Scotland I - Helensburgh, the Hill House and lots of nature

Hello readers!

Warning: This entry contains many pictures.

Today it is quite rainy, alternating with sunny periods. That fits my entry, because today I write about my short trip to Scotland. Last September I was in Scotland to visit my sister. She was there as a exchange student.
As always I took a billion pictures. Well, probably not that much, but really a lot. And yes, it was rainy for a lot of the time, but still really good weather. Photographing in the rain is never really good for my cameras, so it was a challange. Actually I have no idea how there are still so many pictures. But there is something which I noticed not just on the photos also before locally. The lighting there seemed differend. Also the colours. I mean the grass really was greener than where I live. The greens there look like the greens here in the spring at a rainy day. Really vibrant.

We flew from Berlin to Glasgow and took the train from there to Helensburgh. So today I write about the first two days. Actually the first day was just the flight and the arrival in general. I was very sick after the flight, so for me there was not really a lot of activity on that day. Flying is not only quite stressful for me, but also somehow it is not good for me healthwise. When I have to guess I would say this comes from my migraine, but I don't really know.

We had to wait for quite a while in Berlin and there were lots of people who enjoyed the sun. And lots of birds too.

Shortly before we landed in Glasgow.

Even shorter before the landing.

That was it for the arrival. I wish I was able to enjoy the train ride to Helensburgh, because it was a nice view. The rails run along the water. The town Helensburgh lies on the eastern shore of Gare Loch. The entire landscape there looks as if water fingers were gripping inside. Probably not a really good pictorial description, but I can't think of anything better.

The next day someone from the Lomond School showed us the whole school. I think my sister got so much luck to have the opportunity to go there as an exchange student. This school is really impressive and they have such a good equipment for all the subjects. Just as an example: the kitchen for school lessons. There were so many devices, like - just another example - an electric stirrer for every workplace. The whole music and also the art rooms were amazing as well. When I try to compare this with the schools I visited...sad. I also liked the colour of their uniforms. You can see her further down.
Don't wonder but I don't show the faces of other family members, so they now all have nice smiling sun faces.

Now we are on one of my personal highlights of this trip: the Hill House. The architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh planned the house. It shows a mix of styles but I think you can clearly see the art nouveau elements, the ideas of the arts and crafts movement and the influences of japanese art. I don't know how many people this will tell anything, but for me it was so a great to see this not just on pictures. The house has so many great angles and all the clear lines and geometric forms. Also the lights and shadows are really thought through. That is something I especially like about it. Sadly it's not allowed to take pictures inside. But I understand that.They sell some great books with nice pictures. But really no picture can be even close to the experience to see everything in real. And you can take pictures from outside and the nice garden. That's already a good motif for around 200 pictures and I know that because that's what I did.

There were a few vegetables of the garden which you could take with you for a donation.

This was such a gorgeous deep dark red colour, but my camera failed to capture it.

I saw this house on our way back to the holiday apartment and a man randomly told me something about it and the owner.

I loved this houses. They are so beautiful.

Our view from the window. I know it looks not so nice, but the behind the parking spots the shore looked quite nice.

As I said, a lot of pictures. Especially a lot of flowers, more than I thought. Actually I take a lot of flower pictures, but I never post them anywhere.

See you next time and thank you for reading!

~ Louyse

Urban Fairytale V - the really last entry

Hello readers,

The last entry to the Urban Fairytale Event should be the last entry. But there were still so many pictures that I decided to make another post. It was prepared for weeks but I never had the time or muse to finish it. Today there'll be not a lot of words, but some last photos and a group picture of my local community. Well, only of the members who were at the event though.
I'm sorry for the clumsy wording, I'm not able to language at the moment.

Last weekend was the book fair in Leipzig and we finally found a name for our community. We are now Celestial Ecclesiae. It was a funny journey to that name and now I wonder even more how the other communitties found their names. I'll write about the book fair later.

First, some pictures of Lydia also known as Piggeldy. She won the outfit contest that day! Her outfit is self made from the horns to the chains.

 And I took some more pictures of Nora, who by the way won the outfit contest on the day before. She wore something else that day, but the dreadlocks were an awesome unique touch to her outfits.

I'm sorry for some details here it was the end of the day and I didn't really had an eye at some not so well positioned parts of the clothes. But here you have a view at her amazing hairdo.

Next pictures show Franzi. I'm not sure, but I think she was a little insecure about some aspects of her outfit and how they appear in the pictures, but I think she looks really pretty here. This Sweet Lolita look is great and I think sweet styles are always a little difficult. They look easily costumey or colour clashy. The lentgh of the dress is also no problem at all.
These are things I thought of a lot for the past one or two years. Back in the days I never thought twice about the lengh of a dress but today this became important. Also everything sweet seems a little bit out of fashion. I loved really over the top Sweet Lolita and I still love it, but it's not very present today. Even I think more and more that the super sweet dresses are nothing I want to wear anymore. Maybe it's because I'm older now and my taste changed but I'm not sure about that.  because I still like to look back and I still love the old sweet styles.

 Lydia then took some more pictures of me. Thank you so much for that. I really liked my outfit that day. And I still like it, which is kind of rare because my eyes are focused on flaws and my mind searches constantly for improvement in everything. But the black-red-gold combination and my love for that outshines everything.

Here you see me trying to escape and to hide from my responsibilities.

Lisa took some pictures with her Polaroid Camera. I love Polaroid Cameras. She took a picture of me and it's probably the best picture in existence. The polaroid style is just a really nice look.

And here are the group pictures. First, Luise was missing. Next to each other we really darken the picture. Now were I see the pictures, it looks like Lisa is hiding behind her headpiece. But our Memorial Cake twins are a good frame for the group I think. It's so funny that a lot of us, including me, own that dress. Day Dream Carnival is also something a lot of us have. We're nearly able to make Angelic Pretty Series themed meet-ups.

And yes, I said good bye to my headpieces and wig. That was a long day and it was tiring but also really nice. It was so exhausting for me that I didn't even photographed my food later. It was just a burger with fries but a good vegan burger and nice sweet potato fries. I love to take food pictures, but not for the internet. I take them just for myself and because I love food. There was a time I thought about becoming a professional food stylist and photographer.

At the end of the post I show you the goody bags. Everyone who bought a ticket got one. The VIPs had some more itmes in it. I think they both contained a Fluffitori Pony pin, a Urbam Fairytale postcard, a BTSSB postcard, a card for the raffle and some business cards and flyers from the sponsors. The VIPs got a BTSSB Fairytale Pop-up book, a BTSSB necklace, one free drink and a coupon for one direct picture from the photographer booth of M. E. Fotografie.

I say good bye and see you next time with a picture with antlers made by Pauline. She wore them with her outfit on the first day and I was so impressed in the hotel room that she let me try it on. It's quite heavy but gorgeous.

Thank you for reading!

~ Louyse