Playlist: August

Hey team. So. There aren't going to be many posts in the coming weeks. Not because nothing's happening--actually, quite the opposite. This whole "I'm moving to France for a year" thing is hitting me full force. There are some things that happened in August that I still want to write about. Maybe I will, maybe I won't, maybe I'll save them for some future throwback Thursday post. Until then, you can get a glimpse of what my August was like through this here playlist, which was inspired by:

- New singles from One Direction and Josh Ritter that were released on the same day (and the freakout that ensued)
- More new music, from Josh Ritter again and Imagine Dragons
- Seeing Fun Home on Broadway (All the songs are good but I just put the ones that I've had on repeat on here)
- More songs I heard on the radio or saw the video for on TV or danced to while dishwashing
- The best of the Washington Nationals' walk up music (in order of the lineup from 8/24)
- Reading Louise Penny's How The Light Gets In (and then going to her tea and book signing!)
- The VMAs (of course)

A Cat Café: Clearing up the Misconceptions

During my trip to New York a few weeks ago, I ended up going to the new cat café, Meow Parlor. I guess cat cafés have been a thing for a while now--I know my host dad in France really wanted to go to the one in Paris back when it opened in 2013. 

As a Buzzfeed proven dog person, I never really had any interest in going to a cat café, but I tagged along to the New York one to see what all the fuss was about. And, well, I didn't do my research. The idea of "cat café" in my head was very different from what it actually was. Here's what I found out: 

Review: "Fun Home"

I entered "Fun Home" on a whim after standing in the cancellation line and finally getting a ticket five minutes before the show started. I left Fun Home feeling extremely emotional. Not just emotional in the sense that it made me cry, which it did, but also because I was trying to process everything in this hilarious, tragic, and loving musical. 

"Fun Home" came to Broadway back in April, just a week before the Tony nomination eligibility period ended, and in June the musical was awarded five Tonys, including Best Musical. It's the adaptation of Alison Bechdal's graphic novel memoir of the same name, where Bechdal explores her complex relationship with her father and how both of them come to understand their sexualities, each in drastically different ways.

A Morning at the Met

Fun fact: I lived in New York until I was 6, but I really grew up in Maryland. I still go to New York a lot, but hard as it is for me to admit, I'm not a New Yorker. I lack aggressiveness and have too much of a taste for Old Bay.

I do love the Metropolitan Museum of Art, though. It's my mom's favorite museum, and she actually had her wedding pictures taken on the steps. Now that we don't live in New York anymore, most of our visits to the Met are around Christmas, so we can see their tree.

Last week, I was in New York to visit family, but I broke off to hang out with friends in the city. We agreed to meet at the Met on Tuesday morning right when it opened at 10, so naturally we all strolled in around 11:30 in desperate need of coffee but ready to start the day. Still early enough, right? Wrong. I don't remember the last time I'd been to the Met when it was

a) not Christmas
b) so crowded

Review: CVS Motion Sickness Bracelet

I'm not exactly the best person to take a road trip with. Part of this is because I don't have my driver's license and am therefore unable to take over any leg of the driving. The other part is that I sometimes get a bit motion sick. I can't read in cars. I can't watch movies in cars. Sometimes even looking down at my phone is enough to make me a little queasy.

I have stories of times motion sickness has gotten the better of me. And what's worse, so do other people. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and get some of those motion sickness preventing bracelets from CVS. And I thought I might as well talk about my experience with them on here, because if it's going to be a travel blog, why not talk about all aspects of travel?