Another 21 Moments from Moscow

Hello from Moscow again.

Due to an unpredictable work schedule I am stuck for Moscow for a bit longer than expected and got to see a few more Russian delights (and sunshine!). Here's a little photo story of the interesting stuff I've seen so far...

Queuing up to go see the Armoury in the Kremlin - Absolutely fantastic treasure-like display. A must see.

A secret photo of the grand staircase at the Armoury (no photography allowed). This is just the tip of the (golden) iceberg!

Entrance to the Kremlin

Inside the Kremlin walls

The ancient lift at Cafe Pushkin (very posh, but the athmosphere and food are fantastic)

There's never a dull moment in Moscow

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Absolutely devine decorations inside. Entrance is free

Statue of Peter the Great who established the Russian Navy

Gorkyy Park

Metro station

Busy people in the metro

Next post will be from UK soil! Happy to be heading home soon!

21 Moments From Moscow

When I headed to the airport last week the chap at the check-in desk chirped happily: "Going to sunny Moscow aren't we?". I managed to twist my lips into a smile, fully knowing that it had been raining in Moscow for the past 10 days and was meant to rain for the next 10...

So of I went to rainy Moscow not knowing what to expect. My first 24 hours in the Russian capital  saw me trod through the rain to the famous Red Square. As usual there were some challenges - like having to walk all the way around the Kremlin and finding my way through the labyrinthine metro stations. But I'm glad to say I managed to get a glimpse of Moscow's famed buildings and to hug a giant Matryoshka!

Alexander's Garden and the walls of the Kremlin

Giant intersection in central Moscow

Walking around the Kremlin

St. Basil's Cathedral

GUM Shopping Centre

GUM celebrating 120 years

Inside the GUM

Red Square

History Museum

The Horse Rider

Fountains at the Garden of the Unknown Soldier

Giant Matryoshkas at a shopping mall

How to Sort Out Stuff in Your Head

Photo by Airik Lopez

How many times have you cursed certain events for turning your perfectly normal day into a nightmare? Or even worse - how many times have you woken up on the wrong side of the bed? There's nothing worse than starting your day with pouring rain or by missing your train to work and then frowning all day about it. But that's life, right?

Wrong. There are ways to keep a positive outlook on life even in such disastrous circumstances. Remember Oprah's book The Secret? The idea that thinking positively about what you want to achieve (and writing it down on paper) will incline the forces of the universe to work in your favour? Could it be true?

Not sure about the whole grand idea but, judging from life experience, I can't deny putting your mind to something will help you achieve it. Self-talk (i.e. the conversations going on in our heads) is one heck of a powerful tool which helps you achieve happiness and all those great things you set out to achieve.

You see, as common sense would dictate, telling yourself you can do something can help it happen. Telling yourself you can't do something can make that come true as well. For instance, constantly telling yourself that it's very hard to find a job is more likely to lead you to sit and watch telly instead of updating your CV.

So what can we do to make the power of self-talk work in our favour? Well you can't simply will yourself into a positive mood and, most of the time, it can be quite challenging to get rid of negative thoughts. In fact, as a self-proclaimed pessimist I am fully aware of the parasitical nature of negative self-talk.

Photo by Wavy1

But where there is a will, there is a way. For starters, you can address negative thoughts as another person - acknowledge them, but distance yourself as you would from someone's negative opinion or question their validity (i.e. is it true that you will NEVER find a job? Probably not.). If the thoughts are overwhelming put them aside at first and distract yourself with the scope of revisiting them at a later time (perhaps even write them down somewhere and try to forget about them for a while.).

A more long-term solution to escaping the vicious downward spiral of negative self-talk is changing the way you talk to yourself. Don't treat every negative event as a catastrophe - try to let go of negative thoughts by changing the way you describe things.

For example, instead of thinking "I missed the train, will be late and X will be mad at me", tell yourself "I better call and let X know I will be late." It takes time to change the way we think but as long as we are aware of our thought processes we can start working on changing them.

Finally, one thing that particularly works for me is making vision boards or sticking cut outs representing my goals, dreams and happy in a visible place. A good one is on the back of your front door - it puts a smile on your face before I head out.

Photo by Nilson

I hope you found this post interesting. We live and we learn. Remember - never regret anything as you have probably made the right decision based on the information and feelings you had at that time.

Dress For Success: New Office wear Outfit

Office politics can be confusing for newcomers like recent graduates. But what is even more confounding, especially for us girls, is the dress code. Every company has their own thing going on - from the very formal 'suit & tie' (or should I say 'suit & heels'?) type of place to the 'smart-casual' inbetweeners to those who are completely relaxed and allow their wage slaves to wear jeans.

But what exactly is 'smart-casual'? How do we wear a full-on suit without looking like we've come out from a past era? And what are we meant to wear when the weather warms up? So many questions, so few answers! 

Being the helpful person that I am,a s well as the fact that I needed some new clothes (who doesn't?), I have put together an outfit and will tell you how you can dress it up or down to fit in the office. And the best part? It only cost me £60 pounds (thank you TK Maxx) to get all the bits and pieces to this outfit:

BCBGeneration leather shoes (£29.99)

Maison Scotch Shirt (£10) [Apologies for the quality of the photo!]

Simon Jeffrey leather and fabric skirt (£19.99)

It is a bit more on the formal side, so if your workplace is a bit more smart-casual you can replace the heels with flats and/or swap the shirt for a plain blouse or t-shirt. If your office is full of the suit & tie types then throw on a blazer but perhaps lose the shirt and replace it with a plain t-shirt. If you are one of the lucky ones that works in a very much 'anything goes' office you can get rid of the skirt and put on some skinny jeans and substitute the wedges with some ballerina flats or a pair of short leather boots with laces.

The whole look brought together