August 2016

Popping out…

19 weeks, going into the 20th and my belly just popped out. I mean not really all of a sudden popped out, but it is starting to look more like a pregnant belly rather than a fat belly. No, the baby did not kick yet – everybody keeps asking me that, but my energy levels are higher than ever. Because of the lovely round belly that I am sporting there days, I worked-up the courage to wear something skin tight yesterday and I felt great. I have to admit that the fact that D keeps telling me how lovely my new curves (fat) are, does help a lot, so there you have it, all you future dads, that’s the best free advice ever.

Obviously two days ago we did not manage to find the dry time to take some photos but we did manage to do it yesterday and we made a few gifs as well. I confess that it started to rain a bit when we got to the park, but I really wanted to take these shots in this dress as I felt lovely in it. I really hope that we will have the time and energy to take as many photos of this period as it is said that this is the best time of the pregnancy. With this being the best time of the pregnancy, all we do is take advantage of the high mobility and energy levels to look for baby stuff.

On me:

Dress – Bershka; Shoes – Converse; Bag – Michael Kors; Bling – Tomorrowland and Pandora; Watch – Tissot

Back to yesterday’s outfits… I wore this lovely skin tight dress from Bershka and I am honestly considering buying a few similar models for autumn/winter as well as I have a feeling that this is going to be my uniform until the last trimester. It just feels very, very comfortable and I love that fact that there is nothing pressing my belly. I do not even want to think about pants during this period, and as I said, I want to postpone the maternity clothes as much as possible, or at least until I really have to go a size up. I feel that all the clothes that I bought this summer will still be perfect for me for many years to come after the pregnancy as they are my normal size and have the cut that I love most. I paired the dress with my ZARA vest and, as a matter of fact, the vest was the one that gave me the confidence to leave the house in this skin tight outfit. I have a feeling that the next few months are going to be all about layering for me.

On D:

T-shirt – H&M; Shorts – Mango; Shoes – Converse x John Varvatos; Bling – Fossil; Watch – Casio Red Bull Edifice

As you’ve noticed, the colour of choice was grey because a)we haven’t done a grey photoshoot in a while and b)I already had the grey dress from last year (yes, it does look better on a flat tummy, but I was surprised I could still get into it). We both chose to wear Converse shoes, even though they were different – I wore the new grey knit with a very comfortable sole, while D wore his very trendy Converse x John Varvatos sneaks. I also accessorised the outfit with my white bag from Michael Kors and the fact that it’s still the same white bag is a clear indication that I haven’t found a better one.

D wore his Mango man light blue shorts, because, surprisingly he doesn’t have a grey or black pair – we need to address that issue right away – and paired it with a print grey t-shirt form H&M that he bought last year. Accessories-wise we both kept it to a minimum, he only wore his Fossil bracelet, while I proudly wore my watch-ring that I got from the diamond museum in Amsterdam 4 or 5 years ago, naturally alongside my Tomorrowland and Pandora rings. We decided to not match out watches so I went for my white Tissot T-Race while D wore his Casio Edifice Red Bull Racing Edition. That is about it for the outfits.

I really do hope we will have time today to have another good photoshoot and to be honest I hope the weather will cooperate as it has been rather hectic these days, going from 20 degrees to 30 degrees in a matter of hours.

August 31, 2016

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Right before the storm!

I mean right before the storm! The storm last night…literally, the last photo we took coincided with the first drop of rain, that was not actually a drop but rather a puddle of water on our heads. Hence the lack of gifs in this post. Maybe we’ll get luckier today, as I plan to get back on track with the photos mainly because it has dawned on me that I need as many photos of this period because quite honestly, this is the best time I’ve had so far in my life. I mean, despite the adding kilos and the occasional discomforts (more on that in a later post), this has got to be the best I have ever felt about myself and the happiest I have ever been in my life mainly because I have the greatest human being beside me that makes me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

On top of all that sentimentalism, right now we are in full remodelling mode, not completely remodelling our apartment, rather on the redecorating side, but none-the-less, this is something that I love. I loved it when we did our seaside apartment (maybe we’ll do a post on that) and right now it feels even better as we are preparing for the little human being that will be joining us for a big chunk of our lives. That’s not to say that: a) the house is going to be either pink or blue, or b) every corner will be baby-proofed. Not by far, most of the redecorating will be about us trying to give our apartment a new feel, one that marks the next episode of our lives, by only tweaking a few things here and there.

On me:

Dress – Mango; Shoes – DOGO; Clutch – DOGO; Bling – Pandora and Tomorrowland; Watch – Daniel Wellington

Back to yesterday’s photoshoot. I just love the way pics look with a very cloudy sky and I really did not want to miss yesterday’s pre-storm clouds. Do not get me wrong, I just hate cloudy days, those grey cloudy autumn days are just the worst, but the clouds right before a summer storm are amazing. We decided to test our luck and we managed to do a full shoot before the storm started. We even had some strong wind which made it a bit difficult, but the result is lovely. Besides all the turquoise accents, or rather, theme, I really want to point your attention to my DOGO fun shoes and clutch. Did I mention that we are redecorating? Actually we started and managed to finish the dressing room… I know, priorities… But in the process I rediscovered a lot of long-lost but very loved items, true, many of them got binned, but not these two pieces from DOGO that I got a few years ago, but then totally forgot about them. You can find lots of similar fun items online. The dress is from Mango, this is not from the bundle of long-lost items, I got it this year for 7 E and naturally, you can not find the exact colour online anymore but I’ve linked an alternative. I barely worn any accessories because we were in a big hurry to manage to snap some photos before all hell broke loose, so I only wore my Tomorrowland and Pandora rings.

On D:

Shorts – H&M; T-shirt – Mango; Shoes – Paez; Bling – Fossil; Watch – Daniel Wellington

D was nice as always and followed my lead when it came to choosing the colour theme. He decided on his shorts from H&M (did you miss them????) and paired them with his beige t-shirt from Mango. He was most excited about yesterday’s outfit because he got to wear his second pair of Paez shoes and apparently the shoe-craze is starting to rub off on him as well, so our kid has to be a shoe lover. For sure!!!! Because we were in a hurry, he ended up wearing his Fossil bracelet and in some of the photos he ended up accessorising with my clutch as well. We both decided to wear our Daniel Wellington watches, but unfortunately, we totally forgot about changing the nato straps to match our outfits.

I seriously do hope that we will be able to have a full photoshoot today as well, but looking out the window, that might not be possible as the sky is steel grey since this morning and a few afternoon showers are announced. We’ll see… And you will see tomorrow if we managed to snap some shots or not!

August 29, 2016

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Integra

Despite the fact that our seaside season is over thanks to all of the rearrangements we have to do in our house to make sure it is ready to welcome our little bundle of joy, we haven’t left there without having a great lunch at one of the first places we tried out in Constanta: Integra. This place was recommended to us by one of my best friends and the thing I loved about it even before arriving there is the fact that they have a raw-vegan menu packed full of delicious dishes. Naturally throughout the years I have tried most of the raw menu and I have to say, that thanks to this place my mind was changed when it came to the raw-vegan cuisine.

I do not think we ever went to the seaside once without having a meal at this lovely place. True, it does have the location advantage, meaning that it is at about a 10 minute walk away from our place there. At first glance, the place looks very nice and the interior design is a nice combo of fresh plants and lovely marble which immediately make you want to take a seat. The menu has about everything you could ever crave, somewhat of an international cuisine with a little turkish mix of dishes. And then, of course, there is the raw-vegan menu, where you literally can find everything from appetisers, soups, pasta, pizza, desserts and even a few amazing fresh cocktails.

Back to our last experience there…unfortunately, we couldn’t take as many inside pictures as we would’ve liked as the place was quite full at the time we were there and there’s always that uncomfortable feeling when you take pics of total strangers, but you can find quite a lot of photos on their site. Normally, this is the place we choose for our before the road lunch or brunch, depending on how early we wake up. This time it was definitely lunch time and because we knew we had next to nothing in our fridge at home, we decided on a full lunch: soup, main dish and a shared a raw dessert. As usual when we eat there, we start off with one of their amazing fresh raw juices, this time choosing Green energy and Fountain of Youth. These two cocktails are amazing and very healthy especially after a busy night at the seaside. Like I said, we both ate a soup, I went for my usual tomato soup which is a must-try and D chose the lentil soup which turned out to be better that I expected. As main courses I needed something savoury and light so I went for the oven cooked feta cheese with tomatoes and onion that was absolutely delicious. D chose the beef Iskender that besides looking amazing it tasted like heaven, and that, coming from me during this period where meat is the last thing that I crave, is something! As for dessert we chose to share the Rainbow Tart from the raw-vegan menu. As with all their raw-vegan dishes, this was delicious!

Despite the restaurant being full, the food came decently quick and the staff was very friendly and professional. This place is not among the cheapest nor among the most expensive, our three-course lunch cost us about 40 E tip included which is really good for Constanta, especially since the food is so amazing. We will definitely come back here as often as we will come to Constanta!

August 28, 2016

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Seaside season is officially over…for us…

…But that is not the topic of today’s post! No, today we are going to talk a bit about the new and very popular hashtag: #mermaidthigs as opposed to the former #thighgap. Now I am not going to talk about body shaming or anything, but rather about my experience going from one # to the other in the course of a few months. This is somewhat natural and beautiful, especially if the making of a new life is involved. While last year I was happily sporting a thigh gap thanks to healthy eating and almost daily gym sessions, the past few months have thought me that pregnancy is not easy on the said thighs therefore I find myself at the point where I can barely see a thigh gap and am slowly but surely coveting to the new mermaid thighs trend. No, this is not due to unhealthy eating, this is my body’s natural response to the hormonal battle that takes place inside me and to the fact that I am eating a bit more nowadays (about 300-400 kcals more a day).

The first batch of photos is from last summer, roughly about the same period as the second and third batches of photos. After I will give birth, I will use these photos and this post to motivate myself into getting back in shape until the summer of 2017. No, that does not mean that I will diet like a crazy person, but it does mean that I will try and go to the gym as often as a newborn baby will allow me.

The second batch of photos is from almost a month ago, when I was 14-15 weeks pregnant. This is the period where I think I felt the worst about my body image, as, honestly, I felt like a whale, but that was mostly due to the transition period from the first trimester to the second.

This third batch of photos was taken this week, during my 18th week of pregnancy, and even though I look bigger that I used to a few weeks ago, I must confess that I feel a lot better about myself and I think that is due to the fact that my hormones are at a better stage now, in the second trimester. This is the point where I noticed the lack of thigh gap and the transition to mermaid thighs. During this time I chose to wear one-piece swimsuits as that seemed to work best with my not yet fully rounded belly.

All in all, I can’t really say that I do not feel good in my skin, true, I felt a lot better last year, but I am well aware that I have to come to terms with the way my body carries a pregnancy as there is nothing I can do about it and stressing over it will not help. The swimsuit season is officially over for us, not necessarily because of the weather, but rather because in a week we will start redecorating our house. We will keep you updated on that as well.

August 26, 2016August 26, 2016

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The first three months in pictures…

As promised, we have put together a post with some photos we took from our first trimester of pregnancy. Also, the beautiful personalised mason jar in the featured photo is from a gift from our lovely friends at Atelier Funky Fresh. Check them out! They can do basically anything you like in terms of decorative personalised pieces!

First Month

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Second Month

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Third Month

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L. & D.

August 25, 2016

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Bringing back memories…

The memories I am talking about here are from the night D and I first kissed… Nope, we are not celebrating anything, other than each other every single day, it’s the DRESS! This is the dress I was wearing that night, so yes, this is old, and yes again, no chance of finding it online – but I found something similar. I have no idea if I should be happy or sad that it still fits me exactly the same, despite being a week short from entering the fifth month of pregnancy. I do have to admit that I am quite proud that I was not forced to buy any new clothes until now, well not for the pregnancy, anyway, and I haven’t yet changed clothing sizes, but this dress fits me all too well around the belly and, even though I know that I was a bit fatter back then, I still can’t explain this.

While I was looking in my closet that morning and decided to wear this dress, I admit that I was a bit scared that it will either be too small or it will be a bit to tight to wear for an entire afternoon. You can imagine my surprise when I realised that it fitted me just right. I do not mean to sound annoying, as I do realise that from this point on I should really start gaining weigh, but you have to believe me when I tell you that most of the time I feel so overweight and huge – but more on that in the following pregnancy post – and it is a sort of personal victory when I realise that my old clothes still fit me right. Anyway, being all excited that this dress fits me just right I went from there and decided on the colour theme: blue and yellow.

On me:

Dress – KOTON; Shoes – Christian Louboutin; Bag – Michael Kors; Bling – Swarovski, Tomorrowland and Pandora; Sunglasses – Dior; Watch – Longines

Yes, I know that I mentioned a few (to say the least) times that this is one of my favourite combos and I am sure you are a bit tired of this combo judging by the amount of fashion posts we’ve had wearing these two colours so far, but I can’t really help it! Right, so, the ancient dress is from KOTON and what really drew me to it back then and makes me come back to it nowadays is the intense colour and the cut. I just love this cut, it makes me feel like a princess, like I’m 6 all over again when my mother used to dress me up like a living doll. I guess all that is due to the big bow at the back and the bare shoulders, two things I absolutely love about any dress. Or at least I used to love when I was still going to the gym and had a nice pair of shoulders.

On D:

T-shirt – Hugo Boss; Pants – ZARA; Shoes – Mango; Bling – Fossil; Watch – Longines

As with most of my outfits, I paired the rather cheap dress with a pair of fabulous yellow Pigalles by Christian Louboutin and a gold bag by Michael Kors. I have to admit that I wasn’t sure that I will make it the entire afternoon wearing 100 mm heels, but my Loubs did not disappoint me and 6 hours later I was still feeling great wearing them. Being an afternoon event, I wore my Dior sunglasses, because I have to take advantage of the last rays of sun as autumn will soon be here. I also wore two bangles from Swarovski and my rings from Pandora and Tomorrowland.

D really enjoys this colour scheme so he went along happily. As a matter of fact, I think that he is to blame for it entirely as a day before he informed me that he would like to wear his new T-shirt from Hugo Boss that I just got him and a pair of Zara pants (he let me choose which ones, but he only has them in different shades of blue). Knowing how much he loves this combo I honestly think that it’s because of him that we ended up wearing what we did. He also wore his Mango espadrilles because they were yellow and his omnipresent Fossil bracelet. We both decided on wearing out Longines watches mainly because of the dark blue dial.

I have to say that the afternoon was a lot of fun and in some ways a learning experience for us as we went to a little girl’s birthday celebration. Wearing the dress again and seeing that it still fits me really tamed down the ‘fat demons’ for a while and brought back some cherished memories for both of us.

August 23, 2016

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Potato cravings…

Continuing the ‘Cravings’ series during my pregnancy. Like I said in a previous restaurant post, I am currently craving potatoes in any form possible – I do prefer them fried but I am way too lazy to do them myself. It is weird, as I normally do not like potatoes very much, I do love the sweet type, but not plain potatoes, but hey, what can I do? To all those wondering out there, I am gaining fat in a normal and steady pace that is healthy for our baby, and yes, once I end this pregnancy period it will be my goal to get in better shape than I used to be before the bundle of joy decided to enter our lives.

Back to the potato cravings… I really wanted something similar with french fries, but I hate eating unhealthy, especially now, so I decided to try and cook them in the oven with as little oil as possible, and judging by the Jawbone score, these are probably the healthiest and closest to french fries I will ever get at home.

Here’s what we used:

10 small potatoes
1 sweet red pepper
2 small pots of greek yoghurt (we like the buffalo type as it is supposed to be healthier)
50 gr of grated parmesan
1 cup of grated low-fat mozzarella
15 gr of fresh dill
15 gr of fresh chives
10 gr of fresh thyme
3 garlic heads
1/2 teaspoon of hot chilly powder
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of soya sauce
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
1 teaspoon of BBQ seasoning

The way this dinner is made is quite easy and it takes you less than 40 minutes – photoshoot included – to complete it. The steps are very simple:

Arrange all the ingredients and take photos of them
Wash the potatoes and cut them into medium sized pieces – yes, we did not remove the skin!
Dice the sweet red pepper as little as you can
Finely chop all the greens and mince the garlic
Take some more photos!
In a big bowl put the olive oil, the soya sauce, the chilly powder, the BBQ seasoning, the diced sweet red pepper,the parmesan, all of the thyme, half of the chives, one third of the garlic and the sesame oil and mix them all together really well
Put the potatoes in and make sure they are well covered in the resulted seasoning sauce
Pour them on a tray, sprinkle some parmesan over them and into the heated oven the go (we heated the oven at max) for about 30 minutes – you should start tasting them after about 20 minutes
In a bowl, mix the greek yoghurt with the remaining chives, dill and garlic and there you have it – the perfect dip!
Arrange everything as nicely as possible on a plate, put a decent amount of mozzarella cheese on top of them and enjoy after taking some more photos!

I can’t even begin to tell you how delicious this dinner was! This is definitely a very comfortable way of cooking potatoes for those people that are afraid to cook with hot oil – it seriously attacked me every time I attempted using it! My Jawbone app deems it as ok health-wise, so this dinner will occur more often during my pregnancy! Just remember that the data shown is for four servings so do the math accordingly!

August 22, 2016

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The first three months…

As you’ve probably noticed our posts tend to be in sets of threes lately and that is purely coincidental with the fact that soon there will be three of us posting here. No, in fact it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with the fact that we have been gone a lot lately, our house is a mess as we are doing a bit of redecorating/ baby-proofing and my constant tiredness. Taking each of these into consideration you’ll have to excuse my lack of daily posts and I promise that as soon as I can I will be back on track.

Back on the topic of today’s post subject: the first trimester of pregnancy. This is solely my experience and so far I have come to the conclusion that everyone experiments this time totally different, but here it goes… For the first five weeks we were’t even been aware of the miracle that started to form inside me, no sickness, not much actually, except for a feeling of constant lack of energy which, beside a few painful episodes and my period being late, have convinced us that it was time for a medical check -up. You’ve read all about the very emotional news we got at the doctors’ in this post here, so I will just skip the first five weeks altogether as I feel that most women do not really acknowledge the pregnancy until later on.

For me, the first three months have been bliss, especially if I compare my experience with some other women’s first trimester. I did not get any sickness at all, morning or otherwise so that helped me function a bit better throughout the whole period. I did however experience episodes of extreme sleepiness to the point that I wasn’t able to drive anywhere. As a matter of fact, this has only changed well into my forth month, but it did get better in time. Nor did I experience any weird cravings, but I did feel the need to eat a bit more (bout 300-400 kcals extra), but luckily, I mostly craved vegetables and fruits. I’ve noticed that meat, in any form makes me sick, and I do not mean sick as in throw up, but sick as in it did not feel right for my digestive system (but I suffer from this for a few years now – so no surprise there). Therefore, if you ask me, my weight gain has been constant and I have gained 1 kg per month and it still goes at that rate right now.

I was very aware of the fact that the first trimester is full of risks so I did try and not overdo it, but despite that, sometime in my 9th week I experienced a bit of bleeding and this is where I think that all future moms should be very careful! When I looked it up online, dr. Google kept telling me that it was normal, but when I called my doctor he immediately gave me hormones and it’s good that he did as a week later, at the ultrasound we discovered a small hematoma near the baby that healed nicely thanks to the hormones, but if not treated properly, it could’ve cause us to loose the pregnancy! So there you have it: my relationship with dr. Google is finished forever! All future moms should stay clear of looking for medical stuff online! I took the nasty hormones for almost two weeks and I have to say that that was the period when I actually felt the worst, not physically, but emotionally. Those hormones made me feel horrible, either having a rage attack (luckily most of the times I was by myself) or being emotional af (which really sucked BIG!). Once I was done with them, my old self started to resurface and I was yet again being the happiest person alive!

Another annoying first trimester symptom was the constant bloating and feeling full. This is super uncomfortable because you feel and look like you are in your fifth month when in fact you barely past your second, and you have this constant feeling that it is because of all the food you are eating, when, in fact, there is not much extra food you are actually eating during this time. Also, because of the horrible bloat, not many clothes fit or look right and that tends to be a big blow to the morale of a pregnant woman that already is hormonal and emotional most of the time. I was very lucky because of my entire work arrangement. I have no idea if I’ve told you by now, but I work with and for my parents which left room to a big advantage right when I needed it most: I got to stay at home from the second month because of the fact that I was longer able to drive to work thanks to the constant sleepiness. This was a great gift especially during the bloated days, and no, I did not get bored at home, I loved every minute of sleeping during the day! Hey, I’m an only child, I never get bored of myself!

Despite me feeling amazing on the inside, my exterior looks had take an beating! I mean, maybe there is such a thing as a pregnancy glow, but all I got were greasy patches on my face, quite a few pimples that made me change my beauty routine and my thighs have become the paradise of cellulite. These are all symptoms of the hormonal changes happening in my body and can be reversed for the most part once I am ok after giving birth. I call all these changes the living proof that something amazing is happening inside my belly and I try as much as I can to either ignore them (I have become rather good at it) or embrace them. My beauty routine has switched from SEPHORA to the Pharmacy (more details in a Pregnancy Beauty post) and as for my cellulite, I try as good as I can to hide it either with clothes, a big SMILE (it takes everyone’s attention off it) or with the perfect non-toxic self tan from Vita Liberata (review here). To be honest, the best recipe is the self tanner!

The thing that most definitely contributed to my cellulite reserves, besides the hormones, is the fact that my doctor forbade me to go to the gym for the entire period of the pregnancy. He did allow me to go swimming, but since I am afraid of the water, all I am really doing, exercise wise, is to take a few long walks per week and right now to go through all my clothes and shoes in order to re-arrange the dressing room – the first steps to overhauling our house. This was a blow at the beginning, but since it is for my own good, I embraced it and I will use this as motivation for my post-baby body. All in all, I do understand where my doctor is coming from and I will never take any chances where my pregnancy is concerned. Aside from that, there is nothing that he forbade me to do, so I guess I am very lucky so far.

I did have a lot of medical investigations to make in the first trimester, most of them were blood investigations, and I did manage to pass them nicely. The first morphologic ultrasound was very good, and as a matter of fact the baby is a few days ahead than what we thought, possibly due to the fact that I have been relaxing and taking good care of my diet. We did travel a lot during the first trimester (Madrid – even though we were not aware at the time, Milan, Paris, Cluj, to the seaside a couple of times), and no, there were no problems because of that, as a matter of fact it feels nice to know that our bundle of joy was with us everywhere and that there were no incidents during or after the time. In fact, I think that the baby actually enjoyed all these short trips!

All in all, I can honestly say that this is the best period of my life! Do not get me wrong, 90% of the blame is on D as he has been the most amazing and perfect father-to-be! I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better husband and partner during this time. I am convinced that the fact that I have been feeling so great during this time is thanks to him and all his efforts! He understands me like no other, he doesn’t let me do anything in the house, all he lets me lift is a small bottle of water, he is there no matter what I need. This is really important during this period as thanks to him my spirits have been sky high!

We decided not to have one of those growing belly photoshoots that tracks how huge I am getting every month, but we do try and take as many pictures of ourselves throughout this period as I think that both of us will suffer some physical changes for the better. I will soon post a slideshow of photos from the first trimester to let you see how we have evolved during the time.

August 21, 2016August 21, 2016

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JOBEN

This is the last post from Cluj for this year and it obviously involves food. The fact that this was the last place reviewed by us is intentional as I wanted to eat here last year as well but it was too full to be able to get a table. This year, we managed to get one and we excitedly waited for our Joben food. I want to start off by saying that this is the last reviewed place because it was our least favourite restaurant in Cluj and I honestly think that it is a bit overrated. Or maybe we were expecting too much of it, either way, it did not meet our expectations, especially since all our foodie experiences here were simply amazing. It is, however, extraordinarily decorated and it deserves a visit just for that, and if you are ok with eating ok-ish food.

It is clear right from the entrance that someone very talented and passionate about steampunk decorated this place with all sorts of very specific paraphernalia. This actually helps a lot when you have to wait for your food for more than an hour, because you have all these amazing little gizmos to look at, and I have to say that we did not get bored one bit. The staff is also very friendly, but the place is a bit understaffed as it only had two waitresses for the entire restaurant area. Both of them were very nice and they struggled to satisfy every single one of the customers, but at some point, they messed up my lemonade simply because the place was full of people and mix-ups are bound to happen.

On to the food… At first glance, even from last year, I knew there were quite a lot of things I wanted to try and after much pondering I settled for the White Chicks – even the names of the dishes are really funny – which are essentially crispy chicken strips, served with french fries and apple jam. D opted for ribs, naturally, but we both decided to start our lunch with a plate of Spicy Fried Pickles as that got both of our attention early on in the menu. The appetisers were extremely interesting and good which basically made us really anxious for out main dishes.My chicken was very good, but there was absolutely nothing special about it, maybe except for the fact that I had to dip it in jam. The fries were homemade, so that was a big plus but I did feel the need for a more spicy and tasty dip for them. D‘s ribs were ok, and you can see from the photos that there was nothing special about them whatsoever. They were plain oven cooked ribs with no special seasoning or anything. His potato chips were very good though, but again, they seriously needed some sort of dip. We did not want to wait to get dessert as that would’ve meant another hour of waiting as we did not order it from the get-go, so no sweet photos here.

To be honest, aside from the interior design and the fact that they had a Pokestop, there was nothing special about the place, nothing that will make us come back next year. It was even worst as they did not seem to have any air conditioning, which during the summer makes eating there nearly impossible. I did hear that their coffee is great, but neither of us had any as we were both on our way back for another nap. The check came at about 30E which is ok, but we did leave there feeling very disappointed of the place. Maybe had there not been so many people the food would’ve been better, but that is no excuse as most of the places we ate at during the long weekend we spent in Cluj were full and the food was amazing.

August 19, 2016

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This was UNTOLD

Like I said, we only managed to get our camera at the Untold festival on the first day, during the day, because the security guards were afraid that our lenses might be too big and we just might take some unauthorised photos of the festival. Needless to say that they were a bit too focused on the security part to actually acknowledge that our camera, even though it is big, is by no means a professional camera. So the only photos we have of the second edition of the festival are the ones we managed to take on the first day, hence all the almost empty food venders.

On a more positive note, even though we did not think it was possible, this year, the organisers managed to top last years’ festival. I am not talking about the artists as that was quite obvious from March, I am talking about a way better organised festival area. True, there was a lot more security than last year, but then again, a lot has happened in Europe since last year, and despite that, the access was way easier and quicker than last year. Last year, even though we had VIP tickets, there wasn’t a special queue and we had to wait for more than three hours to get our access bracelets, this was not the case this year and we managed to get inside the park in less than 5 minutes which was great for me. Also, this year, the bracelet looked way more exciting and fun even though the closing mechanism was a lot worse than last year.

Moving along from all this nonsense and onto the actual festival. Yet again, once you got in, you had the distinct feeling that all your worries are left outside and you are now into a place of tranquility and magic. That is until the night comes and you are constantly accompanied by amazing music but your worries are still not with you. Seriously, this year the line-up was insane, I mean Tomorrowland-insane, and that got me really pissed-up because it was no way in hell that I was able to make it to all the shows I wanted to see, even worst actually, there were some shows that I couldn’t see until the end because our bundle of joy just wouldn’t let us – read: I needed my rest. I really do hope that next year the line-up will be just as good if not better (there still were a few artists missing – Steve Aoki, Deorro, just to name a few).

This year all the food points and the fun corners seemed to be even more exciting than last year and it was nice to see that some of them we already knew from the first edition of the festival. The fashion corner of the festival was really nicely done, with places where you could try on whatever it was that you heart desired, there were enough drinking spots that you could never get dehydrated, I am telling you, the organisers really deserve a medal. Wait, last year they got the big trophy, the one that actually confirms the fact that this was the greatest festival in Europe. We’ll be definitely cheering for them this year as well.

Another improvement from last year was the sound system. The Vip area really struggled with the quality of the sound last year, but this year it was impeccable, as well as the toilet maintenance from that said area – this is always really important to me, especially this year. The only downside really of the Vip area is that the food was limited this time (Biutiful terrace) and completely absent last year, so I’m thinking that by next year we will get a few food corners to choose from.

All in all, this still is our favourite festival of the year, this year it will be the only one we will attend as my belly is really starting to grow every day more and more and we need to start redecorating and preparing for our new member of the family.