Long distance friendships have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember so making friends through blogging fitted perfectly into this framework. The small fact that I have a much cooler online personality also helps with that aspect. Anyway. I was lucky enough to get to know Ilia who also has a similar background of country-hopping while growing up. Other than our shared love of Hannibal and Sherlock, Ilia comes from Sardinia and is now living in Switzerland - two of my favourite places. We were emailing back and forth for a while before we decided to send out foreign aid to each other mainly composed of food. There was a bit of a hiccup with the Swiss post, but thankfully Ilia's package arrived safely, and just a week before my exams so it was more than a lovely surprise! Remember to hop over to Ilia's blog and see what I sent her.
I'm not picky about chocolate - but Giandor chocolate is a brand that I will fight people over. Definitely the king of all chocolates, I had stocked up when I went to Switzerland some months ago. But between exam stress and monthly bleeding sessions, I was running dangerously low. Ilia mentioned to me that there were special Easter Egg Giandors and I couldn't help it any more. I might have pleaded her to send me some to help me through exam session.
Both Ilia and I are, politely put, friggin addicted to coffee. She also knew I was disappointed to have not seen the bears when I visited Bern, so other than constantly keeping me updated with news of the bears, she was also kind enough to send over the Starbucks Bern City Mug. This has definitely been broken in as the huge size makes it the perfect mug for coffee - especially when I was running on a handful of hours of sleep the past couple weeks.
I was more than surprised when I found out she included even more foreign aid of her favourite Frey Chocolateand Raffaello. There was also plenty of Sugussprinkled throughout the box. It's been hard, but I've been good at not inhaling everything at once. The snacks definitely helped me through some late night study sessions and were great energy boosters when I stepped out of an exam room.
She also included a small package of makeup items from Catrice, a brand that I've only dipped my toes in and hated that you couldn't get the brand here in the UK. I had seen Ilia talk about the Catrice Absolute Matt Palette quite some times on her blog and it seemed like an amazing matte palette. Despite having both the Urban Decay Naked Basics palette, this offering from Catrice is the only fully matte palette I own. I haven't had much time to give this a run yet, but so far, first impressions, I flippin love it.
Summers back when I was years younger, I used to wear a lot of turquoise eyeliner. I had long forgotten about that until I saw Ilia's Pacific Eyespost. Following that, she also included a Catrice Long Lasting Eye Pencilin 090 Petrol and the Wolf. So guess who's going to be rocking turquoise liner this summer? She also included a single shadow from the Liquid Metal Eyeshadow line in 060 Nougat It Right, a gorgeous dark brown shade. Last but not least, the Ultimate Colour Lipstick in 210 Pinkadilly Circus had all the heart eye emojis. A beautiful rose-pink, I've been looking for a nice everyday shade and I think this might be it.
Ilia and I bonded over similar backgrounds and similar tastes, but I definitely think we know each other better than we thought when finding out the products we picked for the other person matched their preferences perfectly. I've yet to meet her, but we've been talking and hopefully, there might be a country-hopping some time in the near future. Fingers crossed!
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