The week of the to do list. Part two.

You feel a bit of a spare part those days before leaving, your sorting stuff so you feel like you can't get involved with anything new. You end up window shopping and buying things you don't really need - like Superdrug's 3 for 2 on cosmetics [as if America doesn't do make up] buying Glamour merely for the Nails Inc [picture 3], walked my way around the walls of York [picture 1] and poked the National Railway museum [picture 2].

On Friday I went to Hull for a change of scene. Hull a bit of a weird city and it's one few people go out of their way to visit. It always felt a city that's lacking that extra vibe to push itself [probably merely lacking government funding]. What Hull is good for is lots of free museums of which there are eight. Mostly they are based around the Old Town in the Museum Quarter where you'll find the slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce's house, the Street life Museum [picture 4] and the Hull and East Yorkshire museum. If you ever need to pass an afternoon in Hull i'd really recommend them.

When I try to picture Detroit I always imagine it to be something similar to Hull - both were previous industrial hubs that have seemed to have lost their spark when their manufacturing lifeblood drained away. Nevertheless I don't know what to expect, I tend to ignore the looks and misunderstanding about why you'd want to move to Detroit but I tend to try and see over people's generalisations, people often become too believing of them without experiencing the place themselves. Here's to giving it a go.

The week of the to do list part one.

Getting winter woolies for Michigan in H&M

Why has it taken me so long to find these crisps?! Super super yum.

I brought a notebook with the intention of having somewhere to write all those half posts you get in your head at the most un-blogging moments. Yet when you find the time to blog, they've have vanished. This week while I haven't been at work i've been bored enough to plan out a lot of posts in my head, especially while sitting in coffee shops, all this extra time makes you realise how slow time can really go when your not busy - or when your waiting for something.

This week has been spent tackling what was left of the to do list, predominately it was filled with boring money things, buying last minute bits, getting some clothes, being interrogated in M&S [of all places] when buying dollars through to living in Starbucks and Costa and wishing the week away. I even popped into work - even though my uniform was literately falling apart you have to take it back [yeah it's fit for the bin] and being the nice person I am I took them some chocolates as a thank you for the leaving pressies - if you remember anything about the moaning I did about work - well the lady that did most of it, who gave me most of the talk how you can't trust men etc etc just blanked me the whole ten minutes I was there. Yeah friendly place. Yet I know she'll be eating most of the chocolates. But when I wasn't sorting things out I was poking the museum gardens with my old point and shoot camera, nosing in shops and even popped into the cinema to see The Help.

Mentally i've been getting my head into gear - saying that I don't think the scale of emigrating will  sink in until Joe has returned to work, even so it might feel like a holiday for a couple of months especially with no working allowed just yet. I know I'm ready in myself to do this and that's the biggest and I guess one of the most important things to have achieved at all this week.

Fashionista Custom Design Palatte

Double Take and Sultry

Night Sky and Silver Lining

Left to right - Double Take, Night Sky, Silver Lining and Sultry

I've been eying up the FashionistA products for a while, since my local Superdrug had a bit of a revamp there was a brand new cashing with it all in, coming in in small bits. They store had had the eye-shadow pans in for weeks yet they never had any of the palattes left to make up one of their key lines - the Custom Design Palatte. I wanted to go down a bit of the smoky dark eye look so I opted for the cosmetic shade double take, silver lining, sultry and night sky.

Fashionista brand themselves as bringing the catwalk to the high-street for pretty affordable prices since mid September. Their Custom Design Palatte can be filled with a huge colour range of pans, from forty-nine eye shadows and twelve blushers so there really is a colour for everyone. The palatte itself comes in either red (as featured here) or black with container fittings for four eye-shadow/blusher pans and comes with a huge mirror - the mirror which is the same size as the box is a massive plus as with a few palattes your not supplied with them and this is nice and clear which makes it really handy for carrying your palatte around.

The packaging is lovely and clear and totally not over pushy or branded which I prefer. Additionally the pans are really easy to push up from the bottom to detach them from their outter casing. They with a snuggle fit they pop into the pan wells within the palatte itself. What's even better is when flipping the casing over, your still able to see the name of the eye shadow. Using the palatte is really easy, it's solid and the pans themselves are large so you get a good amount. The colours are well pigmented and apply and blend really well, you don't need a lot of any of the shades because they do really go far. I've noticed when using some brands the shadows sometimes "flake" when your using your applicator within the pan but so far that hasn't occurred with this one.

I would highly recommend using and making your own palatte selection, while you might be paying a little more compared to MUA I love having that freedom in picking colours you're more likely to use and with the huge array of colours then there really is a colour to suit you.

Have you tried any of the fashionista products?

FOOD: Take me out

Sometimes when you just hear one song it brings back so many memories. With my MP3 player on shuffle the other day Franz Ferdinand came through the speakers - they aren't now a band I play very often do I do have a liking for their songs. They last time I properly listened to them was when me and Joe were dinning at the American bar come grill Henry J Beans in York in August 2011. Because I never really posted about that holiday at the time [it was the start of my on/off blogging relationship] I thought it would bring something new for today - away from my on going steam of visa and migration talk. On the day we visited they had a thing for playing at least three of the same bands songs in a row and as we were sitting down Franz were playing and everytime I know hear take me out it takes me right back to that meal. 

As far as i'm aware Henry J Beans is part of a larger chain around the UK offering us UK folks a culinary taste of Americana from huge burgers, milk shakes pizzas and steaks. I opted for the Philly Steak - my boy's originally from Pennsylvania so it was kind of fitting, recipes and versions alternate but they are normally made up of sliced steak, peppers, onions upon a crusty baguette topped off with lots of yummy melted cheese, now every time I've ventured near an American grill [like The Diner in London's Soho] I always favour trying their Philly steaks.

One of the exciting things about moving is getting to try a huge new range of foods, i've never even had a taco before so that's the first thing on the list, after that i'm all up for the new food adventure! Saying that i'll nice proper English fish and chips [i've been googling chippies already and have found a couple to try out].

Have you ever had been to America and tried anything tasty you'd recommend?