A journey through 852 Instagrams

852 images that prove we're basically all taking the same Instagrams, of the same things, quite possibly at the time. But set to The Black Keys and beautifully produced.

West coast, best coast

In the last few months I've found myself on the west coast twice. Once on a trip up the coast from LA to San Fransisco and most recently on a trip from Vancouver to Victoria to Tofino (a place I find hard to believe is actually in Canada).

So you can just quickly scan the photos, here's the recap of the adventure: Vancouver was full of new friends. MS had recently moved there and had a bunch of friends over for the long weekend. As you can imagine, there was clothing and product covering all open spaces in the 1 bedroom apartment. It didn't help that on 2 separate occasions we all went to the Aritzia Warehouse sale where I landed some amazing clothes at unreal prices. A $175 dress for $35. J Brand jeans for $30. I was in clothing heaven. I spent a lot of time wandering the city, renting a bicycle to cycle the entire outskirts of Stanley Park (highly recommended), eating delicious food and catching up with The Stunt Man over $5 caesars.

I landed up taking the ferry to Victoria to see DI (great friend and former Uni roommate) and explore Victoria, BC. Truthfully, I knew very little about the city. I walked a lot, ate some pretty good food, drank too much coffee and landed up using my umbrella just about as much as I thought I would. They were not lying when they said it rains a lot in the west.

The last stop of my adventure was a quick roadtrip to Tofino. I'm in love. Tonfio is Canada's heaven on earth. Beachy, adorable, not much to do. The good life. DI and I both purchased books from the local book store. I picked up The Wolf of Wall Street (soon to be a movie). It's wild. We didn't end up surfing, but did manage an afternoon beachside. And we went camping. In a tent.

Then, all the sudden it was an entire week and a few days later and we were driving back to the airport at 5:30am. A wonderful adventure. Now I understand: West coast, best coast. So, without hesitation:

Vancouver

Finds from the Aritzia Warehouse sale

There was about 500 of these racks full of clothing.

Victoria, BC

My dining view from Red Fish, Blue fish. One of the best spots on the trip!

A solo lunch adventure 

Tofino

Super healthy road trip food!

 This was about 2.5 hours into the drive, also the 14th time listening to Kendrick Lamar's Swimming Pools The "look out" point.

Best coast may just be the west coast.

Art + Beer. Collective Art Brewing.

I've been lucky this week landing some pretty sweet tickets! First TIFF and then guest list to the Arts Collective Brewery launch.

My workplace had space on the guest list and a few of us jumped at the opportunity to go. Free beer + food + live entertainment. Will that ever get old?

We arrived shortly after 9, had 2 beers (ok, I had a sip of 2 different beers plus 2 glasses of water... beer has never really been my thing) and watched the live band. The room was full of super hip Queen W folk. I opted to rock my new Aritzia dress (see the picture of me below) and a great necklace I picked up last time I was in Kentucky! Wear what you want, I say!

The evening was pretty great-- a showcase of artists and beer. Or, in their words, a "grassroots beer company fusing the craft of brewing with the inspired talents of emerging and seasoned artists, musicians, poets, photographers & filmmakers." Neat, right?

A few snaps into the evening:

 

Live band!

The Gladstone hotel.

EA found his bottle on the wall

Me + beer

 I wonder what event is next?

#TIFF13 Kill Your Darlings

 

The title of this post could easily have been: "The day I met Harry Potter", because I did, sort of. Let me go back a few steps. I entered a few TIFF related contests hoping to score tickets to a movie. I had neglected to purchase tickets in advanced and at this point in the TIFF game (more than half way through) winning/ receiving tickets to the big premieres is the only option.

I entered an RT to win contest through SKYY Vodka, and won! I lucked out completely and got tickets to Kill Your Darlings, starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) & Michael C. Hall (Dexter). The seats ended up being in the mezzanine, beside what I noticed were some prime empty seats. Well, turns out those prime seats were for none other than the ENTIRE cast of the film. Harry Potter and Dexter mere meters away. 

I had gone with A and managed to walk out of the mezzanine seating at the same time as Daniel Radcliffe (DR, for short). A and I both got a few words in and I also gave him the "thumbs up". Ugh. Where did that come from?  He half smile said "thanks" and gave the thumbs up back. Meeting, successful.

We exited, saw the blacked out cars leave, but no more celebrity sightings on the walk home. I missed Joseph Gordon Levitt (sad) as his movie was premiering a few blocks away. Next year! And that was it. Possibly the beginning and ending of my TIFF13 experience all in one night. But wow, what a great night it was.

Thanks, TIFF! See you next year.

California Love

The last post I made on my travels was a while before I was heading stateside. Since that post, I navigated my way up the California coast from LA to San Fransisco and managed to do 2 long weekends in Kentucky.

I've been sitting on these photos for far too long (sorry, Internet!). So without further hesitation, here's a snapshot of my California vacation:

Goodbye California, I miss you already.

In John Mayer's Atmosphere

I was pretty excited that John Mayer decided to cross the border on Thursday to play in front of a sold out crowd at the Molson Amphitheatre. It's a venue I've been to before but have never opted for the lawn until this time. Ticketmaster had a "me + 3" deal going on, so the lawn tickets ended up only being $31.50 each. What a steal! We (AK + BG + AO) grabbed a great spot looking at the middle of the stage with good views of the screens, too.

We arrived to see a bit of Phillip Phillips-- and to see them play Home (the only song I know & interestingly enough, not a Mumford and Sons song). And then watched one of my favourite musicians play basically all the songs on my wish list.

I (and pretty much everyone else) sang along to the songs that we knew, laughed at the jokes and were captivated by the oddity of the screen (sort of an homage to Red Rock, I imagine).

Which brings me to my dream concert: John Mayer live at Red Rocks. One day. Please. If you're wondering why:

 photo from here

Back to the concert at hand: Our Molson Amp concert included a few of my favourites including, Who Says. I took a horrible Instavideo, but the real version is much better.

From the information I can gather from the internet, this was the set list:


1. Queen of California
2. Vultures
3. Fool To Love You
4. Something Like Olivia
5. Paper Doll
6. I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)
7. Waiting on the Day
8. Who Says
9. Going Down the Road Feelin’ Bad
10. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room
11. Your Body Is a Wonderland
12. Neon (acoustic)
13. Wildfire
14. Half of My Heart (most adorable song)
15. If I Ever Get Around to Living
16. Speak for Me
17. Waiting on the World to Change
18. Born and Raised
19. The Age of Worry
20. Gravity
Encore:
21. A Face to Call Home 

What a great show. #MAYERISBACK! And because we're here, If a Where the Light Is (Live in LA) concert ever happens again anywhere in the world, I must be there.

Dreaming.

Arts & Crafts

It's been a full year (and a bit) since I took my last art class. I started with a fabric dying class then on to a paining class that followed the idea of "paint how these songs/ words make you feel". It wasn't for everyone, but I was for me. I miss it.

With summer all the sudden feeling a lot like Autumn (and the amount of time I spent in Trinity Bellwoods park subsequently reducing at an alarming rate), I think it's time to open up my art set back up.

A few things I'd like to accomplish:

1. I've been an avid reader of PaperFashion for years. It's a beautiful blog that makes me wish I could do watercolour with sparkles. Scratch that. It makes me wish I could do watercolour at all! Well Katie, the talent behind the art, has a class-- starting now-- on the Basics of Painting with Watercolour. It's $20. I'm signing up tonight.

Will you join me? 

2. I came across this really cute DIY hello (interestingly enough, also one of my favourite words to doodle).

The instructions are here. Will you make me one?

So many arts & crafts, so little time.