Thursday, May 14, 2009

First show... Ever.

Hey everyone.

I have some exciting new for all you back home who have been following my life via blog. As most of you either knew or figured out at some point, being in a band and playing shows has been my dream since I was eleven. My dream has developed into something great and I really want to get started on that as soon as I can. I don't have a band yet, but I do have my first show! I will be playing at the Pegasus Lounge on June 7th! Tickets are $8 if you get them from me, or $10 at the door, just tell them you're there to see me. God has really opened some doors for me to be able to get this show and I can't take any of the credit. If it weren't for Him, I wouldn't be able to do this.

Info on the Pegasus Lounge:
The Pegasus Lounge is a small club located in Tampa. The night I will be playing there is an all ages night so it will be toned down compared to what it would normally be on a regular night. Unfortunately, they will be serving alcohol that night, but it will only be served in a certain section. On any other day, I would not suggest going there, but since I'm playing there, I'd love it if you came out to support me. I need to sell at least 25 tickets or I there is a chance my booking company will not book many more shows with me. So come see me!

The vision for my (future) band:
In my opinion, there are enough Christian artists out there writing songs for Christians and whatnot, but what is lacking is Christians writing songs for nonbelievers. That's where I come in. I want to be in a secular-labeled band, made up of Christians, writing songs so that people can see something different in them, and in us. I want our music to stand out in such a way that they will ask us what our songs mean. I want us to live our lives in such a way that people will know there's something different about us. I know it's going to be a challenge, but I'm ready for it. If you know anyone who shares this same vision or wants to be a part of this and plays guitar, bass, or drums, please contact me. I really want to get this thing rolling.

See you June 7th.
peace, love, and nervousness/excitement
kaeli

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Final Countdown

Day Thirteen:
One of the main reasons why I wanted to go to Prague, Czech Republic was because of the movie Triple X with Vin Diesel. It looked really pretty (yes, I know Hollywood makes things seem better), so we all agreed to go there. We got there the night before and were checked in and everything, but we needed to check out of this hostel before 11am and go check in at our other hostel before 1pm. We got cleaned up and packed and took care of the hostel situation. It turns out that our new hostel was going through some remodeling so when we got there, they were still basically finishing putting together our room. We locked our stuff in a closet and went out to explore the city. It was really pretty, but not what I was expecting (again, Hollywood). We saw a lot of the older side of Prague. As we were walking across a bridge to see the older buildings, there was a band of older gentlemen playing jazz. I love seeing people play music on the streets. I don't know why, but I have a lot of respect for them. Kjell and I stopped and watched for a bit while Steph, Tyler, and Taylor walked a little ways down. After we had our fill of jazz, we started to catch up with the other three when we saw a guy drawing charactures. You know, those cartoon drawings you can get of yourself. Kjell loves to draw (and he's great at it) so we paused and watched this guy draw a girl in ten minutes. It was awesome. Taylor, Steph, and Tyler came back to see what we were watching and they were just as amazed. Taylor and Kjell ended up getting charactures. Then we saw old Prague - an old church, some government buildings, a torture museum (yeah... creepy), and some other things. At some point in there, Steph and I bought these sweet purses. It was probably around 7pm by the time we went back to our hostel and put all of our stuff into our surprisingly finished room. We changed and then went out to get something to eat and went to a pub to get a beer after that. I actually liked it, which was weird. Then we went back to our hostel and went to sleep. Steph and I were both sort of dealing with some stuff while we were on this trip, and I'm glad that I had at least one other girl there with me (she was too) because that night we just really opened up to each other. I love having the guys there, and I usually prefer it, but sometimes it's just nice to have a girl around.

Day Fourteen:
This whole time since Julia went back to Rome, I had been faithfully emailing her, letting her know where we'd be at what time and whatnot, just in case she would be able to meet up with us somewhere. Our next stop was Berlin, Germany and our train was to arrive there at 3:3opm. Yesterday was the only day I wasn't able to check my email, and that ended up being a very important day. I told the guys that I needed to find some source of internet so I could let Julia know that we had made it to Berlin. Steph checked her email first and got a message from Julia saying there was some legal trouble and that she could receive a major fine for some mistakes she made on paper work. She wasn't going to be able to meet up with us, but at the bottom of the email, Julia said, "Tell Kaeli to check her email." I received the message from Steph and logged on. As it turns out, Julia wanted to play a prank on us, but she needed to tell the truth to one of us to make sure everything worked out. So she told me. In reality, she got her temporary passport and everything was fine. She was in Berlin already and according to her email, she was waiting in the train station. The Berlin Central Station is MASSIVE. As soon as I read it, I told the guys I was going to go wander for a bit while they were finishing up with the internet. I went out and started looking for Julia. Twenty minutes was all I had and I couldn't find her. When I got back I pulled Steph off to the side and told her, so Steph and I both went out and looked for her. It was around 4:45pm at this point and Tyler, Taylor, and Kjell really wanted to go see the Berlin Wall, so we had to leave. I logged back on and emailed Julia to let her know where we'd be and what time we'd hopefully be back (Steph, Tyler, and Taylor were catching a train at 9pm to go to Krakow, Poland and Kjell and I were catching a train at 11pm to head back to Holsby). We went out and explored the Berlin Wall which ended up being pretty cool, got some food, and eventually made our way back to the train station. Finally, I told the guys what was up and we all split up and looked for Julia. I got the guest service center to make an announcement over the intercom. Ten minutes before Steph's train was to leave, Julia showed up. As it turns out, she went out to explore the city a bit when she read that we weren't there. She had just gotten back and went to where the computers where (which is where we were) when we saw her. It was awesome that she could continue on the journey with the other three. Kjell and I said goodbye to them and took them to their train. Then he and I had two hours to kill so we got some food and walked around Berlin to see the night life. There really wasn't anyone out (except for three prostitutes... kind of sad, really) but it was good to just talk and get to know each other better. We made it back in time for our train and slept on the way to Mälmö, Sweden (I think that's how it's spelled).

Day Fifteen:
I think we got to the train station at 8am and took another train to Nassjö, Sweden which got us there around 11:45am. Then we caught our last train to Vetlanda. We had no specific time in which we had to be back at the school, and we were starving, so we went to the tanning salon and worked on our tans, then went to Arena Pizza and ate. We ended up hitchhiking back to Holsby because we didn't have any other way of getting there, and got a ride pretty quickly. Once we made it back, we were greeted by everyone that was already back and it felt great to be back home after not having a home for two weeks.

This concludes my spring break adventures. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading about them. =)

peace, love, and more love.
kaericc

Sunday, May 3, 2009

More from Italy

Day Eleven:
It was a beautiful day when we woke up the next morning. We took Julia to the train station to head back to Rome yesterday (something I think I left out) and so it was down to Kjell, Steph, Tyler, Luke, Taylor, and myself.  Our hostel was right near the beach so we went to the grocery store, bought some food, and ate it on the beach. After that, Kjell and I took a walk looking for sea shells and walking on an old pier that was just stone. Pretty soon, Luke and Taylor were running past us to the end of it. We spent the first half of the day just chilling on the beach, enjoying the weather. Then we decided to go back to St. Marc's Square and kick some pigeons. There were a lot more people out today and there were TONS of pigeons and we had fun kickin' 'em around a bit. The pigeons, not the people. There are a few restaurants around the Square and one of them was playing jazz and swing music, so Kjell and I swing danced to it for a bit. We should've had a hat out or something because people stopped to take pictures or to video tape it. I guess we did look pretty amazing. Later, we went to the train station to see if there were any night trains going to Vienna, Austria, and there were, so we got on one. We booked a car with seats instead of beds because the seats were way cheaper. They ended up being able to fold down to form one big bed, and in the end we were all spooning with each other. It was packed. There wasn't much sleep that night.

Day Twelve:
We made it to Austria okay and just sort of walked around for a while. Kjell had been there before so he showed us around a bit and we saw a cool museum and neat statues and stuff. Then we went to get schnitzel and it was DELICIOUS. That's basically all we did in Austria - walk and eat. Haha. Toward the end of the day we went to the train station and got on a train and headed toward Prague, Czech Republic. We got there around 5pm and NO ONE spoke a word of English. Thankfully, Steph is incredibly organized and had the directions from the train station to our hostel already worked out. It took us maybe ten minutes to walk there. We got all checked (haha, no pun intended) into the hostel, checked our email, and went out to grab something to eat for dinner. Then we got cleaned up and went to bed.

peace, love, and PRAGUE.
kae-li, slapshot mcgee