This time last week ...

This always happens to me.

The week after a thoroughly enjoyed holiday, I find myself reminiscing on what I would have done "this time last week...".  As I was getting ready for dinner with friends last night, I kept thinking that "this time last week ..." I was getting ready to go watch Editors play live while I was in Krakow.  Don't you sometimes wish you had a time-machine to go back to those moments you enjoyed most, you felt most alive?



Alas, since a time-machine is nowhere to be had at this time of the day, I'll just re-live some of the moments from my trip to Krakow through this post.  I've already told you about my shopping spree here, but there was more to it than just shopping.  Krakow is such a rich city, on so many levels ... an of course, emotionally it means the world to me (well, one person in particular who's living there does anyway *wink*).

Since this time I had quite some time to just roam around at will, I kept a look out to quirks which I love so much about this city ... like this little doggie-door stopper ... oh, and of course, due to my obsession with patterned tiles, it was quite obvious I'd find this pretty much up my stream!

Something else which I thoroughly enjoyed was visiting the Erwin Wurm Good Boy exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow (MOCAK): you know me by now, and what a sucker I am for the glorification of the mundane.  This was certainly a window into that.  And this time, I also managed to get a good glimpse of the MOCAK permanent collection, the piece striking me most being a re-working of the Auschwitz "welcome" sign to say "Art sets you Free".

Being away from the more conservative rock, gave me some time to experiment a bit with this girl-meets-boy look where I tied my paisley Parfois scarf as a man's tie to accessorize my shirt in a different way.  It may not be a ground breaking approach, but it was certainly a fun way of wearing this.

Even though it was rather cold, I layered up and made it a point to wear one of my patterned Zara coats which I got during the sales this summer.  I love how the lining is so delicately ornate while the outer pattern is more contemporary with hints of aztec design.  Oh and I couldn't take off my new Zara plaid scarf ... it even doubled up as a nice blanky on the train ride back from Warsaw which we visited for a day.

We visited Warsaw on 1st November, which we found out is a public holiday in Poland.  This meant that there were hardly any places open! Still, we managed to catch up with some friends over lunch and then visited one of the main cemeteries in Warsaw:  All Souls' Day in Poland is celebrated by hoards of people visiting their relatives who have moved on to a better life. It was very interesting seeing and hearing how this is an occasion / opportunity for families to meet and is considered as important a day as other Catholic feasts.  We ended up our visit with some drinks and snacks in a Frida Kahlo inspired restaurant ... how's that for bringing some of my pleasures together!

Back in Krakow, it was some time for the Crazy Guides guys to take us round in their crazy van, complete with red fur interiors, fluffy dice, and pole. Yep, cos that's the way we roll.

But certainly the highlight of this vacation was being able to spend my birthday with the people who matter most to me: my boyfriend and my parents.  It a pity my brother and his family couldn't be there, but I know well that they were there in spirit.