California

In the midst of browsing through some of Kalin and Myles' older music, I saw a song called "California" by JamieBoy featuring Kalin and Myles. Of course I couldn't help click on the related video and watched the music video. Of course it's a song about California so when I saw the singer dancing and singing on the beach. There's a line in the song that says "I gotta warn ya, if you come, well you just might stay" and that line hit me. Thought about tweeting it with the hashtags #relatable and #life, but instead I decided to do that here.

I've realized that some people all over the world feels the same as I do about the beautiful state. There's just so much to love about it- the beaches, weather, and activities that are offered make California so unique and an ideal place to either vacation and/or live.

This song itself is pretty catchy, and I think it's decent. I love Kalin and Myles so them being featured in it makes me like it even more.

The Warped Tour

The Warped Tour is another musical tour where there are multiple stage setups and a ton of bands that play and people can walk around from one stage to another. This tour is mostly from the alternative genre and bands like Never, Our Last Night, and Family Force 5 that typically play however there are a small variety of other genres that play like hardcore metal music, as well as some pop, and some indie.

The Warped Tour is very similar to Coachella, except with different genres. People who go to this typically wear either muscle tanks, graphic tees with either skinny jeans or high waisted shorts that usually matched their vans or converse shoes. Not all the bands listed on the Vans Warped Tour website (x) will play at all the dates listed, a small selection of bands will have breaks throughout the duration of the tour.

A recommendation I'd suggest would be to look at the list of bands that are playing, each year the selection varies, and see what bands you'd like to see and where the majority of them will play in a city near you. Unless you want to go to the Warped Tour for the fun of it. I've been to a couple music festivals through my youth group and I each time I loved everything about it. And the summer of 2013 I actually went to a music festival called 'Sunshine' and I actually watched Family Force 5, and that's when I first heard of them. Their music is very energetic and catchy. I remembered my youth group leaders telling me how good this band is and to be honest, I was very skeptical and was scared it was going to be a waste of my time. However after they performed me and my sisters each got a CD of theirs (all different of course) and I will still play the CDs from time to time and still have the same love for it as I did when I made the purchase.

Honestly for multiple years now I've been wanting to go to the warped tour, two summers ago I was going through a Sleeping With Sirens and Pierce the Veil phase and all I did was listen to all their music and nothing else. I remembered vividly looking up when they both were going to play in a city either close to me or close to Cleveland, Oklahoma where my best friend had, at the time, just moved down to. I remembered trying to get tickets for the Oklahoma City date but unfortunately at the time didn't have enough money for both the drive down to Oklahoma as well as the tickets for the event.

Summer 2k15

While eating dinner with my mom this afternoon, she brought up the topic of going to California for vacation this summer. Literally thinking about going back makes me so beyond happy. It's weird to be so in love with a place as I am with California. Granted my mom really only wants to go so we can look at more colleges so we actually have a purpose of going, but still it's California. I believe we're also planning to stay for a little over 2 weeks. Last summer when my family and I visited we were there for 10 days, and I felt like we were there for a long time, and this summer we're upgrading and doubling our time. Words can't even describe how excited and content I am right now, all thanks to the my blog of plane tickets which I showed my mom and actually went on to buy them.

Im so excited to visit SDSU, San Diego State University as well as University of Los Angeles and revisiting University of California San Diego again. I'm such a nerd but I'm stoked to be going and being able to spend Independence day in California, even though the first time I visited San Diego we did but I barely remember it, but now that I'm older I'll be able to remember it this time around. I'm honestly so excited to run to the beach again, walk around to get from Point A to Point B. Hopefully I won't spend as much money as I did last year but who knows. :)

Coachella on Snapchat

A lovely surprise popped up on my snapchat this weekend, I saw a Coachella snap story that was super long but I actually watched every second of it. The people that were attending Coachella seemed to be having so much fun listening to all the bands that were playing as well as having fun in the beautiful weather with their friends. I was in awe and in love with everything that I experienced via snapchat and it made me want to go to Coachella more than anything. Actually watching short clips of the variety of fun that Coachella had to offer.

Another thing that surprised me was that Vanessa Hudgens, the Coachella queen, couldn't go this year because she is doing a broadway musical (check out her instagram, more details there) so she unfortunately had to miss out on Coachella this year.

On the plus side, Kendall Jenner attended again this year and literally every single year she looks even more stunning than the previous year. Twitter and Tumblr are filled with fangirl posts over how perfect Kendall Jenner is and I completely agree with them,

I will someday go to Coachella because I feel like the experience it is worth the price and the time being spent would be worth it.

Snapchat

Over the past couple months snapchat has updated several times, one update however allows people from a certain area to post on a 'local snap story'. For example if I were to go downtown Iowa City I would be able to post on the 'University of Iowa campus story'. Last weekend while checking snapchat, I noticed a new local snap story called 'Los Angeles'. Even though the story can get really long, once it was up to 200 seconds, it honestly is worth watching (for me at least).

Since I visited a lot of the places in the Los Angeles area, I recognize most of the places being shown. Watching these snap stories makes me really miss California and the California vibe. There's just so much to do there and the fun seems to never die down. There were some snap stories of the Santa Monica beach, Hollywood boulevard (the street with the stars), and the Hollywood sign. Seeing those snaps reminded me of when I visited those places about 3 years ago. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that Los Angeles is a place where people actually live, and it's not just tourist spot.

There are multiple things I've learned since watching these short videos, some of which are: The Lakers and the Clippers, both Los Angeles teams, played a game against each other with the Clippers winning 105-100, also I learned that the Vans Warped Tour had their "Kickoff Party" in Los Angeles just two days ago, however the tour doesn't officially start until June 17. If anyone follows basketball, the Lakers did not have a good season this year.

American Idol also had auditions in Los Angeles a day-or-so ago. Some contestants sounded really good, in the 10 second limit snapchat, and some of the judges being Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban, and Harry Connick Jr. who have been the American Idol judges for two or more years. For those who aren't familiar with American Idol, it is a show that gives talented people an opportunity to show the world their musical talents. Kelly Clarkson was a winner of American Idol a couple years ago and look at where she's at now, she has multiple albums and a ton of #1 hits.

Yet another event that happened in Los Angeles, is the Dodger game. They beat the San Diego Padres 7-4. This game specifically is important because the Padres is another California team and when it comes to two of the same-state teams go against each other, people in the state gets too into it. Like when Iowa State goes against Iowa, people tend to choose the team that is closest to them. So Northern/ Central California (Los Angeles) tend to root for the Lakers while Southern California cheers for the Padres.

If You're Reading This It's Too Late

As almost everyone knows, Drizzy Drake released a new album a couple weeks ago. His album contains 17 songs that you can get on iTunes for $12.99 and with all honesty, I think it's worth it. Obviously it's typical Drake, singing/ rapping about relationships and love in a way that gets to you. I think this album is a little laid back, similar to Take Care, however it also has a couple songs like Energy and Used To that makes you want to get up and dance.

As I was listening to this album, I realized that Drake actually has some deep quotes that are embedded in his music. There's a couple lines in multiple songs that makes you stop and think 'wow, that was deep'. A good quote from Company featuring Travi$ Scott is:

"I don't deserve it. 

She’s just a little too perfect 

She’s just a little too worth it 

I don’t deserve her at all, not not at all."

I mean alone it may not have an effect on a person (most likely a girl because us girls are emotional) however if a guy would tell a girl to listen to this song, it would have a different effect. I guess that same thing goes for this whole album, if you're a female that's having guy troubles this is the album for you. Drake's songs, in general, are about relationships so this album goes along with his older music. 

I'll confess, in middle school (specifically the eighth grade) I basically only listened to Drake. The album 'Take Care' was on one-repeat for at least three months. Being able to successfully sing/rap one of his songs gave me a huge ego-boost. As I was growing up, I wasn't ever a fast reader so when I first learned a rap of one of his songs made me feel so accomplished. It's like finishing a book, the feeling of accomplishment that you spent hours reading words from pages that collectively told a story. 

Coachella

I'm sure a lot of people are quite familiar with the music and art festival, Coachella. This annual event takes place in Indio, California since the early 1990's that started because of a protest against the Ticketmaster. Since then, the festival was liked by many so it was made an annual event. Many celebrities like Vanessa Hudgens, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Nina Dobrev and many more that go quite frequently. This year Coachella will be Friday, Saturday, and Sunday April 10-12 and April 17-19. Tickets are very expensive, granted they're general admission and cost $375 per person.

At first when I saw how much the tickets were I was completely shocked.  I thought the tickets would only be like $100, no wonder a lot of celebrities go to this even. Who in the world would pay almost $400 for concert tickets? That can pay for a round-trip plane ticket to Florida (if planned months in advance). However I then looked at the list of performers and recognized many names and rethought about the price. Granted the tickets, I believe, are for the whole weekend. If that's the case, $400 is too low. Some people pay $50-$100 for just one of the artists on the list, like The Weeknd or Drake, however with $400 you can see both along with other really good artists and other different genres.

The image above shows the artists that are playing, as well as what days they are playing. The artists go from most well known, shown in bigger and bolder letters and as the popularity decreases, the size corresponds respectively. All the music artists that play at Coachella range in genres, there are some rap, hip-hop/pop, alternative, trap/

There are many great artists this year. Those like The Weeknd, Drake, Vic Mensa, Hozier, ODESZA, Brand New, Marina and the Diamonds and Kygo. Honestly going to Coachella is on my bucket list of things to do before I die. Spending the whole day, outside, in California and listening to a wide-range of music genres and looking at beautiful art with a great group of friends. Being able to dress in cute boho clothes with a flower headband and cute sunglasses, who would complain about that?