Friday, March 27, 2015

Moving to Sweden: An Update

Hello Everyone! 
I hope you all had a great week and now it is time for the weekend yay!!

This past week I had a big german test, uploaded two new videos (which can be found under the videos tab), went to the dentist, and had my interview for the swedish embassy. 

Wednesday was a big day for me last week. I had my german test that day and my interview, so my anxiety level was pretty high. After I took my test, which I think I did pretty good on, I had to drive into Houston for my interview. It was about a 35 minute drive to the building where the swedish embassy's consultant is located. For anybody who lives around the Houston area or has drived through Houston you know it is hell. I hate driving through the city. There are to many people who think they can drive however they want and it spikes up my anxiety. Anyways, I arrived there 40 minutes early, the one time I am early to anything. To waist time I sat in my car for about 20 minute listing to music and then I decided to go in, thinking they might be able to see me earlier. I was wrong, so I sat in there waiting room for 20 minutes.

 The two ladies who interviewed me were very nice and welcoming, which eased my stress a bit. I was very surprised by how fast the interview went. They asked me only a few questions, things like "Tell me a little about your self" and "What are your hobbies?". It felt more like a job interview than a possible life changing interview. They didn't ask me any question about Daniel and I's relationship. I thought I would have to confess my love for him in front of these people, but nope. 

After they were done asking questions I had to show them all my government papers like my birth certificate, passport, drivers license, and my single statues paper. Yes that is right I had to go down to the courts and get a paper signed by a judge saying I was not married. I had all of those things except my birth certificate and they also wanted pictures of Daniel, me, and any of our family members together. Without those two things my interview could not be sent in, so I had to return the next day. 

 I then had to make another half hour drive down to Houston to drop of the rest of the paper work. Before I left the lady assured me she would send the papers to the embassy in D.C. before she left for the day, which she did. This morning (Friday) I got an email from the board saying they will now look at everything and next time they contact me they will give me there answer. 

I am so excited that we are now getting somewhere with this process. I applied last year in July and was hoping it wouldn't take longer than a year. While I might get my residents card in the next few months, if accepted, I would not move until at least August of this year. I still have to finish school. I only have one more class after this semester until I can get my Associates degree in journalism. 

I am so excited that I might soon get to call Stockholm, Sweden home. Of course it will be sad to leave the place I have called home for almost 19 years, but I will always come back. 

I am finally in the home stretch of my application and I just thought I would share the process with you! I will add a few pictures of when I was in Stockholm just because I feel like this post could use some pictures. 

I hope you guys have an awesome weekend! 
xoxo Makenna




Tuesday, March 24, 2015

10 Years Time

Hello Everyone! 
Hope you are all well.

Today I am doing something a little different, I am turning a YouTube tag video in to a blog post. I wanted to make the 10 years time video, but feel like writing it out might be better for me. I could sit down and have a whole script planned out and memorized, but when I sit down in front of the camera that all goes away. I get distracted way to much to sit down and do a serious video, so I thought I would make it a blog post.

For those who don't know about the tag you pretty much explain where you hope to be in 10 years or what you think your life will be like in 10 years.

Life is one of the most unpredictable things so it is hard for me to sit and say this is where I will be in 10 years. Even just two years ago my life was on a different path than its on now. Two years ago I wanted to be a psychologist and get a PhD, I hated English and writing, I planned on going to a 4 year college, and I didn't plan on moving out until I was done with my masters degree.

I believe that the smallest thing can change your whole life.

If I wouldn't have met Daniel two years ago I would still be on that path. I wouldn't have gone to my local community college, and met the english professor who changed my mind about writing. I wouldn't have started this blog or my YouTube channel, and I wouldn't have started to write a book. I also wouldn't be planning on moving to a different country later this year.

With that said I can only say where I hope to be in 10 years. In 10 years I will be about to turn 29, so this is where I would like to be:

In 10 years time I hope to be married to Daniel and maybe thinking about starting a family. I hope to have a job that I love. I would hope that I would have published a book or two by then. I want to live in a nice apartment in a city I love surrounded by friends and loved ones. Lastly, I hope to be happy with where I am in life.

It will be interesting to be able to look back at this in 10 years and see where I am. If any of you want to do your own post or video I would love to see them! You can share them to my google+ profile that is attached to my blog.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week!
xoxo Makenna 

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Short Stay in London

Hello Everyone!
I hope your weekend was great!

So like I promised in my last post I am going to be sharing my trip to London with you. 

My mom had a business trip in London, so me and my dad decided to join her. We left for the airport on Saturday January 10th for our flight to Washington D.C. at around 11 am, which was then delayed until 4 pm due to mechanical issues. We got to D.C. with about an hour until we had to board for our flight to London, which it didn't look like we would get on (my mom works for an airline so we fly on standby). The flight to London turned out to be on the same plane we had just gotten off of and was having the same mechanical issue. Now our flight to London was delayed until 1:30 am, but around 12 am they announced the flight had been canceled. After the announcement all 200 and something people started sprinting to the customer service desk to be the first one in line to re-book there flight and get hotel vouchers. So we just sat in our seats and tried to find another flight back to Houston to try and get on the 3 pm flight that left out of Houston to London on Sunday. We ended up taking a van from Dulles to the Reagan Nation airport at 3 in the morning to get on a flight to Houston that left at 5am. Once there our flight became delayed once again, I do not know why because I had fallen asleep as soon as I got on the plane. Once we got back to Houston everything was smooth sailing from there. 

We arrived in London on Monday, a day behind schedule, which sucked for me since I was only staying in London until early Wednesday morning. 

My first day in London, sadly I didn't really leave the airport, my dad and I took a nap while my mom went to her meeting at the hotel which was connected to the airport. Then we went to dinner at a restaurant in the airport and then back to the hotel bar for drinks with my mom's co-workers. I wanted to go into town and go shopping (we were 40 ish minutes from the center of London) since we finished dinner at around 6, but I lost on the vote. 

So the second day my dad and I did every touristy thing you could possible do in London. 

First we took a walk through Green Park to get from the subway station to Buckingham Palace. I must say I did a great job at navigating throughout the whole day, including the subway. Green Park was nice, and well green for it being winter. It was typical weather for England that day, which is my favorite kind, but I could have lived without the wind. 
However, the pigeons in this park were a bit on the crazy side. They would fly inches away from you, and I personally don't like birds ever since one pooped on my head when I was younger. I will say that they do have some pretty feathers. 
 We then got to Buckingham Palace, which I thought it seemed a bit smaller in person. There was quite a lot of people visiting at the same time we were, so it was extremely difficult to get a picture of the whole building without getting shots of other people. 

 They also didn't have any of the "typical" guards, with the big fluffy hats and red suits. I am not sure if they even have them at Buckingham Palace or if they still dress like that, but it didn't really matter either way to me. I am not the kind of person to want to try to mess with them. 

This is one of my favorite pictures, I just really love how the gate looks with the building.
 Now, I know this is the back of the statue, but we didn't walk all the way around the square or whatever you would call it. I have no idea what this statue is called or what it is for. If you know please feel free to tell me because honestly I am to lazy to google it. 
We then moved on from Buckingham Palace, and took a nice walk to Big Ben and the Eye. 
 We walked by another park that I do not know the name of. We even got to see some of London's cute little taxies, which I never did get to ride in. 
 One reason why I love Europe more than America is there architecture. These were just some of the cute apartment building we saw through the day. 
 This picture is tied for my favorite along with the picture of the Eye, which is shown below. It was just about to start pouring rain when I took these last few picture. I just love how the grey sky makes the colors pop out. 


We didn't end up going on the Eye because they were doing maintenance on it. It then started raining so we took cover in a building next to the entrance of the Eye for about 20 minutes. After it stopped it was finally time to go shopping!!!
 I went to Primark along with a trip to SuperDrug. I might make a haul post on the things I got from Primark, since there is quite a few. I went a bit crazy . . . the store was one of the biggest I have even been in. There was 3 or 4 floors I can't really remember because I only went on two of them. It seemed like this store was half the size of my local mall. The only things I bought from SuperDrug was some of Zoella's (Zoe Sugg) bath products and Rimmel Wake Me Up foundation, since we don't have it in the US.  After all the crazy shopping we tried to find The Good Life to get a snack/small lunch, but this was the one time when I got lost so we head over to Nando's instead. I have heard many good things about Nando's and I will say they are true. The food was really good. I would love to go back and try other things on the menu. My dad even took the napkins we didn't use as a souvenir. 
This ended my day in London, and I loved it just as much as I thought I would. I will defiantly be going back to England as soon as I possible can. I would love to stay longer in London and get to see Brighten as well as other cities. 

On Wednesday I took a bus to Gatwick airport and flew to Stockholm. I then spent the next few days visiting my boyfriend and his family before leaving on Sunday to return home for school.  
Thus ending my trip, which was an amazing amount of fun even with the ruff beginning. 

I will talk to you guys later this week or next, depending on when I have time to post. 
I hope you all have a great week! 
xoxo Makenna


Friday, January 30, 2015

So Its Been Awhile...

Hello Everyone! 
I hope you have all been well! 

I am sure that some of you have noticed I have not posted on here, Youtube, Twitter, or Instagram in a month or so and I am going to explain why in this post. It has just been one unexpected break from social media. I didn't get on to any of these websites until last week, because I just haven't felt like it. I had planned videos to film for christmas, new years, and I even took a trip to London a few weeks ago. I just didn't feel like filming or posting anything.

I know this is completely my fault and I 100% apologize and I apologize that I am going to continue this break. However, I would like to say I WILL STILL POST ON HERE and I AM NOT QUITTING YOUTUBE!

I will be posting a blog about going to London with in the next few days, but I will be contuining my break on youtube. When I was uploading for vlogmas I felt like I was just throwing things together and I didn't even like the content I was posting, but I did it because I needed to put up something. So with that being said I will continue making Youtube videos when I can give them the proper amount of time and effort. It may take a few weeks, a month, or two to get back into it. The reason I will still continue to post on here is because this is where I started. I feel like I need to go back and start over in a since. This is a year of new beginnings.

 For me this is the year of fixing/becoming a better me. I have already made steps to start the progress, one being a huge step that will hopefully benefit me and make this process faster/easier. So I hope you will all bear with me while I get my life on track again. I haven't decided if I will share every part of my journey of becoming a better me, but I will share some. I don't know how personal I want to get yet, but we will find out together!

I hope you will continue to read future post and are having a great 2015. Lets make this year better than last!

xoxo Makenna