So it turns out I love taking photos of strangers in adorable outfits after sufficient Heineken intake. The following were taken at the Mount Kimbie show at Iceland Airwaves in Reykjavik.
I’m currently inhabiting Copenhagen, Denmark, land of my family heritage for the first time. A big thank you to Johan, Vivian, Stephen, June and Julie for making me feel right at home here. Copenhageners have fantastic style in dressing and, most importantly, in being awesome.
I think I left my brain in Reykjavik, but I’m attempting to write anyhow. PHEW! Read on, if you please, it has been quite the adventure thus far.
I’m terribly sorry its been awhile since my last update, but you would not believe the trouble I’ve been getting into. You’ll have to excuse the length of this post, as we have a lot of catching up to do! At the end of September, I moved out of my apartment, sold all my stuff at like four rummage sales, and drove off into the sunset. Literally… my bestie, Abraham and I started off my 2 month long journey in a rickety old Volvo without AC driving toward the sun to Los Angeles on the hottest day in its recorded history (115 degrees to be exact). I think it was symbolic or something.
In Los Angeles, on a much nicer day, I did an awesome shoot with the adorable and talented Nicole Hill. The next day we made a sweet stop in the beauteous Santa Barbara and the legendary La Supa Rica Taco Stand. With a bellyful of queso ambrosia, we made our way through the foggy cliffs to the gnarly, dusty dirtroad hills of San Simeon, where our lowly rental Hyundai proceeded to get lost (on our way to a friends’ addressless address). But after some spontaneous car camping, our achey bodies awoke to be offered chicory coffee, bacon, eggs, and a melty cliffside soak in a flame-heated cast-iron bathtub overlooking morning ocean fog.
After some quick but heavy stops in Big Sur, Santa Cruz and Carmel-by-the-Sea, we arrived safely and with relief in stunning San Francisco. A very good friend put us in his cozy murphy bed to prepare our road-weary bodies for a romp around The Haight, Golden Gate Park and a hike up Telegraph Hill. When we returned to our rental after five hours, we found it towed to the tune of $475 for a very slight overlap of a curmudgeon-owned driveway. OUCH. There went our already too measly travel budget.
Not to be defeated, we kept on keeping on. Luckily my sister, her husband and my ambrosial nephew were happy to see us in Sacramento, where we laid low and saved up our resources for a week. From there we flew to Seattle to stay in the hippest apartment in the PNW, with my dear high school friend David and his incredibly welcoming beau, Charles. They put us up in their cozy, Versailles-worthy living room, fed the shit out of us, bought us expensive drinks at a bar straight out of Mad Men, and saw Abraham off to British Columbia and me off to Reykjavik.
Reykjavik! I said goddamn. Nevermind the remarkable architecture, the stunning, hipper-than-thou women (every venue felt like a modeling convention, I kid you not) and the genetically perfect men (who I assume must all share the same talent for kissing via the liquefying way they coo their consonants… unfortunately there wasn’t enough time to sample them all), the mysterious light, and the otherwordly landscape…
The Iceland Airwaves Music Festival alone is worth all the jetlag, chilly wet weather, unpronounceable street names, and undrinkable beers in the world.
Bands of note that broke my brain with their sheer proximity: The Antlers, Junip (I was drunk enough on Heineken to think it was a good idea to climb on stage with them, which, astonishingly, no one seemed to mind), and Dan Deacon. Also? Every Icelander must be born with an instrument in his hand. Amazing.
On our last day in Reykjavik, my dear librarian friend, Barrie was too jetlagged to use her pre-paid horse-riding excursion, so miracle of miracles, she let me go in her stead (steed?)! So I had a very special day galloping through some very special lava fields on a very special breed of Icelandic horse in some very special freezing rain. Apparently, I must have packed an extra brain to blow.
If you need a higher visual/blathering ratio, here’s a slideshow for you: Hit the full screen button in the bottom right corner of the player to zoom.
I am now in Copenhagen, but have yet to see any sights as I have been forced to be tethered to my computer with work stuffs all day. Not complaining though! Tomorrow holds a long walk to through a botanical garden and to check out David Lynch’s paintings at the GL Strand Gallery. Huzzah!
I got a wild hair and changed my mind in the last couple of days, so the rest of my itinerary looks like this:
Oct 18: Copenhagen, Denmark
Oct 26: Berlin, Germany
Nov 5: Vilnius, Lithuania
Nov 11: Brussels, Belgium
Nov 17: Antwerp, Belgium
Nov 18: London, UK
Nov 22: San Francisco, CA
If you’d like to keep up with my blundering escapades in real time, follow me on Facebook.
Tomorrow! Photos of stylish Europe-dwellers. WEE!!!
Yesssss. That’s right. I’ve caught the wanderlust again. We’ll just try and forget that this idea is way beyond my means, that i just spent the hottest months of the summer in the southern Arizona desert, and that I’ve been keeping nothing but my pet flies in my wallet… The itinerary is set, the fingers are crossed and I’m headed north at the coldest time of year to some of the chiliest and most stylish cities in the northern hemisphere.
My mission? To see how I, a Bona Fide Desert Child, will keep warm and functional but still, er, Painfully Hip, while traveling solo with nothing but a tiny backpack for awhile.
I’ve come up with some janky schemes in my life, but this one’s a doozie.
So far I have a one-way ticket to Reykjavik and enough dough saved to get me to Copenhagen if I couchsurf. Inter-European travel is ridiculously cheap, so if everything goes as planned, I would like to chase the sun all the way through Spain and/or Italy to Marrakech and/or Athens. My return ticket will just have to wait. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself now, I need a plan. And I can’t let this muggy, monsoon-baited weather make getting stranded in Iceland sound like a good idea.
First things first.
Ideas:
Read the new eBook, The Wanderlust Workbook by Sarah of Yes and Yes, who just happens to be leaving on a well-planned, perfectly executed 9 month long journey across the opposite hemisphere departing on almost the exact same moment as my janky one.
Seriously, this book rocks. If I didn’t pay heed to this delightful publication, I’m pretty sure I would have ended up in the fetal position in an shitty airport hotel in Copenhagen snotting into the phone at my mommy.
Throw a Fashion Show and Benefit for Hope Animal Shelter on Aug 27th at Club Congress and schedule a million photo shoots (yes, I realize these won’t help with either problem, but at least they’ll keep me distracted)
Get a Second Job (ooh Arizona, your minimum wage makes me saaaaad)
Put myself under house arrest till October
Lend my body to medical studies (thanks, Sarah!) or sell my plasma in spite of my irrational fear of needles
Ask you guys what your best travel tip / get rich quick scheme is.
GIVEAWAY: The TOP TWO TIPS in the comments on this post will get a FREE download and mp3 of Sarah’s gem-laden eBook, The Wanderlust Workbook (plus some extra feel-goodies!
Have you ever had that feeling that life is happening at you? That you’re suddenly caught up in a wave of good news, exciting prospects, turned corners and open doors?
I have.
How did I possibly manage to: score a room at an historic luxury hotel from the City of San Francisco), model for an incredible photographer in clothes dropped at my hotel by up-and-coming local designers, encase my face in faux lashes and whopping earrings courtesy of Mac Cosmetics and a collaboration with Wingflash Designs in bustling San Francisco locations, attempting to echo one of my favorite personalities, Edie Sedgwick…. and NONE OF IT WAS MY IDEA??
And that was only the beginning of this epic tour. Right now I’m in Chicago receiving more luckbombs, having a soul-illuminating few days with close friends and bracing myself for:
-another roadtrip, starting wed, with a rough and tumble all girl band who just happen to be as obsessed with thrift stores and fashion as I am.
-a stylist gig back in San Francisco with my first legit celebrity, the Hipster Prime Minister himself. I will not deny it if you guess correctly! Think ironic. A little Brilliant, slightly sleezy. Think vacant, traffic-stopping gaze…
I keep having to check for the horseshoe in my ass. That would be embarrassing…
Thank you all so much for reading.
I’ve lived in close proximity to San Francisco (as it has to my heart) for most of my life, but I’ve found only one way to properly explore its bohemian charms.
All images were either created by the Painfully Hip Design Collective, used with permission, or found on the web and believed to be in the public domain. If any images that appear are in violation of copyright law, please let me know and i will remove them immediately.
Thanks for reading,
Amber
painfullyhip at gmail.com
