Holiday Planning...

It's been a while since J and I went on a holiday.
So we've been talking and making plans, and decided we're heading off to New Zealand in the new year!

When I was younger I really wanted to visit New Zealand to go bungee jumping. Now I'm a bit older, I seem to have lost that fearlessness, because that's no longer at the top of my list. I'm so keen to check out the Hobbit Holes, the hot springs at Rotorua, the history at Waitangi, snorkelling off the North Island and taking in the beauty that is that country.

Every pay slip I've been squirreling away money and hopefully soon will have enough to pay for flights and accommodation. I keep the guide books at my desk, and longingly look over them in between poring over my law textbooks. They're providing a nice distraction amongst the crazy that is end of semester exams.

The planning is very much still in its infancy. I've been jotting down notes in my kikki.K 'Travel Notes' planner, and flagging notes to come back to in my guide books, all with just a vague idea of what we want out of this holiday, and how much we want to spend.
It's not only the thought of heading overseas that excites me, but the planning and anticipation excites me too.

What are your travel tips? Have you been to New Zealand? Any places we must check out? I'm taking as many recommendations as I can!




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My Week in Pictures #45

I started off my week with a pole workshop with Evgeny Greshilov - an amazing Russian pole dancer with incredible strength. The workshop was heaps of fun and I learnt lots of new tricks to work on. 

 

Rommy's been such a little cutie, with his newest toy...a large cardboard box. He's even taken to sleeping it, which is adorable.

Enjoying the last of my holiday break with a Shandy and some Assassin's Creed.

Uni goes back this week, so I'm trying to get a head start with my readings. A little Boston Legal playing in the background makes me less depressed that holidays are well and truly over.

 

One of the girls from work got an amazing job in the career she wants to go into, so sadly for us will no longer be working with us. We headed out to Darling Harbour for farewell drinks. A big jug of sangria is always a good way to celebrate. Darling Harbour was all done up for Mardi Gras. Did anyone attend the parade this year? Sadly I missed it! 

I did however catch up with Adeline from Through Beauty Eyes at the pre-mardi gras catwalk show at the Australasian College Broadway, which was a lot of fun! 

And probably, the biggest news of the week; I've been interning at a law firm since January as part of my degree, and on Monday I was offered a paid position! Which is just so incredible! I get to finish off my internship being paid, and then I get to stay on afterwards, continuing to get experience in an actual firm setting. I've loved working there so far, the people I work with are all so lovely and helpful, and I'm so happy I get to keep working there. 

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My Week in Pictures #44; the Theme Park Edition (part 1)

Last week J and I jet-setted off to Queensland for a mini-holiday. We stayed with my mum, who lives about an hour north of Brisbane. It was so great being able to see her after months and months, and check out her new place. We spent two days at Warner Bros Movie World and at Dreamworld, which was the basis of our little getaway.

We started off on Tuesday at Movie World. I last was at Movie World over 10 years ago, and it's a lot more DC-focussed than I remember. I have to say though, I totally commend them on their theme-ing of the park, because they have done an awesome job with that.

The Superman Escape rollercoaster, and the Arkham Asylum coaster (previously known as the Lethal Weapon) were easily the best in the park. Superman Escape had the longest wait time of them all, but even so it was only about 20 minutes. The Superman Escape accelerates from 0 to 100km/h in under 2 seconds which is just so, so much fun. 

I think the funnest rollercoaster of all of them was the Arkham Asylum - it has 5 inversions, reaches speeds of 88km/h with an experience of 4Gs. The track is above you, and your suspended so your feet dangle. This ride is so intense, and I think was my favourite out of all of the ones we experienced. 

The Batwing Spaceshot was a lot of fun - you basically shoot up 61m, experiencing a force of 4Gs while travelling 64km/h. You can see a lot of the park on the ride which is nice, for the views. 

The Green Lantern coaster was pretty fun - not quite as intense as Arkham; if you're after a little thrill but still a bit of a 'fraidy-cat, this would be a great ride for you. The ride reaches speeds of 66km/h, with an experience of 3.5Gs. That being said, I was surprised to learn it does actually feature the steepest drop in the Southern Hemisphere and the second steepest in the world. 

Just chillin' with our mate, the Joker. 

The last time I went to Movie World, the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster had just been built, and the lines were so long that there was over an hour and a half wait to get in. This time, there was no such line. Unfortunately, the ride was a bit of a disappointment. Towards the end of the coaster part, there was a lot of stop-starting which kind of ruined the experience. The first time we stopped was at the end of the last drop, and I honestly thought the ride had broken and we got stuck. 

Movie World has fun little shows on, which is good to break up the day. The Batman one was pretty good, and easily drew the biggest crowd. Unfortunately the Wild West show got cancelled (but not before we were all standing in the sun for 20 minutes waiting for it to start). The Scooby Doo show was also funny and lighthearted; there were a lot of children at that show.

Movie World is a great theme park; it has an entire Looney Tunes section with rides just for little ones, so it would be perfect for all ages.
Stay tuned for my post later today on Dreamworld!

Have you been to Movie World before? What's your favourite roller-coaster ride?



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Oh At Long Last!!

After months and months of pining away, I have finally, finally, got my hands on this sweet baby...

Oh far out is it beautiful.
Featuring 8 matte shades and 8 shimmers I really think this is THE all rounder palette. This is the one that fits almost every occasion, every look, every hope and dream you could ever have. (okay I may have made up that last bit).

Housed in a really sleek, black case this palette would be perfect for travelling.
In fact, I am travelling next week and it will be accompanying me for the ride.
I've been loving playing with this the past couple of weeks, and am thinking I will do a post about the different eye looks I've created with it.
Perhaps a more extensive review? Let me know what you'd like to read about. I've had this about two weeks now, and just couldn't keep quiet about it anymore, I'm just that excited.

Guys, I think it's love.



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2013 CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY (PART 2!) (CLOSED)

Source (edited by myself)

So! As I explained in this post last week, I am doing two giveaways this Christmas! 

This is a SEPARATE GIVEAWAY from the one last week. You have the chance to win both prizes! If you haven't already go ahead and enter last week's giveaway! I'll wait, I promise. 

SECOND PRESENT

For the second present I am giving away an O.P.I 'Take Ten' gift pack! This is 10 mini versions of O.P.I's best-selling nail polishes! Ahhhh this pack is so amazing I kind of want to keep it for myself! 

The shades included are:

Pirouette my whistle / Alpine Snow / Bubble Bath / Tickle my Frace-y / You Don't Know Jacques!

Cajun Shrimp / Big Apple Red / German-icure by OPI / Malaga Wine / Lincoln Park After Dark

I thought this was such a great pack to try out the best of O.P.I! So if you want to enter, read on! 

RULES AND LEGALITIES:

• This giveaway is open internationally
• You must be over the age of 18 to enter. If you're not over the age of 18, you must have your parent's permission to enter. 
• You need to be a follower on GFC, and answer the questions in the google form below. Leaving a comment DOES NOT COUNT as entering. You can leave me comments if you wish (I do love reading and interacting with you guys!) But this will not count as an entry. 
• For extra entries, follow me on bloglovin and on twitter, and tweet about the giveaway! 
• You can enter both this giveaway and next week's. 
• All entries will be checked and verified. If you do not comply, your entry will be invalid. 
• The giveaway will end on the 22nd December, 2013. The winner will be decided and notified on this day, and given 24 hours to respond. If there is no response, a new winner will be decided and will also have 24 hours to respond. 
• The prize will be mailed out, using regular Australian Post within a week of responding. If the winner would like registered post or tracking, they agree to pay the costs of this.

(ETA: The winner of this prize was the lovely Frith)

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My Week in Pictures #40

It has been a busy couple of weeks here in my world!
I am OFFICIALLY on uni holidays (YAY!) although it doesn't really feel like holidays because my hours at work also increased for Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas...

WE GOT A CHRISTMAS TREE!! 

I've spent the last week catching up with people as everyone finishes off another year at uni. 

Caught up with a friend from work (one of the casuals from my old store) over some Max Brenner. 

So delicious. 

Nomming on some cheese, rice crackers and grapes for lunch. I am so in love with that cheese knife; I picked it up at the Oxfam store! So cute! 

Caught up with my two best girlfriends for the first time in agessss. Homemade sangria and cheese and dips. Chilling in the backyard, drinking wine, as the sun sets is the most ideal way to spend my time. 

The next morning I caught up with Oishee for breakfast. I had the baked eggs and she had the chilli eggs. So, so good. 

 I'm thoroughly enjoying returning to leisurely reading. Currently reading 'Destroying the Joint'; a collection of essays from some brilliant females. This book is fantastic at explaining what feminism is, and why it is needed. But sometimes I get so angry reading it, as it reminds me how far we have to go before equality is actually reached. So I have to take breaks from it. But it is brilliant writing and I highly, highly recommend it. 

I also bought some new $6 flowers (Thanks Woolworths!). It really is the little things that make me happy. 

Yeah, that's Will Ferrell. I went along to the Anchorman 2 Sydney premiere yesterday and it was AWESOME. 

I really enjoyed the film, but of course it was also pretty awesome being mere metres away from the main actors. 

What did you get up to this past week?

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My Weekend in Pictures #38

I spent the past weekend in Mudgee, for a work friend's 21st birthday. Mudgee is a quaint little town, about a 4 hour drive North West from Sydney, in central Western NSW. L (whose birthday it was), grew up here, so took us all up to see her home town and celebrate her birthday. It was such a fantastic weekend; not only was it really nice to just get away from life for a couple of days and spend it with a couple of the work girls, but it was really cool getting to see where L grew up...I finally had an actual image in my head now of places and people she'd talked about. 

We headed down to the markets on Saturday, before returning back to L's to set up for the party. There was lots of cute items here, and lots of homemade food and wine. I also found this awesome vintage camera. Of course I had to buy it. Although the film is no longer made for it, I may be able to use a different sized film...so that will be a fun experiment! 

I picked up some seeds to bring home as a present for J

That night we celebrated L's 21st ... it was an absolutely gorgeous party; lanterns in the trees, fresh flowers and fruit punch adorned the tables, and fire pits to sit next to and be warm. 

Before heading home on Sunday we had lunch at High Valley; a vineyard and cheese factory. 

Where we sat and ate lunch was cute, and the food was amazing...I may have bought some tomato fetta to bring home with me. 

On the drive home we stopped at Capertee Valley and I snapped this photo of the world's widest canyon:

Such a cute weekend getaway; even though Mudgee is a small town there's plenty to explore. Even just looking at these photos is making me nostalgic, and I can't wait to go back again and explore more of it. 

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