Saturday Festivals

It's been fairly hectic around here, I'm trying to make sure I catch up on work and school and exercise (jk lol...uuuuuggghhh), and I feel like I'm nowhere near adequately caught up on my sleep.  This week looked a lot like all of my other weeks...class, work, dining hall food.  I tried to see Inception last weekend, but I got carded...apparently, the only theater in town showing it still is showing it as part of "Club Cinema," where they serve drinks as you watch the movie.  We saw Easy A instead, it was cute, but I've already forgotten what it was about. Being under 21 is starting to put a huge cramp in my style. Since most of the students in my program are already of age, they spend most of their weekends out at the bars, and so my weekends have been extremely dry since getting to school here.  I think I need one of these guys:

This weekend though, I managed to have some good sober fun anyway.  Actually, it was kind of a nerdfest, but I really kind of enjoyed myself.  Friday night, I went out with some kids from my internship after work (to a restaurant/bar...everyone else drank beer and I was awkward, but it was good to be social), but everyone left by about 8 to go do other things. I was exhausted (because it turns out that being a working adult is exhausting and sucks because you have to actually be responsible), so I stayed in my room for the rest of the night watching Inglorious Basterds and fell asleep at a respectable hour. 

Anyway, so Saturday, there were some festivals.  It was awesome.  Let me tell you about it!

In the morning, I suck at getting out of bed (which is becoming kind of a problem), so I kind of took a while to put myself together and shower and all that, and then I walked to the Metro and went out to the mall.  Library of Congress puts on a National Book Festival once a year, so there were a TON of really famous authors who were doing readings and book signings on the National Mall.  Katharina, my roommate, has been reading Jonathan Franzen's Freedom: A Novel, the Oprah Book Club one, so she went and heard him speak and got her book signed and all that.  I got there kind of late, so I didn't do a whole lot there, but it was just a really nice opportunity to walk around the mall on an obscenely hot day (95º, down from 100º the day before!).  Now, we this poster hung in our room (but from 2010):

We ambled around looking for food for about a second before we realized everything around the mall is super expensive and not that delicious, and then we grabbed the Metro out to Alexandria (notice the suspense, I haven't told you exactly where we're going yet).  The train was single-tracking and we got delayed forever, so we just read our respective books and I fell asleep for a bit.  Finally, we get off at Van Dorn.

So, my parents have family friends in DC who have a daughter in school at USC, so the two of us essentially switched families. The Morans have been REALLY good to me since I got to school this semester, insanely good to me.  Makes me kind of wish that I actually had gone to college in a place where we had family, because getting adjusted to college was hard, and I feel like it's been really nice to feel like I'm taken care of, just in case. Anyway, this weekend, they gave me this awesome gift: tickets to Virgin Mobile FreeFest (which, granted, are free) and a car to get there. 

The Morans: Karen, [boy who isn't their son, Reid, but usually Reid stands there], Shelby, and David.  Photo via my Facebook creeping on Shelby.

So David picks us up from the train station, and we go get lunch at Johnny Rockets.  After having not eaten all day, I'm starving, so I WOLF my cheeseburger.  We leave for pretty shortly thereafter, getting lost about 6 or 7 times before getting on the main stretch of the road.  David had to stay on the phone with us for about 30 minutes, I felt like such an idiot.  BUT, we did eventually get on the road just fine. 

In general, the thing I miss most when living on the East Coast (besides my family and friends, I miss you all to death) is my car.  I love driving, the way it feels, the freedom it gives you.  It's great.  Driving on the highway to FreeFest felt amazing, and to blast the radio, sing in the car (although when I'm alone, I don't have to justify my love for Taylor Swift to anyone), and push the speed limit (just a little Mom, I promise) was such a gift. 

Katharina took pictures on the ride up, I'll steal them from her later and get real photos.

The ride took a little over an hour, plus the traffic mess it took to find parking. We parked kind of far up the hill from the event, got about halfway there, and then realized that we'd left the tickets in the car. MAJOR WOMP (actually, not my fault, I was the responsible one!) (Dad, stop laughing).  We walk back up, get the tickets, and then realize that there was a shuttle bus set to take us to the venue anyway.  

By this point, we've actually missed a lot of the festival.  Kind of a bummer, they had some really cool acts in the early afternoon (Temper Trap, Jimmy Eat World, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, and Yeasayer played in the morning).  But we got there for the end of Thievery Corporation, who were pretty awesome.  The venue was really cool, they had three stages set up, plus a bunch of promotional stuff set up (I snagged a Converse gym bag).  I'm sorry I don't have better pictures, I had to resort to my cell phone because I haven't gotten around to buying myself a new camera.  

This was the side stage, where we spent most of our time.  Set up next to this stage, they had a ferris wheel set up: 

We spent most of the rest of the day on the sidestage.   Apparently, right around this time, Matt & Kim AND Chromeo played, but we had no idea, so we just chilled obliviously on the grass surrounded by drunk people.  It was great.  We didn't wait around long though, because Ludacris came on about 20 minutes later.  The sun was just starting to go down, everyone was super drunk, and he was playing some REAL throwbacks (even like, Act a Fool and What's Your Fantasy?) and every song he's ever been featured in (Break Your Heart and Yeah were big favorites), so everyone was really excited, me included.  He was actually a really good performer, I didn't really remember his show from Spring Fling freshman year. 

After Luda, we got some food.  While I was waiting for them to make my quesadilla, these drunk guys swaggered over and started attempting conversation with me and the girl standing next to me.  One of them handed me his iPhone to keep, but I politely declined and returned it to him.  Fireworks were going off for a while, I split a funnel cake with Katharina, and we wandered around the grounds a little bit.  At 9, we went back to the side stage, where MIA was playing. 

She was SO. GOOD.  I know MIA is really an acquired taste for a lot of people (except for Paper Planes, there's nobody who doesn't like that song), but she put on such an awesome show.  I wish I had a better photos than these, but I don't.  We were really far back for a while, and then some people got confused by her music and peaced, so we got continually closer and closer.  She really is so weird, but nobody works it like she does.  Then she gets about a hundred people on stage to "mosh the fucking pit," and we get even closer because a huge gap in the audience has opened up. That's supposedly the end of the song, so even more people leave, but we figure she's such a showman (and she hasn't played Paper Planes), so we stick around.  Of course, we're right, and she comes back and like hops into the crowd and informs us that we should all rush the stage.  You can kind of see her in this picture, she's in that space between that guy's head and his arm.

Anyway, it was awesome.  And then we drove home (which was fun, we played my iPod on the car stereo and actually managed to not get lost) and grabbed the Metro back to school. Long day, totally worth it.