July Favorites!

I am in shock, July can't be over already. This is ridiculous, summer is literally flying by. Last thing I remember I was counting down the days until Europe, and now I'm already home from camp! Anyway, I'm going to keep this short in order to fully embrace every last second of summer, here are a few things that I've been loving this past month!

TV SHOW// Lie to Me. A short little show that I discovered on Netflix while I was in Europe and can't wait to finish up! (On Deck: Tudors)

SONG// Tear in My Heart. Such a jam song that my friend and I accidentally discovered a while ago like a week before it got super popular.

BOOK//  The Other Boelyn Girl. Expect an apology post later on in the week because I have totally abandoned the books I had said that I would be reading this summer in this post. I got sidetracked by the drama of old England, explained in an engulfing way by Philippa Gregory. My mom found the book The Other Boelyn Girl at a flea market in Cambridge and bought it for me because she had read them as a teenager and loved them. Once I had read it I found that I actually understood some of the English lineage when I visited the various castles. Now I'm on the hunt for a used The Boelyn Inheritance!

MAKEUP ITEM// Benefit Cream Eyeshadow in RSVP. I had been eying this for a while and then one day I was in Macy's and just decided to go for it; and I'm glad I did. It will last me forever because I barely need any each time I use it. It looks great and I love the consistency of it, it's super light on my eyelids.

STORE// Topshop. We've had a small Topshop section in our Nordstrom but I was never all that into it. Then recently I found myself looking though the stuff there more and actually taking a real liking to a few of their less edgy pieces. So I went to an actual store in London, and loved it! I got the coolest black flowy blouse and these shoes that I am head over heels (haha so punny) for.

What have you been into this past July?
xoxo  

Stand Out

Warning: Slightly rant-y post ahead which I highly recommend you read because I worked incredibly hard attempting to articulate how I've been feeling for quite some time AND this is a post that could be extremely beneficial for anyone to read. However if you choose not to and would prefer to wait for a more lighthearted post when I get back from campI totally understand; just know that my feelings will be hurt and I will have to seriously reconsider our friendship as a a whole. Thank you for your time, enjoy!

Being different was never something I struggled with. For as long as I can remember people were always telling me how unique I was, because I was always the loud, ants-in-your-pants type, (not to mention I was a major tomboy from the age of 8-11) . I was always voicing my opinions whether people wanted to hear them or not, I was running around with my friends doing whatever seemed the most fun at the time, and when everyone else was buying whatever was super trendy from Justice or Limited Too, I was proud to turn my nose up and walk away in my Etnies, basketball shorts, and swim-meet t-shirt. (Yes I am aware that I looked ridiculous, but c'mon, everyone had an awkward pre-teen phase.)

Then somewhere along the way I lost that. Now I'm just not talking about wanting different clothes, (growing out of that phase was definitely a blessing,) I'm talking more along the lines of interests. Out of nowhere I almost stopped taking pictures altogether, which was a hobby that I was passionate about, yet never had the time to focus on. Even thought I loved art and reading I never seemed to have the time for those either; it was always about which show I was watching on Netflix next. When I first realized that everyone was wearing Brandy Melville, it suddenly became an emergency for me to buy one of their tank tops that barely fit me.
I started hating school because it felt like I had no friends. So I blamed it on high school as a whole, figuring that everyone hates high school and that it really is just the worst four years of your life and you just get through it. Then once you're done, life gets better. Turns out, it was mainly because the friends I had, I didn't like all that much. They were shallow and petty and always seemed to be complaining about something. By spending my time with them, I totally forgot to embrace the positive things that were going on around me.
 From the best posting hour to the perfect filter, Instagram posts took hours to prepare rather than seconds. It's absurd to think that an app that was originally created to share what was going on instantaneously, was being used to create a carefully curated museum of photographs of how much fun one might be having with their friends. Phrases like, "She's not that skinny in person," or "My like-to-minute ratio is so bad right now," and "I would never post two days in a row," had become so mundane that I had also fallen victim to them. I looked at my personal account and realized that although it was filled to the brim of photos of my friends and me, laughing and smiling, it didn't actually say anything about myself. And that's the whole point right, expressing yourself? So why wasn't I doing that?
All of a sudden I felt like I was two different people, there was me at home, who was more creative and actually shared what I thought, and then when I left my house, there was a totally different version of myself that wasn't all that interesting. That girl was too interested in which episode of Gossip Girl she was on or what shirt she wanted to buy next.

So here I am, writing this now as sort of a promise. A promise to myself, and to anyone who might be reading this, that I'm sincerely going to try to be myself as much as I can.
When I was in Ireland, we went to the amazing farm were we saw an actual sheep dog run around and herd sheep. The funny thing about it was that no matter what the dog did, the sheep all stayed together no matter where they went. They all followed each other, and couldn't find their way without one another. Well, I'm sick of being a sheep. My mom always said that teenagers were like sheep, I just hadn't realized that I had become one. From now on, I only want to spend my time with friends that inspire me to be more creative, not to blend in better. I am truly sick of not being with people I enjoy, or feeling like I have to be ten separate people just to walk down the hallway. 

Now I'm not trying to say that this is easy. I mean who knows; a year from now I could be in the exact same position I am in right now, only because I didn't have the courage to break away. Which is not an unreasonable assumption. It's scary to stand out, because when you break about from the familiar, the results become an unknown; and that's pretty terrifying.
However I hope that I figure it out. Because I don't know what's to come in the year ahead and I really hope that I'm happy and more myself this time. And overall, I hope to share that person here, without any barriers. I want to be able to express myself however I can without getting caught up in whatever bs might be trending at that moment. It is so important to be yourself; which is never part of a cookie cutter mold. Stand out. 

So I invite anyone who might ever see this to be yourself. Do whatever it takes, no matter how scary to make yourself happy. Good luck!

Sidenote: After I wrote this I saw a post on Classy Cathleen's blog about how bloggers should try to be themselves which I think sort of ties into what I was saying so click here to get to it!

xoxo

UK Trip- The First Installment

Welcome to the first official recap of my trip to the UK, (and as I recently discovered, does not include most of Ireland, which I did also visit!) I thought that I'd just go through what we did each day of the tour and post a few pictures, all in four different posts over the course of the next few weeks! So here goes:

For our trip my family decided to go with a tour group because it was our first time there. Although we didn't know who was going to be on the tour, or what age bracket it would consist of (I was the youngest person there,) I'm really glad we did. It was an awesome opportunity to meet some really great people, including a 75 year old couple who summer in an RV in Mexico and are currently backpacking across Europe. Pretty amazing, I know. Anyway, the tour was ten days long, however we felt as though that wasn't long enough, so we flew up two days early, and rented a flat for about five days after the tour had ended (more on the flat later.) So when I posted a few weeks ago about falling in love with London, that was during our time on our own before the tour had started. In hindsight, I am really glad we had two days on our own because we got a chance to figure out what we wanted to do on the backend that the tour didn't include.

So the first place we went to with the group was Cambridge University! While I could never get in there, I'm glad I went because the school is gorgeous. Every building you see has these beautiful, ornate, gothic carvings that you hardly see in America, if ever. Then we went to two small cities called York and Durham, which were just as amazing. We walked around these great big churches and whilst walking through the towns, I actually felt like I was in Harry Potter. The buildings are all sticking out into the alleys full of cobblestone streets and the houses are pretty much leaning on top of each other because they're so old. It was in awe at how seemingly every single thing we walked by had some sort of historical significance.

Bridge near the entrance to Cambridge

Beautiful buildings in York

It was then that we ventured up north to my new favorite place, Scotland. Putting aside the ridiculous looking kilts and the fact that their national animal is a Unicorn; Scotland is just an amazing place. I loved it from the second I stepped off the bus and then promptly ran back on for my jacket because it was like 50 degrees in the middle of July. I honestly can't put into words how much I loved it because it would take too long, so I'll just carry on with the end of this post. Our first stop in Scotland was the home of Sir Walter Scott, a world renowned (now dead) writer who was given the title of Baronet when he recovered the Crown Jewels in Edinburgh Castle. This guy was incredible. He was obsessed with collecting things, and wanted his mansion to look just like a medieval castle so in every hallway, every stretch of wall had some odd artifact on it. It was awesome. We then drove to our hotel and crashed for the evening because we had some pretty amazing things to do the next day in Scotland!

To be continued...

xoxo

A wee little update

I am thoroughly exhausted. In the past 10 days since I've last blogged, I've visited England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and now back to London; but I've never been happier. These past two weeks have been better than I could have ever imagined and I feel so lucky to have been able to take this trip. (Shoutout to my parents for not leaving me home) Now having said that, I hope that one might understand why I my blogging has been scarce, it's a bit hard to do so, especially considering the bus I was on and the hotels we were in were supposed to have wifi and while they did, it was, shall I say a bit temperamental and therefore not readily available everywhere. And so, I think that it might be best for me to do a few recap posts throughout the next month rather than attempt to fit my entire trip into one post now because frankly, it would probably be rubbish, alright, cheerio! (really feeling the British slang here.)

{head over heels} -Days 1&2 in London

Before we left, my dad would not shut up about how he thought I would fall in love with London and want to move there forever. So naturally I ignored him and assumed that he was wrong, because who likes to admit that someone else is right? Well, as much as I hate to admit defeat; I'm in love. I feel so comfortable in this city, even though I have absolutely no frickin clue where I'm going 80% of the time. I don't know how to describe it, I think it might be the people, so far all of the people I've spoken to have been extremely nice and generous. Also, everyone here is from all over the place, you walk ten feet and can hear at least 3 different languages being spoken around you. It's amazing. My mom and I keep talking about how it feels like New York City, except that it's about half as crowded and the overall pace of the atmosphere is much slower. Coming from the DC area where everyone is rushed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, a change of pace is more than welcome. 

Plus, don't even get me started on the architecture; I've never been so shutter happy in my entire life. It seems as though every time you turn a corner, the streets and buildings are almost begging me to to take their photos. (ps follow me on instagram for a photographic look into my time in the UK) I've been taking pictures of everything. Especially when I'm supposed to be doing other things, like watch where I'm going and things of that nature. 

Today we went to the cutest antique shop near Abbey Street and spent almost 3 hours just browsing around the coolest little stands. All of the vendors so many things on each table it was hard to distinguish what was what sometimes. However, both my parents and myself got some really cool things, all reasonably priced. I got two old (new to me at least) cameras to add to my collection, my dad got a war watch from 1905 and my mom got some really interesting gold charms to put onto a necklace. It was way more walking than I had expected (and would have preferred) but it was totally worth it. 

By the end of the day today we took a boat ride to Westminster, and got just a quick glance at Big Ben and the London Eye before the tube back to the hotel. We'll be going back later in the week so I wasn't too invested in the photo opportunities around there. Plus, it's suuuuper tourist-y around that area, (who am I kidding, I'm a tourist) so it wasn't as enjoyable as the really authentic London areas that we'd been to yesterday and today. Overall, I've been having the best time so far!  

xoxo, Chesapeake Classic

{happy travels}

So I'm leaving for the UK today and that's pretty surreal. I'll be spending most of the trip in England but will also be in Ireland and Scotland for a little bit. The farthest I've ever been is Israel and I can safely say that I am ready for a new adventure. I love traveling with my whole heart, but as a self-proclaimed amateur photographer going far away can be tricky when dealing with what gear to bring.  This is what I'll be bringing on my trip (more or less,) I hope it's helpful!

 WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS ODD PHOTOGRAPHY TERMS. If you're not super interested in photography don't worry about reading it, I'll try not to be overly offended. Ps if you have any comments or questions feel free to leave them below!

From left to right, those items not mentioned will not be accompanying me on my trip.

iPad// Due to the large amount of bouncing from hotel to hotel this trip, I opted to bring my iPad rather than my heavy MacBook Pro. If you have an Air, or some other light, thin laptop you might as well go with that, but my iPad made for sense for this trip. In terms of photography, I'll mainly be using to dump pictures so I have enough space on my memory cards, but I'll also be using it to blog, read, and watch movies!

NIKON D5000+ 35mm// It actually took a lot of thought (and a pros and cons list) to figure out which camera I would bring, and for a long time I had planned to bring a superzoom rather than a DSLR. However after a lot of consideration, I felt as though if there was ever a trip to bring the more heavy duty camera, it was this one. So into the bag Betsy (my DSLR) went. Betsy is currently attached to a 35mm, 1.8 nikon lens. Quite fast, could be wider but very versatile which will also accompany me to Europe. 

Zoom Lens// This particular lens is a 70-300 4.5-5.6 Nikon zoom lens. Not super fast I know, but it does the trick when it comes to getting up close and personal. I have a better one that's a bit faster but unfortunately it's an SLR lens and super heavy. Not ideal for wandering around England. 

JOURNAL+PENS// Pretty self-explanatory, I hope to journal the whole time I'm there and capture some good memories!

PASSPORT// Duh.

iPHONE// Very useful in wifi equipped situations.

EXTERNAL FLASH// To be quite honest, I don't know much about flashes. I just happen to have this one because my dad bought it a while ago and it works pretty well, especially in low-light situations and when using a manual lens. So I threw it in the bag, why not.

CAMERA CHARGER// Also, duh.

iPOD// Just in case of situations that lack wifi or in predicaments involving spotty wifi. Also handy for airplanes.

85mm LENS// This lens is a Nikon 85mm 1.8 portrait lens. Although it's manual and therefore a little on the heavy side, I like it because of how fast it is. Having said that, it is also pretty narrow, so it's not usually my go-to.

iPAD+iPHONE USB CABLES and BRICK// Still, duh.

SD to iPAD ADAPTER// That little block under the charging brick allows me to dump my photos from an SD card to my iPad to ensure that I have enough space on the cards to last me the next twoish weeks.

SUNGLASSES// Lastly, duh.

NOT PICTURED- LOWEPRO COMPUDAY 250 (carry on)

What photo gear do you rely on? xoxo, Chesapeake Classic