Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Lumos Charity Gala

Last week I was lucky enough to go and watch a special performance of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to support JK Rowling's charity Lumos. We watched both parts on the Sunday and it was incredible! I won't reveal any spoilers but the story line and acting was really good and definitely worth a watch! Before the performance started JK Rowling gave a speech explaining the great charity, Lumos. It was eye opening and made everyone think about the role of orphanages and made you question whether they were even helping orphans at all. It was a great day and I would encourage everyone to look into the great charity. I have left links to the Lumos Charity in this blog post. 

If you can, definitely try and grab some tickets for Harry Potter and the Lost Child!

Soraya x

Budapest

Last week I was in the beautiful city of Budapest. We arrived early afternoon on Tuesday and decided to walk around the city to see where everything was and not to too much as we had an early flight so and an early night was definitely needed. Our hotel was in Pest and we took the metro every morning to get into the city centre. We then walked along the bridge to go to Buda which is the more traditional and cultural side of the city and Pest is the where the hustle and bustle of the workers and where the majority of tourists are situated. 

As we were relaxing on Tuesday we decided to visit things in Pest such as the Hungarian Parliament,  the Shoes on the Danube Promenade Memorial and the Basilica of St Stephen. 

Basilica of St Stephen

Hungarian Parliament

Wednesday was dedicated to exploring Buda which included the Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Castle, Liberty Statue and finally we relaxed at the Gellért Thermal Bath. Walking around Buda involved a lot of steps so if the queue for the funicular isn't too long, then I would advise using that instead to get you to the top. After a long day we decided to take the night cruise along the river which separates Buda and Pest.

Fisherman's Bastion

Liberty Statue 

At the highest point of Buda

Gellért Thermal Baths 

Hungarian Parliament at night

After a busy day on Wednesday we decided to take it easy on the Thursday, which was also my friend's birthday. We hopped on the tour bus (which was a nightmare to find on Wednesday) and saw the sights we had not managed to see yet and then we took the metro to Heroes Square. After that, we went to the Szenchenyi Bath, which had 14 different baths. I think we managed all of them. This was lovely and relaxing and we noticed that it was a lot busier than the Gellért Thermal Baths the previous day. There were lots of teens from the UK who had probably stopped off in Budapest whilst they were inter-railing. To celebrate my friends birthday we decided to out that night for a proper celebration. Friday was a long day of waiting for our evening flight so we just relaxed and ate a lot of food!

Heroes Square

As a typical Brit, I will obviously mention the weather! It was extremely hot, especially when you're walking around all day. It's exactly like the beautiful weather we are having at the moment.

If you're in need of a lovely city break with a mix a sightseeing and relaxing spas then Budapest is definitely the place to go. 

Soraya x

Photo Credits: Myself and @jproths

  

Interning at Yumi International

Last month, I was given an amazing opportunity to join the Online Trading  team at Yumi International, a fashion brand sold in Debenhams, House of Fraser and on their own website. Yumi sells beautiful trend-inspired clothes with a unique twist. 

I was in the office twice a week writing blogposts for their 'Yumi Journal' for their upcoming AW16 collections. In addition, I was also writing posts for their various social media accounts and creating boards for their Pinterest account. I loved writing the blog posts explaining their inspiration for each collection and writing about the key pieces from each collection. 

One of the mornings, I got to attend their last photoshoot for the AW16 collection as I was taking behind the scenes images for their Instagram account. This was amazing as I had never seen what a photoshoot for a fashion brand was like apart from our own FCP fragrance brand photoshoot which is not quite the same. It was so interesting to see how much detail went into a fashion photoshoot and how a single crease or out of place hair would change the shot and not look right or as professional to be put on their website.

I learnt so much at Yumi and had great fun writing blogposts and social media posts. Thank you so much to everyone at Yumi for an amazing experience. I'm sure I will be sharing the posts on my social media when each one goes up!

Love Soraya x

I'm off to Budapest tomorrow so follow me on Instagram - soray_ray to see my adventures :) and next Monday's post will be a series of pictures from my trip to Hungary.

Photo Credit: Yumi