Photo Source: Cristian Alexandrescu Photography

2014 is so close!!! I hope you'll have a marvellous time and that you already have you resolutions list prepared. I'll be spending the New Year's Eve with some lovely people and a special dress code: denim! I know, wearing jeans is so weird on this occasion, but if we are to be honest, I think it's pretty awesome I start a new year wearing what I usually choose on a regular basis. All I want for 2014 is to be just as fabulous as 2013 has been: I finally chose the college that's right for me(hopefully I will get in there in July), I took my driver's license, I turned 18, I received the most incredible gifts , I had the opportunity to visit Paris!

Back to Paris, this is my second post about it, where I promised to tell you the story about what I visited on my first day there. After we saw Pont Alexandre III and Place des Invalides, we took the RER and arrived at the Orsay Museum. I'm totally in love with impressionism, so you can imagine this museum was simply heaven for my eyes! You might know from my old posts I read a lot of books about Vincent Van Gogh's life and art and seeing so many paintings in the same room almost brought tears to my eyes. Never have I felt so connected to a form of art, his technique is flawless and I always get so emotional when I think that the only one who supported him while he lived was his younger brother, Theo. Then there was the pointillism dedicated room, obviously filled with painting from the emblematic master Georges Seurat. Other cool thing is that now I can tell the difference between a Monet and a Manet and I can understand the hype around Cezanne's apples. The architecture of the museum is incredible, as it used to be the first train station in Paris (are you familiar with the movie Hugo?).Overall, the Orsay Museum was one of my favourite sights, and should I ever return to Paris, I will spend a whole day there because we were in a severe lack of time when we visited it.

After the museum, we took the RER once again and went to Île-de-France, where there are so many sights it overhelms you! One thing about the RER: You save a lot of time, which is amazing, but the system is confusing, unlike the METRO. Knowing French really came in handy because we had to ask a couple times to make sure we were at the right line. First we went to Notre Dame de Paris, it's definitely worth seeing at night because the lights are magical. It's a truly imposing building, with an incredible architecture. We walked by Palais de Justice but unfortunately weren't able to see Saint-Chapelle as it was late at night.  We also walked on the impressive Pont Neuf and saw the Conciergerie. It was one of my biggest wishes, as I first discovered Conciergerie on Miss Pandora's blog and thought : "what a pretty castle". Then, I did some research and I was shocked to see the building had actually been a prison for centuries!

We left "the island" and walked on the right side of Seine until we reached Pont des Arts, the famous bridge where you leave a lock. Of course, I forgot mine in the hotel room because we left in a rush. You have to see it with your eyes, we weren't expecting actually that many locks, the amount is just insane! Then it was Louvre time! We first saw the Carousel and Jardins des Tuileries. Before we left for Paris, there were many people who told us the gardens would be disappointing: completely false! It was like autumn, the trees still had their leaves and the grass was greener than ever, so December really is a great time to visit Paris, because you also get to see all the Christmas decorations.

The Louvre Museum was an interesting experience, totally different from Orsay as it mostly has classic paintings. Maybe you'll think I'm weird, but I wasn't impressed with Mona Lisa most. The painting is so small and the tourists crowded to see her just make you anxious and eager to see other things. My favourite section was the wall with a few paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci like 'Lady with an ermine' or 'St John the Baptist'. He is a genius, I just feel that 'Mona Lisa' isn't his masterpiece. We were stuck in the museum for a lot of time due to unexpected rain and we got to visit the most of it, and also got to explore the intricate details of the ceilings, mirrors, furniture etc. 

When we were finally able to leave the museum, we went to Rue Saint-Honoré, a big dream of mine, where I got to admire all the famous brand stores (oh God, the Miu Miu store shines just like a diamond!) and then we visited Place Vendome. This particular place will stay in my heart forever, because it has another level of beauty, combined with luxury, high fashion and really classy Christmas decorations. I just wish that someday I'll be able to actually walk in a Dior or Chanel store, they all looked so magical! We also got to admire Palais Garnier,  which is their National Opera and the Galeries Lafayette (best window of the store goes to Roger Vivier). Looking back, I'm pretty proud we managed to visit all these incredible sights in just 8 hours and I can't wait to travel abroad again!

Photo Credit: Cristian Alexandrescu Photography

I hope you all had a jolly Christmas and that you enjoyed spending some quality time with your friends and family, I sure did! The holidays also gave me the opportunity to go through all the photos from Paris. Let me just say that having a photographer with you is really awesome and that I hope he doesn't mind I edited the photos, we always have different points of view on the lighting. 

Seeing me in a dress at +5 degrees , you might think we went crazy and I kept on taking my coat off at every corner! I wish, but long gone are the days when I would freeze at -15 Celsius degrees for the sake of the blog. This was the first shoot , so naturally there was this Paris hype in our souls and that's why we took so many photos. You should have seen us 6 hours later: "Just take one picture of me here, so mom can see I visited this as well" haha.

Now, the amount of things we visited in the first days is INSANE. Some people even wouldn't believe us when we told our story, but we managed so well because I've been planning this trip to Paris for two years and I already knew the location of the main sights and the main streets by heart (God bless Google maps!). I think there are around 100 (good) photos with me from the first day, so I chose to share 25 on this first post, when I was all full of energy and we visited the Esplanade des Invalides surroundings, including the famous Pont Alexandre III. For me, the bridge was breathtaking because I could feel the fashion vibe while walking on it ( all the Vogue Paris editorials shot here plus the editorials of my favourite fashion bloggers like Gary Pepper Girl) and also because it was also the first time we saw the Eiffel Tower while we were in Paris. In the next post I will give you the complete list of sights which we visited during that day and I will share my impressions.

Photo by Cristian Alexandrescu

Dear readers, I haven't forgotten about you, I just had this major event in my life and I didn't want to jinx it! You already know it's been always one of my biggest dreams to visit Paris. Well, it happened, thanks to an international competition, IGAM4ER !!! I put some use to my English skills and presented the concept of our game to many interesting people. Cristi, my classmate,  is the brilliant mind behind all the programming of the game and I'm so proud of him for making such a perfect prototype!

We met incredible people from all around the world and won the "Heartful Prize" of the competition, which got us so emotional! Everyone from the competition worked really hard on their projects and I loved to see all the passion and energy put into their presentations. We also managed to visit some of the most important sights, I will make a post about it once Cristi (who is also a great photographer) will give me the photos.

♪ Lorde- Pure Heroine ♪

Okay, I'm oficially declaring winter as the most dreaded season for blogging! I may have managed it last year, standing in the cold and posing in sheer tops and writing once or twice a week, but things are so different in the last year of highschool! 

I almost didn't go to my cousin's birthday two weeks ago because I had to study for an exam. In fact, I wasn't supposed to go, but it was 00:00  and I wished him a very Happy Birthday (his birthday was on a Friday this year- what a luck!). We started chatting and I suddenly missed him and the city of my dreams (plus I had a really cool gift for him), so at 1 AM it was decided: I would go to his town and surprise him. At 8AM I hopped on a train and spent one night in his town. Best risk I ever took (or maybe the truly BEST risk is yet to come- I don't want to jinx it, more details soon)- I had a blast with his friends, ate the best pizza, saw "Hunger Games 2" and even had some time for shopping. For those of you who don't know, I am obsessed with the books, I read the trilogy in three days and I can say it with all my heart this film is so much better than the first one! I loved it and I recommend it to all my friends.

Back on the blog issues, I've been wanting to show you my new love when it comes to tops, blouses &Co. It has happened to me several times to order things from a site which looked really interesting and then have the items delivered in a poor shape or with a totally different fabric/ shade of color. This is not the case! I'm deeply in love with Front Row Shop ever since I got the package with this perfect blush pink top. The asymmetrical cut, the cool concept of design (that white part of top you see underneath it's actually part of the top, you somehow tie them at the back- so awesome!) and the flawless colors made me choose to wear it to two birthday parties (one of them was obviously my cousin's). If I was to pick my favourite aspect about it though, I would say the fabric: never have I worn a cotton so smooth and comfy, I'd like all my tops to be like this! My honest advise is to consider Front Row Shop next time you feel like splurging online, I'll order for sure again.