Putting out a PSA to find where the good coffee shops in Ottawa rest because I am so tired of searching up places & heading all the way there for it to be nothing like I thought it would be. Also I think that I am comparing them all to the one place I love, Equator Coffee Westboro (currently sitting here writing this post). I just wish all the other spots are just as amazing as this shop. These are the basic things I need in every coffee shop:

Summer is finally here, full fledged and hot as hell with festivals & events every weekend. Every summer I plan a list of things I would like to do and it usually doesn't end up happening because I'm working full-time in the summer and don't make enough time. This summer is no different except that fact that I'm in school full-time which is more demanding but it must be done. My top 4 must do things this summer are:

Haaaayy, hope all is well with my peeps. School has been hectic trying to plan an event, keep up with school work and volunteer while trying to work my two jobs and attempting to have a good eventful summer. It's hard trying to manage it all but the more I stay actually using my agenda and Calendar on my phone and Macbook, the more its helping me know what's happening.

My coffee shop adventures have been put on pause for Ramadan but the last new place that I discovered was Bar Robo which is fairly new and just at the start of ChinaTown. Their staff are pretty chill and helpful and their drinks are pretty good. They have some good vibes and it's not too crowded which I love when I need to get work done so I've been liking it there. They apparently have food too but I haven't tried it yet and I doubt that its gonna replace Equator Coffee, nothing is at their level so far. This is a iced maple latte with almond milk from Bar Robo.


The week that just passed was a very eventful one, Ramadan 2016 has started, I saw PVRIS in Montreal, there was a sinkhole in downtown ottawa, I volunteered at DessertFest (I got some free desserts but didn't eat them & brought them for people) and my event for class is getting so close (almost a month away). The summer seems to go by so fast and I feel like I haven't done enough yet. However, Ramadan got us all tired and hungry so nothing can really be achieved in those moods so once that's over in the beginning of July, summer will begin and I can do all that I hope to this summer.



PVRIS show was pretty amazing and I was happy to finally see them considering I missed their performance at Warped Tour last year. Their openers were AMAZING. I was jamming along the whole time and tried to get their CDs after the show except one band was sold out of them but I got at least one of the bands cd and partially signed. The first opener was Polyenso and they were not like a type of band I've seen before so it was nice to see something different and so good. The next opener was another new favourite of mine and they were called Cruisr they were pretty upbeat and just an entertaining bunch. They had no more CDs but as long as I know their name I can find their music somehow. I haven't really listened to them to tell you my favs but soon time they might be one of my songs of the week.






My top things that I want to be able to do is some SUP (Stand up Paddling) and/or SUP Yoga, berry picking, at least one Calypso trip, see a Blue Jays game, check out Tobermory, have a beach day, eat brunch, eat lunch on a rooftop patio and have a big trip at the end of the summer.

My OBSESSION of the week would have to be banana popsicles. I got my mom to buy me a box a week or so ago and just have been having one a day for the past week. I can't eat ice cream so I got to find some good popsicles or sorbets that I can eat. I've thought about trying dairy free ice cream but I don't know how I will feel about it, maybe I will try them.

My FAVOURITE TRACK of the week was Dangerous Women by Ariana Grande. I heard it on one of the playlists that we play at one of my jobs and fell in love with it. It's such an empowering song and change from her other album. The whole album is pretty amazing and I haven't found a song that I don't like in it yet, Side to Side ft Nicki Minaj is also a good track.

HEY GUYS,

I'm so excited because I got some goodies in the mall which was the last thing I was waiting for before I showed you the new stuff I got. So this is like a mini collection of things I've gathered. Some I've been looking for and some I got just cause and some were risk purchases that turned out good. In my mini new collection I have a pair of black flats, 3 liquid matte lip colours, a floppy hat, a makeup bag and a new eyeshadow.



I wasn't ready to go home one day so I decided to go wander in Chapters because I love that store and wanted to stumble upon something to buy ahaha. We'll best believe I saw many things I wanted that got added to my wish list and walked away with two things. I found a cute little makeup bag because mines needed updating if I was serious about updating my makeup bag and I got a REAL bookmark because I was sick of using random pieces of paper to keep my page.



I have been DYING for a navy blue floppy hat; my friend has a black one that I borrow all the time but I wanted one of my own and I wanted navy blue because I can wear it with this one jumpsuit I bought a year ago and STILL haven't worn ugh. However, Top Shop blessed my life and had this one there, I seen it multiple times at many different Top Shops but wasn't ready to buy it and plus it was $52 and I knew I could get a better deal. Fast forward to like a few weeks ago when I was just window shopping and I found that same $52 hat for $13 and best believe I snatched it as quick as I could, it was meant to be.

These things I have been waiting two weeks for; the Stila one I got the same time I got my hat but the Colour Pop had me waiting a minute. The Stila colour is called Ricco and liquid matte is the best thing I have ever discovered, no mess colours on your lips that dry and stay there all day. The Colour Pop colours are More Better & Stingraye, they were very iffy colours for me but I took a risk and bought them because I needed some new colours in my new makeup bag. I tried them on and I love them and I'm ready for my next purchase from them. I also got a free eyeshadow from them called Birthday Boy because it was their two year birthday. It's a pretty neutral colour that works on about everyone so it might get me wearing eye shadow again.


Last but not least is these flats that everyone needs in their life, basic everyday black flats. I got them today because I have so many places that I need to be dressed professionally or business casual and black flats just fits well with that dress code compared to my red Vans or white Adidas. It's just a simple cheap pair I picked up from H&M that won't be giving me blisters.


I lied that wasn't the last thing. I also got white Adidas Superstars from the Adidas store when I was in Toronto about 3 weeks ago and been wearing them. They are my new favs but I am not tryina ruin them quite yet so I need to stock up on more shoes so I don't out wear my Adidas.

Today marks the first day of Ramadan this year so I would like to wish all my fellow Muslim readers a Ramadan Mubarek. This is the most holy month in the year all about forgiveness and repenting, fasting as well of course. 

So this past weekend I got to check out the first ever yoga festival, City of Om which was a pretty great experience; I had won a free ticket just before Parliament Hill Yoga had started one day. I had planned to come and stay all day and do as many yoga classes I can do before I headed home but little did I know that I most likely would not been able to last in that sun.


  8:30 am: showed up and checked out the event
  9:30 am: took part of my first yoga class of the day
10:30 am: yoga class ended
11:00 am: checked out the different vendors
11:30 am: grabbed a drink from the Blended Berry food truck
12:00 pm: got home



I had wanted to do multiple yoga classes but after the first one I did with the hot sun beating down on me I had decided to take a break until the next indoor class but the wait in the sun was just too hot that I decided to call it quits for the day. The class I did, Hatha Flow with Lucy Castell was such a good and zen class. I usually am little bit distracted in my practices but this class I was so into my practice I forgot about everything else in the world. I hope to have more great practices as that one and this festival has urged me to sign up to a studio and dedicate my time to become a better yogi.

One studio that was a vendor at the festival was The Dailey Method and their classes seem very interesting; they are everything I want in my workouts & practices so I would like to go check them out. They do classes with a mix of pilates, yoga & barre. I have been wanting to try out barre & pilates classes so this is my chance to be able to do both & yoga all in one studio. They say their practices "help you achieve a strong, lean, sculpted body by combining ballet barre work, core conditioning & muscle strengthening through yoga, pilates & orthopaedic exercise" which is everything I want in my workouts and more. So I shall keep you guys updated when I do check them out.

Hopefully they make this a annual event that gets better and better every year because I enjoyed it but know that it could be better. In the Event Management program they told us once we learned all these things about how events should be run and what not we will never look at any event we attend the same anymore, oh how right they are. Throughout the 3 hours I was there I saw things that logistically could have been done different but it is their first year and you gotta make the mistakes to learn from them.

One thing I enjoyed about going to this festival alone was that I didn't have to check up on someone mid practice to make sure they were alive or doing fine, all I had to do was focus on me (it's not that people ask me to check on them but if I know you don't do yoga I just will check on you). It also gets me out there and checking out booths and conversing with vendors that I probably wouldn't do with other people.

this was a pretty good vegan snack Caven Nutrition Group was handing out

PEEPS!

What's up? How's life? How are my university peeps feeling now that school is over and summer has started? I can't relate cause while y'all were in school I was chilling and now that it's summer, I'm in school and y'all are chilling. It's all good though cause I'm going to be *hopefully* be done by the end of summer and continue on chilling and travelling like I was but this time with a job in my field aka making more money to spend on fun adventure stuff.

I'm now on week 3 of school & slowly getting into a routine with classes and work which means I can start posting on a regular basis. I will probably be posting on Wednesdays or Fridays my weekly updates and then other posts will start randomly through the week and then I will eventually have a day when it posts.

Yesterday was Victoria Day which meant it was a long weekend which is always an excuse to get out of town. I headed down to Toronto on Thursday and stayed till Monday afternoon. I came down for a concert, one of the main reason that i'm travelling and then my mom came down so I stayed with her a couple more days with her.

Thursday I got in late in the evening & didn't really do much because we were tired so we just went out to some spot and hung out with the people I knew there before going to bed and not driving anymore, driving is tiring work and makes your back sore.



Friday I woke up early and headed on over to Mississauga to see an old friend where we did some shopping at H&M & grabbed lunch over at Panera Bread. We did a lot of catching up considering I haven't seen her for a year which was nice. After leaving her, I headed back to Toronto picked up my friends and started the drive down to Buffalo. It doesn't take that long to get there maybe an hour to like an hour and a half but I got stuck in traffic for maybe an hour or two. Then finally made it to the show I came down for, Hands Like Houses; favourite band that i've seen 5 times and literally on Wednesday in Ottawa. It was one of the most wild shows i've seen and I've see HLH 5 times. The opening bands had the crowd rilled up and there were some hardcore moshpitters in the crowd. Then HLH finally came on and it was a WILD show. The crowd was jumping up on stage and creating a mosh pit and I felt like it brought everyone to a level where they were so into the music they were going crazy which made the band bring their all. I barely took pictures because I was soo into the show and then they played one song we wanted to hear which they had never played before that day, Degrees of Separation and they killed it. It's always a good show when I see HLH and that was my 5th show within the two years of knowing them and I love how they are always so friendly and just awesome guys. Till the next show....later this year in the fall ahaha.







The rest of the weekend was just random adventures around the city and finishing up some homework for class. I also did some shopping too and bought some things i've been looking for such as some sneakers that go with everything.

I'm currently working on my top 5 places to eat in Ottawa and my my fav coffee shops to do homework in around the city but I just can't pull away from my one fav spot right now, Equator Coffee which I will be heading to right now to do my homework and get a lot of stuff done while having a great drink and some good food.



My OBSESSION of the week has probably been trying to find different ways to style my hair because I just don't want to straighten it all the time. So I have been trying to leave it curly which my hair can't do so I force it into curls aka bantu knots which works well the smaller you make them and the longer you leave them in. I don't have a good picture but the next time I do it I will show you all how I did it.

My FAVOURITE TRACK of the week is This is What You Came For / With You [Rihanna Mash - Up] by Travis Garland. Travis Garland is my FAV artist and I discovered him through his covers and then started listening to his songs that he sings himself and LOVE THEM. His voice is just so beautiful and if you haven't checked him out, check him out.