Saturday, August 29, 2015

Firefly











In my drafts folder I discovered this unpublished blog post from last summer documenting Firefly music festival. I can't believe this was a year ago! Four days of music definitely had it's ups and downs. The days were long and hot, but the music was so good! Among my top were some of my old school favorites like Weezer and Third Eye Blind. Of course, I also enjoyed bands I had only heard a couple songs by that totally rocked it  Cage the Elephant, Young the Giant, City and Colour and of course the major headliners: the Lumineers, Imagine Dragons, Outkast and the Foo Fighters. I've been to camping music festivals before and this time around I was determined to see as many bands as I could. When going with a big group, it's often hard to get everyone to agree on which bands to see, so I often found myself going off alone to sit in the back of bands like Ziggy Marley, Vance Joy and Shakey Graves. Music festivals are always a marathon of trying to see as much as you can while not getting too tired or dehydrated. While seeing bands alone, I would often put my backpack under my head, close my eyes and enjoy the music blaring from the speakers, taking these low-key performances as my breaks in between dancing and pushing my way through the crowds of the bigger shows.

Earlier this summer I went to the Gentleman of the Road stopover in Seaside Heights. A couple friends and I rented a houseboat through Airbnb complete with ocean kayaks (we crammed four people into two one-person kayaks). Over two days we saw the Alabama Shakes, Jenny Lewis, the Flaming Lips, and Mumford and Sons. The stage was set up right on the beach and it was the perfect venue to be able to dance around in the sand and look up to see all the rides just beyond the stage. Up next? Made in America right here in Philadelphia next weekend and after that I'm headed to Washington, D.C. for Landmark Music Festival!

Thursday, August 27, 2015

I'm back!























Well, I'm back! This morning when I was looking through my pictures for a #tbt, I realized how little I've documented over the past year. When I was regularly keeping a blog, it reminded me to take pictures and make mental notes of my surroundings. 

I stopped blogging when my life was in a period of flux - I had just graduated from college, packed up my life and moved to West Philly to look for a job while subletting. I felt completely alone in a new city, though I had friends and family here. It was a summer of waiting - to hear back from employers, to find an apartment, to actually move. I ended up taking a job where I wasn't happy, just so I wouldn't burn through all my savings. It is hard to write and reflect in such a period of uncertainty. In the last year I have moved in with my best friend (our third city living in together), quit the job I hated for one that I love, started creating again, fallen deeper in love, and gotten to intimately know a city that once seemed so foreign. 

I am still in a period of flux, I'm beginning to understand that this feeling might never go away, but this time the uncertainty about the future exciting! In addition to making a big change about my future plans, I have a couple music festivals, creative endeavors and travel goals coming up!

I have tried as best I can to try to put up pictures that show what I've done this last year - exploring Philadelphia, lots of camping, concerts, and travel. The next couple posts will be a combination of new updates and catching up on past adventures, I hope you'll stay tuned!