Amsterdam Stuff and Things

Hello all, 

It's been a while! I have been writing but just not on here I was writing for a film blog for a while that took up a lot of the time I used to spend on here, anyhow I will post the links at the bottom of the page, So this seems to be my first post in AGES sorry for the hiatus, life just seems to get in the way! My other writing project has gone kaput so here I am back on my original blog. This post doesn't really have a specific topic so i'm going to tell you about my holiday in Amsterdam whilst I try and think of some decent posts for next time.  

Lovely Amsterdam sign!

Canal Tour (with the best ever audio commentary)

Bolz Experience (with burny gin)

  Lemmie take a selfie 

Sad last day faces! Also, this is how I stopped my feet dying the entire time! 

 Whilst in Amsterdam we had the best breakfast EVER at Bakers and Roasters, massive recommendation to them! 

Stolen from their facebook, but this is what I has minus the banana! 

We met a friendly cat in a tapas bar, went on a bus and canal tour, went to learn about dutch gin, drank dutch gin (it burnt like fire), got numerous trams. One evening we went to a comedy show called Boom Chicago which although filled me with absolute fear due to the audience participation turned out to be an absolutely brilliant night, even if we almost missed the last tram back to the hotel.

We went to Rijksmuseum which was a massive collection of STUFF, not the best, saw the red light district (Grim), went to Anne Franks House which was very sad but also super interesting and we saw lots of animals at the Royal Artis Zoo.

i'm probably forgetting loads of bits here but I would definitely recommend a visit, take comfortable shoes and a city guide and you'll be fine! Also I was mistaken for a local frequently which whilst being great because it meant i didn't look like a tourist is perhaps not such a positive; Dutch people are often stereotyped as being somewhat rude. Whatever.  

Other than Amsterdam... there have been some great new developments at work, I won't witter on too much about that but things are going really well, so far so good. On Friday I wore a giraffe onesie all day, so, you know... doesn't get better than that really! 

Anyhoo - I have lots of exciting things coming up soon so fully intend to blog about them as and when they come up - hopefully including a couple of holidays and festivals. No promises though we all know that it could be next year before I come back on here.

Happy Bank Holiday, hope it has been marvelous, mine has been spent with friends and family and has been utterly spiffing. Also, cocktails. 

Lots of love, 

Me. 

@nataliefurlong

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I was writing for movie-club.net but sadly the website is now out of action. If you missed any though here are the links!!: 

Well put your skates on, be your own hero
And none for Gretchen Wieners
Top 5 Leading Ladies
You Complete Me
Apples and Oranges
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Twenty Seven Things about being 27 (Kind of)

Hey guys, as you may well of heard it was my birthday last week and I turned the grand age of Twenty Seven. As some of you know i'm not really a birthday person... However this year I had a really awesome birthday. 

 The lovely chaps at work gave me a bag full of goodies, yum! 

My Mum bought this yummy cake.... 

Yummmm

Which in turn lead to this face of regret after eating copious amounts of said cake. 

I also went to see Shed Seven, on my Twenty Seventh birthday and I have loved them since I was Seventeen! perhaps Seven is my lucky number. 

Moving swiftly on, I thought I would dedicate this to a list of twenty seven things. 

Lets start with the five things I do solemnly swear I will do. Rather than doing my new years resolutions which always fail, I have decided to make these promises to myself now.

1) I will be more decisive, even if its deciding between a quarter pounder or a double cheeseburger. Neither of these things are life changing, it should not take me ten minutes to choose.

2) Whilst on this thread, I will get fitter, even if it's only slightly. 

3) I will take better care of my skin, I do not want a raisin face. I even wrote a blog about this, bought all the cleanse, tone and moisturise stuff but only used it twice. I would quite like to continue telling people my age for them to tell me I only look about twenty two.

The alternative being the awkward silence when someone guesses my age to be Fifty when i'm thirty but have not used any skincare products. 

Source: themetapicture.com

4) I will see more of the world, which is my excuse for buying this oversized map. 

5) I will wear my glasses more so as not to completely destroy my eyes with contact lenses, as hard as it is to cope with them constantly being smudged. I will TRY. 

Doesn't mean I have to like it. 

Six things I am looking forward to in the next year. 

6) Going to Rome and Berlin. Not booked yet, will happen though. 

7) Finding something to do with my life that is fulfilling, even if it is only something I do alongside the way I earn money. 

8) Moving into my own place, hopefully in a city. 

Source: Flickr.com

I know the above picture is New York, I won't be moving to New York sadly, but I love the picture. 

9) Learning to drive. vrroooommm.... 

Source: teluguone.com

10) More adventures with these two nutters.

11) and these...

                     

Laura you weren't in barca so this was the best i could do!

aaaand my six favourite things about being 26!

12) Holidays to Barcelona, Cyprus and V Festival all of which included the best people in the world. 

13) Unlucky for some, but not me I had an excellent time even when I wasn't gallivanting. Met some excellent people this year. 

14) Writing this occasional blog, even if they do take FOREVER to write. 

15) Learning just how much control I have over my temper, most of the people who I work with have an insane amount of patience. Even when you feel like your face may melt with rage. 

16) Visiting Liverpool and Manchester have to be on this list somewhere. 

freeeee cocktails! 

17) GUYS I CAN'T DO TWENTY SEVEN it's taking toooo long and I want to go and live and by live I mean finish my wine and watch The Great Gatsby. 

As a side note to this I am wearing my glasses so TICK on number five. Also I just spilled my wine allllllllll over me so I am for sure growing old gracefully. 

I really hope all of you have had weekends as spiffing as mine. I hope this list hasn't been TOO boring. 

Work tomorrow. 

Enjoy tonight! 

Love you!

Love, (slightly older) me. 

twitter: @nataliefurlong 

Lily Allen - cracking the glass ceiling

Guys! where have you been? Oh wait it's me that hasn't updated this for a while. 

Well i'm back, for now at least! Since we last spoke I have been on holiday to Barcelona and it was amazing. I'm not here to talk about that today though. 

Best Accidental Selfie Award goes to... Me!

Last week I stumbled across the new Lily Allen song whilst I was in a Youtube loop at a random hour after midnight when I should have been sleeping. Anyway, the only indication i had that she was making music again was the newly released John Lewis advert. 

The Bear and the Hare 

I know Dawson, I know. 

Source: smartambala.com

I'll be honest and say I didn't even realise it was Lily Allen singing until my Mum pointed it out. So I was perusing the internet and came across her new song, I hadn't really heard anything about it at this point and I always loved Lily's music so I thought i'd check it out... Should I start the slow clap now or?

Source: forums.thebump.com

Here's where I get on my soap box a little bit and say Thank GOD someone has finally stood  out in the public arena and done something to show up how utterly ridiculous, repulsive and offensive the song Blurred Lines (among others) actually is. Put anything to a catchy beat and people will buy it... apparently. 
Two prime examples of why I hate the song Blurred Lines. 

"Talk about getting blasted

I hate these blurred lines

I know you want it"

'Yeah, I had a bitch, but she ain't bad as you
So hit me up when you pass through
I'll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two
Swag on, even when you dress casual
I mean it's almost unbearable'

Source: kulfoto.com

Like, Ew. That is just gross! Do we really think it is alright to promote songs that are so blatantly giving out a message that 'blurred lines' even exist? 

i'm not someone who goes around climbing on my feminist soap box very often, I am undoubtedly a feminist though, and it is worrying to me that messages like this are so accessible to the younger generation. One of the most worrying things to me is that it seems the majority of people  think, it's no big deal, its just a catchy song. Do you really think that these messages don't filter down? (I wrote that line with an early years Carrie Bradshaw voice in my head, just saying) Surely the fact this kind of message is being masked in popular chart songs is actually quite terrifying?

So back to Lily! She has brought out what I can only describe as the antithesis of Blurred Lines. 

Check it out here: 

Source: Funnyjunk.com

I love this song, the lyrics are intelligent and funny. It makes the point perfectly. There is currently a bit of controversy around the song and the use of black dancers. I can't possibly see how anyone could find the video racist, Its satirical. Surely it would have been more racist had she selected a group of white dancers merely to avoid the worry of people playing the race card? I'm almost there was no possible way for her to win with the video and to deny its controversy entirely would be an omission of what she has attempted to do. But I'm not going to rant on about that, Not now anyway. 

I will end this ranty section with this picture to lighten the mood. 

Source: doiamuseyou.com

Other than that I have mainly just been working! Went to see Lucy Spraggan last week which was awesome. I have my birthday coming up next month and me and my bestie are heading up to Newcastle on the day of my actual birthday to see one of my favorite ever bands Shed Seven which should be amazing. 

I would also just like to mention how fast the past two months have been compared to the rest of the year. I'm fairly sure July and August combined were around 8 months of the year and October and November equate to about 4 days. 

Things are good, life is good. I hope you are all fine and dandy. Now i'm off to have a glass of wine and watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. 

Love you! 

Love, me. 

Tweet me: @nataliefurlong 

Instagram: natfurlong

Tumblr : natfurlong.tumblr.com

Source: Sodahead.com

Summer so far: Cyprus and V Festival

Hello, I would like to welcome you back to my blog. 

It's been a while and I have missed your face. This is really just a quick catch up post. I have been gallivanting this summer and loving it, which is why I have been a little bit absent. I tried to put this off again by playing Tomb Raider, however I got stuck so decided to mosey on over here and update this blog. 

Waffle, waffle, waffle. Missed me? Thought so. 

Moving on. 
This summer I went to Manchester (see previous blog), Cyprus (woooo), V Festival (alan!) and next week i'm jetting off to Barcelona. Who the hell do I think I am?! 

Cyprus

Guys, It's so hot in Cyprus. I'm not kidding when I say I spent most of the week seeking out shade as my milky white skin just cannot take the sun. I am either bright white, or burnt. There is no middle ground. So between putting on two layers of 'once a day' and every hour or so topping up with factor 30, I had an excellent time. 

My Dad on his 50th, 

I wore the glasses so I didn't completely fade into the wall.

Random pool shot

Aside putting on a lot of sun cream, I drank a fair bit, swam a lot, went to a waterpark and read a lot. On that subject, have any of you read this....?

Source: Thebooksmugglers.com

Best book I have read all year. I didn't have a clue what it was about before I started it, it was just a random download onto my Nook. OH MY GOD READ IT READ IT. I need to discuss it with someone!... seriously. 

Also 

Source: google books 

Source: thegloss.com

Source: Tumblr.com

Enough said. 

Then I went to work for a few weeks, with a few awesome trips to Newcastle and York in between. 

V Festival

I then headed to Stafford for a weekend of fun and frolics with my lovely friend Caz. Everyone say Hi... 

She claims an accident with the drinking water tap... 

Anyone who has ever been to a festival knows that the worst hour of the year is the time between getting off the coach and finding somewhere to pitch your tent. I watched Caz walking towards me having just got off the coach. Around ten steps later she stopped and put down her bag. At this point I knew we might be in trouble... Around three minutes in I knew we were in trouble. We hadn't even made it to the wristband exchange. 

THANK GOD FOR THESE

downloadfestival.com

We rented one of these bad boys, and after trekking for what seemed like about three hours found somewhere to camp. I think on this occasion will leave out the part where Caz lost the trolley rental ticket and her coach ticket home... 

Here's some pictures. 

 Paloma was one of the highlights of the weekend

As was Lucy Spraggan!

Everyone loves 5ive!

Some portaloo love.

Pint? of wine.

Just found this one... Oh well lets have all three.

Waiting for queen Bey.

I'm only going to say this once. Beyonce was amazing. 

I almost died on the last night by freezing to death. 

I decided to document this with a selfie

Ok so that was a lot of photos. Anyway safe to say V was awesome, Beyonce, Paloma Faith, Travis, McFly and Lucy Spraggan were among my favourites. We even managed to avoid the inflated bar prices by smuggling vodka into the arena in sandwich bags, easy peasy on the first day, however a lot more challenging on the second when they had decided to body search everyone. However with a shake in my hand and a spring in my step we breezed past security even on the second day. We did buy bar tokens as well, i'm not a total cheapskate.

Unrelated summer picture to break up the text
Source: http://www.mattheweckert.com

All in all this summer so far has been pretty darn awesome, Still a little cheeky trip to Barcelona with my girls left to go and then winter will almost be here.... Winter. Scarves, hats, hoodies, layers. Ok, i might be a little too excited by this. 

Anyway, thanks for coming back for a visit, I hope to see you again soon, I have missed all of your little faces this summer. 

Much love, 

Nat xx

Twitter: @nataliefurlong

Tumblr: natfurlong.tumblr.com

Instagram: Natfurlong

Oh, oh...

My awesome friend Rosie started a blog which is a lot more serious than mine. Go see for yourself! http://tryingtobealibrarian.blogspot.co.uk/