ACL 2010

So I thought I'd mix it up this year, maybe hit up a different music festival, but as fate would have it, Austin sucked me back in with its yearly Austin City Limits Music Festival! Last year was pretty fantastic, catering to my love of 90's grunge with Pearl Jam headlining. And I (finally) saw Dave Matthews. So... was this year's music better than last? No idea. But it was fun!

For me, Friday's highlights were Spoon and Vampire Weekend. I was actually a little disappointed at the Strokes, but they did make me laugh with their filler between songs. Probably should have seen Phish, since their Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor "Phish Food" is in my freezer just waiting to be eaten. Mmmm.

Saturday was really fun, mostly because of our adventure trying to catch a cab to Kerby Lane after the show. But that's a story for another day! MIA was amazing, I had tickets to see her in LA over the summer but the show got cancelled for some reason. It was worth the wait! She has such a great energy. I also liked the explosions on the screens with 'Paper Planes'. See picture here (thanks RJ!) :)

The XX were really cool, a friend of mine who'd seen them before said she was afraid they were on sedatives. In their defense, their music is really mellow. Beautiful and mellow. I'm not sure you could really rock out to it, but there were definitely people in the crowd having a great time doing that!

More Saturday coolness: Ozomatli (finally saw them!), Silversun Pickups, LCD Soundsystem and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. At the end of the Grace Potter set, the entire band started playing the same drumset! We caught the very end of Muse, their song from the radio sounded pretty good from halfway across the park.

Sunday I only caught the Flaming Lips and Norah Jones, mostly because I wanted to spend a little time with my family and brother's dog, Keira, who's the prettiest Golden Retriever ever. She also likes to lick ears and hands which makes for some slightly confusing mornings. Sometimes I'd wake up with a ball by my ear and Keira sitting patiently by the bed waiting for me to throw it.

The Flaming Lips were part of the reason I went this year and wanted to catch them before they retire! Really fun show, but I don't think I'd want to be those kids in the audience watching them with their parents! Their opener was kinda awkward, probably a little to explicit for me to mention here. And parents... really? Babies at a Flaming Lips show? Norah Jones took me back to College and Schnucks grocery runs. Awww sunrise... sunrise! :)

Overall, fantastic time. Miss you Austin! :)

Ich bin ein Arzt!

So that was the fastest graduation I’ve ever experienced. It was nice, if you leave out the fact that my car was towed earlier that morning (I didn’t see any no parking signs… I shoulda looked harder) with my graduation regalia in the trunk. Props to my heroic roomie and her fiancé with his GPS system, and the lady who opened up the impound a half an hour early so I could get my robes! My friend Robert, also our class president, had some trouble too, he got a speeding ticket on the way to graduation. The cop actually said (after writing the ticket) “well won’t this make a great graduation story!” Robert mentioned this in his speech to our class, and all I can say is that the officer is pretty lucky we all had to take the Hippocratic oath again. :-) Now, I’m trying not to freak out about the new responsibilities that come with those extra two letters after my name. But on to happier thoughts! I had such an amazing time traveling around Europe last week. Deutschland war wunderbar! I took German in high school, and it was so fun having an excuse to speak it all the time even though I probably sounded like a kid with my über-basic grammar. I traveled through Germany for a few days, then Rome, and finished the trip off in Paris, meeting up with friends along the way. Some things I learned: 1. If you're flying Northwest Airlines, make sure they check your bags under your name before you hand them over. 2. Don't lose hope when your luggage gets lost, you never know when (or where!) it might pop up! For me, this lucky place and time was 4 days later in Mannheim, Germany in a storage area 40 minutes out of town. 3. German beer is awesome! And I dont even like beer! 4. Water = H2O + carbonation throughout Europe 5. I can diagnose sleep apnea in people snoring loudly on an overnight train, and then actually sleep through it. 6. It IS possible to communicate effectively with someone who knows French, Portuguese and Italian when you only know English, a little Spanish, German, and maybe 3 phrases in Kannada. 7. Trains are totally cool ways to meet people, I want to revamp the entire American transportation system now. Do we really need all these big cars? Make more Chunnels, I say! 8. Tony Parker released a French Hip-Hop album in March of 2007 and is now on cereal boxes throughout Paris! In Spurs uniform, of course. 9. And finally, it turns out that we're not alone in our quest to promote equality. (As shown on a lampost near the University of Heidelberg in Germany) Save the Planet, Space Invaders! :-)