Day 12 y 13 – San Sebastián

Hola chicas y chicos!

Sunday, May 26 (PS- Happy anniversary Mom and Dad!) – I got to explore a little bit of the city of San Sebastián where I will be living for the next five weeks! And from the small area I have seen so far it is beautiful! Shayne and I explored el centro (the center of the city) and then I took a nice 2-hour nap on the beach! Even though it is still cold here, the sun was out and shining and it was a gorgeous day. I even managed to get a sunburn! 

Sunday night we finally got to meet our USAC study abroad group!!! I was so excited, but I was also a little nervous to meet about 45 other students who I didn’t know. We all went out to dinner together at a restaurant near our hotel where we got a 3 course meal of spaghetti, pollo y papas fritas (chicken & french fries) and flan (a traditional spanish dessert). 

After dinner we had our first meeting as a group and we got a ton of boring (aka important) information about the rules and what not to do. The exciting part came once we got our keys to our apartment and found out who our roommates were going to be! 

The next day (Monday) was the big day! Our first day at the new school! We all ate breakfast together and walked over to the college here in San Sebastián for our orientation! We got a ton of handouts, more important (and boring) information, and a map of the city! We learned about all of the sites, where the school is in relation to everything else, and where the beaches and bars are (of course the most important)! After orientation we had to take a spanish placement test comprised of a multiple choice part and an oral part in order to place us into the correct class. It was weird taking an exam again considering my brain has been shut off since May 1. 

Later in the afternoon we FINALLY got to move into our apartment! Ours is AWESOME! Shayne and I are living with a third roommate, Ali from Wisconsin! We have a great 3-bedroom 2-bath apartment two blocks from the surfing beach which is totally cool! We also have a full living room and kitchen. (It’s bigger than my apartment at home!) But personally my favorite part is the balcony! You can see the ocean from it. I feel like I am living in a beachfront hotel, except it’s my home for five weeks. It’s perfect!!

Some fun facts I learned about ways of living in Spain so far:
1. They don’t own dryers anywhere here, so all my clothes have to be hung dry. Normally this would be fine living in Florida, but since it is cold here the clothes took the better half of two days to completely dry! 
2. They also don’t believe in heaters here, which again would be fine except it is FREEZING at night. I have actually learned how to correctly swaddle a baby due to the fact that I have to swaddle myself with my blankets so I don’t freeze at night. 

Anyway, despite a few minor things we need to get used to, the apartment and everything else about spain is AMAZING! My spanish is already getting so much better in only a few days and San Sebastián is just a gorgeous city in general. 

All for now, 

Adios!

 

Outfits on outfits on outfits

Hi guys! I decided to once again take pictures of my outfits for the past week at work and post them. Just like last time, I will post where I got everything from so you can find the looks for cheap! 

On Tuesday I finally got to wear my combat boots ($40 from American Eagle). Since it was chilly outside, I wore a long sleeve green top from Forever 21 with leggings and a black scarf (most likely from Target).

On Wednesday, our crazy Florida weather decided it wanted to be hot again. So i wore black jeans (American Eagle), ballet flats (Payless), blue tank and white cardigan (Forever 21) with fashion necklace (Target).

On Thursday, I kept it simple with jeans (American Eagle), white T-shirt, blue belt (Forever 21) with matching blue scarf (H&M), and Jack Rogers.

All of the outfits I wear are usually a combination of me and the outfits I pin on Pinterest. If you are interested, here is the link to my fashion board on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/hponnock/fa-hion/

Enjoy! 

-Haley

Fashion Necklaces <3

Hey everyone! 

One of my favorite things about fashion is accessories! In particular, I love necklaces the most. I think that a cute necklace can make any outfit so much better.

Lately, chunky necklaces have been very popular. I posted some examples below.

I first saw the bubble necklace (shown far left) on the J. Crew website for $150.00. While I would love to own one, I could never afford a necklace that expensive. So I did a little research. Turns out, there are tons of places that sell knock offs of the bubble necklace for $10-20. A good website to check is Etsy. http://bitly.com/Q8x4

 

 

Both of these photos are pictures I found on Pinterest and pinned to my fashion board. As you can see, the necklaces really make the outfit bolder and better, especially the black dress. A necklace can give the plain, simple outfits more color. 

 

 

 

I personally love fashion necklaces because they can make any outfit better. Very often, I will wear a plain white top and jeans with a big, colorful necklace. It not only adds color to the outfit, but it makes a casual outfit a little bit nicer and appropriate for work or a dinner. 

How to Dress for a Business Interview

One of the many things I have learned since being in college is how to dress for a business setting. Between involvement interviews, job interviews and chapter meetings for my sorority, it is so important to have business attire. 

Sometimes though, dressing for an interview or work can be confusing. I never knew whether to wear black slacks and heels or a more casual dress. After becoming a pro at dressing for success I figured it be fun to blog about what to wear on a business interview!

First of all, there are two different kinds of business interviews: business casual and business professional. They vary in a few different ways as business casual is less fancy.

Some popular options for business casual:
1. casual pants or skirt, but NO jeans. solid colors like black, khaki, brown or navy
2. light sweaters or cardigans
3. knit or polo tops
4. shoes: low heels or ballet flats. try to avoid wearing open-toed sandals

 

Options for business professional:
1. A full pant or skirt suit with blazer
2. Professional tops, nothing low cut or inappropriate
3. Flats or low heels

For any interview it is extremely important to look put together, with hair and makeup done. You’ll want to wear minimal makeup and perfume. 

http://www.career.uconn.edu/docs/pdf/Students/Professional_vs_Business_Casual.pdf

Happy Halloween!

Boo! As I was getting ready to go out on Halloween night, I realized I was celebrating a holiday I didn’t know much about besides the fact that we get candy and dress up in crazy costumes. So my curiosity took me to Google where I researched the history of Halloween and found out some very interesting information.

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
(http://www.history.com/topics/halloween)

My favorite part of Halloween besides the candy is seeing all the creative costumes! I have a lot of pictures of my family and friends from Halloween night that I wanted to post because everyone’s costumes were great!

My two younger brothers dressed up in their Captain America and Hulk costumes with all their candy!

Me and my little sister in my sorority, Annaleigh, on Halloween night. I went dressed up as a cat and she went out as a hippie.

My sister Karleigh (left), my mom Maria (right), and my two younger brothers (front) dressed and ready for the annual neighborhood Halloween parade. My mom dressed up as Cleopatra and my sister was a devil.

¡Moda Española!

Or spanish fashion in english 😉

Hola followers!

Earlier today I was working on my spanish homework. One of my goals in life is to be able to speak spanish fluently. Since I am a Public Relations major, I hope that being bilingual will help me in my future job. I am also planning to study abroad in Spain this summer!

For today’s post, I decided to focus on Spanish fashion and change it up a bit! Traditional spanish fashion is very different from the United States.

These Flamenco dresses that the Spanish women take such pride in are called “Trajes de faraleas.” These dresses have many layers of ruffles in the skirt and sleeves that swish around as they walk.

The large shawl is called a manton.

The men have a distinct costume for bull riding known as the “traje corto.” This is a short jacket worn with highwaisted pants, a white shirt, coloured waistband and a wide brimmed hat known as the sombrero de alanche. 

These spanish outfits today are not worn by everyone. Many people in spanish countries dress similarly to the United States. These outfits shown above are part of their traditional fashion and used a lot today for festivals, religious gatherings, etc.

*All this information is from:
http://www.marbella-guide.com/traditional-spanish-dress/?doing_wp_cron=1351466289.1120290756225585937500

Scarf Season!

Hey everyone! So the fall weather is officially here to stay! I could not be happier!
With fall comes great fashion, like I mentioned in an earlier post. But for today I decided to focus on scarves because I love them.

A few weeks ago I went to Talbots (which is a business clothing store for all who doesn’t know) and they gave me a handout on many ways to tie scarves because, lets face it, the plain old “wrap around the neck” look can get boring. I loved the ideas so much I decided to blog about it!

Don’t mind me being weird, just focus on the scarf! This is called a butterfly knot. I learned this one from the pamphlet. If you ask me why it is called the butterfly knot I couldn’t tell you, but I think it is cute and simple. 
Step one: Put scarf around your neck with even pieces on both sides. 
Step two: Simply tie a knot halfway down (like you are tying your shoe) and then let the rest fall.

Also, in case you are really into scarves like I am, this awesome website teaches you how to tie a scarf in every single possible way!

http://www.scarves.net/how-to-tie-a-scarf/neck-scarves

(I found this website on Pinterest along with lots of other great fashion boards!)

Good luck!

It’s great to be a Florida Gator!

Hey all! So this week I was having trouble deciding what I wanted to blog. Last night, I was talking to my roommates about how well the Gators have been playing, and how awesome it was to destroy South Carolina in the game on Saturday. And then it hit me. I love fashion almost as much as I love the Florida Gators, so I decided to do a post about college game day attire!

Being at a school with 50,000 students and playing in a stadium that holds 90,000, you tend to see a lot of different types of people on game day. And with that many people comes a lot of different styles! 

The first style I would call “Sorority Game Day Attire.”
Girls wear blue, orange and white dresses with jewelry.
Cowboy boots are common as well.

Another more common form of attire is the “shorts and t-shirt” look that most people would wear to a football game! There are so many funny t-shirts and so many different combinations of blue, orange and white that the possibilities are endless!

Fall Fashion!

Hey followers!

Since Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year, I decided to dedicate my first real blog post to my own personal Top 8 Fall Must-Haves. There are so many different lists in different fashion magazines, but here are my favorite fall items that are still affordable for college girls like me! 

#8: A little black dress: No matter what the season, a black dress never goes out of style. You can dress it up with black stockings, a bright purse or a colorful accessory.

#7: You can never have too many cardigans! They are perfect for adding color to any outfit, and as an extra layer

#6: Colored Jeans: A pair of colored jeans can make any winter day brighter!

#5: Stockings/Leggings: With the cool fall weather, stockings are a must! I put stockings underneath my dresses and my shorts.

#4: Boots: Having multiple pairs of boots is always a good idea during the fall/winter months! There are so many different types of boots! My personal favorite are my combat boots, but I love my Uggs and fashion boots as well.

#3: Tons of Scarves!!! They always add the perfect touch to any fall outfit. Go for patterns, solids and different materials. There are so many options!

#2: A maxi skirt. These were great for the summer, but I love them for the fall as well. The length of them will keep your legs warm on chilly days from the wind, and they are super adorable and a great purchase!

#1: My number 1 absolute must-have for fall and winter is a leather jacket. I live in mine during the winter. No matter what the occasion, a leather jacket works. It is stylish and keeps you warm. And not all leather jackets will burn a hole in your wallet. (Fact: I purchased my leather jacket at Ross for $15!!)