Telling Tales

On the 13th and 14th of February there was an event in the capital city of my neighbour country. So I traveled on the 12th of February to Madrid Spain where the event would therefore take place.
Once I arrived there I contacted my friend Isa who organized the event and she met me soon after. I ate donuts and a taco because there's none of that in my country haha which was kinda odd and we just chatted a lot.

We then walked around in the rain for a while, had lunch at a super cute japanese restaurant and then waited for my roomate to arrive. Yes because I decided to stay with someone I did not even know just because I thought it would be more interesting than being alone.

After I met with Daniela Isa left and we went to explore the flat. Once we arrived we realised it was actually not a flat but just a room and that it had only a double bed which could have been embarassing if either of us had issues with that. haha it was a bit of a shock to be honest but it was fine. I ended up rather liking the room anyway, it was confortable.

A couple of hours later we met Isa for dinner, for amazing Spanish food (at last).
We went around the area for a bit because it was raining a bit less but went back after that, we had to get up early the next day and Isa even earlier. I had a really good time that night.

Saturday 13th of February

We woke up and just got ready for the event. We got ready fairly quick both days but especially that day. Having nothing to wear other than is in one's bag is pretty much what does it get easier and faster, not like I can hesitate and stuff, right? Anyway since I was wearing my "lazy but elegant hairdo" this outfit was really confortable. A shame the dress is so oddly cut, we fought a bit with the straps at some point :P Thanks Daniela for the help!

We finally left and tried getting a place to have breakfast since we had some time... but that did not work out. We ended up going to the hotel where the event was taking place and we found that Merkades and Cristina were both there already and we all ended up having breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was pretty much the lazy ppl option but I think we did the right thing ahah, it was cold out to boot. At some point Merkades took me to an atm and we met another girl on the way back, she was a bit lost and looked adorable in the Ap university gettup. <3



The event started later than announced but at some point finally we were allowed in. 
The Hotel looked very plain from the outside and even in the first flood but once we went up the stairs we found that it was far cooler there, Fabulous ceillings and this stained glass window area that made me elect it as nº1 spot for photos. I loved it.



First thing I did was get in the vendors room which has a couple of very cool things: Otome Dream, Must, Happy goth, Souffle’s Song, Ania de Oz, Violet Fane & Madame Chocolat anda non-lolita acessory store, Bahban. There was also a small Bring and Buy section. 
Unfortunately I am so bad with shopping that my first priority items were all sold out before I could get to them and I even got excited about something from Soufflesong but I tried it on and it did not fit which is never a good feeling but I still got some very nice things.

Vendors room

Violet Fane

Happy Goth

 
Otome Dream

Bring and Buy + Soufflesong

During the afternoon we also could attend a literary contest event with prizes, there was the fashion show, there was an afternoon tea service with delicious treats and of course a great raffle full of prizes. 

Food! Tea selection, milk, coffee, orange juice, water, sandwiches, donuts, cake variety, fruits selection. 

Everyone looking forward for the raffle prizes, crossing fingers!

And I chatted with a lot of people, took some photos and had fun trying to fit into the group photo. It was a very nice event. 

Ania de Oz

 Last but not least I leave you some photos of the attendees, some of my favorites but not necessarily all of them since I am too shy to ask people to pose for my camera. <3 Everyone looked amazing!

Lovely Maria & Diego

My beloved Cristina who is an amazing lolita and friend

My roomate Daniela who was amazing all weekend.

And because I have no photos of Merkades who was the queen that day (look at that hair acessory!) I will post this one of me, cris and her. <3 

 And this is what I was wearing. My theme was sort of a gothic lolita with spanish influences sort of thing. I was happy one person kinda said that it reminded her of that too because that means someone got it on their end. The cape had been a gift from a spanish lolita that went to the event so I really wanted to incorporate it to an outfit for this weekend. I like how confortable it was and how it looks in the end although the place was dark.

My beloved stained glass photo location. How grand is that?

Can you see the details on the capelet thing? Its see through chiffon ish material with velvet details. It is stunning <3

Other than the shirt from Millefleurs it is all offbrand. Soufflesong dress, the handmade cape, a necklace from china, tights from calzedonia and boots from bordello.

My Telling Tales haul:
-Soufflesong red heart bag
- Spanish lolita community calendar (raffle prize)
- Indrolita skirt (raffle prize)
Violet Fane pen, tights and 3 necklaces. 

After the event we all went "home" to freshen up and then gathered together for dinner at a pizza place and then also a small bar where I had portuguese beer which is amusing. It was a lot of fun! 

Sunday 14th of February
The next day we had to be at a designated place early but we still managed to get there on time despite kinda having to ask around because we were a bit on the lost side. hehe

The Tea Party event was hosted in a japanese pattiserie / restaurant called Panda. Basically we had to sort of pick a menu composed of a hot and a cold drink and two desserts, one of macarons and another one of our choice. I pretty much had matcha everything because of my matcha craze and the food was divine. 

We sat and chatted, ate, wrote valentine notes which was adorable and also took some photos. There was also another raffle in which someone won a fabulous pair of socks I really drooled over hehe. They really had nice prizes!

The lovely valentines notes the girls wrote me. <3 I will always treasure them. 

It was a lot of fun but unfortunately my camera did not take photos very well. Please excuse the quality of the photos.

After this some of the participants had to leave but the rest decided to go to yet another tea house, a place that they kept talking about called Sugar Factory.
When we arrived I understood why, it really was beautiful, like out of another era. It was ridiculously small but the colors and every detail was precious.

We wandered around waiting for a table, took photos, got asked by customers about our clothes and just hanged out. Me and Daniela fell in love with the display cake boxes and ended up buying some, yes, card cake takout boxes, I kid you not!

I was not really hungry but still ordered some Jasmin tea and a spinach tart. I wasn't feeling like having more sweet stuff after having eaten at Panda.

Anyway I wore my newest dress by Angelic Pretty, Chess Emblem. I forgot bloomers and was wearing socks that were too short because the dress is too short as always with Angelic Pretty so it became annoying after a while but I love this dress. 

My outfit: Ap dress and socks, shoes from china, axes femme shirt and triple fortune hat. 

Finally the time for my flight was approaching and I still had to change and pack so some of us left by cab (Merk and Cris gave us a ride in their cab!).
I left with Daniela, stressfully packed everything, said my goodbyes and left to the airport.
I arrived at my place late at night and had to wake up early to go to work the next morning. I was thrilled to kiss my sleeping daughter. I missed her.

And this was my weekend. I really hope I can attend more of these in the future even though it ends up being expensive and stressful. I wish these things would fall right in my holidays but they never do! Everything ends up right in the middle of a work week or some deadline. I am not very lucky in that department.

Hope you liked reading! Love, Jo

Hello 2016

 Hello everyone!

Today is the 27th of February and it is my first actual post for this year which is sad. Work has gotten me super busy but I have been wearing lolita a bit, not as much as I would like unfortunately.

Anyway but the year started well! I was determined to be more active and take every opportunity to wear lolita and the neighbor lolita community in Vigo (Spain) had a christmas meeting scheduled for the 3rd of January and I jumped on the opportunity to see those awesome girls and guys. Their community is so much more active than the one in my country, I just love attending their meetings.

Anyway we decided to make it a familly trip and left on saturday morning. Our first stop was the city of Ourense where they have an Onsen. Unfortunately I did not go in for reasons not worth mentioning but my husband and daughter were having a blast!

We then headed over to Vigo for dinner. We wanted to go to a place where I had the best risotto of my life but it was closed so we just ate at the first place we found. It was not even close in terms of taste but it was fine.

My daughter played a bit in park and eventually got back in the car and went to the hotel where we would spend the night.

me and my daughter walking around town in warm confortable clothes.

The next day we packed our things and started getting ready. Both me and my daughter wore lolita to the event and of course we asked if kids were allowed first. She was the only child at the event and she behaved well. 

There were so many cute lolitas there, it was pretty packed and booy do these people eat a lot! I was so full after this meeting! We had a bit of everything: sweets like donuts and cake, coffee, juice, tea, bread, cheese, prosciuto, eggs, etc etc etc. 

I was not the only representative of our community, Egl Portugal, in fact we were 4! 

The two girls who are super creative and have the same first name and the only male style wearer (male) in our community at the moment.

 I wanted to wear my newest dress and it was a nice pic because it is roomy and confortable. I felt elegant in it, not really macabre as I probably should, just elegant and a tad cute. haha

Angelic Pretty jsk, socks, offbrand shirt, necklace and shoes and indies brand headpiece. I dream of having bat items to match this now.

 And here's a group photo of everyone there, how exciting right? Look at all those cuties! So many people in the same meeting is not something I am highly accustomed.

Anyway there was a handmade item swap. I made something and the girl who got it seemed happy so that made me happy too. I received an incredible small cape number which I have already worn and will show you later on. 

I hope you liked reading about my day. I will try to update again sooner than later. I owe you that much!

I hope everyone is doing well and that you are as happy as possible. It is what I wish for myself. <3

Japan 2015 Haul Post

Hello!

As you might have noticed I will not be posting other entries about my trip this year. I don't feel like it to be honest but I am still going to post my trip haul. I bought a bit too much again this year and will now be saving to pay off my extravagant buys for a couple of months haha but its always worth it, shopping in Japan is a lot of fun!

The photos are a bit small but if you click on them you should be able to see things a bit better.

These are all the lolita related purchases. In total I bought 5 dresses, 1 used and the other 4 new. 

I cannot post individual photos of everything so if there's anything you'd like to see please comment below! 

This is all the makeup/beauty related products I got during this trip. I even got these cute plastic containers to put in my room because they were too lovely to pass on,

And these are mostly stationary items, a couple I got from liemzie too (thank you) and of course the rilakkuma x hankyu plushie is not stationary, his job is to look cute and gather dust. :X

I buy a bit of this stuff there because I LOVE penpaling. I don't write a lot of letters unfortunately but I like being prepared. I don't collect these although i wish i could (who has space for that), I really use them. 

Lastly these are my doll related buys this time. I did not visit any doll stores unfortunately so I just got a magazine and a couple rement items because they are adorable. My BJDs got nothing this time.

And other than that we also bought a ton of food. Now I am poor, again. haha

I hope you liked reading about my shoppaholic side :|

I love this sort of post I must admit, looking at what other people buy is a sort of sadistic hobby.

Love always,

Jo

[Paris] Angelic Pretty Tea Party 2015

Despite being sick for a long time and only being allowed by the doctor to go back to work 3 days before the event date, I decided to still go ahead and travel to Paris for the Tea Party. This could not have happened if it wasn't for the goodness of my friend Aliki and my new friend Melodie since I did not want to book a room without knowing for sure if I would be able to travel and they just let me stay with them at Melodie's. I will never forget what they did for me.

FRIDAY
Anyway I went to work as scheduled on friday and took my trolley so I could go straight to the airport after that. Its not that I like travelling light but Ryanair only lets people take a carry-on trolley and a smaller handbag.

I arrived and got some wine to give to Melodie as a thank you gift (and because Vinho Verde is my favorite and uncommon outside Portugal) and then got in the plane. I used to love flying but now I feel very uneasy to fly on my own. I have a new irrational fear of flying and always think "what if the plane crashes". It really sucks and I know it makes no sense though.
Anyway fortunately it all went well and soon I was in the ryanair bus and then the metro. I am an idiot and I ignored Aliki's address instructions and decided to go with my gmaps documents and therefore ended up getting lost and having to pay a fortune for a cab ride but that was ok, I was super happy and excited to hang out with Aliki (at that point i did not know i'd fall in love with Melodie too).

When I finally got to Melodie's place we chatted for a bit and then went to bed. Boy was it hot in Paris, as soon as I got off the plane I felt as if I was already in Japan for the summer.
Melodie was apparently very worried because I "got lost" at midnight somewhere in Paris which made me feel a bit guilty for making her worry like that, Aliki was right about her, she is such a nice person. Indoors it was super hot too and I felt sweaty and gross haha. We might end up sleeping a bit more and ditching our first plan which was to go to the Rin Rin princess crepe signing session, its too hot and we do not want to arrive at the tea party with running mascara and reeking of sweat.

SATURDAY
Aliki was already complaining about the weather at 9am which is adorable. I understand though, I'm not a fan of heat either but was still super excited to be in Paris.

We got dressed quite fast but still had to get on a cab to get to the popup store to pick up out tea party tickets.

Unfortunately when we got there the lovely shop girl told us we should go to the hotel directly and did not need to make that stop which was a bit waste of money and time (we wish we knew in advance but that's not what we read). We then got back in the cab and the driver after taking a photo of us haha finally left us at the hotel gate. I actually knew that hotel already, i had been in front of it once when i was visiting the eiffel tower with Vania a couple years before. I had no idea what it looked like inside though.
We got the vip treatment from the start with fancy dressed people opening the door for us and greating us at the gate, that's always fun since its not normal for me to be in such places.
There were already some girls inside and we decided to go to the bathroom to check our makeup. In there we saw a lot of girls getting ready. Apparently a lot of lolitas (maybe because of the heat? Not sure why) get dressed in the hotels for these events. I was a bit surprised but it was nice, like being in a huge dress up party. Rosalynn was there and I was super happy to see her.

Aliki, the perfect tea party partner. <3

This sheet was later used to cast the votes for best coordinate. 

Delicious french pastries.

We eventually saw all the girls we knew that were there, I was thrilled to see everyone again and to meet the girls I had in my facebook friends lists but never had met before. <3

During the event we saw Ap new releases in a fashion show (See all the outfits here), took photos with Maki, Asuka and Rin Rin, chatted with a bunch of amazing attendees, got photographed by the talented Marie, ate and drank amazing stuff, voted for best dressed who got amazing gifts, got lucky in the raffle for the first time! and even got super cute freebies from Angelic Pretty. It was a bit short though, I wish it had lasted longer!

Fashion show outfits, aren't they all lovely?

Marie's lovely photo of me in the photo corner. 

Taking photos and seeing friends. ^_^; 

Ada and Rosalynn, I love them and I love this photo <3 <3

Photos with Angelic Pretty designers, Maki and Asuka. How perfect are they?

The table with all the prizes, so amazing! I was dreaming of owning that brown choco bag.

Out of the raffle prizes there was this one chocolate bag that someone really wanted...  

And DAMN I ACTUALLY WON IT! 

Rin Rin was adorable, super nice. I remember her back from when she posted outfits like the rest of us and told her that, she was quite happy to hear that it seemed. <3

The three special guests saying goodbye.

Group Photo for the Angelic Pretty tea party 2015

We said goodbye briefly and went to the pop up store so we could finally see what was available. Got there and we did not want anything so we left and returned to the house.

Still bummed about losing my sunglasses somewhere in Paris.

We told Melodie about the Tea Party, took a shower and ordered chinese food. We also opened one of the wine bottles which was super cool and therefore tasted heavenly. We chatted a lot and eventually went to bed. It was a fantastic day, and I think it was the most fun I have ever had in a lolita tea party of this size.


SUNDAY
When I woke up it was late, for some reason I did not remember to set my alarm the night before and Aliki did not want to wake me up so we ended up getting ready a bit on the late side. We finally got ready and we realized we might not make it when the bus did not come to the stop on time and we had to wait 20min for the next one to arrive. Aliki freaked out and she wanted to get on a cab and the cab driver just left us at some reason place we could get to ourselves by metro (and maybe faster too). So we went to the gardens and to the only fountain I could find and we were 10min after the fashion walk start time so of course we did not see anyone. We walked there for a bit and then just gave up.
I was a bit sad but it was ok, I had such luck the day before I knew I shouldn't push it, it had been enough luck to last for a while. I never get that lucky so I should just take it!
So we took a couple photos around the area, had a cup of coffee at starbucks, took photos with a million tourists (all of which were super nice) and made plans for lunch. I had limited time because of my flight and because i still needed to pack.

I am in love with this bag and feel like wearing choco themed everything now.

Melodie told us the restaurants around the pop up store were good and not too pricey so we went back to the Ap pop up store which was close. When we got there Maki, Asuka, other lolitas (I got to say goodbye to Ada <3) were there. All items had a 20% discount too but i still did not buy anything. i behaved very well this time! We got to hang out and chat a bit but then left because of the time.

We looked for a restaurant for a bit and decided to eat at a sort of supermarket/fast food/bento place and the food was glorious. I got to miss japanese food a bit less which is great, all of that for 10 euros. Parisians are so lucky, i cannot believe how easy it is for people to eat/ stock on japanese stuff there. I have to ask people to mail things to eat certain things.

We got to the house pretty fast and I got ready very fast too. I think I lost my sunglasses in Paris though which sucks but i suppose I can just buy a new pair.
Aliki and Melodie and I parted ways and it was quite sad.
The ride back to Port Maillot was so easy that it made me feel really stupid about missing the way when I had arrived. haha

At the airport I got some small gifts for my daughter and husband as I always do. <3

And had something to eat. Love smoked salmon.

The flight was ok, portuguese people, the way we behave on planes is really awkward and funny so that makes any trip lighter. I was more relaxed. I also wanted to hug my familly really bad, boy had I missed them. I had fun but i couldn't wait to see my daughter and kiss my husband.

When I saw them it was really nice although I knew Mari was sick. We had to take her to the emergency later that night, that was terrible.

If you'd like to see what it felt like to be in the TP, this video is a great example. It is all french but just watch for the nice outfits and lovely venue. Also can you spot me from time to time? :P

 

This is now my final week at work but I tried my best to post this as soon as possible. We have some small meetings coming up in the Portuguese community too which is exciting. If this keeps up I might regain my 100% level of love for lolita which I had slightly lost recently due to my community being so inactive and me being so busy and stressed.

Ah and I almost forgot, this is my haul from this trip:

1.Melty Ribbon Chocolate boston bag (brown) - raffle prize

2. 3 clear file folders from Angelic Pretty - attendee gift

3. Big Angelic Pretty Paris 2015 badge - attendee gift

4. flyers, cards, number pin, thank you card, etc - Paris TP/shop freebies 

5. Angelic Pretty Crystal Dream Carnival Pin (pink) - purchase

6. Angelic Pretty Crystal Dream Carnival Necklace (pink) - purchase

7. Angelic pretty stripe ribbon wrist cuffs (brown) - purchase

8. Angelic Pretty princess victoria wrist cuffs (sax) - purchase

9. Guerlain miniature gift bag - a lovely gift from Melodie <3

I hope you liked reading this post, again this is just how I view things and I am very honest when I write. After all this is my diary. <3

Thank you everyone who contributed for this amazing weekend. I owe you one <3

Love,
Jo