Cheers to being 25 and fabulous

So during this ridiculously long blogging hiatus (of 2 years.....), I've magically turned 25, the dreaded quarter century age. And if it were not for my FABULOUS friends from all corners of the earth, it probably would have been the most miserable experience of my life. Instead, it was probably the ultimate best month ever.

First of all, World Cup fever has and still is hitting Europe, and I'm loving every minute of it because it gives me YET ANOTHER reason to hit up the pub. I am, however, missing the fact that during the last world cup I was tanning on the beaches of Greece and doing G-bombs on our hotel roof bar -- probably the ultimate best summer of my life. This one however, is coming pretty close!

To kick off, Kyle & Steve FINALLY made it to the capital after months and months of anticipation, and what better way to welcome their arrival than the England v U.S.A. match?! Vineyard for some lunch, a bottle of champers, a bottle of wine, some Gaymers koolaid look alike beers, off to The Bull for one Jaeger Bomb, and back for infinitely more beers and some football!

[ The wonky idiots at it again ]

[ The Vineyard ]

Monday kicks off French dinner Mondays (for three weeks in a row) at the LOVELY Coq d'Argent in the city. Proper banker Kyle, proper wanker Steve.

Delicious three course meal, A.Ma.Zing ridiculous banter... "we should do this everyday!" My favourite kind of flash is slow synchro flash.

I'm pretty sure we were the funnest table in there.

Cheers to celebrating Dana's birthday, Stef's birthday, out of town visitors, being fabulous... ohhh, and..life?! When is our life NOT a celebration? Come on now...

So much of a celebration that Dana wanted to get hammered on a Monday ...

[ Dana & I - I don't think I see enough of her...]

[ Steve, the proper wanker ]

[ View of the City from Coq d'Argent]

Clearly, having Kyle in town for a week meant three things.

1) St. Pauls up the wazoo

2) Members Room like there's no tomorrow.

3) Blurb

I got to experience Kyle full out on Tuesday. Members room for Blurb book sharing hour, photoshoot from the outside deck, AND evensong at St. Paul's... and the cherry on top? Getting plastered at the C&B in Paternoster Square.

[ Blurb book sharing hour with the most fabulous building in the back ]

The best part of the week though? Definitely would have to be Royal Ascot, Ladies Day, in the Royal Enclosure.

10am and we meet at Waterloo station, champers (all like 7 bottles of it) in hand, me and Dana have enough medicine and toiletries to climb Mt. Everest, and we are off to get hammered for the day. Literally. Pics are pretty self explanatory, especially Dana's nap and the fact that we didn't recognise 90% of the pics after they were taken. PLUS, we didn't win any money. Well Dana and I didn't. The boys did.

[ The boys. Who had to take care of Dana and I. Massively. Thanks lovelies. ]

[ Holman waiting for his mum to pick him up after a day of school in Eton. Precious. ]

[ Would you rather saw off your own leg, or never see the queen again? ]

I have no idea this was possible, but after a 14 hour drink and fun fest, I went to work, then met up with everyone @ Anexo for Dana's birthday drinks.. Happy 25th Daners. HTXL defined to the max.

So of course, our Wenlock Arms /Zoo Bar Saturday plans got scrapped, partially because Dana was being a bummer (and ridiculously hungover, not suprisingly) who didn't want to come out on Saturday but suggested Zoo Bar on a Sunday. (!??!) So we decided to play it low key at the 19th top ranked Time Out London pub (or something like that) -- Charles Lamb, with none other than Jarmon's cousin, Elizabeth -- the original teller of the Pipo story.

[ Rapunzel yelling at Kyle from my bedroom window haha! ]

[ Kyle & Elizabeth ]

Sunday Primrose Hill -- gorgeous views of Regents Park and of London, pictures honestly do not do this place justice, it's definitely something you have to experience for yourself. Probably one of the funnest banter sessions I've had recently, maybe even ever. If I haven't said it before, I have the world's wonkiest most spontaneous ridiculous hilarious posh friends and I'm loving every minute of it!!

And on the actual day of my 25th Birthday...

I just can't express enough how much I love how all my crazy friends!!

Dinner @ Le Mercury, the old, the new, the roommates. Best birthday ever!

And of course in true S.Zed fashion, birthday celebrations don't end the night of your b-day, even if you've had too much wine, tequila, BVC's and are dying the next day... which paid off, because I got to see VENUS & SERENA WILLIAMS play COURTSIDE at Wimbledon!!!

[ I think this was only the second day of Wimbledon, and there was already a massive tent queue for the finals or whatever specific match they are trying to get into. ]

Still not the end of my birthmonth celebration, more events to come in a later post! 

xx

S(LOVE)nia.

Ljubjana - typical Eastern European city

Park in Ljubjana

Lake Bled - one of my fav places in the world

Lake Bled

Lake Bled

Catch-Up Time

I officially suck at this, but I really will try to catch up. Just had THE most ridiculous month of my life, also happened to turn 25 -- YIKES.

I realise I haven't even blogged about ANY of the trips I have done this year, so I will need to catch up on that. And by catch up, I mean merely through photos!

Until next time!

xx

Obsessions.

Okay so I literally have been going through an OBSESSIVE phase of shopping online - nothing new - I realise that.

But, there is going to be SO much going on in the next few months, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's Rock Night, the London Marathon (which I am not partaking in but it will be a good time), Cambridge Oxford Boat Race, London Burlesque Week, Sean & Kathleen coming to visit, Ascot Moss Day, London Wasps Rugby game, and most importantly ..... ROYAL ASCOT!!

.. which is what I have been obsessed with shopping for a dress for!! Plus, Kyle has been freaking me out, telling me that I shouldn't get a dress from Ted Baker or Reiss or French Connection because everybody and their mother is going to have it -- especially at Ladies Day, and you don't want people in the Royal Enclosure (where we'll be) to stare are you like they want to murder you.

To complicate matters (because nothing is ever simple), the dress code is as follows:
- no strapless dresses
- no spaghetti strap dresses
- no halter dresses

Okay, so originally, my idea was to purchase a white, classy, v-neck to the knee dress -- similar to this below:

(Reiss, but in white)

Paired with these shoes from Barratts

And an obnoxious hat like the one here:

Well, thanks for the dress code (and the fact that I want the PERFECT outfit), the one shoulder dresses which are all over the place this season are probably a no-go, until I came across this on the J. Crew website. Intriguing!

As for other options, here are a few, but I feel like I've been browsing the internet so much I'm blind to what's cute and what's not!

Adrianna Papell

Eliza J

Taylor

Donna Rico

So if anyone has any comments, or dress suggestions, please send them my way :)

Scrapbooker.

So it's been a while since I've written in here, and although I am once again back in London and once again travelling (albeit not as frequently - Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Cinque Terre done and Scotland, Morocco, Wales and Shanghai in the works) - my main project now is something called Project 365 - taking 1 photo a day, everyday. I started this on January 2010 and hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a collection of things to remind me of the crazy, the normal and the pretty days of London (and any other country I happen to be in). The pictures will then be printed in a book with the title:

twenty ten
1 camera (hopefully, assuming I don't drop this one down a set of cement stairs like I did the last one)
10 countries (maybe more?)
32 people (based on the number of people I tag in these pictures)
365 pictures.
one year.

I guess I could also post each days pictures here (I'd be about 50 days behind already though) .. and that would be really be doubling up so if you want to see some interesting daily photos - check them out on my Facebook!

Each days photo w/ the caption (which I'll admit, I make pretty descriptive and lengthy so they almost double as a mini journal entry for each days happenings) will be compiled into a book that will be my SECOND Blurb book to date.

Which leads me to my other project I am currently working on....


...to finally finish and get printed is my FIRST 440 page Blurb coffee table book. I'm having real difficulty actually submitting it and coming to terms with a FINAL draft because I want to make sure it is absolutely something I am IN LOVE with before getting it in hard copy.

For your viewing pleasure, here are a few of the pages screen shotted out. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated, but don't make it too different -- I would hate to have to go back now and reformat 440 pages of photos and text due to an amazing suggestion. ;)

Enjoy!

I promise I'll update again this week as there has been tons of random cool things happening