One week in England (pt. 1)

I am very happy to be able to share a travel post about this great country with you, I’ve been waiting for this trip for quite a long time.

It all started in Sevenoaks, close to London, where some very good friends of my family live. The days there were filled with forest walks with the dog, good food and conversations as well as a good portion of rest.

From there we went to the V&A museum to see the Frida Kahlo exhibition, I was desperate to go and see it as I deeply love Frida and her charismatic aesthetic. Unfortunately you weren’t allowed to take photos, otherwise a spam would follow now… For the proper Mexican vibes we had lunch at wahaca afterwards.

The journey continued to Sandwich, what a wonderful place it is. We were lucky to stay at our friends wonderful Airbnb.

The streets, the houses and everything else was so beautiful. There was a cute market on the street the first morning.

Not to forget the art deco cinema!

And there was the most beautiful garden with a huge mansion in it open for everyone to walk through.

A short trip to Canterbury followed. Unfortunately there was no way to leave the luggage anywhere, so we had to carry it along the whole time. Not the greatest to take pictures, but still a beautiful city! I had the vegan version of a typical English breakfast at kitch.

Finally, we came back to London for one night and as I visited the city several times before, I was very happy to leave all the touristy stuff behind me and fully concentrate on the hip Shoreditch were we stayed in the Ace hotel, which is highly recommended too.

I loved everything about this area: The cafés, the shops, the street art, the people and their fashion, the nightlife and the whole creative (but still quite expensive…) atmosphere over there.

Last but not least two amazing museum visits ended our short stay in London. First, we visited The Design Museum with an incredibly beautiful exhibition about one of my favourite fashion designers Azzedine Alaïa.

The National Portrait Gallery turned out to be very interesting too and for free!

The day ended in one of my favourite streets of London: Carnaby Street, unfortunately with rain.

The journey went on to Brighton, part two will follow, stay tuned …

Hopefully until soon London, it was a pleasure as always!

[As my grandma would always sing like a jukebox: “Londooon ist the place for me”]

XX Sofia

Keep on drawing

So school is over, summer is over good days are over. Aren’t they? My sister said to me, now that I finished school I have eternal vacation. Well, that’s not completely true.

I want to get loads of things organized and done. I want to be productive. I want to squeeze everything out of special and important moments. I want so much, but I struggle very hard with the fact that not everything can turn out the I way I want it to.

I realized very quickly that nobody out here was seriously waiting for me. I was just thrown out into the world, with the words deal with it and better deal well with it. Still, I already dealt with a lot, but it instead of being proud I always keep on looking where I failed. I feel lots of negativity inside of me lately and honestly I don’t have any right for that.

I should be thankful for all the time I have to do things I love right now. I have amazing friends, an amazing family and an amazing boyfriend. And a lot of things I planned for the closest future are amazing too.

I guess I just have to keep on dealing with everything, with life. I should learn more out of failure and until then I’ll just keep on drawing.

All drawings painted by myself mainly with watercolor, ink, charcoal and others. I am very happy to inspire, but please don’t copy my work without giving credits.

XX Sofia

Fairytale

The past summer heat is making my head feel dizzy sometimes. I feel that I need to rest. I really need to rest mentally. Everything is passing by so fast. I say to myself again and again: Enjoy everything, live in the moment. But sometimes I only feel the rush. The fugacity of moments, of motivation and energy. One moment I know what I want, the next I question it all over again. I want to stop thinking I just want to start doing. There is so much beauty in summer colours, but sometimes black and white makes it calmer. Do I know what I want?

XX Sofia

Summer Start

It’s now. The time I’ve been looking forward to for so long. Time for traveling with the people I love the most. Days filled with music, wine, laughter, talking and overthinking our lives. Getting lost for a little while. What’s different is that this time my summer is starting in Germany. In eastern Germany to be correct.I’ve been on the marvelous Melt Festival in the middle of Saxony. The place was magical, the weather couldn’t have been better and my back hurt from dancing too much. The day consisted of swimming in a lake after making quite good breakfast at our camp (you couldn’t sleep longer than 8 am because the tent literally turned into a sauna…) and then dancing, dancing, dancing with a couple of stops at the food trucks in between.

I could listen to some of my favourite bands, which always is such a precious thing for me. Thanks to The XX, Cigarettes after Sex, Odesza, Florence and the Machine and many more.

My uncle, a very wise and funny man told me to take every opportunity seriously to see my beloved musicians, he still cries when he remembers that he didn’t go to The Rolling Stones because it was to expensive for him at that time.

After the festival I visited Leipzig for the first time. All the things I learned in history class about eastern Germany suddenly became vivid.

I filled up my energy level in several cozy coffee places such as espresso zak zak. And there was time for second hand shopping and art Museums too.

We had the most wonderful Airbnb in the eastern part of the city. It was the flat of a young actress who liked to label anything at her place. We found ourselves on the beautiful little balcony for hours during breakfast and in the evening, always with very good self made food, which was a blast after the festival madness.

Because of the hot weather I really welcomed a day by the lake and another morning in the beautiful botanical garden.

Those really were some wonderful days, somehow I feel my mind cleared itself in different ways. Even though I feel exhausted it feels like a lost some mental weight the past days, if you can relate to what I mean.

XX Sofia

My second Fashion Week and one year of rincondesofia

Lately, I have the feeling that every event of last year at the same time is repeating itself. I notice that different months cause a different stage of mind to me. Summer holidays generally have the same effect as New Years Eve – the feeling of closing something, the feeling of an ending. The ending of a school year. With one little difference this year. School is no longer a part of my life.

Is that good or bad? I don’t know. To me school has always been attached with a lot of positive associations such as friendships, laughters during lessons and quite some interesting topics and tasks offered by the teachers. Then again there were those subjects I felt like wasting my time and brain cells sitting there (sorry physics and chemistry , I respect people liking you), but somehow I accepted that this, together with the sports competitions I hated, formed this thing called general education, which was fortunately offered to me.

I can say that school formed me and there is no doubt that I learned a lot there, also about values. The way of many people that seemed very important to me until now and my own way will probably part away in what feels like an instant. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. Maybe they have to make space for new souls in my life.

This blog of mine, I can’t believe it, has turned one year now. It was one year ago when I published my first entry with pictures of my very first fashion week. Now I’m back from my second. And to make it clear I was just a little +1, a little companion, a little observer. Was it inspiring, good or bad? I don’t know. But still there ist no doubt that it has been full of new input, experiences as well as potential ideas and decisions. And maybe I dreamed it, but I think there were even a few appreciative views from other fashionable individuals at my outfits.

Runways have something magical to me. You can see all the hard work of the designers and the preparations before being able to present a whole collection. The music, the tiny conversations through the rows commenting the looks, the clicking cameras everywhere and the fact that except of the runway everything is more or less dark, creates a unique atmosphere.

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Berlin is one of the most incredible cities I know. It never gets boring visiting. The vibrant art and fashion scene, the presence of history as well as the multicultural, chaotic and sometimes battered vibe it has, creates an atmosphere no other city has in my view. A good example for this was the show room from Ewa Herzog in the middle of a quite quotidian residential area. The insanely beautiful models looked like a mixture of fairies and fawns in between the beautifully arranged flowers.

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What is fashion for you? A question I heard several people were asked. I wasn’t among them. But therefore I have blog, so I can tell it here. I guess to me fashion is the joy of being able to reinvent oneself again and again.

The joy of inspiration, adapting ideas, finding out who we are or who we want to be instead. Fashion is a tool to play with that. It may be a weapon it may be a shelter. It may go crazy, be conservative, out of order, out of place, en vogue, a mass hysteria, abhorrent, or beautifully appealing.

But one thing is certain: behind fashion there always are personalities and sparkling minds. Therefore it will never get boring.

And therefore I will keep on writing over here for another year. Let’s see what I’ll have to say next year at this time when I have the feeling everything is repeating itself. Or maybe it won’t, I don’t know and I don’t wanna know until then.

XX Sofia

 

5 Days in Stockholm

Stockholm did already have my heart the last three times I visited this city. I couldn’t be happier to have visited this city for the fourth time now. As it was a trip with choir and orchestra in order to give a concert in the end of the week, we had several rehearsals and Mozart melodies in our heads when walking through the city.

I stayed with the kindest host family and felt the luckiest to have met the wonderful Frida and her lovely friends. With them I had the best food on a rooftop in hip Södermalm. She is an amazing photographer and she showed me wonderful places in the city such as the café pom & flora

Make sure to have a look at Frida’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/fr.idah she seriously makes such wonderful photos, it was an honor to stay in front of her camera.

We had the best weather we could have wished for. I felt blessed walking through Stockholms sunny streets, especially in Gamla Stan and Kungsholm.

We did also take a ferry, which was absolutely wonderful!

Another highlight was the Fotografiska, it seriously is the best photography museum I have ever seen. It was the second time visiting it and certainly I didn’t regret it!

Can’t wait to visit Stockholm for the fifth time soon!

XX Sofia

featuring my lovely friend Hannah

Reality in motion//Outfits

Lately I’ve seen things and places which looked like they originated in somebody’s dream.

The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken were one of them. I walked into them with bright eyes opened seeing flowers and plants everywhere around me.

Currently bright as well as pastel colors are leading my fashion palette. Whatever you do and wherever you go nobody knows where your personal tunnel is going to end.

Open your windows let the warm breeze in and loose your sight into the clouds in the blue sky.

Have a seat, chatter with inspiring individuals or just observe other people reading the newspaper on their own in a café…

At the end of the day your mind will be filled with new images.

Sometimes life is a beautiful dream, the only difference is that you are awake. Wherever you go, absorb the atmosphere of your surroundings with true curiosity, you’ll be always richer later on.

XX Sofia

Traveling Brussels, Antwerpen and Leiden

You know how I feel

It’s here again, that divine energy the sun brings you when it decides to shine long and bright for a week (!) in Northern Germany. Everything seems lighter, brighter and a little bit easier, even my finals. I can’t deny anymore that I’m in the middle of the process of being seriously responsible for my future actions and with them my future life. I look at myself in the mirror and to be honest I don’t see that much of a difference comparing to the little girl I used to be.

I guess I’m in the middle of my very own coming of age movie, I’m still figuring out the soundtrack. But I’m sure that I want as many bright pastel colors in it as possible.

And art, much art until I’m very, very old.

XX Sofia

Porto

48 hours in Porto – enough time to fall in love with this city. It’s my first time in Portugal and I’m seriously impressed by wonderful facades, trams, kind people, bookstores and delicious pasteis de nata… The more I travel, especially in Europe, the more I feel how every single city, it does not matter if big or small, has its very own charms and is worth a visit. I love how my mind gets refreshed and inspired every time I visit a new place. I am looking forward to more trips in Portugal!

But now back to Porto. As I said, the facades and the architecture in general were amazing. I mean, look at them!

I visited this incredible library, where J.K. Rowling spent a lot of time in. The wooden stairs were insane and also my grandparents loved everything about that place.

There was also some time for cute shops filled with vintage stuff!

Seeing the city through the windows of an old tram was pretty cool too. I felt like I traveled back in time. The daydreaming old man might have thought the same…

A piano played the whole time while I was enjoying coffee and the best nata ever in the famous Majestic Cafe. I totally recommend this place and I guess my grandpa would too.

Not to forget: The central station…

…my outfit…

…wonderful bookstores…

…and the evening by the river.

I guess anywhere people live and call a city their home, you’ll find beauty.

XX Sofia

Mirror

Every time I pass by a mirror or something similar that somehow allows me to see a reflection, I can’t help but look very critically at myself. Do my clothes, my hair or anything I consider part of my looks that day look more or less the way I expected? I’m not paranormal, I see so many people doing this every day. But why? I think we forget so often that reflections do not always show how we really look. Your presence, the whole impression you give being there is not a picture, it’s a feeling, an emotion. Of course you see yourself and others do too, but it’s also a feeling you awake with your presence. So remember your reflection is not the whole you, it doesn’t represent all of you.

That being said, last Saturday I’ve been casually walking through Hamburg with a mirror I found at the flea market. The occasion was too tempting to not take some photos…

Have a good week!

XX Sofia