I'm sitting on my bed between piles of clothes, makeup and accessories while I'm typing this blog post. My 'Golden Oldies' playlist on Spotify is playing in the background and I can't help getting excited for my holiday which is in two days! I'm going to visit my friend in New York, which has always been a dream of mine to go to 'the city that never sleeps'. I don't know how to feel about the whole trip, due to the long flight which I have never done before and I'm totally doing this on my own.

The whole stress level has gone down a bit since yesterday because at first my friend couldn't come pick me up at JFK. Little side note, the first few days I'm staying over at my friend's place and from Monday on, we've booked an hotel near Central Park until the end of the week. So she wasn't able to pick me up from the airport, which meant that I had to go to Grand Central Station on my own with either a shuttle or using the subway. When I would get to GCS, I had to search for a train that would bring me to where my friend lives (which is more than an hour away from the city). I'm not one to travel by myself, let alone to find my way in one of the busiest cities of the world, for the first time in my life AND with all my luggage and a map to find the right subway stations. As you can tell, I was quite stressed out about this, but hey, all is fine because she can come and pick me up, yay!

On my last trip I went to Eindhoven with my boyfriend. A video says more than a thousand pictures so I vlogged that trip and I like how it turned out. I'm going to be vlogging again this time in New York, just to capture more of the special and exciting moments. Of course I'm going to take lots of pictures too and make notes when I visit a nice museum of when I discover some hotspots. So at the end of the month you guys can expect several new blog post about New York. 

During my holiday you can always follow me on my Instagram or my Facebook page to stay up-to-date or just in case you can't wait for the pictures in a blog post. If any of you know some tips or places I should visit, definitely let me know and I will check them out! Here are some inspirational pictures that make me more excited than I already am!

- xoxo -

Chiara

Every year we have got two Christmas parties. One with my boyfriend's family and one with mine. We usually have our Christmas dinner on the 24th with him and a second dinner on the 25th with my family. During these dinners we give and receive a lot of presents. But it has been sort of tradition that we also get some extra presents on New Year's Eve or New Year from my family. So instead of posting this blog post last week with only the presents I got at Christmas, I decided to also include the presents I got on New Year's day. Small disclaimer: I am not writing this to brag in any way or to show off with what I got this year. I am just writing this for myself to look back on in a few years as a memory (as most of my blog is an online book of my memories) and also for those who are interested to see what I got or asked for. I am a curious and nosey person myself, so no shame!