

cat-selfie
DONUTS! :O

After just a few days it was time to say goodbye Austria…

Goodbye beautiful Vienna!
Plane_Hello_Clouds_DK

hello DK.

… and hello Denmark.
Back to ‘normal’, back to university, back to my exam. yay. :D However, I managed to finish in time (even though I had spent a few days at home where I had hardly done anything for uni). One of the first things I did back in town was getting tea and a Danish pastry with Carina! Nothing’s better on a rainy day.

Teatime

Tea and Danish pastry

We also used our spare time with going to H&M and have breakfast for free. ;)

Niklas – one of our friends from our programme – had his birthday party on Friday. It was so much fun and so good being able to catch up with everyone after being absent from class/uni.

Party_Selfie_1

This was a small update on what I’ve been up to lately (actually, not that small after reading through it again :D).

Have a listen to my go-to song of the month :) very relaxing and nice to listen to!

Also, it’s that time of the year where flowers will be blooming soon! YAY to spring and to more sun! :) Are you all looking forward to spring as well?