New format! I have too much to say about books to lump them in my monthly recaps, so look out for my monthly reading update on Thursday! I’ve embedded my song of the month if you’d like to give it a listen whilst we catch up with each other here. We’ve got a whole ~experience~ going on *:･ﾟ✧
Autumn is approaching, but it’s still not quite cool enough to be wearing my favourite long jeans. It’s getting harder to wake up early, as the sun is taking its time to nudge me awake, but I’m starting to embrace the shorter days and earlier golden hours, lounging at cafes in their outdoor seating areas because it’s finally cool enough, feeling the pages in my hands turn warm, illuminated at sunset, and trying my best to not get pastry crumbs stuck in the spines. I’ve been living between pages (of 14 books this month, to be exact), and need to remind myself to step into real life once in awhile. This month has been a summer dream I haven’t wanted to wake up from, but real life awaits.
After coming off such a high from my whirlwind vacation in June (check out my Switzerland, Vienna, and Budapest recaps if you haven’t already!), July was a bit of an adjustment. Having to face real life again was a smack in the face, especially when I realised that it’s been a full year since I graduated. A whole year passed, and it feels like nothing has changed, like my life got put on pause ever since I graduated. This gave me a lot of anxiety, and juxtaposed with my carefree June, made it all the more overwhelming.
My low mood led to a lot of indulgence in compensation (shopping, eating out, lots of iced coffee and bubble tea), and I’ve thrown myself into books and working out (kickboxing and swimming) instead of making real plans for change. But now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, I’m hoping to get back into the swing of things in August.
June was loads of fun; I read 11 books and visited 6 cities! Despite that, June’s recap is shorter than usual because I’m saving the details for full travel recaps that I’ll be sharing throughout July. I wish every day of my life could be filled with books and Hungarian lemonade, but alas, I’m back in Philly now and gotta figure out what I want to do with my life to be a productive member of society.
This month’s month-in-review is a few days late because I’ve had a busy weekend and I’ve been busy in general! These last few days, I’ve been finalising plans for a family trip through a few cities in Switzerland, Vienna, and Budapest, and I’m off this Thursday! If anyone has recs or travel guides for Lausanne, Gimmelwald, Lucerne, Vienna, or Budapest, please leave ’em in the comments or shoot me an email!
I was going to say that I’ll be taking a break from my regular posting whilst I’m traveling June 6-24, but I haven’t really been posting regularly soooo… hehe. What you can look forward to is a roundup of iPhone snapshots as I leave each each country for the next (like I did for San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Cambridge, London, Paris), and in the weeks that follow, you can look forward to the full travel diaries!