A couple of months ago, I attended the first night of the Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Glendale, Arizona. The city commemorated this historical moment by renaming their town “SWIFT CITY.” The name remained in place Friday March 17th and Saturday March 18th.
I traveled from Salt Lake City, UT, to Phoenix, Arizona, with a few of my gal pals. Huge shoutout to my friend Lauren for handling the Ticketmaster depths of hell queue and securing a handful of tickets for us!
I stayed in Phoenix Thursday evening at a 21+ boutique hotel, and then met up with my friends Friday morning at a cute breakfast spot after their flights had landed. We ate breakfast at Hash Kitchen, where we jammed out to Taylor Swift, and I ordered French toast and enjoyed a mimosa flight (I even ordered the additional cotton candy mimosa option). After breakfast, we traveled to our hotel and hung out by the pool. Because we didn’t have a rental car, and just took Uber everywhere we went, we didn’t do as much sightseeing. However, if I do go back to Arizona, I definitely want to check out Sweet Dees Bakeshop. They had the cutest Taylor Swift themed sweets and cookies, and after looking at their Yelp page, it also appears they can cater to all sorts of themes.
Circling back to the Taylor Swift concert, my group decided to wear anti-hero shirts we found on Etsy. We also glammed out with tons and tons of glitter! Of course, there were so many creative and beautiful outfit options at the concert, and I think it would be really cool for a group to designate an individual to dress up according to a certain Eras album (I had the nails down for the Midnights album…duh). We saw a range of different costumes from group t-shirts, to re-creating song lyrics. For instance, we saw a few people dressed as champagne in honor of the song/lyrics “Champagne Problems.” My friend Lauren had a brilliant business idea around this as well, but this isn’t my news to share… so we’ll see if it comes to fruition;)
Needless to say, the Taylor Swift Eras concert was one for the ages! She sang 44 songs to a sold-out arena and even surprised us with songs “Mirrorball” from Folklore and her very first song “Tim McGraw” from Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift has been surprising fans with a song or two at every concert she has performed at since. I think my favorite concerts would have been the second night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas when she performed “Cowboy Like Me” with Marcus Mumford and “White Horse” from her album Fearless, as well as the April 14th concert in Tampa, Florida, when she performed “The Great War” with Aaron Dessner and “You’re on Your Own, Kid” from the album Midnights. Still, I would have died and gone to heaven if I had been in attendance at the Nashville show a few days ago when she revealed Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) would be out July 7th – and to celebrate this, she performed “Sparks Fly” from Speak Now and “Teardrops On My Guitar” from her first album. The fun didn’t stop there though, as she added a song from the Red vault track “Nothing New” with Phoebe Bridgers. That said, I am excited to see what other surprise songs and tracks she performs for the remainder of her tour!
I feel so blessed to have been able to experience and attend Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. If you have the chance to attend, don’t walk, run! Also, if you plan on driving (it might be more cost-effective renting a car in comparison to paying for various Uber/Lyfts) then park at the very entrance/exit of the concert. It is better to walk a longer distance then wait an hour after the concert to just get out of the lot. Also, I think it is totally worth purchasing a cute clear bag for the concert, as this will come in handy for various events to come. I purchased my clear bag on Amazon and got tons of compliments when I used this for working the University of Utah’s Undergraduate Convocation a few days ago. Last, but not least, really get into the spirit of things. Buy that cute dress you have been eyeing, use lots of glitter, and most importantly don’t have bad blood and never go out of style!
amandacrives
A bit about me... Born and raised in South Lake Tahoe, I always dreamed about what laid beyond my backyard. Sure, the smell of pine trees and sight of freshly fallen snow was always magical, but I yearned for more. So, after high school, I packed up my bags, left the mittens behind, and moved to sunny Santa Barbara for college. After graduation, I moved to San Francisco for a year, then to Malibu/Los Angeles to complete my Master's degree at Pepperdine. But now I'm back beaches! I am working as an Undergraduate Advisor at UC Santa Barbara. And as the saying goes- suns out, buns out, and holy quesadilla there are flying tortillas everywhere (something like that). So, you are probably wondering what the heck is this blog about?! Well let me tell ya... I'm still trying to figure that out myself haha. But, it is 2020 ... and it's about time I stopped talking about creating a blog and just did the damn thing. I thought writing about travel would be fun (and I am definitely going to do this, but in a realistic way, because lets face it, I am not showering in money). But I also thought it might be cool to just do a lifestyle blog and talk about whatever pops into my mind. Don't get me wrong, I am that basic chai tea, country music lovin', curl up and read a book, white girl. But I also have so many more passions/thoughts beyond this surface-level stuff. So get ready, grab your coffee (or wine), and check out my posts! Enjoy, Amanda