Vida em Lisboa

Life in Lisbon.

As I sit here, surrounded by Frank Sinatra's notes, reading my friends messages asking me  how am I doing and how is it in Portugal, if is it cold as it is in our parts, I take a look through my window and see nothing but clean blue sky and sunshine heating up the Lisbon long alleys. 

No signs of autumn yet. It's still very warm outside and you can wonder around without jackets, in t-shirts, shorts and slippers. 

Surprisingly, even the ocean isn't that cold anymore, well, I take it back - it's still cold as hell (for me of course) but much more pleasant than my first attempt of swimming and staying in the ocean for more than a minute. 

Since going out in Lisbon takes money, me and my boy decided to take the other road - exploring our neighborhood!

We did it for two days, and I must say we found some quite interesting stuff, so I took pictures of them. 

We visited the beautiful Alameda park and it's fountain called Fonte Luminosa, which is totally breath-taking. 

We had perfect timing, because something was going on, some national portuguese thing I presume. 

There were stands, where you could by my favorite presunto, sausages, cheese, wine and cheep bear. The kids were playing around, while some dancers were performing on the little stage set in front of the fountain.

 They were dressed in their typical clothes (I suppose) which reminded me of home. Very different tho, but still, it reminded me for a second of my beautiful home. 

The whole area was built around the 20's, but I am not sure about the fountain. The small buildings surrounding this area are painted in charming pastel colors, and since all of the buildings are smaller, it resembles a bit to a little village. All in all, very charming. 

Living in Lisbon is a completely different story. Don't get me wrong, it's a marvelous city, with amazing things to see, and where the 25th of April Bridge takes you for just a second to San Francisco ( seems a lot like Golden Gate bridge) while  Christ the King statue to Rio ( actually inspired by the Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The alleys are always crowded, filled with little fun bars offering cheap shots (don't let it fool u, you spend a lot one way or another) and different type of music everywhere around, and you always meet some interesting group of people. 

But somehow I got attached to Caldas, it was like a safe place, and this was this big big town where you came just to visit, but left the next day to a town where you can hear birds singing and where no metro nor bus is needed. 

I miss it quite a lot, mostly the amazing people I used to hang around, well, I still do, but not as often.

Since I am in for a job hunting, I made a list of cool shops that I am interested in and they might be interested in me too, I came across many amazing stuff and factories. But let me hunt first, so I can tell you more about it.

Pretty much excited and scared cause it's a new experience for me - I will actually use what I've been thought till now and learn some more, cause practice and actual work are actually the bes school you can get, till now it was just worming up. 

And by sitting here I won't do much, so I gotta have some initiative and promote my work a bit, and get prepared on rejections but also few positive answers. Anyways, let's hope for the best.

All in all, I think I just need to give Lisbon a chance, get to meet her and accept her. Yes, it's a HER, haha, and she is majestic ;)

it's all about the braids ♡

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Hair hair hair and hair!!!! - every girls reason to get stressed about, and I've been stressing about it since I was a little girl. 

I had this very long and thick golden-brownish hair and somehow everyone liked to play with it, wherever I went. 

My mom used to make me fishtail braids all the time, but it didn't stop with that. I was obsessed with curly hair, and I blame it all on Mariah Carrey videospots at the time, so my mom used to put on me hair curlers all the time.

 I was quite patient for a little girl, didn't scream much nor complain - unless someone was washing my hair, there I would freak out. I hated the water going in my eyes, haha.

So my rule about hair styles was always - bigger the better. 

It mutated through years, suffering "emo" attack faze, bleaching faze, red face, pink faze, and it stopped growing properly around the bleach faze.

After my friend talked me in to dying my hair to brown, my hair magically started growing.

So now I finally reached that faze where I can actually do something with my hair, with my OWN hair, and I can finally make braids - which is a perfect solution for hot days.

Besides,  lately, braids have reached the boom stage with the 'return' of the 90's, and you can give it the famous FKA Twigs twist with styling the baby hair.

It's actually amazing how many hairstyles can you do with braids, just type in google type of braids and u shall be amazed. 

it ain't easy tho, lost my patience a few times before getting it done.

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Enough about the hair, now, what am I wearing? 

Some time ago I ordered this mesh dress by misbhv that I have set my eyes on for some time already, and finally on discount - I ordered it. 

It's quite transparent, so be sure to put some black shorts underneath and some cool top or sports bra.

The adidas shoes have a bit of hidden heal/wedge, and I absolutely love them.

Lately I love combining sporty with more elegant or adding  grung-ey a lil bit more of elegance.

Lipstick is my fav lipstick of all time - Mac Diva, the perfect color. 

It's hard tho to make pictures by yourself tho, since my dear friend and photographer went back to Slovenia, and my tripod is back home, in Croatia. 

But oh well, try harder they say, and so we shall :)

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♡ Gold Velvet ♡

Gold Velvet

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So, as I already mentioned, during my erasmus experience in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, I collaborated with this young store owner - Cláudia Sofia, and as promised I am sharing with u some shots from the photo-shooting and the  store itself. 

Claudia is 24 years old and owns a vintage shop named Gold Velvet. 

Don't let the 'vintage shop' part fool you, cause she also makes her own clothes which gives to the store a variation of clothing styles. 

Other than clothes, she also sells sunglass, jewelry and accessories in general, bags and shoes. 

This sweet smell of strawberries (which you can smell 200 meters before entering the store) leads you to Gold Velvet cute interior , with a red painted wall and some vintage pin up-ish  details around decorating it.

As I've said, Caldas is a really small town, with one small mall and few shops around, and if I am not mistaken of-course,  just 2 to 3 are vintage shops.

When I met this sweetheart of a person  Claudia and her store, I got pretty much excited, cause ideas just started floating in my head, and it was also tempered quite well, since I was running late with my projects realization at school and I needed an idea right away.

Claudia needed some professional pictures of her clothes as-well, and besides, we just clicked as people and ideas which made us wanting to do something together :)

I did two projects, one in my photography project class and one in video final project where I did a interview. 

Today I won't be sharing the video part with you cause it needed some retouching and subtitles, since for her it was easier to tell her story in her own language. 

The 'plot' of the photo-shooting was from the very start pretty much the same, only the dates and models made it a bit more difficult. 

It's hard to gather everyone, specially in the exam period, so in the end I took whoever I could, my beautiful brazilian friend Belize and my 'courtesy'.

Must say I was a bit confused being both - in front and behind the camera, and I also must say I enjoyed so much being behind the camera, and setting everything up - make-up, styling, I loved it all so much, much more than posing. 

My photographer was my dear Eva Mastnak, who I already presented to you. 

As I've said, we klick, she understands my ideas and what I want. 

Thumbs up for my girl.

There should have been some animals involved too, among some other details, but with the lack of time and people, we worked with what we got, and the resultwas quite fine (from my perspective).

We tried to make it youthful, playful and fun as much as possible while keeping it simple and commercial. 

Claudia was also very patient with us setting the date and waiting on us in general, so for that I am really thankful dear, I know we must have been a pain in the ass, hehe ;)

You can click here to visit her page, and here.

THE PHOTO-SHOOTING PART

   

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Photoshooting timeee

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This time I did a photo-shoot with my friend Tina, who I already presented to you. The photo-shooting took place in an old paper factory situated in Rijeka, Croatia, and which was also one of the largest ones in Europe, that functioned around 150 years before being shut down completely. 

There used to be held a really cool electronic music festival «HARTERA» but who isn't actual anymore, so now the town gave the youngsters a place where to party every weekend in the remains of this factory.

It is a beautiful place and I am most definitely gonna use it some more.

This time the photo-shooting was very easy. Tina was dancing and spinning while making elegant poses, and I was trying to catch her 'moments' by spinning around her and with her.
It all seemed like a good old-school waltz, just like a photo-shooting is supposed to be.

We did not had much time, since one must be very careful with the  limited source of light, which was very poor but at the same time gives that special something, but we shall definitely continue.

I tried to combine elegance with the ruins that were around us, so I think in the end it worked up just well. 

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