I had the best dream last night

This might sound odd to all of you who haven't known me for that long, but I've had a priest fetish for years. Probably since I was in 9th grade. I was 14 at the time.
I had a priest fetish at 14, which probably means I had and/or have deep-seated mental issues, had a precocious brain or was just a really weird kid. Anyway, it has kept on livin' on pretty strongly in my brain and I believe I can admit now that it has evolved from a fetish and became an actual preference when it comes to men.

Awkward post is awkward. And it will get worse than this, trust me.

Last night I had a dream. We all dream, right? Well, most of us, some people don't dream, even I don't dream all the time when I'm stressed, I heard stress can actually prevent you from dreaming as opposed to giving you nightmares but oh man I'm rambling again I'm sorry. Anyway, I had a dream and it was really cool.


When I was in Tuscany a few weeks ago I stayed in a hotel called Castel Monastero. It was beautiful - an old monastery turned into a hotel. Well I dreamt of this place, but it wasn't all hotel, it was my house. I was actually pretty (HAHA) and living there with my grandparents. Half of the monastery was still a hotel though and there was a chapel that could be used for weddings and people had weddings and baptism ceremonies all the time. I was sort of the manager or something, I don't know, I owned the place so whatever.
And I was pretty.

One day one of the guys that works at the hotel drives into the fort with a priest and says he's staying there for a while, I don't remember the reason but it was work-related. And oh god he was so gorgeous I swear there are no real men like that but he wasn't the typical gorgeous, not model-like in the least but.. he was seriously my type all over. And he was a priest. So I went to greet him and I was all H-Hi I'm Ines welcome , I hope you enjoy your s-stay and he just smiled in a charming but kind of slightly shy way and shook my hand and bowed his head a little and said his name was Will.
Did I mention I was pretty?

So this went on with me showing the guy around the next day and eventually going on a long car ride giving him a glimpse of the nearby towns and the pretty scenery and having lunch and everything and he was really charming and cool but he always seemed a little uncomfortable. And, well, you know me, always the friendly sport, so I told him to relax because I'd rather be his friend than just a hostess and you could tell he was a little more comfortable with the whole thing.

I don't know he was just so perfect oh god I hate my brain this is why I'm single, I dream of this stuff then I can't fall in love with actual REAL people. True story.

Further on he confessed to me he'd been having ~doubts~ because he had decided to be a priest really early and he'd never been with a woman before and he just stared at me and I was all OH LORD WHAT'S HAPPENING

And then we had sex.

Next morning at breakfast with the rest of the staff was really awkward.

This was the best dream I've ever had though. Hats off to my own brain!

Day 1: A self-portrait

Since I don't have a shutter cable for my camera I'll just give you a self-portrait taken with my webcam, a picture my mom took and a picture a friend took of me.

Derpy McDerp. Webcam.

My mother took this one.

My friend took this one with my Pentax K1000 film camera.

It looks like I'm naked but I'm really not. I like it though :)

In other news, I made a tumblr just for written work. I'm working on a story right now and I've written two chapters, which for me is a first. If you would like to read those chapters, click this link.

Photo blog challenge

Going to make an effort to actually do this :)

Day 1: A self-portrait
Day 2: My favourite thing
Day 3: A family member
Day 4: My hobby
Day 5: An old picture
Day 6: “Green”
Day 7: A picture I haven’t shown before
Day 8: A favourite picture
Day 9: Spring
Day 10: Something that makes me happy
Day 11: Something crazy
Day 12: My everyday life
Day 13: “light”
Day 14: Winter
Day 15: Love
Day 16: Self-portrait in black&white
Day 17: A moment
Day 18: Emotions
Day 19: Home
Day 20: “difference”
Day 21: When I was a child
Day 22: My addiction
Day 23: Summer
Day 24: Today
Day 25: In a hurry
Day 26: This makes me laugh
Day 27: “two”
Day 28: Weather
Day 29: A new picture of me
Day 30: Autumn
Day 31: Anything

Factory photoshoot

So before I bring you all the lovely pictures from Italy in a tiny little flickr link, I'll show you what I've been up to the last few days (before going and after coming back).

 

 

The rest of the set, comprising of 68 photos, can be found here on its own Flickr set

I'm actually really happy with how these turned out because I've never shot people before :D Diana and Sara were incredibly patient so thank you for bearing with me for so long.

The place we shot in is an abandoned factory in Amadora, near Lisbon. For someone who is obsessed with abandoned and derelict places like me it was a joy to finally get into one - there are a lot of these places in Lisbon but all of them are closed. For the first time I actually got to explore one! All of its four floors were safe to walk on, there were some remains of the time the employees spent there - a lot of paper records, phonebooks, an ad for a typewriter, etc - and a few hints of what each room was for (i.e. we found the laboratory pretty easily, it had sinks and lots of bottles of chemicals).

Here are some unedited shots of the factory in question.

I'm off to select some photographs of Italy and then probably start writing my motivation letter.

Concept sketches & travelling beauty advice

So I'm back to my (not so little) home in Lisbon, where thunderstorms are raging, just like they were when we left a week ago. Back to the mess of Chanel and Dior nail polish bottles that is my desk, back to my tiny little hyperactive balls of fur... and to the hell that is University.

I will show you all some pictures from my trip as soon as I get around to resizing, editing and uploading them.... not to mention selecting them (out of 1500). It's tiring and I'm not up for it tonight honestly so I'll just show you something else.

This is the armour for a character in a story I'm working on. It sounds pretty vague, I know - but I know me; I get over-excited whenever I make a new story and I continuously build on characters and worlds and when I get on to writing it I never go past two pages (yet I still continue building on the whole plot, just not in writing). So right now I'm trying not to get too over-excited and tell everyone about every single detail because a) they don't care and b) too much talking, too little writing. I'll just tell you his name is Cornelius, he's not one of the main characters but his role is pretty big and he's a crown prince. And this is a pretty bad asymmetrical sketch but I don't really care because I like the design of the armour and I never drew armour before so here.
I am in love with the helm. Go on, judge me, I don't care. I think it's sexy. And fur trims on capes, hmm.

Also while I was reading fashion mags on my way to Lisbon I made a mental list of all the must-have beauty items on-the-go: airplanes, trains, anything where you can't have your whole makeup set with you.

• Light, all-round moisturizer
• Powder foundation (for my skin, yours might be liquid) and/or concealer (I don't need it but most people do).
• Neutral eyeliner pencil - brown or black, not necessary, just in case.
• Black waterproof mascara - essential, even if you don't wear eyeliner or lipstick, a little mascara makes a huge difference.
• Treatment/hydrating lipstick. You can use it as a base for your colour lipstick but a good, skincare lipstick is essential. I always have mine with me!
• Anti-frizz hair cream, your hair probably gets frizzy when rubbed against train/airplane seats for a long time, trust me.
• Moisturizing/repairing hand cream - hands and skin in general gets really dry especially in closed, air-conditioned environments.

My basic makeup routine when I know my day will consist of hotel -> car -> airport -> airplane -> airport -> airplane -> car -> bed (and it happens very often) is exactly that: basic. It has to be fast so you can reapply during travels, uncomplicated so any light will do and you don't have to check every 5 minutes. 1. Morning skincare - any way you do it. Exfoliating, cleanser, facial soap... 2. Moisturizer, and keep it at hand with you during your trip. It will help. 3. Light foundation, just a tad! I use powder because I have mixed skin. Powder is very practical for trips, you just slip it somewhere in your bag, no need for transparent liquids bag. 4. Hydrating lip-care lipstick, then your own lipstick or gloss over it. 5. Mascara. 

As you can see, no need for eyeliner!

Okay, I'm tired and I'm done here but I will try to work through my photos tomorrow.

Hope you're all having a lovely week (now weekend)!

Siena

So today I went out to see the lovely city of Siena. The weather isn't as nice as last time we were in Italy - a little cold and rainy with very grey skies - but if you wear a blazer over a t-shirt you'll be fine.

On a sadder note, last night when I arrived at the hotel and opened my suitcase I noticed my laptop screen was broken.

This is what it looks like now. I also think the computer itself was damaged as it's acting weird so it's going to the PC clinic as soon as we're back in Portugal. Which pisses me off because I love this computer but oh well, what else can I do?

(some candles in the Basilica S. Domenico in Siena)

Multi-coloured pasta!

The cathedral. Gorgeous, love the stripes, made most of my pictures look like optical illusions.

The stained-glass window inside the Museo Del'Opera. I have better pictures but I don't want to upload them in their original size here.

These amazing owls were being fed in the tiny town of Monteriggioni when we got there! 

The best pictures will have to wait until I get home but I'll keep this updated (probably not daily though). As soon as I have a picture of our rental car I'll show you, parents and I have been laughing like idiots because it looks just like a funerary car, only blue. I'm not kidding!

There is time for everything.

Tomorrow I will be getting my documents translated, hopefully a University document will count as a high school diploma.
I will also be taking photographs at an abandoned factory. I want them to turn out wonderful so I can put them in my portfolio! Diana will be my model, if the weather is nice enough. Then I will be picking up more black and white photographs, some film I got developed.

Then on Friday, I'm off to Italy for a week. I can't even express how much it's calming me down thinking about this. I've been horribly stressed lately for more reasons than I've posted here and today has been a particularly rough day, especially when it comes to my ego - which seems to be practically non-existant sometimes. Today I gained 1kg and completely broke down, as if that meant I'd lost control over myself; I've been in a dreadful mood all day because one thought pulls another thought along and in five minutes, I'm telling myself I'm ugly and disgusting and untalented and everything is wrong with me, nothing is ever right.
This happens, day in and day out. I've tried to deal with it and stop it from happening but I can't, at least not right now. Maybe with practice, who knows? But I don't want to feel like this so often, if you know how it is, then you know I mean it when I say it destroys you from the inside out; when you're like this, nothing is good, everything has a bad side.

But a week in Italy is just bliss to me right now. I absolutely adore Italy. Everything is beautiful, the people are amazing and this is partly the reason I want to get into Rome so much. This time we will be visiting Siena, Pompeii and Ercolano (I write it Herculaneum, like the olden days), three places I've always wanted to visit since I was... I don't know, 10? I'm kind of a history nerd so the whole Vesuvius eruption story has always fascinated me. My mother is a Roman-nut so she taught me a lot of things, got me into reading history novels at an early age and everything.
I can't wait! I'm not going to Rome, which is a pity, and I'm not seeing Verona like I wanted to, but oh my god Pompeii! I'm so excited.

I will try to film something and upload it; I will also try to keep a diary but I doubt I'll manage it (I'm a procrastinator). Still, I will update this at least once while I'm there.

Then in May, off to the UK!