What quarantine has taught me, life update + Harry Potter all the way!

This is a kind of personal, cooking and bookish post all at once. I didn’t have a lot of time to catch up on reading the past few weeks (while other people have all the time in the world at home, going back to school is proving itself to be kind of stressful!) and so I really wanted to share some of my personal thoughts regarding the current situation and what I made of the past few months and also experienced!

I learned to always wake up with a positive attitude!

This is probably the best thing that could have happened to me during a pandemic and the most important thing I’ve learned: to wake up with a smile. The past few months, even though I was at home alone with my parents, I have been the happiest in a very long time (I wasn’t depressed, but I did have my ups and downs as everyone has!) and that gave me a new perspective: while my mother was super depressed and sad to see all our plans being cancelled, I kept a smile and was happy to do workouts at home, take a stroll through the city and cook/bake.

I was never stressed because, even though home schooling was more than usual school, I had no exam stress and anxiety regarding presentations. I was laid-back, started my day with a workout/walk/run, ate breakfast, started studying and then had time to read/watch a movie.

And now going back to school, I’m excited to get up and get ready every day and am happy to bike to school with my best friends and just to have structure. For me, the pandemic taught me to wake up and simply try to make the best of things and be grateful that you are safe and that you have your family by your side and your friends via face time/text or boring zoom classes.

Cooking adventures!

I’m very fortunate to have my two best friends living just one minute away and so we were able to meet up, take walks, do photoshoots and cook together a couple of times and we all valued that time together immensely. Then I had another one of my best friends sleep over for a couple of days because she lives far away and that was quality time as well! So here are some cooking inspirations, in case you’re looking for new things to try out!

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The main courses I created/cooked: first was a shrimp salad with egg, avocado, onions and green salad which is a perfect healthy dinner! The second dish was a pasta with homemade pesto which was basically one plant of fresh basil, garlic and olive oil! And the third dish (which for some reason I’d never tried before) are tacos and I have been obsessed and eat them on a weekly basis now: I tried both shrimp and minced meat ones and they’re both super yummy!

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Now onto the desserts: the first traditional one was “Kaiserschmarren”, an Austrian famous desert which I chose in honor of my Austrian family! The next one is a “cookie pie”, basically you bake the cookie doe and eat it while it’s still creamy and combine it with ice cream haha! Third, my mom’s fave, is an mini apple-crumble for which you only need one apple, a little bit of flower, butter and sugar for two servings!

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Then we have the birthday cakes: the yellow great looking one was tragically not mine. My best friend and I bet which one would look better (he won), but my “cookie cake”, basically cookie doe baked with Oreo filling was yummy as well. The one in the middle is a vanilla souflée (not as good as the chocolate one) and the one on the right is banana + chocolate bread with strawberry sauce and chocolate-dipped strawberries!

Hopped on the trend!

I guess everyone basically knows this and if not boycotted it, participated. My three top favorite albums are Whitney Houston’s (I actually like all of them), Michael Jackson’s Thriller (definitely best one!!!) and The Beatles’s Rubber Soul (together with Let It Be my favorite!). Then we can’t forget about The Weekend’s new album which has some GREAT songs: I love Blinding Lights (who doesn’t), Save your tears, Heartless and In your eyes!

I DIY-ed my desktop wallpaper!

Don’t mind this being a snap to my friends when our teacher decided to start the zoom class BEFORE THE ACTUAL CLASS WOULD HAVE STARTED. I chose some of my favorite symbols (flowers, Oxford Uni, Hogwarts, butterfly, San Francisco and books) and added some cute waves and for some reason I’m super obsessed with this sticker-like background?! I don’t know, it has a positive vibe to it!

Harry Potter Marathon + rereading!

I’m currently watching one Harry Potter movie per night and am loving the feeling: Hogwarts and young Harry, Ron and Hermione are super nostalgic to watch and I’m overly excited to get to the more action-filled later movies! Then I’m in the middle of Goblet of Fire, third reread and Harry just discovered that dragons are the first task! I really enjoy reading it again, especially today when I had the chance to sit on my front porch and read it in the sun!

That’s it – incredibly long and very different post! I hope you enjoyed a more private and cooking-filled post and happy reading! PS: please comment if you’ve cooked/baked anything awesome lately, I’m always looking for new things to try!