Coachella Part 2

Saturday ended up to be a little bit of fail which had something to do with dehydration and missing all the concerts, so we will move swiftly past it.

Easter Sunday included brunch with Madison's family and a nap before heading out at 3. Outfit--my daisy sneakers, cut off shorts, blue crochet top, and a flower crown.

Although I didn't know The 1975 that well, we started off our day by sitting on the grass and watching their set before heading off to explore a little bit. We had already seen a lot of the art installations--it's a little hard to miss the moving giant astronaut or the tall robot in the middle of the festival--but we wanted to check out the Do Lab.

We met up with a few other friends from SC, and took their advice on trying a famous Portland ice cream stand to fuel our exploring. After grabbing a salted ice cream with carmel cone, we had fun looking around and listening to a random DJ at the Do Lab. It was made even more fun by the fact that there were misters and water guns all over the area to keep us cool too.

We eventually found ourselves wandering into the beer garden by the Coachella stage for a beer (expensive but cold and so nice) while we sat on our scarves/handkerchiefs and listened to The Naked and Famous in the background. Sitting, talking and listening to live music with a beer was the definition of pleasant, and in that moment I kept saying I couldn't be more content.

Calvin Harris was amazing and the crowd was going crazy (me included since I ended up on someone's shoulders for part of a song), but we knew going into it that we were going to leave early so we could make sure that we wouldn't miss Lana Del Rey.

Going into the weekend, Lana was the one of the artists I was most excited for and she did not disappoint. From being barefoot on stage and kissing her fans on the cheek when she walked into the crowd, she was flawless. It may have also been from the stress of the weekend, but I almost teared up during her set.

After her performance ended, we fought our way to get food (I got crab fries, but they made me feel a little sick) before seeing Disclosure. We left Disclosure a little early because we wanted to make sure we had decent spots to see Arcade Fire. I wish I had words for how amazing Arcade Fire was--it was the perfect way to end the weekend and they are one of the most incredible live bands I've ever seen. Everything from their outfits and dancers to the short appearance of Beck (who we missed due to Disclosure) was amazingly well done.

The best part was at the end after everyone is pumped up, and they walk out into the crowd and the every person at the Coachella stage starts singing. It was an unforgettable experience, and truthfully it made me so happy because I knew that even missing Saturday, I walked away from this weekend with positive memories and seeing acts that were incredible.

Coachella Part 1

Two weekends ago, I spent the weekend dancing my life away at Coachella. While it seems everyone from LA makes the trek our to Palm Springs for the festival, this was my first time going. The price may have been outrageous and Weekend 2 was over Easter, but it was definitely an experience to be remembered.

Half the fun of Coachella is picking out outfits to wear, but since the tickets are already so expensive I decided to limit my budget. After scouring my closet, I pulled out a gold lace vintage vest I bought in San Francisco in high school (and have never worn because it's a little much), a dress I already bought, and leather boots. I allowed myself to splurge on a new pair of jean cutoffs for $50 since my other pair is frayed past the point of comfort, a cheap crochet top and an $4 flower crown along with an $8 head chain. Armed with my outfits for the weekend, my friends and I started the road trip Thursday night complete with a Coachella playlist and newly downloaded Coachella app.

Even though this weekend had been planned for so long and a lot of money was saved for it, I think our whole group was a little overwhelmed by going. All of us had gone to Vegas at some point in the two weekends before, final projects were approaching, and graduation was (let's be real, still is) looming. Part of me was wishing just to have a weekend to lay around and sleep all day, but we all finally got in the spirit in the car as we used the Coachella app to start making a plan about who we wanted to see each day.

We were lucky enough to stay at Madison's place again, so we were able to escape the craziness and sleep in a real bed each night with air conditioning. We had bought shuttle pass tickets, so we had an easy way to get dropped off at the gates.

Our Friday began a little before 2:45 to see our first show MS MR. I knew a few of their songs, but I was blown away by their performance. I didn't realize how much I would like every song they played (plus their cover of Arctic Monkeys), and the lead singer looked like she was having as much fun as we were. We all decided that we would recruit her as a new best friend, and once their set ended we hunted down some watermelon slices on our way to Aloe Blacc.

Our feeling from the night before was completely gone after watching our first band and running around the grounds. We checked out some of the art pieces on our way to the tent, including an obligatory selfie at the large group of mirrored rectangles. But, my favorite was definitely the giant hollow caterpillar that was made out of flowers, grass, and succulents. It was not only pretty and hippyish, but also gave necessary shade while we waited for people to run to the restroom.

After some watermelon photo ops--note the head chain and vintage vest--Aloe Blacc began. He was really great, and once we heard the songs we were excited for we left a few minutes early to make it to Haim.

It was nice to be able just to sit on the grass, but I wasn't really impressed with them. I think their whole attitude isn't for everyone, I enjoyed being able to just hang out. The only down side is that by the time we made our way to Bastille the tent was so filled that even all the pushing in the world couldn't get us inside. We heard a few songs, but not being able to see or move had us leaving before the set ended to grab some food.

I had an amazing gyro followed by some fries from the Pink's hot dogs stand for dinner which was delicious (and expensive). After we headed to the Coachella stage to see Ellie Goulding (great) followed by  Chromeo. I didn't know them very well, so I wasn't really into it, but I was excited to stay at the Coachella stage so we could get close  for Girl Talk.

It was worth hanging out because Girl Talk was amazing, and there set was complete with fun dance songs and confetti being blasted from the stage. Finally, we waited in the area for Outkast, and while I thought it was fun, I didn't know Outkast well enough for an hour and a half set.

We left day 1 feeling happy and exhausted, but we still managed to have some fun avoiding the dust storms with our handkerchiefs. PS handkerchiefs were the best thing I could have possibly brought. They kept dust out of mouths and nose walking back and also served as seat when hay or dirt was irritating. Once we were back at our place, we all went to sleep happy and excited for the rest of Coachella.

Seniors Take On Vegas

So after my first visit to Las Vegas last semester, I've been excited to go back. Vegas is like Disneyland for adults and being 21 is the age when the magic is out in full force. A group of seniors in my sorority house decided to plan a senior trip together to celebrate the fact that we have only a few weeks less until graduation.

So despite the fact that I'm going to Coachella this weekend and trying to save a little money, I gave my $115 for the room (14 girls in two rooms in the Venetian..shh) and packed my bags.

The weekend was spent at Hakkasan on Friday night, waking up for a coffee run jello shots and Fat Tuesday drinks before spending Saturday at the Marquee day club, and finally XS to see David Guetta on Saturday night. It was whirlwind and amazing. Instead of going into detail (half the stories are funnier in person), I'll just give some snapshots of the weekend:

Fat Tuesday in the Venetian

Marquee!

XC

the group

It was one of those weekends that I know I will look back on as I remember being crazy with my sorority sisters. We spent the whole weekend together with no drama and with a group that doesn't regularly hang out, but could not have had a better time bonding. I'm not ashamed of my giant love affair with Vegas, and I know I'm going to be back soon!

Weekend Trip to Eugene, Oregon

A trip to Oregon has been in the making for years. One of my best friends from home and I spent all of our last semester in high school making pro and con lists for our top college choices. When I finally decided USC and she decided U of O, we promised that we would visit each other. Fast forward to senior year of college, and we both realized that the time to visit needed to happen soon.

I booked my tickets to Eugene through Allegiant Air for only $98 round trip (!). Sure the airline only had one flight in on Thursday and one flight out on Sunday and charged for not only checked but carry on luggage, but I was ecstatic about the price. Since my friend Turner and I can share clothes and I don't have Friday class, I didn't end up paying any extra fees. (Unless you count the In'n'Out bribes I made to get a ride to LAX and back.) I stuffed everything I could into a backpack for my one free personal item, and promptly fell asleep for the whole plane ride.

I got into Oregon in the afternoon, and updated Turner on my life while we drove around Eugene and through campus. While LA was about to have a huge rain storm, Eugene was beautiful with clear skies, suburbs, and pine trees all over campus. I definitely missed all the nature. Our first activity was heading to the U of O gym to take a Zumba class. After subtly finding a way to get me into the gym, we realized that we had forgotten the tickets to get in the class. Instead, we ran a few laps around the indoor track and finished with a 15 minutes on the stepper. It was fun seeing how nice their gym was (especially in comparison to our school) and I was getting a little envious.

Once we got back to Turner's apartment, we made a frozen pizza and watched some mindless TV while getting ready to go out to the bars around the area. It was a ton of fun, and as always I reveled at how cheap drinks were everywhere outside of LA. The whole night was such a good time and may have ended with us eating two boxes of gluten free mac and cheese.

Friday was a much needed lazy day with the exception of walking around campus and Turner giving me a quick tour. Since we checked campus tour off of our weekend to do list, the rest of the night was spent guilt free watching America's Next Top Model marathons, cooking a crock pot dinner, making cookies (and eating cookie dough), and talking about nothing in the best way.

In the weeks leading up to the trip, I only had one request: to eat a VooDoo donut. I may have a slight obsession with donuts* so visiting one of the more famous donut shops in the US was a bucket list item. *Actually my whole family does--it was the one dessert everyone liked, so we all went crazy. Plus any surf trips came with a guaranteed promise of a donut stop. Saturday morning, we slept in and made our way to downtown Eugene. There was a decent line, so I had time to check out all the options and look around at the hilarious signs and donut names (so many dirty puns) and decorations. In typical fashion, I got too excited once there and ordered my top 3 choices--maple bacon bar, chocolate and rice crispy with drizzled peanut butter, and a VooDoo man.

I ate the delicious maple bacon bar for breakfast (because the bacon makes it the most breakfasty, duh) as we drove to beat the rain and go shopping. I was enjoying the zero sales tax (craziness compared to CA's 9%). I obviously had not gotten into the Oregon spirit (or realization that I was going to eat three huge donuts by the end of the weekend) because while it was raining out I bought a new bikini top and Los Angeles tote bag.

After shopping and dropping off the rest of the donuts off at the apartment, Turner, her friend and I all met up to take a Top 40 workout dance class that I had heard about all weekend. It was a different teacher than usual so the class turned out to be more comical than anything, but it felt good to be active and work off at least part of the donut.

And speaking of the donuts, I ate half the rice crispy donut between the workout class and dinner just because it was unbelievably delicious.

Turner's boyfriend and friend joined us for dinner and we went out to a local restaurant that for the life of me I can't remember the name of. After sharing an order of cajun tater tots with the table (which we were told was a necessity), I ordered a mushroom sandwich with cheese and sun dried tomatoes which I happily demolished.

To celebrate our last night together, we headed out again to the bars for one more night out. After dancing and bar hopping, we ended our night with late night Taco Bell (plus the last half of the rice crispy donut) and having heart to hearts. The whole weekend was so much fun, and it was nice to spend it with such a good friend and in a new place. Instead of it feeling like a trip, being in Eugene felt exactly like being home and hanging out with my high school friends. This visit was in the making for 4 years and it was great to finally come the full circle from senior year of high school to senior year of college together.

PS When I got up early to catch my plane, I ate half of my VooDoo donut. It had a pretzel stick through its heart and jelly filling on the inside when you bit it. Very clever and a huge relief that apparently I was starting to get my fill of donuts for the weekend.