It’s time to face it. I have been denying it for much too long. I’ve been hiding behind frilly dresses, high heels, living in Rotterdam and having a ton of beauty products.
But the truth is my beauty products are vegan and organic, I live in a squatting home in Rotterdam, I buy mostly vintage clothing and even the metal I listen to is pagan metal.
I’ve been thinking of raising some chickens, riding horses bareback and becoming an organic farmer.
Hi, my name’s Lotte – and I’m a hippy
The next logical step, obviously, is to move to Portland.
This picture was taken by -Dons You can find out more about the Portland Pony Project right here
This is Sam Adams, Portland's mayor what a babe - look at that proud jaw
Now, I must admit, I have never been to Portland. All I know about it is from Portlandia, or the time I was vegan and saw it as Heaven on Earth. I will be visiting the beautiful weird city in June. I will be able to share much more with you then. For now I'll just leave you with some Wonderful Weirdness that makes this city pretty awesome.
This picture was taken by Dan Haneckow It's Le Happy. Are you hungry for some delish' crepes? Go here! It's at 1011 NW 16th Avenue
MRS.FRENCH took this picture of Saint Cupcake It's at 407 nw 17th ave @ flanders Just one look at the menu made me drool
This picture was taken by Todd Mecklem It's Powell's City of Books! This is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. You can find it at 1005 W Burnside
And in case you're not convinced that this city might be one of the most awesome places on Earth, I'll leave you with some Portlandia. If you are from Portland, you might be offended by these. But, honestly, dear Portlandians, that makes you even more like the people portrayed on Portlandia.
This Wednesday Lotte and I went to Amsterdam for the Monki Party. They were having a party to showcase their spring/summer 2011 collection and everyone was getting a 20% discount on everything! We decided to spend the entire day in Amsterdam and went to Restored to buy Frankie Magazine, which is a great magazine, but I’ll write more about it when I finish it.
Lotte also bought Russh, another Australian magazine, at Athaeneum Newscentre (this is the best place to get magazines anywhere in Holland) and she bought really sweet smelling chocolate tea at Tea Bar, which is apparently delicious and even available online!
The Monki party was pretty fun. They had champagne, pink champagne, beer and non alcoholic drinks. There were two very female dj’s with very awesome moustaches and lots and lots of people. I’ve never seen a store that busy. We had to stand in line to try on the big stack of clothing for about half an hour and also had to wait the same amount of time to pay for them. But the 20% discount was worth it and we both bought some nice new items! I think it’s a really cool idea to have a party for the new collection and I hope they’ll do this again for autumn/winter.
Back in Rotterdam we went to the second edition of the Swan market. It was at Rotabs Stylecenter, which is an awesome location. The weather was delightfully sunny and the place was buzzing with people. It was nice, but we did think it was too bad that there weren’t that many new people there. We did off course, take some pictures!
This year for Valentine's day I will not only be extra nice to myself. I will also send lots of telepathic love to a place I love and all the people who live there.
You can buy this as a poster at Lake Jane's Etsy shop
I am absolutely head over heels in love with Vancouver. There is no place like it. It is nearly perfect. I have been there in Autumn and Summer (I dare you not to fall in love with Vancouver in Summer - it's impossible) and would love to go there in Spring and Winter next year.
Mind you, I am writing this from the viewpoint of a homesick tourist. However, every time I have been to Vancouver I have been extremely tempted to just 'miss my plane' - oops.
The public transport is great and will take you to many of the most amazing hiking trails in the Vancouver area. The lakes are beyond awesome. And if you have always been dreaming of sitting by the lake and swimming in water so clear you can see your feet AND the stones on the bottom, and jump into said lake from a tree.. Vancouver is dream land. Even in the tourist season I have been hiking and swimming and not seeing anyone for hours. I only went to places I could get to by public transport. Buntzen Lake is gorgeous. Especially if you walk to the 'top' part (about an hour hike), because most people are too lazy to go there and rather stay at the beach right at the start of the trail.
Picture by my lovely ex Erik and post processing by me
Vancouver ofcourse also has huge and beautiful Stanley Park where you can get aquinted with raccoons, huge squirrels, geese and other woodland and water creatures. Inside the city are many places to just sit and enjoy the view. On the benches which have personal messages on them, or the big logs overlooking the sea. I have a weak spot for cities that have pine trees in their streets, between the buildings.
Vancouver has such sweet and funny graffiti. Just look here for more. I have been on the bus from Coquitlam to Vancouver Downtown And saw the buildings painted with at least 20 declarations of love "I love you, I love you, I love you - I love you all".
Even though it's advertised in every city guide of Vancouver, don't miss the Granville Market. It's a huge market where you can buy locally farmed food and handmade goods. I bought delicious goat milk soaps from a sweet French guy. I've never been able to find anything that topped those.
Sign inside Granville Market
And this Summer I bought a big box of freshly farmed raspberries and ate them while gazing out of the window at the seagulls on the boardwalk and colourful aquabusses. You can also buy yummy olives, vegan snacks, veggie burgers and pies there.
You should also try to visit the Lonsdale Quay, it has everything the Granville Market has, but is much less crowded.
I could go on like this for many more pages. I could easily write a NaNoWriMo sized book about how much I love this city and where you should absolutely go. I haven't even mentioned Gas Town, North Vancouver and Kitsilano yet.
I have been dreaming of moving here (like so so many people from all over the World) for over ten years now. I hope to be able to after I finish school. Maybe in a few years I will write you from Kafka's Coffee and Tea without my rose coloured tourist glasses on and will be able to give a more balanced view of the city. But dreaming your lover perfect is a fun start of a budding relationship. So I'll keep on dreaming for now..
"A vision board (or an inspiration board, or a dream sheet, or mood board, or any combination you like!) is a space you create where you pin up pictures, words, trinkets & anything else you find inspiring. Some people use them to remind them of the things they want to achieve, while others use them to aid them in creative projects or to help them keep looking forward."
- Gala Darling
When my ex boyfriend moved out last week, I was left with a very empty living room. He took the Siamese Dreams girls from Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai and his creepy leather framed head with him, and the walls were just plain and boring again.
We also used to have a big memory board in our living room. Full of pictures of us together, him being a total nerd and tweaking his computer insides in his underwear, pictures of Canada and notes people wrote us. When he left, I emptied the board. I put everything in a box and the board in a corner.
I can't remember there ever being a time when I had a space all to myself and didn't cover the walls and door in pictures, cut-outs, notes and posters. But I wanted to refrain myself from making my walls look like an inspired hippy monster from kindergarten was let loose in my room again..
So I decided to put all the small things I wanted to have near me on my inspiration board/ mood board. My walls now look kind of normal. I only have a few of my pictures, pretty posters and two glittery reindeer on my wall - oh, and a huge Canadian flag that I bought more than ten years ago and which has been patiently waiting in a box since.
I like my mood board. I like that I can change it easily according to my mood or goals, I like that it keeps the rest of my walls tidy and I love that every single thing on that board makes me extremely happy.
This is Sofia Coppola's mood board. It was featured in Vogue
There are so many reasons to keep a moodboard close to the place where you sleep, or work. You can use it for whatever reason you'd like. I use it to keep my eyes on the prize (Vancouver! because that's where I am moving to after I finish school) - with lots of pictures of how gorgeous it is and how happy I was there. But also little things to keep me motivated. Tiny notes people wrote me, one of those tiny cards with a fortune I loved from a Yogi Tea bag, polaroids, my old passport, a note from Santa on an envelope I received from Canada.
This is my mood board - A lot of pictures from Vancouver and Toronto, old postcards, Benton Fraser and a super campy GWAR sticker
If you make your own, keep in mind why you are creating one. It could be just to give your house just a nice personal touch, it could be to inspire you to make amazing things, or it could be a wonderful tool to keep your priorities and goals clear.
This week Starbucks shocked the world, or at least me, with the introduction of their new cup size. It's bigger than most people's stomachs and it reminds me of those Big Gulps that I could wear as a hat when I visited Chicago. Now, of course Starbucks is still very exotic for us Dutchies (there are only 5 in the whole country!) and we still love to go there and feel like worldly citizens, but there are more coffee bars, that are arguably even more awesome.
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on providing coffee and tea as well as light snacks. Many coffee houses in the Middle East, and in West Asian immigrant districts in the Western world, offer shisha (nargile in Turkish and Greek), flavored tobacco smoked through a hookah.
From a cultural standpoint, coffeehouses largely serve as centers of social interaction: the coffeehouse provides social members with a place to congregate, talk, write, read, entertain one another, or pass the time, whether individually or in small groups of 2 or 3.
Says Wikipedia
In The Netherlands there is no word for it yet. A Dutch coffee shop is a place to buy weed and a café is a place to go to get drunk.
Coffee houses are the perfect places to just do absolutely nothing. I always felt a bit awkward going out for a drink on my own, especially when I'd just moved here and had no friends yet. Rotterdam was a new city, a totally new life. I am a small town girl and was so excited about all the new possibilities in the city. I just wanted to get out of the house to take pictures, people-watch and have a damn good cup of coffee.
What makes a coffee place a good cafe? In my opinion, this is the ultimate combination:
* It should be dark with dimmed yellow lights
* Not too noisy - make those ice coffees in the back please!
* The people who work there should be friendly and preferably good friends to each other - the people who visit must be nice too and preferably creative and silent
* There should be good coffee music; something jazzy or laid back folky
* There should be cozy clean chairs; faux leather preferably or maybe vintage soft real leather
* The coffee should be amazing; there must be great espressos and ristrettos but also yerba maté and mint tea and funky weird coffee with all kinds of flavours
* There should also be a variety of milk to choose from - they should at least have soy milk. * The coffee should be sustainably farmed. It makes the coffee good for the soul too. * The coffees and teas must have epic made up names like: Carolina Honey Breeze (Argo Tea) or Campfire Mocha (Caribou Coffee).
And it should have a nice view, like this (the photographer didn't make his photo's available for sharing, but it's definitely worth clicking)
These people agree :)
This picture was taken by Valerie You can find Descartes at 327 N Michigan Ave in The Loop
I have travelled on my own to Toronto and to Chicago. In Chicago I had an amazing couchsurf host who showed me this awesome coffee bar. Coffee bars are safe havens for me when I travel. I spend my days outside, just walking around and getting lost, try to meet nice people and take loads of pictures - my tourist senses on full alert. After a few hours I get incredibly tired and drag my weary feet to a coffee bar to photoshop and send messages to the home front.
This was another favourite in Chicago:
The Noble Tree is my most favourite cafe to date. It's like several stories of an apartment. It's a library, living room, cafe, lookout and pastry paradise in one building - really awesome.
These pictures of the Noble Tree Coffee House were taken by Gingerbydesign You can visit the Noble Tree at 2444 N Clark in Lincoln Park
You can visit the Coffee Company in Rotterdam at Eendrachtsplein
And this is my most favourite coffee bar in The Netherlands. It's actually the first cafe that really made me appreciate coffee. The atmosphere is cozy and there's lots of interesting people to look at. The baristas are really kind and the coffee is great.
The big boss is called Dick de Kock (which is an amazing name if you want to be succesful abroad) or coffeedick on Twitter. And the icing on the cake is the huge statue of a gnome with a buttplug standing right in front of the building.
I wouldn't want to end this post with a dirty gnome, so for more coffee inspiration you should visit this Flickr Pool - The Coffee Bar
Every Sunday for the next few weeks I'll be making an inspiration post, featuring three artists who I think might inspire you to make pretty things yourself. This week I'd like to introduce three amazing illustrators/mixed media artists to you who really got me into drawing back in the day...
I used to be an avid doodler. Drawing on every piece of paper I could get my hands on. I loved to draw puppet-like asian looking girls with bare boobs and bony, red knees and arms. I also loved drawing dreamy landscapes with lots of curly details in them.
These are some of my doodles:
But then I discovered lomography and saved up money to travel and discovered taking pictures was more my thing.
I actually used Photoshop first for drawings and later for photo editing. One of my most favourite things to do is make a big cup of coffee, put on some music to sing along to, and just photoshop for hours.
One of my main inspirations in illustration has always been Pyhai, (or Snagt online). It's like she has a secret passage to an entire incredible fantasy world full of awkwardly cute creatures and the most beautiful night skies. Be sure to check out her website for more pictures and projects.
Were you tossing and turning in your bed this Tuesday night? Did the sky suddenly seem a lot darker? Did you miss out on your monthly werewolf adventure? No worries, my friend; the World did not suddenly change into a cold dark place with no room for howling. There was just a Lunar Eclipse. A very epic one this time. This eclipse is happening almost simultaneously with the Winter solstice on the Northern Hemisphere!
This time of year is associated with light -- string lights, sparklers and of course, candles. Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition is the Festival of Lights, with 8 days of ritual illumination of the menorah. There's the advent wreath of the Christian faith and the all-night bonfire for the burning of the Yule log, a tradition with roots in Northern European pre-Christian times. The lights are reminders of the inner light, and hope for the return of sunny days.
I know we had a Universe Things I love Thursday last week. But I totally forgot to mention the eclipse. So this post, is dedicated to the Moon!
Black as midnight on a moonless night.
- Dale Cooper on his coffee preferences
There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.
- George Carlin
You moon the wrong person at an office party and suddenly you're not 'professional' any more.
- Jeff Foxworthy
What's your name Moon? - Full Moon names from the Farmer's Almanac Full Wolf Moon – January: Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.
And last but not least: Moonboots by Tecnica! You might think they look ridiculous - I think they are awaesome! - but you can't deny they'll keep yout feet nice and cozy.
Have an amazing Christmas! I hope you'll spend it with your most favourite people and maybe even get some nice gifts or do something real sweet for someone else.
Be good!
