Only a week after the Texan adventures in Austin, Jules and I went to Richmond, Virginia for the music festival United Blood. Friday morning started before the sun even came up, we had to wake up at 5am to make it to La Guardia airport in time for our 9am flight. Not many people must want to go to Richmond early on a Friday because our plane was one of those tiny two-engine contraptions that only seat about 20 people. I’m pretty sure I spent the majority of the flight thinking I was never going to touch firm ground again!
We're hereeeeeeee
After a short flight we made it to Richmond and we were greeted by the prospect of no phone reception and no Starbucks. Instead, all there was Caribou Coffee, where they apparently don’t know what a Soy Chai Latte is. Oh well, the lady got it right on the third try.
Apart from those little interuptions, we got to our hotel nice and easy thanks to a very helpful cabbie, who took us on the scenic route through downtown Richmond and past all the pretty buildings and the Edgar Allan Poe Museum. The best surprise of the day though occurred when we got to our hotel room and discovered it was a suite, not a normal room! I swear the bathroom in the suite was bigger than my bedroom in Brooklyn, – having a living room, a huge bathroom and a huge bedroom was a bit of a luxury, even if it was only for the weekend.
Welcome to our living room
The hotel suite bigger than my apartment in Brooklyn..
The view from out our window
After we got settled into our room and unpacked we went for a walk to a local cafe and saw some of the sights along the way. Richmond is a really old city so there’s lots of super old buildings with pretty architecture, it gives off a feeling of ‘Old America’. We stopped at two thrift stores as well and I got a cute blue and aqua long sleeved mini dress as well as a 1960’s floral dress for less than $30 altogether.
I felt a bit like Little Red Riding Hood, but with a blue coat instead
We learnt the hard way that cabs are really unreliable in Richmond if you’re not getting picked up from the airport (we spent an hour waiting in the cold drizzle for a cab we’d called but never came) but finally made it to the venue Alley Katz for the first day of United Blood. The line-up for the show was pretty much amazing:
Alpha and Omega
Backtrack
Cruel Hand
Death Threat
Donnybrook
Dryspell
Mother of Mercy
Paint it Black
Title Fight
True Colors
War Hungry
Swamp Thing
Saturday (Doors at 1PM)
Blacklisted
Bracewar
Cold World
Concrete Reality
Fire & Ice
Foundation
Free Spirit
Harms Way
Madball
Maximum Penalty
Mind Eraser
Naysayer
Rival Mob
Steel Nation
Wasted Time
One of the early bands on Friday
More music.
The view from above
Cruel Hand
This was right before the DJ dropped Miley Cyrus and we lost it!
The next morning we got up early and went for breakfast at a cute little cafe that had lots of yummy vegan food. I think if I’d had enough money I would have ordered one of everything on the menu!
The yummy 821 Cafe
Jules' vegan chili burrito
My avocado and veggie burger
On the walk back to the Alley Katz for the second day of the festival we passed more pretty buildings and houses that looked like they were out of a scene in a movie.
This house was so perfect it even had a porch swing!
If you look closely, you can see the cobblestone road
Obviously Cam didn't get the memo that sunglasses inside isn't cool..
Resting our feet
Oh and the Virginia State Capitol Building was right across the street from our hotel as well. I swear its a mini version of the White House, for a state like Virginia it’s a pretty nice place for your governor to live.
The Virginia State Capitol, it totally looks like a mini White House
Goodbye Virginia
livefastpartyhard 