food – Page 2 – that lemon life

Growing Up

Hola everyone.

So today I want to talk about something I am now confrontef with every single day. And I will for the next two months and later on for the rest of my life. Today I want to talk about how I feel about having to grow up and being an actual grown up.

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Now that I’m living alone in Berlin, with no actual grown up members of my family that even live in the same country, I am completely depended on myself. And holy moly, I can tell you, I never imagined that it could be this tough. As far as I remember, until now, I always had my parents around who would do all the grown up stuff for me. And of course that made life a lot easier. And now that I am in Berlin on my own, I have to do all of this stuff myself, which brings me to the point that I noticed how much the current situation taught me about life as a grown up:

Go for a walk once in a while, even if you’re alone
Telecom companies are straight from hell
Google is your best friend
Cooking for yourself all the time takes longer than you think
While being alone, you really get to know a lot about yourself
Doing things on your own like going to the cinema isn’t weird, but actually is normal
Life without your own washing machine makes everything a lot more complicated
The same without a dishwasher and a microwave
Late night shops are the best thing ever
YouTube, a good movie or tv show can save the day,
If you don’t like your current situation, change something about it
You’re never too old to need your parents
You can do whatever you want, just be happy
Animals and plants make everything so much better
WhatsApp is a gift from heaven
I still sometimes feel like I’m 12 and that’s okay (actually, it’s awesome)
Book stores are the perfect place to take a break from the world
Love life

So yeah, this is how I feel about living the life of a grown up here in Berlin. And maybe you feel the same. Anyway, I am still pretty happy that I can get back to being a child without this huge pack of responsibilities when I get back home in February. I don’t really feel ready for being and doing this here for the rest of my life, I still need some off-let’s be a child -time.

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I am pretty sure that most of you know pretty well what I am talking about, so whenever you want to talk, I am here. And until then, I hope you enjoyed this post, and as always, thanks for reading. x

Me-time and de-stressing

Hola everyone.

Today I want to talk about something that should be important for everybody and that really means a lot to me, actually. And yes, you guessed it – I’m talking about ways I de-stress and relax and calm myself down. Actually, Zoella again inspired me to do this post. I wanted to write this one for weeks now, but watching her lastest video (link) really pushed me to finally do it. So, here we go.

Nowadays, I think it’s honestly really hard to completely switch off and de-stress, mostly because being online and just basically on surrounds and follows us the whole day and, for most of us, night too. I mean, I know, smartphones and tv shows and movies and the social media are all gifts from heaven, but sometimes, especially smartphones, have nothing than a bad impact on us. Personally, I try to not have my phone next to me the whole day, for example I turn it off at night and keep it in another room. I actually can’t sleep if my phone is in the same room when I go to sleep. And sometimes I even have a day off from my phone. I just don’t turn it on at all and I have to say, it really relaxes me a lot. And yes, you seriously have more time for other things if you don’t waste it being online all the time and reading a Facebook feed for the third time.

Oh and of course, today, stress is something normal for most of us. There’s always something to do and I think that for some people, it’s really difficult to separate themselves from all the do-do-lists and work and stress, which is also a reason I wanted to write this post. So, let’s get to the most important part, which is my ways of de-stressing and winding down and getting some me-time.

Taking a bath
- This is actually one of the most important things for me if I want to relax, because I can literally wash all of the stress of the day off and clean my mind. And also, who doesn’t love soaking a little bit and lying in some nice warm water before going to bed. It really gets you in that chilly and sleepy mood.

Going for a walk with Molly or going for a short run
- I think that any physical activity can help you de-stress and clean your mind. I especially love going for a run when I’m angry or when I have the feeling that I’ll explode any time. And getting some fresh air at all just really gets me down.

Taking some photographs
- You know how much my camera means to me and since I got it, taking pictures became a really important part of my life and one of my biggest and most important and intense hobbies. And I noticed how walking around with my camera and taking some nice pictures really calms me down, because I fully concentrate one this one thing and everything else just fades away.

Cuddling with Peaches
- I think that pets are really important if you want to live a happy life. Especially when it comes to me and Peaches, we really have a special bond and basically stick together all the time. The past week my day started with a huge cuddle session with Peaches and actually there aren’t a lot of things that relax me as much as holding Peaches in ma arms and hearing her purr.

Cooking or baking something
- Food. What else gets you relaxed if food doesn’t? I don’t really know how it happened but through time cooking and baking became a really important hobby of mine and I just love it. Taking raw products and turning them into something delicious. I especially love meals that just get you into this cozy and warm mood, like pasta, stew or a nice soup. And eating all that good stuff afterwards is just the most amazing part, let’s be honest.

Watching a good movie or tv series
- Movies and tv series just really mean a lot to me, you know that. But I think when I want to forget about my problems or all of the stress, watching a nice movie or a good tv series really gets me down and makes me forget about everything else. Except when I have to really finish college stuff or study for an exam, then watching a movie just makes everything worse. Because I won’t feel any better before I don’t finish it all.

Reading a book or listening to music
- I think that especially listening to music and doing nothing while doing that and reading a good book really helps me relax and wind down before going to bed. Both, books and music really do mean a lot to me and help me de-stress is just a really nice bonus.

Talking to my friends or family
- To be honest, talking to someone about all the things that stress me out and make me nervous, really helps me a lot. Or even talking to you guys about it really helps me. Because it gets all the stuff off of my mind and that’s just amazing.

Sleeping
- Actually, there’s nothing to add to this. Just sleep. That’s pretty much the best way to relax. So please, try to get a good sleep every night, it really helps.

So guys, there you go. Those are my ways of relaxing and winding down and getting some me-time. I hope I could help you guys with some of my tips and also, maybe some of you do the same to relax, which is awesome. Oh and if any of you want to talk to me about de-stressing or anything else, I’m here. And until then, I hope you enjoyed this post and, as always, thanks for reading. x

Brighton

Hola everyone.

I’m baaaaack. Finally. And I can tell you, my trip was fantastic. Brighton is such a beautiful, magnificent city. With all the cute, colorful building, the pier, the sea, the lanes and of course the beach. I loved it, honestly. And I think my mum did too, although she’s more of a beach with palm trees, sand and peace. But Brighton is more like the pebble beach, a lot of people and no trees at all beach. But to be honest, I still loved it.

I especially loved the lanes there, those are the cute little shopping streets, full of vintage shops and special ones too, and of course the colorful houses. But most of all I liked how much the whole city reminded me of my faves. Like, as some of you may know, Brighton is Conors hometown, so wherever I went, I always had the thought of him walking at the same place in the back of my head. We even went to visit the venue Conor had his first concert in, a place called “The Haunt”. It meant so much to be to be there.

And apart from that, it’s also the city of Pewdiepie, Marzia and Zoella and so many more YouTubers. Which is so so so crazy. I always asked myself why they all chose to live there, but now I get it. It’s really beautiful and special. Mum and me went to a painting pottery cafe which I remembered from one of Marzias vlogs. And I have to say, it was really really cool. I chose to paint one heart and draw Brighton on it and many more (I’ll show it to you in my upcoming haul post, so stay tuned). And it came out even more beautiful afterwards than it was when I left it there to be finished by the staff there. I think this was one of those experiences that are really special, mainly because I know that I won’t be able to find such a cafe anywhere else that quick. And whenever I look at the heart on my wall, I’ll remember that trip and how amazing it was.

Unfortunately I didn’t meet anyone, but just knowing that Pewds was in the same city as me at the same time was unbelievable. We even walked past the street his house is supposed to be – we didn’t walk up to be because that would be super weird and oh my god, hell no – and I have to say he chose a really nice place, right next to the beach. So thumps up for that one.

Besides the buildings and the beach and the shopping streets, I also think that the food there was amazing. Like, usually people say that English people can’t cook but oh my is that wrong. Especially for my mum it was really nice to go out for dinner, as there were a lot of restaurants with vegan dishes, which was perfect for her. And I basically found my favorite meal there. One evening we were looking for a nie place to have dinner in and walked past some restaurant called “Wagamama” and I somehow knew it from somewhere, I don’t know from where until this day, but okay. And we looked at the menu and I saw that they had ramen which I had always wanted to try, so we chose to eat there. And oh my god, as I had my first sip, I flew to heaven. Food heaven. Holy moly, was that amazing. Although ramen is just a noodle soup, but it was soooo amazing. I loved it that much that we chose to go there the next evening too. So yeah, thanks to Wagamama introducing me to this delicious meal. THANK YOU.

Oh and I have to say, Brighton is one of the most photogenic cities I’ve ever been to, for real. Like, every pic I took looks fantastic. And that’s all thanks to the city. And of course I’ll show them to you too, that’s the purpose of this post. And as I don’t have anything else to tell you, I’ll just end this post by hoping that you enjoyed this post and the pics and by thanking you for staying with me and welcoming me back. And if any of you want to talk to me, I’m here. And until then, as always, thanks for reading. x

The body story

Hola everyone.

Todays post will get a little bit long, excuse me for that, because I want to talk about something really important, which are the two topics health and body image over all, mostly body positivity. Two weeks ago I watched a video of the YouTuber Arden Rose about her body acceptance journey, in which she talked about her story with her body and the body image in this world – I’ll leave link down below – and she just inspired me. And I started to think about my story with my own body and I got so “emotional” and stuck up in my own thoughts and I just thought that I had to share it with you guys. Especially because I think it’s a really important to talk about, so here we go.

My story

So, let’s start with pure honesty. I know, you’re probably expecting a sad story how I starved myself or something like that, but actually, like years ago I literally didn’t care about my body, like at all. I mean, not the way I do now. I mean, I have always been this shy person, that nobody really noticed – which is something I’m actually starting to get rid of now – so there was never a real reason there for me to think about my appearance. Certainly, I wanted to look “good”, but I mean, I was really really small, didn’t know what to wear, ate what everybody else did and just had a lot of other things to care about.

Actually, the thing that people didn’t really look at me kind of always kept me like super down and I don’t know, maybe even sad. Because I wanted people to notice me. I mean, I’m a cheery, crazy, shrill person who loves talking and going places and that aspect of invisibility just stopped me from being that kind of person. And yeah, I was like 14, so.

I think my whole body image, health sight, who-am-I thing started when I got into high school and social media became a part of my life. First of all, I was older then and let’s say wiser and I met people online, that I could identify with. People, who had the same thoughts as me, who liked the same things as me and people, who actually noticed me. And then I got onto tumblr and my whole how-do-I-look world started to build up. I noticed my love for fashion, started to buy magazines, googled styles and trends and just went shopping and actually paid attention to how I looked, what I bought, what I was wearing and how I felt in it.

To be honest, when I was like 16 or something like that, I don’t know what I was thinking but I literally looked like I had just dipped myself into rainbow paint. I wore like 20 different bracelets and shrill shirts with screaming bright colors. And I still remember this talk I had with my friend when we were waiting for the bus to arrive to go home from school. I just had adjusted all of my (probably) 100 bracelets and she looked at me and asked me if I really thought that I looked good and I still remember saying yes and the look on her face. This look that tells you that someone thinks you look horrible, like they would start laughing at you if you weren’t friends. Can you believe that this was like 5 years ago and I still remember it like it happened two weeks ago? There you can see how hurtful teenage girls can be. Shame on you. And yes, it bothered me so much that I slowly stopped wearing the bracelets and my shrill clothes, so yeah.

But there was also a good thing that happened after this talk. I swore myself that I never wanted to have someone look at me like that again. So I grew up, went a little more shopping, especially on holidays, googled some more, watched some more YouTube videos and stayed longer on tumblr than I probably should have and finally found my own style. And oh damn, did I get confident. The older I got, the more confidence I grew to that point that I actually thought that I looked pretty damn good, like hella on fire good.

And another thing that helped me was that I started to love my hair. I mean, you know from all of my pics that I have curly hair, naturally curly hair. And oh god, how I hated it. I never knew what to do with it or how to handle it and all the other girls had straight hair and I wanted to look like everybody else so I straightened it too. God was I stupid. Thank god that I know much better today, again thanks to YouTube. Today I love my hair to death, I embrace it as much as I can. I can’t even remember the last time I straightened it, to be honest. My hair was always a big thing for me and today it’s an aspect that gives me a lot of confidence and makes me stand out of the crowd and I just love it.

So today, I am more confident than ever. I really love my body and I think everyone should do that, because your body is an actual temple, so you should take good care of it. And I think that as long as you feel good in it, every kind of body looks awesome. I mean, I’m pretty slim, let’s call it that. That’s something I got from my mum, who’s like stick thin. But I was never that kind of girl who worked out. I mean, I tried it for some time, but let’s be honest, there are a lot of better things to do in your free time. I love going for a walk with Molly and for like two years or something like that I had this daily routine of doing some kind of belly workout so I would get a flat stomach, which actually really did work out. And I mean, yes, I am thin. And yes, you can see my collarbones, but that doesn’t mean that I’m like unhealthy or something. That’s just the body I have. And I loved doing my workouts because I slowly got some abs and I looked at myself and felt so proud, I still feel that way today, although I only work out like once a week for a few minutes. I think it really depends on yourself and how you feel like. Your own opinion and your feelings matter and not what other people say or think. Other peoples opinions are literal trash, let’s be honest. Only yours matter, okay?

The last thing that really helped me a lot of building up my body image and my self-consciousness is food. My mum is nutritionist and works with people and their diets every single day, so there was no way of me getting around the importance of food. Oh, and furthermore she’s been a vegetarian since she was 16 and now calls herself a vegan (if you cut out on the chocolate and cheese, there and then), so yeah, I think you get the idea of what I mean. There was this time when I actually checked the calories of every single item I ate and I used to count all of it to see how much I had eaten in one day. I mean, I don’t think or remember that stopping me from eating what I wanted to eat, but I still had calories and fat in my head every day. And thank god that time passed.

You probably already know what I’m going to say now. Yes, I don’t eat any meat, not at all. It kind of happened in slow motion. Mum always wanted me to be vegetarian. But as the stubborn person I am, I told her that I’d do what I want and eat what I want. Which means that I basically myself changed my eating habits. I can’t remember the last time I ate meat or drank milk. I mean, I’m not a vegetarian. I eat fish, cheese, chocolate and so on. But I’m talking about small dimensions and portions here, I eat it, but not much. And I care about my food. I pay attention to what I’m buying and eating, if it’s organic or not, if it contains any artificial substances that could be bad for my health, and if its production harms the environment or not. I mean, nowadays we all know how much we and our eating habits damage our beautiful mother earth. And we only have one, so I don’t get why we do that. Like in moments people tell me that they can’t live without eating meat every day. Did you even ever think about how much pain these animals go trough? We aren’t meant to eat cows, pigs or whatever. We never were and never will. And still we think that we can do whatever we want. We don’t, just to make that clear. And all of you guys, young people like me, are those who have to take care of our planet and take it back into recovery. We are responsible. And it’s scientifically proven that changing to a plant-based diet is literally just good for you and your body, it’s healthy. So why not live without the meat every day?Changing my diet really helped me, at least I think so. And I think it would help you guys too. Just try it, for two weeks or so and then check out the results (oh and please tell me about them, I’m really curious).

So, what’s important?

Getting that body image I have now took me a long time. First I didn’t care about it at all and then I got older and everything changed. I started to dress the way I wanted to, began to workout and worked on my eating habits. And today I really like myself and my body. And I’m healthy, I don’t even remember the last time I was ill (thank god). I mean, I don’t look like some kind of Victorias Secret model, but I like they way I look. And I love the way I dress. Whenever I wear something I really like, I get a huge confidence boost and I’m thankful for that. Of course I have my flaws, everyone does. But I think it’s important to even love your flaws. Because nobody is perfect, but everyone is beautiful.

I know this post got really lengthy, but it was really important for me to talk about this. I want you guys to know that you are all beautiful, please don’t let anyone tell you something else. They are wrong, trust me. And please take care of yourself. Stay healthy, exercise some more, eat food that makes you feel good, don’t hate on your body, you only have this one, and please don’t compare yourself to other people.

I want to end this post with a quote of Oscar Wilde I found in Copenhagen on a postcard:

“Be yourself. Everybody else is taken.”

Please feel free to have a healthy discussion in the comment section if you want to and if any of you want to talk to me about anything and everything, I’m here, always. And until then, I hope you liked this post, and thanks for reading. x

Arden’s video: link

A trip to the city

Hola everyone.

The last weekend was a really really exciting time for me. I went to Vienna with my mum for a concert (you’ll hear EVERYTHING about it later this week, I promise) and we spent some nice hours there, chilling in cool cafés, eating amazing food and strolling through the streets. I’m sure you all can guess by now that I took my camera with me – of course. So, it’s that time again where I share my most-beloved pictures with you. Enjoy. And thanks for reading. x