Best of: October '16

Well hellooo there, November! *plays Gabrielle Aplin's 'November' all month long*
Crazy that October has ended and we're nearing the festive season aka Thanksgiving and the long awaited one... Christmas! October was quite a lovely month, albeit as always had its ups and downs; especially during that time of the month. I was feeling very emotional about everything. The first day, I had self-hatred for myself, the second I was feeling so lonely after seeing Jack Morris of Do You Travel and Lauren Bullen of Gypsea_Lust's life on Instagram. If anyone wants to volunteer to accompany me travel the world together, that'd be greatly appreciated. 🙆🏻

Without further ado, let's get on with my favorites of the past month shall we?!

Movies

The Princess Diaries: A classic, and one that I'll watch over and over again just for the sake of my childhood memory. I mean, who doesn't love Anne Hathaway as a princess and the beautiful scenery of San Francisco? I love Mia's quirkiness so much. 

Freaky Friday: Another childhood classic movie of mine that played on the telly whilst I was home alone with the furball. I may have squealed a couple times (there were also a lot of lols happening too) when Chad Michael Murray appeared on the screen. Gotta say though, that haircut on him does not look good. 

Daddy's Home: A spur of the moment movie that I watched on the flight back home. Will Ferrell has great humor, mix that in with Mark Wahlberg and you've got me laughing out loud like a hyena. I was laughing so hard that the grandma next to me was staring at me!

A Royal Night Out: 70% of the movie was fiction, but to be able to see what Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret did on VE Day was pretty dang cool. Doesn't hurt that I got to see parts of London as well. The ending was a happy one, but one that was bittersweet for me.

Ben Hur: Very saddening, and shocking as well as I thought this was a non-fiction movie! All the actors were great, kudos to them. I'm a bit of a history buff myself, so transporting myself to yonks and yonks ago is one of my favorite things to do in life.

Love Actually: Pretty early to watch a Christmas movie, I know! But it was on the telly, and I never got round to watching it until a week ago! Let me just say that Colin Firth a decade ago is an absolute babe (umm, hey Mr. Darcy) and Hugh Grant's dancing sesh made my week. Pretty dang hilarious!

Songs

1. Every single song from Gabrielle Aplin's album "English Rain"

Youtubers, Bloggers & Instagram Peeps

extrasunbeamsjess: I've been following Jess for a year now and never actually watched her vlogs before! I was so happy to discover her vlog channel when I've got nothing to watch. Her India vlogs from the past summer is my absolutely favorite. Her Vlogtober videos are pretty chilled and relaxing to watch too. Her personality is just so raw and real and I could relate to her a lot! 

Emma Hill of EJ Style: Emma got me into the pom pom trend, so thanks for that! I absolutely love her outfit posts, and she did a San Diego travel guide a couple months back that was so detailed that I was ready to pack my things and go there. She recently did a post on how to turn your blog into a successful business, and I somehow read the whole thing from top to bottom without scrolling past a point whatsoever. It was very detailed and well written!

I've been loving Beautiful Destinations for quite a while now. Filled to the brim with travel photographs, I can't help but want to escape and travel the world like they are. Most pictures of theirs are repost of other people's pictures, so I made sure to follow a few of the people who work in the #BDteam aka - Jeremy Jauncey (not only does he take great photos, he's nice to look at too), Tom Jauncey (drone extraordinaire), Sam Kolder (video extraordinaire), Jacob Riglin (photo extraordinaire) and James Relfdyer.  

Food:

Bitterballen: A couple months back, I managed to eat at least 12 balls of bitterballen in a matter of minutes - pretty unhealthy, I know. After months of not eating it, I finally ate it whilst on a road trip a couple weeks back! It was very tasty (and I only ate 3 of it, which is good).

Crème Caramel at Le Petit Four: Ain't my creme caramel, was my mom's but it looks pretty scrumptious if I do so say myself. Plus, the restaurant is so cute! Very parisienne, felt as if I was in Paris for real, really.

Places

A stroll through Santa Monica Beach: Santa Monica and its sunset, you bloody lovely thing. There's nothing more relaxing that stroll through the beach during sunset! It wasn't too crowded too, which is great. It was just so nice to be able to breathe in the fresh salty air and just live. Doesn't hurt that the sunset was pretty dang beautiful too!

A spontaneous roadtrip: Pretty sure I'm a big fan of nature now. Not the bugs or mosquitos flying around obviously, but just the general peacefulness and contentment I have deep inside of me when I'm one with nature. It was pretty dark out as it was pouring down with rain, still - a very beautiful drive that I'll not forget for a while now! 

Didn't love much things over the month of October, but that's fine! One downfall I had last month was my laptop being broken. Thankfully, it's now fixed and lookin' spankin' new. I hope you have a lovely Thursday and I seriously can't wait what November has got for me. 💁🏻

Much love, Ashley xx

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