Saturday, February 25, 2012

Bonnaroooooooooo!

FINALLY! After last Saturday's debacle of a ticket sale I have officially purchased my Bonnaroo 2012 ticket!
Though I'm a little annoyed I couldn't get the level four pricing I am still very excited to go to Bonnaroo this summer. I'm driving down with Kevin again AND I'm meeting my beautiful friend Stephanie down there! The lineup is pretty stacked (Radiohead, The Avett Brothers, The Shins, Dispatch, Ludacris, Ben Folds Five, Childish Gambino, The Civil Wars, Dawes, Delta Spirit, Alabama Shakes, The War on Drugs, and so much more!) and Bonnaroo is still planning to announce more bands soon. Plus I can already hear the silent disco calling my name...
Summer 2012 is going to be AMAZING =)

 


Thursday, February 23, 2012

Things that make me happy...

This week has been a little hectic at work but it's almost Friday, which basically means it's the weekend and I'm happy for lots of things like...


1. My brand new pair of TOMS came in the mail! I've had my original TOMS for over 3 years now, so it was about time for a new pair! One For One
2. Finally getting a laptop at work, a Macbook no less!
3. Playing board games with Kevin, and winning of course! I am the Monopoly Master, or in this case the Ghettopoly Pimp ;)
4. Nights out with awesome friends
5. "Fly" Kicks and other great occurrences on the subway

Life is good and the weekend is almost here! Cheers =)



Sunday, February 19, 2012

Craving an ADVENTURE!

I've been working at my job for almost 7 months now and though I love what I do I can't help but day-dream about getting away for an incredible adventure. I've never been good at staying in one place (most of my friends joke about me being a nomad with a backpack of clothes always in my car) or even in this country (Germany, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, South Africa, China, Guatemala, the list goes on) but now that I have my big girl job frolicking doesn't occur as often as I would like. Now, I realize my trip to Spain will be unforgettable as will this year's Bonnaroo Music Festival in June (have your seen the lineup!?). But still, I'm craving something crazy, outrageous, and totally fun to happen right NOW.

It doesn't help when I stumble upon epic videos like this...



Or this short but beautiful video of three friend's adventure through 11 countries...




There is something about traveling to a new place or pushing the limits on your comfort zone that bring me to a total state of Euphoria. What can I saw I just like to get lost in a completly unknown place every once in a while...


Don't get me wrong I'm beyond excited for my trip to Spain and to road trip down to Bonnaroo, but I'm just too impatient. I need something exciting to happen now! Perhaps I need to just wake up one day and go skydiving...that should get my heart racing =)

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Yesterday Kevin and I enjoyed an awesome Valentines Day together! Neither of us are very big on the holiday--we usually just exchange a huge pile of candy and call it a day--BUT this year we attended Franks and Deans: Valentine's Day Lovers Ball! Now that sounds super mushy-gushy lovie-dovie but really it was an awesome excuse to pretend like it was the 1950's, singing and dancing along to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin songs.
It was the bee's knees for sure! I had a blast dancing the night away to some classic tunes, and I must say the Wadsworth Sisters blew my mind away, especially Ali! Phew! Her voice is definitely something to write home about, or at least on your blog (badum ching ::wink::) 
Her voice was magical!
Valentines day or not the gang put on a great performance. It was definitely a memorable Valentines day and I hope they put on some more Frank & Dean shows...I mean who doesn't need a little more Sinatra in their life?!



Monday, February 6, 2012

The Adventure Continues...

After spending the night an apocalyptic town, I mean Cleveland, Kevin and I drove to Pittsburgh Sunday morning to meet up with my friend Valerie and spend the day frolicking around a new city before returning to Philadelphia Sunday night. Valerie is one of the friends I met while studying abroad in Tanzania  (fall 2010)--we bonded over rides on the dala-dala to and from our East-African music class. Kevin and I had never been to Pittsburgh before but I had always heard good things about the city and it couldn't possibly be as deserted as Cleveland, so off we drove!

After arriving in Pittsburgh we met up with Valerie for a typical "Pittsburgh" lunch at one of the famous Primanti Brothers sandwich shops!

Apparently in Pittsburgh they waste no time when it comes to eating and put everything on the sandwich itself including coleslaw and french fries. Why waste time picking up fries when you can just eat everything at once...


It was a pretty epic sandwich to say the least--most likely the largest sandwich I have/will ever consume! Though I must admit those crazy Pittburghers might be on to something, having everything in one was tasty to say the least. AND they had giant dill pickles on the menu, instant bonus points!

Once we finally finished stuffing our faces we walked around Pitts campus, including the Cathedral of Learning aka my favorite cathedral in the world ;) Apparently at the time the Cathedral was being built no building in Pittsburgh was allowed to be higher than a church, to get around this the school's chancellor called the project "Cathedral" and by the time people realized he had no intensions of building a religious building it was too late. This building has to be one of the coolest buildings I've ever been to. As soon as you walk inside you instantly feel like you could be in Hogwarts (Valerie was lucky enough to graduate in this building, how cool?!). Each room has a theme to a specific country and is decorated to replicate a classroom in certain country--Seniors get to take actual classes in these rooms! Of course Valerie and I had to visit the African room! 

"I don't know the lyrics. I just bang the drum and do the African face"

I bet you didn't know Andy Warhol was from Pittsburgh! And if you did, you clearly cheated that little game. But anyway, whenever I brought up my upcoming trip to Pittsburgh to friends they all raved about the Andy Warhol museum, so we obviously had to check it out. The museum had an amusing balance between quirky, weird, hilarious, and awesome. One of my favorite bizzarre things was...


This ad was paired with a 15 minute audio segment of someone repeating "uhhh yes, uhh no." I mean with the tagline Hardens Softens Fast I'm surprised this product didn't sell out instantly. There were also some classic videos of Andy himself..."I don't know what to talk about. No body told me what to talk about...I was at Man Ray's house and in his bathroom he had a sock on his toilet...well I took a picture of Man Ray, and he was just so cute so I took another photo of him, and then he took a photo of me...and then I took a photo of Dino!...and then I went back to see the toilet again because it was the most fascinating thing in that house." Another video included a guy high as a kite on multiple drugs, talking about how great being on drugs was, and spanish knives. You really have to see it to believe it...and love every bit of it. 


After a delightful afternoon Mr. Warhol and his taxiderm dog we ventured off to see the many beautiful views of Pittsburgh! 


PNC Park view of downtown




Fail


Later we ventured over to Mt. Washington for a ride on the Monongahela Incline!









The Monongahela Incline definitely had some of the coolest views of the entire city. Though much smaller than Philadelphia, Pittsburgh is not only cleaner but it appears they actually put effort into the architecture of their buildings. Even their prison was a nice building! Besides the ascetically pleasing architecture, Pittsburgh's many bridges were fun to navigate. 

Before heading home to Philadelphia we made on last stop--for ice cream of course! =) Valerie took us over to Dave and Andy's Homemade Ice Cream, where they not only make their own ice cream but their own waffle cones too! These dessert genius didn't stop their, on no my friends, they even solved the biggest waffle&ice cream problem known to man. Yes, I'm referring to the ice cream drippage from the bottom of a waffle cone. Dave and Andy solved this by simply putting an M&M in the cone before scooping the ice cream to block the potential drippage. To go along with this brilliant idea, Valerie and her friends play a fun little game called the color game. It's very simple, you guess what color your m&m is at the bottom of your cone and when you finish you see if you are right (there are no actual prizes besides your own realization that you can predict the future). Not only did I guess my color right (green) but Kevin (blue) AND Valerie (red) guess their m&m colors right too! What a great way to end a trip to Pittsburgh =) 

It was great catching up with Valerie and frolicking through a new city. I definitely want to go to Pittsburgh again to do a little more frolicking, go to a baseball game, and enjoy the nightlife but for now I leave you with this:

When in doubt...
Sex is always to the right in Pittsburgh!

☮&❤

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

I understand why Lebron left Cleveland...

My recent road trip to Cleveland was of course fun (that's all I ever do), but I must say it quickly became apparent that Cleveland is not an up-and-coming city. Like most midwestern cities it was relatively clean, spacious, and had some random attraction to draw in tourists, but it certainly seemed to lack people and open businesses--something I'm not used to coming from Philadelphia. Anyway lets get back to the real story...
Saturday morning, Kevin and I woke up before the crack of dawn to start on our 7 hour journey to Cleveland, Ohio, to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and frolic around the city for the day. And so we left Philadelphia at 4:30 am--not really awake just yet, we managed to get lost before we even left the city. We eventually found I76 and stayed on that wonderfully dark road for the next 5+ hours before hitting the Ohio border. 
After arriving in Cleveland, we checked into our snazzy hotel and went in search for some lunch--we had been cooped up in a car for 7 hours so we were starving for food and excited to explore Cleveland. Off we went, walking throughout Cleveland and to our surprise 90% of the restaurants and stores we passed were closed. Slightly confused, Kevin and I wondered if we had missed the "apocalypse is starting in Cleveland" memo. Not only were most stores closed on this relatively nice-weather Saturday but there was almost no one on the streets, except for some extremely outgoing homeless people. 
After lunch at Susy's Soups, we continued on to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I had actually been to the museum once before about 3 years ago while on a road trip from Minnesota to Philadelphia but didn't get to explore it as thoroughly as I would have liked. This time I was able to spend much more time exploring all of the museums interesting memorabilia. Unfortunately they do not allow you to take photos in the museum but some of my favorite parts were John Paul Jones awesomely hippie-bass guitar, everything involving Otis Redding, all of The Supremes sequen dresses, and Janis Joplin's hippie porche. It's very interesting to see the evolution of music and the cities genre emerge from--Seattle has produced some big genre's in the last 20 years, i.e. grunge rock and now indie rock--makes me wonder what the next big music style will be and where it will come from! Kevin and I had a great time in the museum, soaking in all of the music history and artifacts around us. 
After the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap before enjoying Cleveland's poppin' night life. We had dinner at a local Irish restaurant before heading over to The Winking Lizard. The Winking Lizard has over 300 beers, which no longer benefits me now that I have a diagnosed gluten allergy, but Kevin was in heaven and I enjoyed my new drink of choice: Blood Mary! We hung out for the rest of the night drinking, enjoying each other's company and watching random sports on TV. 

Even though Cleveland wasn't as hoppin' as I would have liked it to be, Kevin and I made the best of it and enjoyed our little adventures outside of Philadelphia. I'm not sure if I would ever go back, or necessarily reccommend anyone going to Cleveland but it was still fun for what it was. =)