SMOONSTYLE

Hi Sweeties,

The weather in Denver was so incredibly not autumn like, it was almost bikini weather, but I decided to wear something else. The only women walking around in bikinis/lingerie that can get away with it are the 'Victoria Angels', not me.

Isaac joined me on my way to Starbucks and took my camera to shoot some pictures for the blog. It is so nice to have somebody with a great eye for composition with me on tour. Hope you like the pictures! More info on what I'm wearing below the pictures.

Enjoy!

Love,

Business suites have never been my forte, but I do love a nice blazer. You can combine them in so many different ways without looking like you're about to go in to a meeting. My closet contains a couple of black blazers. They come in all shapes and different fabrics. Some I've even worn during live shows in the past.

This past summer Zara came out with a range of really colorful blazers made out of cotton. They are unbelievable comfortable. Sometimes blazers can limit your flexibility. I was searching for a nice yellow blazer since so long, but didn't find the right fit and the right color yellow. I tried the yellow blazer from the Zara collection, but this one was a bit too neon for me.

There was another color that caught my eye. It was their really bright red blazer. That was the one that went home with me. It was a nice memory from my day off in Budapest with Rob during the Epica tour. A big thanks to Rob for being patient enough to go shopping with me. I liked it so much that I decided to take it with me to our Latin American tour in September. Unfortunately, that's where it stayed. I hung it in the closet of the hotel in Buenos Aires. We had a super early lobby call (4 am) the next morning and I forgot to take it out of the closet. When I hung it in the closet to de wrinkle, I knew that I was going to forget about it.

As soon as I landed in Chile, I found out that I forgot it and called the hotel in Buenos Aires to see if it was still there. They told me to call back the next morning to check with the cleaning lady. So I did, but no blazer unfortunately. That means that someone stole it and that really breaks my heart. This blazer had sentimental value and was still so new. How can people just take the belongings of someone else without having a guilty conscious? I couldn't.

After surfing a while on the internet, I found the blazer again on zara.com, but in medium. I ordered it anyway even though my first one was an S. I even saw the blazer at a Zara in Uruguay when we were still on tour, but the exchange rate was not to my advantage and I'd already ordered it on Zara.com. I am glad to be reunited with the blazer and will never hang it in the hotel clothing closet because I know that I will forget about it.

Have you ever lost a piece of clothing that had great value to you?

Love,

Hi Sweets,

Before I left on the tour I made some pictures for the blog. On tour the lighting is very poor and it is difficult to make 'beauty' pictures in a dark bus with artificial lighting.

This is OPI's 'Into the Night' from the 'Amazing Spiderman' collection. The color in the bottle looked so alluring that I had to have it. It looked like a magic potion. Unfortunately it is very sheer and needs three coats before it is opaque. You could also put a dark blue or black nail polish as a base, but then the color might turn out different.

I am leaving now to go into the night,

Sleep tight!

Hi sweets,

It seems that something went wrong when I first posted this. Let's hope that the second try will be successful.

These pictures were taken during our two day stay in Philadelphia. It was the first time for me that I saw more of the city than just Chinatown. We had an awesome stay in Philly!

Enjoy the pictures!

Love,

Hi Sweets,

The winners of the American/Canadian version are finally revealed. My apologies for the delay. I had a show in Belgium and a flight to Washington to catch. Here are the winners:

Please send another email to contest@nuclearblastusa.com to let me know to which show you'd like to come. Congratulations girls! I'll be seeing you soon!

Love,

Hi sweets,

This is the first time that I blog during a train ride on my iPhone. Some of my most common train rides are those from the Netherlands to Germany. These travels always last approximately 5 hours if I'm lucky.

In Germany the train system is quite different compared to the Dutch railway. Trains don't drive every half and hour and have all different connections. I find this a bit a con compared to my fatherland. The prices are much higher, but for your price you mostly get a comfortable seat.

When you travel via the ICE it is advised to reserve a seat for €4. That is what I did, but when I arrived in Aachen I saw that my train had a delay of 25 minutes. That already gave me the knowledge that I would miss all my connections.

I rushed my way to the counter to rebook my train and also make a new seat reservation. These train rides are so much more comfortable when you can sit in a chair and not on the ground in front of the toilets.

When my train arrived, and I after quite some hassle found my seat, I saw that it was taken. I always feel really bothered to tell these people that I reserved their seat. Those people were grandma and grandpa which probably never travel and look at the signs above the chairs. It was not a very nice 'Stoelendans' because grandpa changed seats to another reserved seat and had to move again a couple of minutes later.

Point of this message is that whenever you travel by train in Germany; always reserve a seat in the trains that have such a system. I still have some hours of rail road ahead of me. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that my travels won't get more delayed.

Love,

Hey Sweets,

Our tour through Latin America was a huge success! So many fans came to visit us. It was unbelievable! I'm glad that we've made a picture at the end of each show. Like this I get to keep a wonderful souvenir.

Each and every show was amazing. We even conquered new land; Paraguay. We were only 8 hours in Paraguay and had to take off again unfortunately, but we did have a bloody good time there! We've received many gifts, artwork and had lots of meet and greets.

In these three and a half weeks I flew 19 times, had 14 shows and one free day.

It was a sensational tour filled with air-conditioned (fridge temperature) planes, immigration forms, churrascarias, co operative and less co operative hotels and last but not least, zillions of devoted fans.

Thank you for making us feel so welcome and remember that the greatest gift you can give us is by coming to our shows and letting us sign your Epica CD's and cassettes, I've seen one in Brazil!).

Love,

a 'Jet lagged and happy'