Meadows and flowers and crickets in the grass...

Instagram: tnena22

Here are my Instagram photos from this past month. I decided to start making this kind of posts because not everyone has an Instagram account which makes seeing (Instagram) photos a bit tricky. Before I opened my account I've noticed how many bloggers post recap of their week/month seen through their Insta accounts, and I thought I might do the same.

Photos I took are mostly of food, food and some more food. I don't know what's with bloggers and taking pictures of their food, but as you can see I don't really stand out from that pattern :). 

I haven't mentioned in my previous posts but I started cooking lately. I had that wish for a long time but I was always banned from the kitchen by my grandma. She always thought I should put my time into studying and not playing around the kitchen. Now that I'm at Uni I decided to explore a bit and I've discovered that I'm quite good at it (at least that's what I'm told). Many of the photos below show some of those things I made. I might even start posting recipes in the near future if I find enough time given that my exams are right around the corner.

Hope you like this little post, and that you enjoy the photos. You can share your thoughts in the comments below :).

Heart, 

nena.

Photos are from this blog post.

Photo is from this blog post.

Photo is from this blog post.

Come travel with me :)

I was going through some of my leftover photos from my posts (the ones that didn't make the cut when it came to publishing) and I noticed another folder with a few photos from my trip to Netherlands and Belgium. Those few were my favourite ones and I kept them along with my posts because I wanted someday to include them, but that just didn't happen. So a thought came to me - why not publish? I knew if I went down that route I would end up adding more photos from that vacation (even the ones I'm not pleased with) just to make that story a whole. And that's when it hit me - I had a bunch of photos from my school trip around Central Europe from a few years back that never see light of day, and can be used for this post. I don't have them printed - not one, and I haven't seen them in years (they are all on my USB flash drive that contains my ex computer - literally). I figured when's a better time to go through all that mess than now. And it was worth it! I found some photos that I liked and decided to include in this little post about my travels. This way I can go through this post and remember some nice things from those vacations. I opted out from displaying photos with my friends (except this one photo) because I'm not quite sure if they would like that.

Countries I visited in other of appearance: The Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, The Czech Republic and Hungary (first two countries I visited when I was on vacation visiting my uncle). While on this school trip we also visited Slovakia, but I don't have any nice photos from that visit because we only stayed there for two hours and we were famished so we were more interested in food than taking photos. Well, at least I was. :)

On to the photos.

The Netherlands

First three photos are taken in Amsterdam. The last one is taken on a way back from Amsterdam (don't know the exact location)

People say they have a hard time remembering where they parked their car; try remembering where you parked your bike!

There are 7 bridges one behind the other so this view is called 7 arches. This photo used to be my mum's wallpaper for a long time. She liked it so much.

This would look so much more impressive if the sales were spread but I liked it anyway. If I'm not mistaken this is a museum, but I didn't get to go there. It was a one day trip to Amsterdam and this was taken on that small river cruise.

And we came to my favourite photo (you save the best for last) :). It was taken from a moving car and the speed was around 130 km/h - thus the blur. You can almost say it was taken by a professional, but no, it was just the little me. :)

Belgium

All of these photos are taken in Brussels. 

This was the side we entered the city. It is so different from Amsterdam and I was just trying to take all this in.

This was taken on around the city tour from a tour bus. We were heading towards the Atomium, and there was something before this I wanted to take a photo of but didn't make it so this was the second best, I guess. I honestly don't remember what this was but it looks lovely.

View from under the Atomium. This looks so impressive and to this day I still admire myself (humble, right) for taking this shot. This was on my phone background for so long and everyone asked me what it was. I wish I could go back there now. Such an amazing vacation.

I had to take this photo for all of those comics with Tintin that I read growing up. People from Serbia and Montenegro will remember it from Politikin zabavnik (a magazine we have that always features a short comic inside).

Maneque Piss. This little fellow gets changed into different outfits from time to time depending on the occasion. This is what I caught him in.

My favourite park. I love this photo so much. I wish I had a photo pretty enough of the other side of the park called Square du Petit Sablon (thank God for Google who helped me find the name of this). 

I remember eating ice cream here in this little cafe. It felt so French even though we were in Belgium. Maybe it was because we were surrounded with people who spoke French? I don't know, but I'd still love to revisit this place.

Austria

Here we come to my favourite city on this Central Europe school tour - Vienna.

I honestly hope my friend won't mind me putting this photo on my blog. It was taken on a balcony of Schloss Schönbrun Palace. It was simply breathtaking. The tour of the palace, the park behind it (where I almost got lost with some friends) and the viewpoint (which I sadly haven't visited because I played the part of amateur photographer in the park behind the Palace with friends) are all amazing. I bought lots of souvenirs here and some of them are already displayed in one of my posts - check it out here. The consequences of me getting almost lost in the park are visible below. :)

This was literally a labyrinth. But it was so much fun getting lost in all this beautiful nature.

The Czech Republic

View on Prague from a viewpoint. Amazing! I made a little mistake when I made this collage (I just noticed it). The bottom two photos should switch places. Oops :)

This reminded me of Venice, Italy. I have never been to Venice but this looks just like it (for a reference I have postcards from a friends school trip there).

Street artists on Charles Bridge (Karluv Most). I loved the music here. A friend of mine even bought their CD. They were really great.

This little place is a town called Karlovy Vary and it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. You may recognize this from James Bond movie - Casino Royale. They filmed scenes here that were supposed to represent my home country - Montenegro. I have many photos from this town and love them all. I wish I could go back here some day and stay a bit longer (I was only here for a few hours).

Trees and mountains as far as your eyes can see... I don't remember the name of this castle or it's exact location, but what I do remember is the outside view and how cold it was. We were all freezing here and thankfully we didn't stay too long. The inside of the castle I didn't like at all. This view is all that was worth seeing.

Hungary

And we came to Budapest. This was the last big city on our tour. It was already dark when we arrived so we went on a night cruise along Danube. It was really pretty and I wish I had some more knowledge of photography back then because most of my night shots turned out blurry. The following photos were taken the next day right before we had to go home.

Hungarian Parliament Building is what you can see on this picture. If I remember correctly what our tour girl said this was designed based on the Houses of Parliament in London. I can see the resemblance.

So that was all for today. I hope you liked this little post about my travels. 

Until next time, 

heart :)

nena.

Trinkets, trinkets, trinkets...

Lets start this post by going down the memory lane...

See, when I was younger I used to hoard things that had pretty packagings (that stuck with me to some extent to this day; when it comes to makeup and skincare - if it comes in a pretty packaging I'm more likely to buy it). And when I say hoard I really do mean it! I would not let mom's used up creams and similar things to be thrown away because I could use them afterwards to play with them. 

Apart from that I liked miniatures of pretty much anything. I was not one of those kids who would put it in their mouth and eat it (or at least try to when grown ups weren't looking), I was more into collecting them (for some reason). Having a kid with a vivid imagination like mine and a tendency to hoard things meant a mess. All of the time! I still remember the look on my grandma's face when she was moving furniture in the living room to vacuum and underneath she found piles of my toys and old packagings that I kept. Priceless. :)

But time went by and somehow I changed. I became more meticulous and a huge perfectionist. My grandparents, or better said my grandma transferred that on to me. In spite of that there's one thing that stayed as a link to my childhood - miniatures. I got emotionally attached to them because they were presents from dear people or they remembered me of something. I've toned down the volume of my collection to only a few pieces that I like to have with me (most of them are stored in boxes back home). 

The smallest of things can bring a smile to my face, and people close to me know that. It is the thought behind them that means a lot to me - more than the things themselves. But those things are a reminder of that, so it is all connected. Here are some of those things that I mentioned. They do not have any material value - only sentimental. Trinkets.

 Not all of them displayed here are my possession. Chess figurines and the little Pinocchio belong to my mum. Her story about those chess figurines reminded me of me so I thought they belonged here in this post.

So that's the story behind these photos. I hope you like them. :)

Until next time, 

heart

nena.

Following the breadcrumbs...

Well hello there, it's me again :).

Not so long ago, in my last post, I mentioned doing a few personal posts, so to speak. I started with What's in my bag and then I stopped because of the usual - lack of time. But now a few spare hours have accumulated and I did a little photoshoot ... with myself in the main role. :) I realised I haven't shown my face here in all of this time that I'm blogging so I decided it was time to do it (so you can put face with the name, and all of these words, and photos, and so on...). Bear in mind that my facebook days are long gone, and that I'm a bit out of it when it comes to taking my own photos, but still I did my best :). I also included some  photos of me when I was younger that my mum had with her here. I omitted photos from my school years because this would be one way too long post, but they might have their appearance here someday, who knows... 

So without further ado,

Meet the little me :)

• My baby days. According to my mum I was a very good baby - ate, slept, ate some more. I didn't cry much. Definition of a happy kid. :) 
• What I didn't know and my mum told me last night when I was going through her photos is that I liked having my hair blow dried, so that's what she did for this baby shoot that I had in the last of the three photos above. :) 
• I used to have very dark hair and blue eyes for some time, but then my hair when lighter and my eyes changed colour to this weird amber colour.

•  Ok, I was a bit older here - ages 4 through 7, if I'm not mistaken. Santa photo was taken in my kindergarten. Next one was with my mum in the zoo, and the last one was with my two great friends at my home, but I don't remember the occasion (there must have been one because of what I'm wearing - that little outfit was sawn for me - present from my grandma :) ).
• I am told that I haven't changed much since my baby days, but you be the judge! :)

And back to present now. The following photos are up to date as much as they could be - taken yesterday. There is some posing shots, ok, a lot of posing shots, but do understand me - I had to take this opportunity since I don't do this very often (make myself pretty for photos), and show them publicly. :) 

[I managed to get one decent photo of me to send to my grandma to frame it (and show it to our family and friends to see how grown up granddaughter she has - I'm blushing already).]

Meet nena. :)

So there you have it - face behind all of those 

signed posts.

Hope you liked the photos. Until next time...

Heart, 

nena.