SHANTI FAVORITES #9

 Arya Clothing became one of my favorite shops in Etsy, look at this bohemian gipsy hippie skirt! There are also other handmade goodies like hip lether bags, unique design tank tops, hoodie scarves and other ethnical beauties.

OH SO AMERICAN: HALLOWEEN

If in Europe we consider Halloween the creepy night where we get out with scary costumes like zombies, witches or skeletons, in USA you will find cute rabbits, fairies or mermaids. Their costumes look more the ones we wear for Carnival and it's so fun to play around our characters, being someone we aren't in a daily basis.

Halloween is not only partying with costumes, there are other fun activities like carving pumpkins and knock neighbour's doors playing trick or treat. It's a great economic time of the year for the stores that sell candy and chocolates, the consumism is full on in the end of October. Other fun activities include telling scary stories and watching horror movies.

ALAMANY FLEA MARKET IN SAN FRANCISCO

First thing I search online when arrive a place? Local Flea Markets! Last year when I was visiting San Francisco I attended Berkley Flea Market and this time I was lucky enough for being in SF for the weekend so I got a chance to visit Alamany Flea Market. It's every single Sunday from 8am until 3pm but at 1pm many vendors start packing up so don't arrive too late. It's situated in 100 Alemany Blvd and you can get bus number 9 to get there. If you are driving there's plenty of space to park your car. We walked almost one hour and in the way we found Bernal Peak, a great hill to have a great view to the city and to the bay.

TEN CITIES I'D LIVE FOR 1 YEAR

If you are around this blog for a while you know that I'm not really a city person. I will visit cities of the World that apply to me or are famous but I don't think I'd live forever in a city (never say never). But in a certain way there are cities out there that are beautiful or I felt a really good vibe as soon as I got there. Do you know this feeling? You smile just walking in the streets and feel you kinda belong there. 

I enjoy to make lists just for the fun and few days ago I wrote a list of ten cities in the World I've been before and wouldn't mind to live for a year... or two. 

VICTORIAN + ALTERNATIVE NEIGHBORHOOD OF SAN FRANCISCO: HAIGHT ASHBURY

Guys, I owe you ten thousand posts about San Francisco! I've been trying my best to write down all the interesting things you should visit in this awesome city I love more and more. But the truth is that I go with the flow and totally forget about internet and my blog stays a bit behind... here Iam! 

After spending more then a month working and visiting my friends/american heart family, we finally decided to rent a car and explore South of California. Guess what? We couldn't rent a car because we do not have a Visa, Martercard or American Express Card... What a BIG bummer. USA without a car sucks big time, if only transportation was good and organized... not happening. 

OH SO AMERICAN: "HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?"

There are all kinds of stereotypes about americans: they are very patriots or they think their country is the best, they only eat fast food and are over weighted. Obviously this is not true, only a small percentage of americans might be like this, but also in every single country you will find people with these characteristics. This is something humans have to change, we have to stop making absurd generalizations and start thinking a person as unique personality and not an entire nation as a whole. 

SHANTI FAVORITES #8

 How come I haven't tell you about Her Library Adventures Blog yet? It's my favorite blog, my number one! Mostly of bloggers cannot choose only one blogger but I can because I love the way Sophie writes and also what she writes about. (Eg: Living with Less) You also will see a bunch of inspiring pictures, I love her taste! What I really appreciate about Sophie is that even though she has an one year old princess daughter, she doesn't talk about her all the time. Some bloggers I was following in the past became mothers and nearly all the posts were baby related which is a boring subject for me.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ME? - 50 TMI TAG

TMI stands for Too Much Information, a great way to SFB readers know more about the explorer Marta, her hidden secrets and loves. I stole this Tag from Monika and had a great time reading about her so I thought this would be fun to share with you.

If you ever answer to this questions please leave a comment below. If you don't know bloggers to tag the next Tag you answer think about me, I looooove to answer this kind of things, they make me think about me and my life. It's kinda terapeutic!

So, here we go! Have fun :)

LANGUAGE BARRIERS - FUNNY STORIES

During my travels I had really embarassing moments of using body language (aka looking like a monkey) to show people what I needed. Many times looks like they understand me but in the end I noticed that they were only saying yes with their heads and not understanding a word.

Today I'll share three funny stories that happened to me. Hope you enjoy! Happy laughs :D

Story 1. I was traveling in a InterRail across Europe with my cousin and best friend and we arrived in Prague late. We were bored at the house we rent, it was raining outside but we were curious about the nightlife of the city so we decided to explore. As we were running from the rain, we would look at the pubs names but we couldn't understand a thing in check so we just entered a random pub. We ordered some drinks and when we looked around we only could see men. A minute later we figured out we were in a female strip tease club. We ended up staying there until we finished our drinks and actually had a great time! 

NAME 3 IN INDIA... ADVICE FROM LOCALS

Since a bunch of my friends are going to travel to India soon, I thought would be helpful to ask indians about their own country in a easy way: answering all questions with 3 words. Just small tips, an idea of what to do, eat or see... The explore part, the experience and the memories are with you!

Dhanyavaad (thank you in hindi) to all indians who sent me their answers, this information is very useful! Can't wait to go back to India and follow your tips :)

If you enjoyed this "Name 3..." post and you're traveling to any country you'd like to know more local tips, please let me know which country in the comments, maybe I can make another "Name 3 in (insert country) for you and whoever is interested.

MEALS IN MINUTES VINTAGE BOOK

You know, I'm a book lover, if I go deep in the story you can pay me a trip to Bali and I won't go just to read the whole book (hmmm Bali? Wait a minute! I might go!). Then I can't resist to vintage items, a vintage book? That's way tooo much to handle.

FORT BRAGG AND THE OCEAN

Hello! Hola! Olá! I've been a month in California and no photos of my travels for you yet. I've been mostly in the country side working as housekeeping and gardening so I don't have excellent pictures that deserve a blog post.

Since we don't have any more work and about 3 more weeks until our flight we decided to explore the area we are right now. We started with the weekend in Fort Bragg, a pretty colorful little town in the coast of North California.

It's windy out there but just the feeling of smelling and watching the ocean, I didn't care for being cold or not. If you are around for a while you know I born and grew up in the ocean so I miss it a lot when I don't get to see it for few days. I definitly need to buy a house in front of the beach! :)