The one with the drunk Kiwi.

When my friend Tom asked me a few weeks back if I wanted to come along to Optimus Alive! festival in Lisbon I obviously jumped at the chance. The festival itself being only an hour away from where N and I live in Portugal and of course getting to spend time with Tom, who's not only lovely but with the added bonus of watching him play with White Lies.

With sunny skies and great music, this weekend was clearly going to be a winner.

We took with us our little brother/sister Courteney from New Zealand, who had never been to a music festival before, never heard of a rider and can't say no to a free beer...disaster.

Courtney and N having a few beers when we arrive.

Courtney and a very excited moi, getting ready for Angus and Julia Stone, who were of course wonderful (but they didn't play Mango Tree!)

As the night rolled on we were blissfully unaware that the main stage was closed for the evening. We started raving to pass the time.

and kept raving..

and raving..

you get the picture, the dance stage was a lot of fun. The Portuguese love their house music.

Team Rave.

The main stage came back to life later on that evening we had a little bounce around to 30 Seconds to Mars (Jared Leto is still yummy) and it was time to head back to our hotel in the outskirts of the city.

On the Saturday White Lies rocked the Portuguese fans, it's so much fun to see the die hard fans who know every word singing, bouncing around clapping. If you look very closely you can see Tommy pulling his sulky keyboard sex face ;)

A few hours of being spoilt by backstage hospitality we all headed to the side of the main stage to watch Paramore, and boy can Hayley Williams command a crowd, rock red hair and pull off two tone trousers, that girl is beautiful.

A brief photo with Tom before going back to perving on Hayley.

Feeling like rock stars we said our good byes and headed home to our quiet coastal life in sleepy rural Portugal. Going to the local salt festival yesterday kind of brought us back down to earth with a bump!

Thank you dear Tom for a lovely weekend, can't wait to see you again soon.

E x

ps You can follow Tom here if you like.

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An Update....

In list form, this is my life:

1. Underwater Swimming- every day.
2. N is in England, I'm alone here in Portugal.
3. Everyone now knows our "news" (You're next I promise!)
4. Flights are booked to Indonesia.
5. Itinerary needs to be booked for Indonesia- no idea where to begin.
6. We're leaving Portugal is less than a month.
7. My surfing lessons start next week!!
8. I'm desperate to go shopping.
9. I'm also DESPERATE to cut my full fringe back in.
10. I am pinning like a mad woman on Pinterest (follow me pinterest.com/milyrenee)

I'm tired and need a hug.

Hope you're having an awesome weekend?

x

The picture above is from the lovely indoor pool at The Marriot Hotel, Praia Del Rey. Usually empty and well worth the membership fee.

Visitors

N's sister Kejal popped over a few weeks ago and whilst the weather was pretty poor for her stay we did manage to fit in a little trip to Lisbon.

N and I have been flying in and out of there for months now but never actually visited so with Kejal and a borrowed sat nav we headed off to explore the city.

The city reminded me of San Francisco, sharp hills and trams buzzing by.

Pretty colourful buildings.

So much amazing street art.

Such a beautiful city, we hope to go back soon and stay for longer than a day. There's so much more to see that we couldn't fit in in one afternoon. We mainly stayed around the Bairro Alto region exploring the shops, eating and drinking and being entertained by the street performers!

Til next time Lisboa.

E x

                                                                     Source: whitepeachphoto.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Whenever I'm feeling lacking in inspiration I always have a little nosey around on Pinterest and today ^this^ caught my eye.

I needed a little challenge to keep me occupied and this is perfect :) Thank you Pinterest and White Peach Photography what a lovely idea!

I expect thousands of other Bloggers will be taking part and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's results.

E x

Project Portugal Instagrams

Along with my obsession for vintage clothes, chocolate and Earl Grey tea I have found a new one to merge the love of my iphone and vintage camera effects- Instagram.
Available for free on the iphone, this app lets you take photos, instantly, add beautiful effects and upload them instantly to your Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and email.
I love tinkering around with each picture, choosing pretty effects and sharing with friends just how beautiful things are around here.

It can get really windy in this part of Portugal, I usually hide in a dune with these beautiful reeds above my head, I get comfy, read my book and watch the clouds in the sky.

The town where we live is quite rural and baron, these flowers are outside an old abandoned house all overgrown and wild. The colours are so rare in a town that is mostly beige.

When I saw this girl it instantly reminded of me of being a child by the beach. I used to catch crabs in a bucket, collect what seemed like hundreds of sea shells to try and sell to the neighbours when I got back home.

Same dune, different day. Ladybird present, clinging to the reed in the harsh wind.

My new favourite cafe in the Medieval town of Obidos, so peaceful, so chic. If you're in the area it's absolutely beautiful and well worth a visit, just make sure you wear flat shoes as the town is hilly and full of slippery but pretty cobbled streets.

x

All Change Please, All Change.

Project Portugal so far has been mighty successful, I'm fairly tanned and have moved up a shade in make up (from goth to snow white!) I have made some awesome new friends from across the globe, I'm enjoying the Portuguese lessons and actually understanding it and most importantly, after 26 long years I can now nearly swim underwater.

Now as I am never the kind of person to sit still and wait around, N and I have been thinking about heading off travelling.

I've never done the back packer travelling thing as I left uni with a job that I loved and a flat in London to me that was my adventure. I didn't relish in the idea of living off scary street food and wearing the same t shirt for 6 months. However one of my new years resolutions was to "have an adventure" and even though Portugal has been one it's not really pushing me out of my comfort zone.

N has travelled the world, seen lots of awesome things, stayed in some some beautiful places and some absolute dives and when he talks about it I get so jealous, I wish it could've been me there with him discovering all these wonderful places. It makes me a little sad an annoyed that I didn't have the courage to do this earlier. So after N's sister arrived last week N and I decided that if I want to get some places under my belt I only really have until mid September to do it!

After trying to find somewhere hot to go for July and August (other than Europe it's quite hard to find!) we have settled on Indonesia.

It looks beautiful but it also looks HUGE, a few friends have suggested places to visit but honestly we have no idea where to start our Summer adventure.


So lovely people, passers by, followers any suggestions? Or places online to start looking?

Any comments would be awesome- Thank You!


x

This week in photos

I think all the Royal wedding malarky must have gotten to me this week because as of Saturday I was as sick as a dog with some kind of stomach bug. I'm trying to ignore the fact that I ate some dodgy leftover pizza and blame it entirely on jet lag from the beastly travelling week before.

Fully on the mend now though and back to eating full meals without struggling. One lovely discovery of our little Portuguese adventure is that I can actually cook decent meals and I'm now allowed to use the big boy knives after years of being banned from the kitchen I'm loving cooking!

N is an awesome cook and has been super sweet teaching me, being very patient and supportive if things aren't perfect, what a doll.

Portugal is still beautiful, life is too.

Good Friends

Send you things you miss in the post...

The other day I put a post on Facebook saying how much a missed my magazine fix (junkie) next thing you know my darling friend Leah had sent me a stash in the post, angel!

x

Before the Storm

The weather here in our little part of Portugal has been very kind to us these past few days, N has been out surfing with our friend visiting and I've been able to laze on the beach with my book and sunbathe (I am now beige which looks promising for the rest of the summer).

The weather forecast for the rest of the week look TERRIBLE so whilst I can get some more lovely sunny pictures in here's yesterday in pictures...

The view from our kitchen.

Beautiful Baleal- taken from the island, right hand side you can see the Surf Castle :D

Sunset at the cafe.

One of the many stray dogs (sob) watching our friend take a photo of the sunset.

A friend who brings chocolate is a friend for life.

x

Project Portugal Continued...

Greetings from Portugal!

No, no I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, just been busy finding a little routine of happiness here in quaint old Portugal, well whatever can be classed as a routine when you don't have anything to do all day expect pray that there's some sun ;)

N and I are absolutely settled and loving our new life in Portugal, days are filled with good food, adventures in our pirate mobile and evenings watching True Blood which is totally addictive and keeps us up until sometimes 3-4am. It's so nice for the moment not stressing about getting up for work at 6am, rushing to catch the commuter train or sitting on the stuffy tube getting elbowed in the face by bankers.

Right now we have our first guest at our little home, a friend from work has come out to stay and surf for a few days, rumour has it too that he loves a cocktail or two (actually not a rumour I'm in bed with a sore head after mojitos last night)

More lovely photos from the past few weeks...

Rock Face

Beautiful houses in our village

Hiding from the wind in a sand dune.

x


I have a secret and I'm RUBBISH at keeping them. Normally I would spill my guts out before this post is over but this is a biggie and sadly it has to stay that way for a little while longer **rahhhh I wanna tell :(** hopefully I'll be able to spill soon as it's HUGE!

MY Polaroid Wall

Ever since N bought me a Fuji Instax 210 for Christmas it's pretty much been everywhere with me. Social events, work, holidays, it's been an instant hit with everyone too, complete strangers would stop and ask me where I got it, there's something so magical about instant film I've always loved it and feel so lucky that N knows me well enough to buy me one.

So after creating a massive pile of prints and lusting after every polaroid wall on the net I created my own after a few days of arriving in Portugal. We found a large enough canvas for the heart shape and I set about creating...

What do you think?

x

Project Portugal

Good Morning!

I'm eating my breakfast, sun on my back and feeling ever so slightly groggy but in a "I'm so happy I don't have to work" way, why? because I'm in Portugal.
Not just on a 2 week holiday I'm living the Portuguese lifestyle for another 5 months- WIN.

I wanted to have an adventure this year, make new friends, meet interesting people so I gave up everything to come here with my boyfriend and start a new chapter together on the basis that life is simple.

So far in pictures things have gone like this...

Exciting times, lots of pictures and time to blog and pick up a few new followers I hope.

Big Love x

On My Mind...

Things that are on my mind presently, in random order...

* Moving to Portugal in 2 weeks

* How to pack for a seemingly never ending trip to a foreign country- any tips on packing...any?

* These shoes for a certain secret occasion

* I need these glasses (I'm convinced I need them) the round ones will be perfect.

Big Love,

E x

Hold Tight Now...

Portugal post is on it's way....

I'm EXHAUSTED from a weekend of doing this

Normal service will resume after a looooooong bath filled with 4 lush bath bombs, cause that's how I roll.

Toodles

xx

My picture taken on my frickin awesome Fuji Instax 210- N is a god for buying this for me.