two door cinema club in new york Posted by Helena

Dream gig! Two Door Cinema Club performing in Central Park. I've seen them live in my three favourite cities - Melbourne, London and New York, and I got to see them with two of my best friends. Special memories!

cloud control // on tour in hobart Posted by Helena

So... I kinda went on tour for 24 hours. Half of the reason I went to Hobart was to see my friends play another gig and hang out with them some more. I texted Laura, one of our friends back in London, with some silly snaps of us and she said, "Helena, are you on tour?!" I guess I was! Not unlike when I was on tour for 24 hours with Laura's band Tigercats in Barcelona. 24 hours is my tour limit. I'd had very minimal sleep the night before I flew to Hobart and then another night of minimal sleep since we were up until 4am.

Cloud Control's second album Dream Cave is out now, and they're playing at Laneway Festival next year!

a spot o travellin' // hobart Posted by Helena

Despite still being in left over debt from living overseas and having a seriously great holiday just before I came home last year, I promised myself that I'd get to Tasmania this year and visit Mona. It just so happened that my friends were going to be on tour (more on them in another post), so boom! Easy holiday. N and I flew in Saturday morning and headed straight to Salamanca Market. To be perfectly honest, I was a bit disappointed in the markets, especially after hearing such great things. I guess I can be a bit of a market snob, but I was expecting a lot more gourmet food and it just didn't deliver for me. I did have the best salmon and prawn pie I've ever eaten in my life though. The stall's signature scallop pies had sold out, so we made do with salmon.







This guy looked like he was from a seaside town in England.

On the ferry to Mona.









This was my favourite piece. Giant screens with binary code and a constant stream of data flashing up. I snapped this just as a guy was walking past...



The Cloaca Professional (aka the poo machine) by Belgium artist Wim Delvoye.



Delicious lunch at the Mona Wine Bar.







The oldest bridge in Australia - Richmond Bridge.



Perhaps 10:30 was too early for a whiskey tasting when we were starting a winery tour...





I made friends with all the winery pets. This is Pooley Wines' cat Portia.



This adorable corgi is Polly, who lives at Puddleduck Vineyard.





Look at her! Ridic cute.

cooking // tuscan cooking class Posted by Helena

Picture this: it's Easter and you're in Tuscany staying in a 5 bedroom villa with 9 other friends... What do you do? Go to a private cooking class at Capezzana of course! This is well and truly an overdue post. If you know me, or have ever read my blog, I'm pretty sure you know how much I love food. And cooking. And baking. One of life's simple (and best) pleasures.

This was one of the best things I've ever done while travelling and I cannot recommend it enough. I'd love to go back and do the 5 day cooking class! BLISS. Everything we made was 110% delicious because all the ingredients were so fresh and Capezzana produce their own wine as well as olive oil. We were told Jamie Oliver takes his Fifteen class there every year for the olive oil pressing and I've just read this article and their olive oil is sold in New York. The bottle I bought to take back with me to London was amazing! I used it up pretty quickly because I wanted it in ALL of my cooking.

Here's some photos from our cooking class and I might even share some of my favourite recipes in future posts. That's something I haven't started doing yet but I've had several friends suggest I should start a food blog so I might as well start by posting a few recipes here and there!

nyc // spotted... Posted by Helena

Spotted: Dan Humphrey skateboarding in Brooklyn. No really, I saw Penn Badgley. He nearly ran us over as we crossed the street today!

I've been so silent of late, but I've been globe trotting! I went to Turkey for 10 days, back to London for 48 hours, then flew to New York. I leave for home (Australia home) tomorrow and then I'll have plenty of time to blog. Expect a lot of photos!

music // tigercats on tour in spain Posted by Helena

While I was in Spain, I was lucky enough to be able to catch my pally wals Tigercats on tour. We hung out in the park to write setlists, drank some beer, had some food and I played photographer...



Writing the setlist in a park in Barcelona





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