People, autumn (maybe even a bit of winter) is in the air and that means for Carolien a new wardrobe. Well, for part of it anyway. Are you joining me for Carolien's week?

Now that all winter items are trickling into the stores, it's time for a lookbook shoot for ‘Style’. Together with Jon, I traveled to Maastricht to go completely crazy seeing the new collections. I can truly add all outfits to my wishlist!

The absolute top items came from the Dutch brand Dante6 and the Scandinavian brands Minimum & Six Ames. Jon made the backstage video that will soon be visible on the site, along with the lookbook. Then I can quietly review all the looks at home and order my ‘essentials’ for this winter online!

Every time I arrive in Maastricht, it feels a bit like coming home. This city really stole my heart when I lived here for the theater school for 3.5 years. So I seize every opportunity to return to my ‘second hometown’ with both hands. We turned a day of photoshoot into a weekend getaway, including a lovely dinner at restaurant Harry's (highly recommended!) and an overnight stay at the new design hotel Trash Deluxe. All rooms have a different theme and from this cool chandelier made of beer bottles, it's clear that we stayed in the ‘Glass Room’. Despite the loud footsteps of our upstairs neighbors (lovely, those old Maastricht buildings), we slept wonderfully and the next day we were awakened with this cutest little breakfast. I need to come up with another reason to travel to the far south again and then with a room on the top floor!

Usually, I'm the one discovering the newest healthy eateries in Amsterdam, but this time my husband beat me to it... ‘You HAVE to go to ZEST, you'll go completely crazy there!’ Of course, I didn't need to be told twice. And sure enough, when I saw the menu, my head was already spinning: what should I choose?! So, of course, way too much was ordered and I sat at the table with a fresh juice, almond/raw chocolate milk, a raw chocofudge bar, and raw banana pancakes with coconut cream. If I had infinite hunger, I would have ordered this entire list again! I immediately gathered all the ladies from the Sneekweek cast to join me this week so we can order the whole menu together.

All the stores that were so special abroad can now simply be found in the Netherlands. Sometimes that's a bit of a shame because the uniqueness of such a brand wears off for me after a while, as it suddenly becomes very ‘accessible’. That oh-so-special ‘Chai Tea Latte’ from Starbucks is now coming out of my nose, and you can order a much better variant in most lunch spots. But I won't get enough of this USA store quickly: after Topshop, Forever21, and River Island, we can now shop at Victoria's Secret just a few kilometers away. Very nice, because once a year during my visit to America, I always spend a fortune in this store. Now I can spread those amounts over an entire year. Or am I just going to spend even more there?!

Just one more week to go and we're already done with the recordings for Sneekweek! To wrap things up, we had some intense shooting days ahead, like this arrival scene in Sneek: including 450 extras, boats, and air cushions. I'm going to miss these lovely ladies quite a bit, but luckily everyone lives in Amsterdam and they, like me, love a lot of very delicious food. The first eating dates are already scheduled, starting with Zest!