This past week could be summarized by three words:
SUN
SAND
SWEAT
We played four shows in Florida altogether: Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, and Pensacola (with Atlanta, GA thrown in there before Pensacola), and I every day there seemed to be some sort of exciting adventure happening.
The day after our show in Jacksonville we went to St. Augustine beach. St. Augustine was founded in 1565 and is actually the “oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement and port in the continental United States.” (Wikipedia). There’s still some really neat historical landmarks that we saw as we drove through, and the architecture definitely has a Spanish influence.
The beach was a lot of fun! There was a moderate surf warning, so the waves were the biggest I’ve ever swam in (a few were way over my head) so we did some body surfing and got tossed around a bit. We also saw some dolphins, fairly close to shore but too far away to swim out to. After swimming we hit up Rita’s for gelati: layers of custard and flavoured italian ice!
That night we played in Orlando at Backbooth, a cool venue where Zoltan and I saw Lovedrug play last year. It was a small but fun show, although my voice wasn’t feeling so well. The next morning we stopped by the Vanguard Room, where we recorded Over Land and Sea, and got to hang out with our producer Aaron and his adorable son Simon! I stayed there for a few hours and wrote while the rest of the band went to Circle B Bar Reserve and saw alligators!
Our show that night in Tampa was right in the heart of Ybor City, known historically as Tampa’s Latin quarter for being home to many immigrants from Spain, Cuba and Italy. Ybor used to be characterized by cigar manufacturing plants, and now many of those old factories have been converted in to historic sites and apartment buildings. One thing that’s still around in this really neat neighbourhood are a bunch of chickens! No one really knows how they got there, but they’re quite the tourist attraction and the locals hate them.
We had some of the best BBQ ever that night at Al’s Finger Licking Good Bar-B-Que! The folks there were super nice, and it was fun to chat with them for a bit.
The next day we had a long, hot drive to Atlanta and played at one of our favourite venues, The Masquerade. The other bands who played, Clibber Jones, and Lauren Jones and the Current were awesome! We got a few hours sleep and then headed to Pensacola the next day where we played an outdoor acoustic show at The Yard, a really vibey eatery in an old hospital from 1914!
The storm we drove through from Atlanta to Pensacola. It was pretty intense; lightning, thunder and torrential rain!
We had the next day off, and we decided to go to the beach with our host, Kelly and his family. We had to drive to Austin, where we were playing the following day, so we planned to leave at 2, then 3:30, then stayed for dinner and ended up leaving at 8! It was a late night to say the least, but it was SO worth it to get some quality time at one of the nicest beaches I’ve ever been to!
And that brings us to yesterday when we got to Texas and played in Austin! I’ll write more about Texas later. 
Until next time,
Lauren.
