Manchester Cocktail Festival 2016

A couple of weeks ago, me and my best friend went to Manchester Cocktail Festival with our mums as a treat for them before we leave for uni and, for my best friend's mum, a birthday present! Manchester Cocktail Festival lasted a week from 8-14 August and we bought a £10 wristband which gave us access to events and £4.50 cocktails all week! I thought I would do a blog post about it as it was a really great day and the cocktails were absolutely amazing!

Essentially there were about 30 bars around Manchester that were participating and each bar was sponsored by a brand of alcohol which they put into the cocktails that they had come up with for the festival to promote these independent brands of alcohol.

We made our first stop at The Botanist in Manchester to have a cocktail before having our tea. The Botanist is a small chain of restaurants around the North West and their restaurants are garden themed and decorated so they are absolutely adorable and then their amazing food just tops it off! The cocktails that they offered were a Langley's Lady, Vanilla Phoenix, Kiwi and Grapefruit Crush and an Aproni. I had a Kiwi and Grapefruit Crush which was amazing as they used real fruit and herbs then crushed it up at the bottom of the glass adding gin and soda water (I think). Me and my mum both had that one, my best friend's mum had a Langley's Lady and my best friend had a Vanilla Phoenix. I can't remember what was in a Langley's Lady but the Vanilla Phoenix was made of vanilla syrup, gin and beer and although it doesn't sound like it would go together, it tasted absolutely amazing and is what I imagine butter beer tastes like! The cocktails were absolutely amazing and the perfect start to our evening.

We then went to Bill's and, as the event we were going to later featured food, we only wanted a small tea so both mother and daughter pairs shared the Mezze Platter which was incredible and featured tapas style food such as falafel, calamari, a chicken skewer, olives and bread and hummus. Me and mum also ordered some breaded halloumi sticks. It was an absolutely incredible meal and I had a raspberry lemonade ice cream float to go with it which tasted like my childhood as I used to love ice cream floats when I was little!

We then had the main event that we actually went for which was at Allotment which is a bar in Manchester city centre near the shops. The event was called the Brockman's Gintervention and essentially consisted of a Brand Representative from Brockman's gin telling us about the gin and we tried it and then he gave each table a bottle and bottles of tonic and ginger beer and let us drink it! We were also provided with some amazing desserts as well on platters which were delicious and my favourite was definitely the chocolate covered strawberry! Brockman's Gin was genuinely the nicest gin I've ever had as it didn't really taste of gin too much, it has lots of fruity flavours in (one of it's main features is blackberries) and it was absolutely delicious!

So that was my best friend Georgie and I's adventure with our mothers into the world of cocktails in Manchester! We also got told about some really cool secret bars that we want to visit in September!

What's your favourite cocktail? 

University Stationery Haul! | Paperchase and WH Smith

Results day was on Thursday and I got my A Level results which I was very happy with as I achieved A*AB and a Distinction* in my Subsidiary Diploma in Performing Arts which means I have confirmed my place at The University of Edinburgh to study Linguistics! So, in three weeks I will be moving to Edinburgh! Therefore, me and my best friend who is also going to university to study Linguistics but at a different university went to Chester to do a little bit of stationery shopping as I do love some cute stationery! So I just thought I would do a quick post to show you the bits I picked up!

So first stop was Paperchase and I decided that I needed a new pencil case and I found this really cute one which has maps all over it which I liked as it was travel related! Then I thought that I should probably get a notebook of some sort to write all my notes from lectures down in although I'm not sure how much writing I'll be doing or if I'll be mainly typing so I only got one and it has multi coloured clouds on which is really pretty!

Then in WH Smiths I got these big folders as I thought I should probably get the thicker ones as I should have got those ones for college but I didn't hand just had ring binders and they got so full! I really liked the Tropique one as it looked really summery and pretty and the second one has paper and dividers inside as well which will be super useful to divide all my units up!

I will probably need to get some more stationery closer to the time but these were just some bits that I picked up today!

Did you have results day on Thursday? How did it go?

The New Meaning of Feral!

 Just a quick post today with a story from my travels! One of my favourite things about traveling is meeting new people and, when we were in Croatia, we met some lovely Australian girls on our trip to Krka Waterfalls. They were called Rearne and Tegan and were staying in Split before going on a Sail Croatia and then a Contiki for 5 weeks all around Europe – an amazing experience! While we were talking to them, they taught us some an amazing game called Snaps and some Australian slang!

The game called Snaps was so much fun, they were doing it for ages before they told us what the secret was! Essentially it was a game in which we would tell one of them a celebrity or word and then the other one would guess it by ‘reading her mind’. They used a combination of words/phrases that started with the same letter and clicks for vowels to spell out the words but made it really convincing by using gestures and intonation! It was such a fun game and kept us occupied on the bus journey to Krka! Me and my best friend then practiced and learnt how to do it and then baffled all of our friends at home with it!

They also taught us some really fun slang which included ‘feral’. Tegan used it in the context of ‘I’m looking so feral’ and me and my best friend who study Linguistics found that so interesting as, apparently in Australia, they use ‘feral’ as a term for saying that you look a mess!! I thought that was amazing and, it could be because I’m a bit of a geek but I thought it was really cool! They also used ‘duna’ to mean duvet and ‘icy poles’ as ice lollies! I love foreign slang!!

I know this was a bit of a nonsense post really but I like to share stories about the people I meet on my travels and this just seemed like a fun post to share some conversations from a super fun day!

8 Things to do in Copenhagen, Denmark!

I have been to Copenhagen in Denmark twice as I know a family who live there and when we visit, we stay with them. So, today I thought I would do a blog post about some of the things that we have done when we have been to Copenhagen! Both times we went, which was in 2012 when I was 13 and February this year, have been in February so one of the most popular things to do in Copenhagen – Tivoli Gardens – has been closed so unfortunately that doesn’t feature on my list but hopefully I’m going to visit maybe next spring so I can do Tivoli then! Some of the things that we did also were a little less touristy as we were staying with this family a little outside Copenhagen but they are still things I would definitely recommend.

We went to Kronborg castle the first time I visited and had a tour around there. Kronborg castle is the setting of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and, on the week we went to Copenhagen, there had been a lot of snow so the castle looked very magical. The snow was the thickest snow I have ever seen and it was so cold that the river had frozen solid and thick pieces of ice were floating on the sea!

We also had a tour around Carlsburg Brewery in Copenhagen where we walked around the actual brewery and tasted the beer (well my parents and brothers did – I’m not a massive beer fan, give me cider anyday!) which was really cool, my parents definitely really enjoyed this – at the time I was probably a little young. Although they did have a stables which I loved as I rode horses at the time ad the restaurant served really good food!

If you’re in Copenhagen, don’t miss Christiania. Christiania is a large neighbourhood that is recognised as a free commune by Danish law. Copenhagen police don’t enforce law in the area and photography is prohibited in certain areas but it is amazing to either wander around on your own or to have a guided tour. One of the residents of Christiania gave us our tour and it was really interesting to get the insiders viewpoint of living there.

Of course we also had to visit the iconic Little Mermaid which is a statue tribute to Danish Han Christian Andersen. Everyone always says this is so crowded with tourists but maybe because of the time of year that we went or because it was so cold but we were the only ones there! It meant we managed to get some great pictures there!

We of course also went to Nyhavn which is the harbour area and me and my Danish friend Anna did some shopping on Stroget – the big shopping street which is super long and really cool!

Then when we went this year, we did a few of the less touristy things and some Copenhagen things that we didn’t do last time! We had a great day walking all around Copenhagen through Stroget and Nyhavn and then we went up Christiansborg Palace Tower which gave us an amazing view of all around Copenhagen! We also went shopping on Stroget and had afternoon tea at Konditori Antoinette which was amazing!

 

We went to Roskilde Viking Museum which was really interesting! It has 5 Viking ships that they resurfaced from the sea north of Copenhagen and restructured parts of so that they don’t fall apart! It was really interesting to learn about the culture of Vikings and it was amazing that these ancient ships still existed hundreds of years later.

Whilst we were in Roskilde, we also visited Roskilde Cathedral which is a gothic cathedral that is where all the Danish monarchs are buired. It's really beautiful to walk around although they have already finished preparing the tomb for the current King and Queen which seems a little morbid!

Finally we went to a lovely town called Hoge to visit some friends on our last day before catching our flight which was a nice town, really pretty to walk around!

Have you been to Copenhagen? Do you have any recommendations of what to do next time I go?