Australian Jams

I'M A MASSIVE HIPSTER
Hi, my name is Chloe and I'm a hipster and proud. It's probably my hipster tendencies that have led me to listening a ton of Australian music that nobody else in England listens to, well that and it's really good. So I thought I'd compile a list (because who doesn't love a good list) of my favourite Australian artists. Here we go...

ONE // ILLY
Illy is the artist who originally got me hooked on Australian music last year and I have to thank him for that because it’s been a good year of music for me. Illy is a hip hop artist, with the distinctive sound of Aussie hip hop present in his music. My love for Illy started with the song Tightrope, and after learning ALL the words to that so that I can now rap along with it perfectly, I started listening to more of his music. My top 3 songs of his are: Tightrope, It Can Wait and Where Ya Been. (To the people I lived with last year, I’m not even slightly sorry for rapping loudly along to Where Ya Been.)

TWO // CHET FAKER
Chet Faker is definitely the height of hipsterness. It’s the sort of music you’d hear in a dark, probably wooden coffee shop that’s full of people with top knots, tattoos and beards and it's very cool. His music is a mix between alternative and electronic (but please don't take my word for that because I'm really bad at determining music genres...). He has done some amazing acoustic renditions of his songs too that are actually (if possible) more beautiful than the originals. And his cover of Sonia Dada's You Don't Treat Me No Good (on triple j for Like A Version) is just incredible. My top 3 Chet Faker songs are: To Me, Talk Is Cheap and I'm Into You. 

THREE // HILLTOP HOODS
I just saw the Hilltop Hoods do a show in Camden and so my love for them is extra strong right now because sweet jesus they were good. Hilltop Hoods are a hip hop band made up of Suffa, Pressure and Debris and their music incredible. My love started with the song The Nosebleed Section and has progressed from there. When they sang The Nosebleed Section at the concert I sang along so loudly and loved every minute of it (also I was in the nosebleed section of the venue so it felt quite apt). My top 3 Hilltop Hoods songs are: The Nosebleed Section, Cosby Sweater and I Love It. 

FOUR // THUNDAMENTALS
Thundamentals were supporting Hilltop Hoods at the concert and it was for this reason that I started listening to them, and after to listening to Got Love just once I fell in love. Their songs are so catchy and are full of lines that make me laugh (or in the case of Noodle Soup every line makes me laugh because what even is that song). They're another hip hop band made up of Tuka, Jeswon and DJ Morgs. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I listen to Thundamentals every day, I love them. Oh and their cover of Matt Corby's Brother is incredible and when they started singing that at the concert I was so stoked. Tuka, who is one of the front men, has some really good solo tracks too, I particularly like Tattoo by him. My top 3 Thundamentals songs are: Brother, Smiles Don't Lie and Got Love. 

FIVE // MATT CORBY
And finally we have Matt Corby. Now this is solely for his song Brother because it's so beautiful and I adore it. Unfortunately I can't find many of his songs on youtube so my knowledge of Matt Corby isn't very extensive, but I do know that he has a beautiful voice that has the perfect amount of huskiness to it. I guess I just need to search harder for more of his music. He does a gorgeous cover of Lonely Cover by The Black Keys though. (Plus he has the man bun and beard thing going on so y'know).

AN EXTRA SHOUTOUT GOES TO...
I feel like I should also mention triple j, which is an Australian radio station and it's thanks to them I know of all these beautiful covers and they've helped me discover so many new artists, both from Australia and around the rest of the world. Oh and Matt and Alex's breakfast show (that I actually listen to at 8pm because of time zones and that) is a constant source of enjoyment for me and they've provided me with many an evening of giggles and good music.

FIN
And that's it! These are the people I'll be listening to on a daily basis (I actually listened to all of them whilst typing this) and if you haven't heard of them then you need to go change that ASAP. There are links to all of them below to help you with that.

If you have any music recommendations for me then feel free to leave them in a comment below. I'll be taking both Australian and non-Australian recommendations ;)

Thanks for reading! Remember to follow me for weekly posts (except last week... sorry).

Have a rad day.

Love Chloe x


HAVE SOME LINKS YO

• Illy // https://www.youtube.com/user/Illyofficial
• Chet Faker // https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLcSym6gRtQqhxLZHvAwuDg
• Hilltop Hoods // https://www.youtube.com/user/Hilltophoods
• Thundamentals // https://www.youtube.com/user/thundamentalstv OR https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC5ASBr1UBE8BafxRO6lt1g
• Matt Corby // https://www.youtube.com/user/MattCorbyau
• Triple j // http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/
• Me on bloglovin // https://www.bloglovin.com/people/chloerogers5-7586623
• Me on youtube // https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGiddyElf

A Severe Case of Wanderlust

THE TRAVEL BUG
I've always been a lover of travelling and discovering new places, but it's usually about this time of year that I start craving a holiday. So I thought I'd tell you the places in the world that are top of my wanderlust list right now...

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
While I am wishing that I was in Melbourne at the moment, just know that I'm ALWAYS wishing I was back in Melbourne. It's my favourite place on earth. I'm actually going back in December for Christmas and New Year, but I wouldn't say no if you offered me a holiday there right now. Melbourne was the best place, you've got the city itself which has excellent shopping and a rad selection of restaurants and cafes to stop you from ever going hungry. But there is also so many opportunities to explore the Australian countryside with the Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island only a few hours away. When I was in Australia I had the chance to feed wild rosellas, feed kangaroos and meet koalas (we couldn't hold them, so it was of a stroke and photo deal) and it was incredible. I just want to be back with amongst the wildlife!

Degraves Street, my favourite place in Melbourne.

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA
Slovenia isn't the classic holiday destination but don't let that put you off. I'm actually writing a book at the moment that was inspired by the coffee shop lined alleyways and the suspicious amount of origami dragon graffiti in Ljubljana, and I think it's for this reason that I'm craving the city. I keep remembering little areas I visited, like the dragon bridge and the castle you could reach via a funicular. And then there's the restaurants - the one that did the best pad thai I have ever eaten, the ones all by the riverside that twinkled at night because of the candles on the the tables, and the quiet, little wine bar tucked away next the cathedral that had amazing cheesy snacks on offer. OH AND THE CAFE IN A BACKSTREET THAT WAS SO NICE. I love Ljubljana, and I'm also about 700% sure there is some sort of magic going on there.

This is the cafe that I just had that all caps outburst about. 

PARIS, FRANCE
I want to go back to Paris in general, the Eiffel Tower never gets dull, but this wave of wanderlust washed over me when I was getting a mug out for coffee (yes, the wanderlust is getting out of hand). The reason for that is because the mug I was using was a birthday present from my 16th birthday which I celebrated in Paris, and so when I got the mug out I suddenly remembered opening it in one of Paris' cafes and found myself wishing that I had a cup of Parisian coffee in front of me instead of waiting for the kettle to boil. Also there's this one picture of me in Paris from about two years ago that I love and it always makes me wish I was back there.

Squinty and wind swept, but this is the photo that always brings a fresh wave of Paris based wanderlust with it. Taken about 2 or 3 years ago.

ICELAND... ICELAND
The reason I haven't specified anywhere in Iceland is because when I was there I went to a lot of different places around the country. Our base was Reykjavik but we then travelled around to see the geysers, waterfalls and beaches (I was on a geography school trip by the way, so we were mostly travelling around to learn about how things were formed and all that jazz). Iceland is the most stunning place and I really want to see all the amazing things it has to offer again. Plus I need to explore Reykjavik more as we only really had a few hours in the afternoons to look around the city, so I know I missed out on a lot of things it has to offer. And also I would have loved to go on a whale watching boat trip, so I need to go back to experience that!

Meet 15 year old me. I thought I was hella cool. I wasn't. The glacier behind me was though. 

This was taken a national park in Iceland and it was beautiful there. The sun was rising which was crazy considering it was about 10am already... Iceland is weird like that. 

Reykjavik from above. 

BACK TO REALITY
That's it, and I think it's probably time to come back to real life and get on with completing my to-do list for the day :( Have you ever visited any of these places? And what countries are on your travelling bucket list? Let me know in the comments, I love chatting about travelling so it'd be great to hear from you!

Thanks for reading, make sure to follow me for weekly updates.

Love Chloe x

Coffee Cups With Chloe: Bath and Bristol

Begin...

HEY

I've had a crazy busy week and that means I haven't had time to write this weeks blog post. PLUS, I left my idea notebook at university so I don't have that to hand to look over all my ideas. And so what does that all add up to? A Coffee Cups with Chloe post (AKA, updates galore)!

BUSYNESS EXPLAINED
As I said, I was really busy this week. But luckily, it was the fun kind of busy, rather than the worky kind of busy. My sister came to spend a few days with me in Bath and we packed a lot into those three days. On the first day we went to Bristol to do some shopping and also to go to the aquarium. It was really wet and windy (shocking for England, I know) which meant we didn't actually do much shopping, but it's all good because the aquarium was awesome. They had jellyfish, stingrays and tiny frogs which were incredible colours. (And hella poisonous; the information about them said that just one tiny bit of their poison was enough to kill eight humans!)

On the second day I had lessons in the morning, but then we went shopping in Bath in the afternoon. It was still very wet and windy, so we had to dodge the rain by running from shop to shop and spending as little time as possible outside.

One of my purchases... the most beautiful brush ever. It's the tapered blush brush from the Bold Metals collection by Real Techniques <3

Jumping photos never really work out when you have long hair...

And on the third day, we went back to Bristol to go to Bristol Zoo, and it was actually sunny! I was really impressed with the zoo because they made the most of what they had. What I mean is that they didn't have many of the 'exciting' animals like giraffes, tigers, elephants, etcetera, but they made the animals they did have really interesting to look at. There were talks and feeds going on all day so you were guaranteed to catch at least one. We saw the otters and gorillas get fed, and it was so cool to watch this. Fun fact: gorillas are so like humans that they can have Calpol and paracetamol when they're ill! They also had a butterfly house which was rad, the butterflies are flying all around you and you can get some amazing close up photos of them.

The time spent not shopping or looking at animals and fish, we were in Walkabout, an Australian bar, eating Aussie food and drinking bundys. And when we weren't there we were in The Pig and Fiddle in Bath drinking bundys. Bundy is good, okay. (it's Bundaberg rum and coke, in case you didn't know.)

Sydney Burger and bundy in Walkabout, mmmmm.

And when we weren't shopping, looking at animals and fish, or being Australian, we were watching films at my home. We watched Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, which was really good. It was just easy-going and funny, and I think they ended the trilogy perfectly with that. The other film we watched was the modern version of Little Red Riding Hood with Amanda Seyfried in it. I'd never heard of this (I don't know how?) but I thought it was great. I liked the clever twist on the classic fairytale, and plus Gary Oldman was in it, so it was guaranteed to be good.

CALM
Life is going back to normal next week and I'll just be doing my usual uni thing, which means an few lessons, lots of reading and lots of TV watching, hahaha.

Make sure to follow me for weekly posts, with some extra posts thrown in here and there :)

Thanks for reading, I hope you're having a wonderful day and I'll talk to you soon.

Love Chloe x


HAVE SOME LINKS
Me on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGiddyElf
Bristol Aquarium: http://www.bristolaquarium.co.uk
Bristol Zoo: http://www.bristolzoo.org.uk
Makeup brush: http://www.boots.com/en/Bold-Metals-Collection-by-Real-Techniques-Tapered-Blush_1645015/

Australian Adventure

FOND MEMORIES

So this time last year I had just gotten back from Melbourne, Australia. For the past two weeks Facebook has been telling me things I was doing last year and showing me photos I'd posted whilst on my adventures. (Thanks to the rad little "on this day" feature they have!) I have such fond memories of my Melbourne adventure and the photos I took there always bring a smile to my face when I see them.

And so I thought, why not create a blog post about my time there? So here we go! 

PHOTOS AND STORIES 

This is Degraves, or as we renamed it 'The Dark Alley'. It was the raddest alley lined with cafés, restaurants and a couple of shops. We went down there for breakfast nearly every day because all the cafés were so good. My personal favourite was either 'The Journal' or 'The Quarter'. 

I'm a huge fan of the Australian soap 'Neighbours' and we got to go on the set and even meet a star! This was James Mason who plays the character of Chris on the show. 

This is probably my favourite photo from the entire trip! Taken on The Great Ocean Road, where we had stopped at this little area that was basically just some trees and a tiny shop, but in the trees were hundreds of rosellas (that's the bird for anyone who doesn't know)! Our tour guide gave us bird seed and the rosellas would eat the food straight out of your hands. I even had birds on my shoulder and head! 

This is my and my sister at the aquarium. This was the best tank, filled with sharks and huge stingrays. It was amazing. 

I love this photo! My mum having a stare down with a shark! This guy was a proper mean looking shark, he looked like he'd definitely eaten some people before...

Penguins at the aquarium. 

This is the entrance to the Great Ocean Road! 

Our first stop on the Great Ocean Road was Lorne. Here we had coffee in stained cups (a bit gross but we laughed it off, it's cool), ate delicious biscuits and watched these people surfing! The cool thing about stopping in Lorne was that my mum realised that we'd stayed in the campsite just across the road when we'd been there about 20 years beforehand. I was one the first time round so I obviously didn't remember it, but it was still rad to know! 

Still in Lorne. There was a koala sitting in one of these trees and cockatoos flying overhead! Our first proper sighting of Australian wildlife. 

Incase you needed a reminder of why I love Melbourne so much. 

Me and rosellas. Seriously in love with this birds.

Look at this cutie.

I waded across a little bit of sea to a small sandy patch to take a photo of this beautiful starfish. 

These are the Twelve Apostles, the highlight of the Great Ocean Road tour. It was so beautiful here, like this photo doesn't even begin to cover it.

Another apostle!

#nofilter

We also went on a day trip to Philip Island for the Penguin Parade (penguins coming out from the sea at sunset, I have no photos of that because you're not allowed to take them there). We first stopped at the Moonlit Sanctuary where we got to feed kangaroos. This one held me hand. It was the best moment of my life.

I kinda wanted to take this little guy home. SO cute.

#nofilteragain. This was at The Nobbies, where we stopped just before going to the penguin parade. It was hella windy there but so gorgeous.

This was the first photo taken of me in Melbourne! We were waiting to meet one of my sisters friends for coffee. 

This was along the Great Ocean Road also, at a place called Cape Otway. We had lunch here and then had a little while to explore the area. I loved it there and I want to go back!

FIN

And that's it. I took over a thousand photos while I was there so obviously this is just a very small selection of them. I had the time of my life in Melbourne and I'm hella excited to be going back in December! 

If you ever get the chance to go to Australia, please do! I promise you'll love it. 

Thanks for reading, remember to follow me for posts at least once a week (and very often more). 

Love Chloe x

P.S. Sorry the photos are in a slightly odd order. I'm blogging on the go and I don't know how to move them around on the app...

Scented Reminders

A WAVE OF NOSTALGIA
I had the idea for this blog post earlier in the week when I sprayed my Chloé perfume (when you share a name with a brand, you gotta use them!) and was hit by a wave of nostalgia for being in Australia last year. I always find it cool how smells can remind you of certain times and places, and so I thought it might be fun to share with y'all some smells that remind me of different moments in my life.

LOVE, CHLOÉ PERFUME
In April of 2014 I went to Melbourne, Australia to visit my sister while she studying abroad there. And it was the best time of my life. I loved every second of it, from feeding wild rosellas along the great ocean road to having to change out of my converse because it had rained so hard. While I was there I mostly wore my Love, Chloé perfume. It's a floral scent but with a hint of spice mixed in too. Whenever I spray this perfume now, which is pretty much every time I'm going out somewhere nicer than uni or shopping, it reminds me of being in Melbourne.

BACON
This one is a bit different to the fanciness of my perfume but the smell of bacon reminds of Melbourne too. And that's because my sister's apartment always smelt like bacon because someone in one of the neighbouring apartments obviously enjoyed eating bacon, haha. This scent is so distinct to me to the point that I can remember perfectly how it smelt right now as I write this in my bedroom in England where nobody is cooking bacon!

DOVE WOMENS ORIGINAL DEODORANT
I use different brands of deodorant all the time, I just buy whatever is on offer, but whenever I use the original dove deodorant the smell really reminds me of summers while I was in secondary school. I don't know why it's summer in particular, but I just can't help thinking of the days when I used to go to the park all day with my friends and just sit and talk. In a weird way though, I really wish I wasn't reminded of those times because since leaving secondary school I realised how bad those friends treated me, and I lost contact with most of them. But hey, that's life. (Woah, this got deep real quick, back to the lighter stuff shall we!)

A CERTAIN BOOK SMELL
A true bookworm knows that not all books smell the same, and so with this one I don't mean all books, just a certain kind. It reminds of being little and reading The Faraway Tree, aka my favourite book ever when I was a child! It's hard to describe this smell properly because it's just a certain type of paper I guess, but the best way I can think of is that kind of felt, spongey material you get, mixed with paper? I can guarantee that most of you will have no clue what I'm talking about so I'm going to move on, haha.

RIGHT GUARD MENS DEODORANT 
I can't tell you what particular one, but I imagine it would just be the classic/original deodorant that right guard have, always reminds me of being at the Danny Elfman, Music from Tim Burton films concert that I went to at the Royal Albert Hall in 2014. I think it's because I was wearing this deodorant that night as it's what my dad uses and I'd ran out of my normal one, so I just borrowed his. Now, men's deodorant smells hella strong, so I could just smell it on myself all night. And now whenever I smell it it just reminds me of that evening (and seeing Helena Bonham Carter sing, which was crazy exciting because woman crush).

BYE!
And that's it! I'm sure there are more scents that remind me of different things, but I can't think of them right now, or in most cases, I can't distinguish what the smell actually is, which makes it a little bit hard to write about.

Are there any smells that remind you of certain times of your life? Let me know in the comments below and we can have a nice little scent based memory chat!

Thanks for reading, remember to follow me for new blog posts every week!

I hope you're having a wonderful day.

Love Chloe x

25 Accomplishments of 2014

I don't remember who it was, but last year I saw someone talking about writing a list of 25 things they accomplished during the year, and I thought that was such a rad and positive idea, so I put together my own list. 

One year on, I still think it's a rad and positive idea and so I've made my list again. And since I have this blog now, I thought, why not share it? 

Here are my 25 accomplishments of 2014: 

1. I finished college with good A-Level results.

2. I got into bath spa university - somewhere I've been dreaming of going to for years now. 

3. Living by myself at uni. 

4. I finally visited Australia! (Bucket list stuff that is!) 

5. I read 50 books. 

6. I reached 160 subscribers. 

7. Met Jack and Dean. 

8. Met Bertie Gilbert. 

9. Met Ben Cook. 

10. I met Noel Fielding... Who I may or may not have a huge fangirl style crush on and have had for about 8 years now...

11. I made new friends, both in real life and through the Internet. 

12. I completed my first term at uni! 

13. I held a wild rosella whilst on the Great Ocean Road.

14. I fed a kangaroo and also held hands with him. We're best friends forever now. 

15. I held a starfish. 

16. I stroked a koala. 

17. The million hour long flight to and from Australia. 

18. Changing a lot of my beauty products to cruelty free ones.

19. I gained a tiny bit more confidence. 

20. I got good eyebrows! 

21. I kept up with a good skin care regime. 

22. Growing Riccardo, my beautiful avocado tree, from an avocado pit.

23. Wrote over 100 pages of my novel, Curious Winds.

24. Expanded my cacti collection.

25. Handed in my uni work on time. 

Some of these things are a big deal and some of them are just small things that probably only I would be proud of. 

I encourage you to make a list of your own! It's such a nice way to look back on your year and think about the good stuff that happened to you. 

I wish you all a fantastic 2015. And hopefully I'll be blogging more this year, after all it is one of my New Years resolutions! 

    Love Giddy x 

Photo: my top 14 photos of 2014.