Here’s to 2020!

2019, a year to remember

January started with a road trip to the mountains where I did my best to learn how to ski. It is still one of the favourite things I’ve done in 2019. The atmosphere tied in together with the bright white snow that was surrounding us and the sunsets we witnessed through the crowded pine branches, the spicy mulled wine we drank before having the courage to climb up the steep mountain slope, ready to have the best time ever. Once we came down from the mountains it was time to climb up into the sky and fly back to London to finish my final year of university.

February was filled with makeup tutorials, blog posts and creating content for the university newspaper.

In March, we published the last edition of the River Newspaper run by our year. I attended the Glamour Beauty Festival where I filmed snippets of the event and let my creativity flow free to come up with a different style of a vlog, which you can watch here.

April got me into cooking again and I experimented with desserts and other delicious meals. The rest of the month, my mind was focused on reading different books about the media, journals and research papers about the Met police and Leveson’s report, determined to submit the best version of my dissertation.

On the first of May, we celebrated our achievements and amazing colleagues at the Journalism Oscars and then my last holiday as a carefree graduate began. I packed my luggage, jumped in a cab headed to the airport and flew home, in Bucharest.

I reunited with my family and my best friends, had endless cups of coffee, glasses of wine and caught up on months of not seeing each other. I always have the best time in Bucharest, which makes me miss my family and friends even more when I leave. We went to a “maze” called Jumbo, which is a store full of the things you don’t need, but somehow want. That was a fun day. I met my friends for breakfast, lunch and dinner and lost track of time. There is a local restaurant where we spend hours talking.
By the end of the month, I flew to Cluj, a city embedded in my heart, for a short getaway, where I met up with my boyfriend, his sister and her boyfriend. We ate good food, walked around and wandered through second-hand shops for hidden treasures.
Then we drove to Oradea, my second home.

June was a month with highs and lows and life lessons. But life is not always filled with peak moments. Life is made of all feelings of the emotion spectrum. however, what matters the most is being there for each other and being supportive through the hard times.
July got better and I flew back to Bucharest to drive down to the beach with my dad and sister. I went for the first time to Vama Veche, where I loved every bit of the food, the music, the salty sea and the burning sand. It was the perfect way to unwind and enjoy the time with my family.

I then had to return to London to graduate with First Class Honours in Journalism. My proudest achievement. Three years of working hard towards a goal, improving with each year, with a few breakdowns along the way, and I managed to prove that I can. Couldn’t have done it without my support system.

By August I was back in Oradea, unpacking my luggage and packing another one to go to Spain with my boyfriend, his mom and his sister. We arrived in Barcelona in the morning and commuted to Costa Brava where we spent a week in a place straight out of a postcard. We relaxed by the beach, ate amazingly good food (can you see a pattern here?) and walked to the city centre at dawn. We visited Barcelona and was mesmerised by the inspiring architecture and the entire mood of the city. One of my favourite experiences ever.

The first half of September was spent in Oradea, going to the gym and getting ready to return to reality. Once my boyfriend and I arrived back home in London, I attended the Vogue Five Days of Beauty with my friend B. We entered through the iconic doors of Vogue magazine headquarters, watched the Laura Mercier masterclass, where we learnt about a flawless finish, and went home with an exciting goodie bag. Later in September, I invited my friend to another event, Glamour magazine in conversation with Avon who launched a new clean beauty brand called Distillery. I wrote a blog post about it, which you can read here.

I turned 22 this October and started a new journey – a new job.

I represented The Body Shop Wembley in November at the Dream Big event which promoted dreaming big, embracing our dreams and making it happen, with lots of workshops and inspiring discussions.

December was a busy month, full of work and losing track of time. We went to Winter Wonderland where we drank mulled wine and ate a bratwurst with lots of onions stuffed in a soft bun, slowly creating traditions of our own. Christmas came and left so quickly, but I learnt how to make the traditional Romanian cozonac (some call it sweet bread, some call it walnut roll) which was delicious and devoured.