That’s it, holiday is over. It was a great tip, weather was good in the UK, we even went to the beach! I flew business class, went shopping, met with friends and family and visited new places and some I already know and love.

But something went wrong during this trip: my diet. It’s tough being vegetarian and low carb away from home. In London and Cardiff, I didn’t do so bad. But in a small town in Wales it was almost impossible to stay on the diet.

I love bags. Love them. I won’t deny it. In my wish list I have a Lady Dior, for instance. And in my closet there are some Louis Vuitton bags (not as many as I wish) and some Coach ones too. Today’s post is about the latter.

Coach is American and has been seen as a luxury market entry-level brand. It ended up losing space in the past few years, but I’m still a fan. The good thing about liking Coach bags is that there are outlet stores, including in Brazil. 

I’m still here! Had a brief period of radio silence in London, but I’m still alive.

Truth is, nothing really exciting happened the past week. I’m lucky to visit London fairly frequently and I can say I know it well, so I don’t do the typical tourist things anymore. I haven’t even walked past Big Ben this time!

Estou por aqui! Foram alguns dias de silêncio em Londres, mas continuo viva.

De fato, nada muito empolgante aconteceu nesta semana. Londres é uma cidade que eu tenho a sorte de visitar com frequência e considero que até conheço bem, então não fico mais fazendo programa turístico, para ser bem sincera. Nem passei pelo Big Ben nessa visita!

When I say I take advantage of my holidays in the UK to do some shopping some people think it’s weird, considering the high value of the pound. But the truth is I learnt how to shop well for less here. So here are some quick tips that might help you too:

• Non-Europeans who will export the product they bought to another continent are entitled to recieve the VAT (tax) back. All you need to do is request the ‘tax-free form’ when you’re paying. There’s usually a minimum amount for the purchase to qualify, between £30 and £50, depending on the shop. If your purchase qualifies, you’ll receive the VAT back, minus an admin fee. For small purchases, it might almost not be worth it, but for electronics or more expensive things, you can save a lot. In 2014 I bought an LV bag £1150 and received a little more than £100 back. Not bad!

If you’ve been following my posts, you know on Jul. 24^th my husband Ian and I flew to the UK. I decided to go on holiday now that I’m between jobs, because once I get another one, it will be a year before we can travel again. And since Ian is from Wales, the choice was to spend a few days in London and then 2 more weeks there visiting his family.

We normally fly TAM (now LATAM) to London, because I try to use my points with them to issue one of the tickets for free. Except for last year, when I didn’t have enough points and sought a cheaper option. We flew Alitalia e stretched the holiday an extra week to visit Rome. Rome was amazing, Alitalia wasn’t. I’m never flying with them again. I have a feeling they don’t have return customers.

I’m a lazy packer. As well as unpacker – once I actually unpacked only when it was time to pack again for another trip, a month later. I’m that kind of person who leaves it to the night before the flight and hopes to remember everything that needs to be taken.

On Sunday I’m travelling to the UK (get ready for weeks of posts with UK related tips) and the most I’ve done so far was washing all the dirty clothes that had been piling up in my closet, so I have more options to choose from. The thing is, I’m always there in the winter, between February and March. This will be my first British summer, guys! And I’m slightly lost when it comes to how the weather will be there. Siri swears it will be above 20ºC everyday, but we all know she’s a terrible weather girl, right?

I absolutely L-O-V-E going through Kickstarter to see what’s new in the world. And while doing it some time ago I came accross Hickies 2.0 – a lacing system that replaces traditional laces and makes putting your trainers on easier, all while making you look more stylish.

It works with different types of eyelets, comes in many colours and can be adjusted to fit tighter or loser. Each pack comes with 14 units and if you only use 6 for a pair, like I did, you can fit 2 pairs and have some spare ones.

We bought many here at home, for both my husband and I, in black and grey. We still have loads of unused ones.

I used 6 for a pair of trainers and 10 for the other. (please ignore the old dirty trainers)

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, where 2 packs of 14 units each were sold for US$ 27, they are now sold online for US$ 17.99 per pack. Even with the price increase I still think they are worth it.

Like them? Then head on to https://www.hickies.com/ to check the available colours and order yours.

PS: This is not an advertisement – I really bought these on Kickstarter and recommend them because I like them.

Those who have radically changed their hair know it is not always a simple and fast process. It may take hours to reach the desired colour. Some times even a simple retouch takes a long time too.

I’d been a redhead for about 5 or 6 years. I started dyeing my hair at home with professional products I bought at a salon supply store (who hasn’t, right?) and mixing them to reach the colour I wanted. Facebook groups area great source of recipes for that. #not

I’ve always dreaded working out. When I was a child, I used to take tennis lessons and was actually pretty active. But once I moved to a place where I couldn’t train anymore, I became a mere spectator and never really played again.

Well, life went on and I gained a lot of weight. A year ago I reached my highest weight ever: 85kg. I couldn’t ignore it anymore so I decided to seriously diet. I lost close to 20kg of fat and now I am working on changing my body composition. But I’ll go into detail about my diet some other time. This post is about physical activity.