It's my party but I won't cry (even if I want to)

I don't usually post about myself (because face it... I am really not that interesting) buuut since it's my birthday and I can cry if I want to aaaand since its my blog, i figured what the heck, I will! I'm now 21 and legal all over the globe (I think); nothing can stop me now!

Celebrations and more celebrations obviously are all in store for today:
Stop number 1 - lunch at the pub! (yes, I go to my working place for my birthday, thats how much I love it - and that is not an irony)
Stop number 2 - Pizza Hut with my favorite people in the world for stuffed crust pizza (sorry all my "pizza purist" readers). I learned with my roomate and my mother that there is never ever too much cheese in a pizza...always stuff it wherever you can! The more the merrier.

All lovely ladies, and a guy!

Even my mom flew in from the warm south to celebrate (she only did it for the cheese crust)

I just liked this picture

Obviously, because I never bypass a good baking opportunity - I cooked up some cupcakes for desert during the weekends. These were definitely my most complex attempt at fulfilling my baker alter-ego: dark chocolate cupcakes with salty caramel filling and chocolate frosting - all baked from scratch (including the caramel, which, mid you, I had no idea what I was doing). May I just say they turned out amazing. I got my taste-testers (hem hem...and myself) to give a couple a try before the big day and they were a big big hit. Definetly worth a shot if you have the time, patience and courage to go for it! Here is the Recipe (search for Chocolate salted-caramel mini cupcakes).

I'll let my lack of captions speak for itself...

Cupcakes AND brigadeiros (that I'll devote a whole other post to)

The next big event is a party... but thats not till the weekend! So ta ta for now my lovelays...

My heart is always down south... but its coming up north!

Oh life life.... always getting on the way of my posting!
I'm back to good old sauga yet again and no posts on Rio to warm my dear readers up. Unforgivable! (not really, you'll forgive me because you know you love me!). Thing is, I din't spend much of my time in Rio per-se. I ended up going to Club Med for the end-of-year festivities, which took up a lot of my very limited time at home (for a very good cause though: 24/7 open bar, restaurant, and beach resort for 7 days, need I say more? Hangover heaven). 

However, I promise some more excitement for you this year! 2011, new year, new life, new JOB!!! No, I didn't give up my proud position as a waitress at the UTM blind duck pub, but I did get a new, great internship! I can now just as proudly say I am a fashion Intern at Ukamaku. They are an online fashion store and community that specializes in Canadian designers. Finally someone willing to help to push Canadian fashion out and about and I am a part of it! They have some amazing designers I haven't even heard of before (hem hem  hence why Canadian fashion needs a push) signed up like Zoran Dobric and Psalms 91:1 accessories.

 Zoran Dobric

So stay tuned for my next adventures folks, I promise they'll be good!

Here comes the sun...

After a long drought of posts caused by my hectic student life at UTM, I'm back! Not only back, but back from the international grounds of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (aka my beloved home town). I didn't give up on proving that things don't  happen in lovely Mississauga, but I figured a shitload bit of sunshine wouldn't hurt for the holidays! Because I love all of you (whoever you are) that give me a bit of your precious time for god knows what reason, I'll show you a bit of what Rio life is like, a post at a time, and hopefully warm up the holiday seasons for those that are still up north!

A big must-go here is the hippie fair of Ipanema (yes, the girl of ipanema song comes to mind) that happens every Sunday. Its fo shizzle ma nizzle one of my favorite things to do when I'm in town, needless to say I squeezed in a visit the weekend I got here! Possibly some of the best, most unique, fashion finds around...

If you get hungry, stop by one of the typical Bahia stands. I could spend hours here trying to explain somehow what the food tastes like but that would be a) a waste of time and b)not even close to the real deal. All I'll say it its either coconut-y, spicy or both (for sweets and for savory!).

The mood and the characters at the fair are also unlike anything I've ever seen...

Another perk, is that the fair is at Praça General Osório, which is at walking distance from the beach - which is where I'm off to right now! so tata lovelays!

Back in black (and orange)

I will start off by apologizing for my sudden disappearing! I got caught up big time in hell week(s) at U of T. Sorry. Apologizing - done. Next.

During hell week however, I managed to fit in a couple interesting things (to avoid a sudden, painful, death due to work overload) such as a Phoenix concert at the Ricoh center, downtown Toronto and baking (duh, of course).

Phoenix was good. Not amazing, not outrageous, just good. Truth be told phoenix is not that much of a popular band and the Ricoh center is too big a venue for such a concert. Other than that, I blame my limited student budget for the crappy really really really far seats I got. However, phoenix does put on a show and even from a distance the music was what I expected and I still had good company so all in all it was worth it.

Now for baking stress relief therapy, remember the cheesecake brownies I talked about here? They are as good as they look (even though they don't look as amazing, but that can be my fault and my lack of baking hardware's fault), really worth a try if you are into baking. I decided I should quit university and start a bakery, I'd be way happier (hey mom! love you too!). I was going to take pictures but they are all gone by now, thanks to my sauga the saga cast mates (my roomates and friends if you will). I have some oatmeal fudge bars on my list of to-bakes next, so I'll let you now how it goes.

Since its Halloween weekend, my usual lets-try-to-get-my-readers-out-of-boredom list will follow what all the other blogs have been ranting about all week (hem hem cliche much, am I?)... here we go:

Fashion Obsession: Harry Potter costume design - homage or plain copying?
Not really Halloween but still within the context consider its wizarding and all that... I ran across thin in the Telegraph's website and thought it was interesting enough to share. The picture in the left show Flear Delacour marrying Bill Weasley in the upcoming movie, and the one on the right is an Alexander McQueen dress. Apparently, costume designer Jamy Temine told the LA times that she did look at McQueen's work for inspiration. Belinda White from the Telegraph says its forgery, I stick with my innocent (yeah, right) stake on life, and just say its a very very very accurate homage to the beloved McQueen and his work.


Costume Ideas - not practical (but neither is life )
These were my top two out of the gazillion I've seen so far (found it at the list @starving.com.br)!



Culture for the masses - Wicked the Musical
A huge hit in Broadway and the UK is now in Toronto! I haven't seen it yet (I tried squeezing it in my very, very brief visit to London this summer but unfortunately it didn't work out) however some of my friends have and said its amazing. The story sounds a bit childish - based on the wizard of Oz, two girls that meet in sorcery school, become really good friends, and one ends up being good and the other one wicked; like Glinda the good and the Wicked witch from the west the early years type thing - but I've been assured its better than it sounds. Tickets are on sale here.

If you guys have any other suggestions for Halloween, there's still time, so let me know!

All together now!

Still nothing exhilarating and exciting in these sides of the GTA this week(end)! However, I will not bore you (even further than you probably already are) with comments on Lauren Conrad as probably every other blog I've gone through this week has (hello, marketing strategy much?). If you don't know who she is, I won't tell you (hem hem- ex-reality-show-star-turn-fashion-designer-turn-writter) because you are better off not knowing anyhow.
Now that we got that out of the way... on to more interesting subjects.

I have been a bit overloaded by assigments, essays, projects, work, (insert your idea of really annoying tasks to do here), lately which kept me from all the good stuff. But, I will not disappoint whoever has made it this far reading this post, I'll leave you some interesting links and facts for the week (until I can finally find something that is worth babbling about in depth) for you to check out:

Random fact: Justin Beiber just launched his auto-biography (I don't think he has even had time to learn to write properly, moreover a FULL book about his 16 years of existence...seriously, why?)

Original blog (not to mention adorable!): thx thx thx
One thanks note a day - things you didn't even realize you could be thankful for (perfect to browse through for light fun or killing some time during lectures)

Fashion Obsession:
Sofia Copolla's new collection for Vuitton - movies and fashion can never ever go wrong! From M. Jacob's muse to designer (just like Bryanboy-ish) and may I say it was quite a fortunate transition. The full collection is here and I'll give you a sneak peak:


What will they come up with next? - London: Snow white and the 7 designers - Garrick theater - Yes its a play! No, I have no clue what its about exactly, but it has something to do with interior designers. The perk is that it counts with Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, Giorgio Armani, Paul Smith, Amanda Wakeley, Bruce Oldfield e Valentino as wardrobe designers.
Take a look at Garrick Theater's website for more information and tickets.


I'll leave you at that fr the time being. If anything else shows up, don't worry, I'll keep you posted!

Connection to Brasiland via Google

Hello lovelays,

Since I have no great morning shows to attend or new parts of town to explore this Saturday (for me at least),I thought I'd share some (random and totally uncalled for) Brazilian pride with my all-so-glorious (and hopefully not just figments of my imagination) readers. I guess I'm feeling a tad homesick.

However, I must say, the first things that showed up in Google-America when I searched for images related to Brazil were not really what I expected to show you. Here's what I got...

Brazi-(this showed up even before I finished typing)

and apparently its from the ULTIMATE guide to Brazil even, I wonder what kind of places you'd end up in if you followed this guides suggestions...

Brazil World Cup (by the way, still a touchy topic to bring up)

This was the SECOND image that showed up (I wish I was joking), and here I was thinking world cup was about soccer, silly me.

Brazilian Wax
I refuse to provide any visual aid for that

Brazilian wandering spider

I lived in Brazil for 18 years and didn't even know we had such a thing (Thanks Google for being educational)

Brazil Carnaval/Women

and here I disappoint my male readers who thought they would get naked glittery ladies - Sorry, I have to keep the blog (kiiiinda) clean, so I give you Angela Bismarchi (AKA- world record for most surgical plastics), straight from Avatar apparently, to the festival in Rio (even though if you do the Google search you will get a gazillion of naked ladies)

Just for fun- Tiririca

For those who don't know, this is Tiririca - at first sight a clown (at second and third sights, still a clown) who probably show up in a Google search for 'Brazil politics', since he was just elected as a federal deputy with an absurd amount of votes. (justsaying)

Now, If you try the same search in Google- Brazil - you get "Brasil, Brasil flag, Brasil 2014, Brasil logo, Brasil soccer team, Brasil mapa, Brasilia". What do you get from that? Well, one thing for sure: Brazilian Google certainly sucks at helping its bored users kill a few hours of their lonely nights. Other than that, Brazilian Google also fails to acknowledge the brazilian women, more brazilian women, fascinating insects and pictoresque polititicians that clearly are so searched for by people interested in our country.

Big Bang, Pie and Queen

Since nothing much has been going on in this sides of the woods lately, I decided to venture to new lands of Scarborough, ON to do nothing less than watch a live interview with the Big Bang theory cast (or at least most of it - Leonard and Penny weren't there) at the CTV studios. I had to wake up at 5:50 in the morning and endure morning rush hour traffic but it was all worth it (even though the interview was really short). The Big Bang guys have a great sense of humor and are unbelievably down to earth. They talked a bit about the show, how they come up with the character's quirks and how their (absurdly busy) visit to Canada has been so far. However, my 2 thumbs up go for the hosts of Canada AM, Beverley Thomson and Seamus O'regan, who manage to be adorable and entertaining even off screen, when they had to wake up earlier than I did. And because I love my readers so much, I'' let you have a feel of the studio...

Yours truly...


Seamus retouching his makeup...


The gang...


Howard (Simon Helberg) & Raj(Kunal Nayyar) hiding behind Beverley...


Sheldon (Jim Parson).



After my morning TV experience, I headed Downtown Toronto (clearly there was nothing to do in sauga this Thursday) with my beloved mother that is visiting for thanksgiving. I took her to 2 of my favorite destinations in TO: Kensington market and Queen street.

Kensington is my little piece of Europe in Canada. I think its mix of London and Berlin vibes that just takes me to a bliss whenever I'm there. I absolutely LOVE that place! Check it out as soon as you have a chance (if you haven't already) and let me know if you find any other must sees around there, here are some of the ones I found:

Wanda's Pie in The Sky - amazing pastry, people and location (with the perk of being organic based! )


This is Kensington...



Since I considered we hadn't done enough for a day, we headed for lunch and a stroll down Queen's street - not quite so edgy and lovely as Kensignton but still worth a visit.


Now for those of you that are bored in Mississauga, or anywhere else in the world that boredom attacks, I'll leave you with a list of links to help you snap out of it:

Fashion People - T magazine scorecards on fashion shows.
Just found this blog entries and I really like it for some reason, don't really know why (possibly indentify with the overly critical writing *evil grin*).

Craving killers - Cheesecake-marbled brownies
Haven't tried yet but if they taste as great as they look, I see a new contestant for my top 10 favorite things in the world coming up.

Don't ask, just check - Hilarious, for people who travel a lot.
Ridiculously accurate.