LA and Norfolk weekends

The past couple weeks have been travel-heavy, with a 4 day excursion to Los Angeles for a wedding and a 3 day jaunt to Norfolk to visit Suz and Nate (and their pooch, Rice). And this coming weekend we are popping over to Charlottesville to see my brother.

First up, LA. We stayed the night on Thursday (March 24) at Jeff's parents house and they drove us to Dulles in the morning (our flights were 10 minutes apart). I had to go through the body scanner - for the first time. It's not so bad, really. We had time to grab a bagel and then got on the plane. The flight was around 6 hours instead of the usual five due to strong headwinds. I couldn't watch the movies (the first one was the King's Speech, which I want to see) because my headphones made a godawful noise when plugged into the plane. Other than that, uneventful. We landed, then pretty quickly met up with Jeff's parents on the Enterprise shuttle, rented a car, and drove back to get Jeff's brother Kevin who had had flight problems but it all worked out. We stopped at a Coco's for lunch and continued on to be dropped off at our hotel in Huntington Beach, where we took a nap. We hung out until dinner-time, which was at the Macaroni Grill. It was a long dinner (there were 23 people) but quite nice.

Saturday was the day of the wedding. We found an awesome bagel place. We hung out in Jeff's parents' hotel suite in Irvine for a while and then got prettied up and headed to the Sea Cliff Country Club for the wedding. It was really nice all around. Melissa had an awesome, unusual dress. The ceremony included the whole 'speak now or forever hold your peace' thing which was funny. It was a lot of fun. Jeff and I did some dancing.

On Sunday we went to meet up with some of Kevin's friends on the Santa Monica pier, after having brunch with Jeff's parents and Patrick and Dana.. It reminded me of a small version of the Ocean City boardwalk. Very colorful. In multiple ways. It was fun to walk around.

Next we found a mall and I got a slice of pizza and then we all got frozen yogurt. We found and checked into our hotel near LAX then met up at another guy's house for some board games. We played We Didn't Playtest This at All, Dixit, and Who Would Win. I liked all of those. We got dinner at a Subway - they had avocados! Oh California. The next day we flew out... after having to grab a last minute different flight due to ours being delayed and almost not making it on the plane... but we got home at around the time we expected, anyway.

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On to the Norfolk weekend! We headed down on Friday, April 1 and stopped through Williamsburg to visit the Cheese Shop and the Peanut Shop... mmm. We got to Norfolk around dinner time and went out to Ten Top, which was delicious. We then hung out at Fair Grounds Coffee until it was time to get donuts at Donut Dinette (are you seeing a theme?).

Saturday we headed over to Suz's place of work, Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve in Suffolk. We were there to take the Spring Greens Tasting Tour. It was run by this awesome woman named Vicky who took us around the preserve and pointed out edible wild plants, and which ones are medicinal, and which ones are poisonous, and stuff. Then we gathered some and went back and made a salad. The dressing was fresh lemon juice mixed with maple syrup. It was very colorful!

After returning to Norfolk we stopped for bagels at Yorgo's, which has amazing herb cream cheese! Then we looked at a couple of apartments (Suz and Nate are looking for a new place). Later Suz's friend Kristy came over with her adorable baby, and was supposed to go to dinner with us but she had to leave instead. We went to San Antonio Sam's where I got veggie fajitas. We went into Naro Expanded Video after that, which is totally cool, but didn't get any movies. We just chilled and cuddled with the dog and played Blokus.

On Sunday I met my mom at MacArthur Center and then we went out for brunch at Tortilla West, which was really tasty. I got to see her rockin' new Mustang. Then she went back home and we got dessert at The Skinny Dip. We went to another house to look at, this one a mansion. Then Jeff and I headed home, stopping for dinner at a Wawa.

Look for posts on Charlottesville and further adventures upcoming!

Brand New and Thrice at the Norva

Here begins my review of the Brand New/Thrice concert at the Norva in Norfolk, VA. Unfortunately the pictures uploaded backwards so I'll just show those right now...

Brand New's Jesse Lacey on vocals plus check out the tambourine

Brand New performing "Archers Bows Have Broken"

Brand New's Jesse Lacey and drummer Brian Lane

Brand New

Thrice

When Will, Kristin, Jeff Black, and I arrived at the Norva, the opening band (Crime in Stereo I think but I can't quite recall) was on. For the first time I didn't have to get those godawful black permanent marker Xs on my hands which not only smell all night but then refuse to come off later... for several days. Thankfully I'm 21 now! Xs no more! It was pretty crowded and we decided to move to the balcony. We stood at the side that faces the stage (and therefore is furthest from it) and got decent spots with just a couple standing in front of Kristin and I at the railing. I kept my thought beams pointed at them, telling them to GTFO, hoping it would work.

So Crime(s?) in Stereo was/were fine. I wasn't totally into them but they weren't at all bad. The balcony which I have never been to turns out to be a sweet spot because it's less crowded, you can see much better, and they have cleaner bathrooms.

Thrice came on after a record-breaking 15 minute set-up delay (wow! who would have guessed?). They did a really sweet cover of The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" and had a few other good songs. I certainly didn't like all of their songs, though... oh well. I was mostly there for Brand New.

Brand New took way more time to set up... as the main act usually does (though my bro claims they were co-headlining with Thrice). My mental energies must have paid off, because the couple in front of us left and so Kristin and I rushed in to fill the space at the railing. Awesomely, we had something to lean against and it made for excellent pictures because you could steady the camera (also I took some pretty decent video clips which maybe I'll get the energy to embed one day after uploading them...). So then Brand New came on. For one thing, they had really cool, dynamic lighting that was different for every song. It went with the music, too, seeming to respond to it all on its own (hooray for the lighting tech!). On some songs they had a pretty backdrop on the screen, or short film clips or pictures. In addition to the visual coolness, they were also incredibly good. They play extremely well live (it sounds a lot like the album but with an added oomph of live energy - just the way I like it) and beyond that their setlist was phenomenal. They played all my favorite songs by them, songs from their last 3 albums (and since many bands just play their newest stuff, this was a great mixture). They played such things as Archers Bows Have Broken, Limousine, Jesus, Degausser, Okay I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't, The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows, Sic Transit Gloria, Play Crack the Sky, and stuff off their new album, Daisy, which I hadn't really heard yet.

Basically Brand New is awesome. See them live. Especially if you were like me and were obsessed with Deja Entendu when you were in high school. YES!!!