NYC Day 1-pt. 1

@NYC I am in you once again!!!

I love New York City. While I'm not sure that I would have wanted to grow up here, it's certainly an amazing place to visit, and considering that my mom is from here, we come up pretty often. It has become a sort of tradition for my mom and me to visit for a few days here and there in the the fall/winter, and this year we've been extra good about it. We were here just last month for my birthday and to visit NYU (not sure it's for me) and we are back yet again for an art trip! But what the hell is an art trip? 

Basically, we're just going to hit as many museums as we can before we leave on Tuesday and take in as much artwork as humanly possible.  At least that's my plan. There will hopefully be a little bit of shopping here and there, but this trip is primarily reserved for museums and culturing myself. 😊

We started off strong and upon arriving, headed straight to the hotel to drop off out bags and then walked right over to MoMA. There were a few specific exhibits that I wanted to see there but for the most part we just walked around and wandered in and out of various galleries. The two I wanted to see were the Jackson Pollock exhibition and Ocean of Images . Here is my review of the Pollock exhibit, check back tomorrow for my review on Ocean of Images and a few other exhibits!

Having recently watched the movie Pollock on HBO, (very good and very accurate, I would definitely recommend if you're in the mood for an interesting story!) there wasn't a ton of information in the exhibit that I didn't already know. However if you didn't know Pollock's life story, the exhibit did a very good job of touching on the important parts of his life and how they shaped his work over the years. Additionally, the number of pieces on display was far more than one could ever hope for. From prints to sketches, the museum went above and beyond the usual "splatter paint" works one might originally associate with Pollock and told a story about his life with extremely representative pieces. In my opinion, 9/10. It only lost a point because of the crowds and the lack of  representation of my favorite piece, Number 1 (Lavender Mist); neither of which the museum could do anything about because the first issue is caused by Christmas-time in the city which always means big crowds, and the latter is due to the fact that it is hanging in DC where I saw it last. So overall I guess it does deserve a 10/10!

LC

ho ho ho!!

As I sit here writing this post Christmas music is playing in the background, I'm wearing a santa hat, cupcakes are in the oven, and I'm munching on white chocolate chips. I don't know about you, but for me, it doesn't get much better than that. Even though I don't, my best friend celebrates Christmas, so I went to her house today in order to get a genuine pre-christmas experience. We had such a good time wrapping gifts and baking peppermint cupcakes, the whole day made me really grateful for the good people in my life (cheesy I know, but had to be said). Here are some pictures from the day, merry Christmas Eve!

LC

CC 2.0

Welcome to the new and improved Chesapeake Classic! If you've been visiting for a while you might notice a bit of a change in the color scheme of the page, but overall not much has changed (other than the fact that I'm actually blogging, um hello it's been a few months!)

However as for me, I've been toying around with the idea of blogging again for a while now, I just felt as though I could never decide on which persona to present here. So I would choose one, but then feel as though I had to alter the entire appearance of the whole website, so I would do so, but never actually post anything because I was so exhausted from redesigning the whole damn site. And then it would begin again when I was in a different mood a month later. I swear, it's a vicious cycle.  Then eventually I realized that the whole point of blogging was to share yourself with the internet, not a persona. So why the     insert more dramatic word here if you wish     heck was I trying so hard, when honestly, the only person affected by this whole mess of a cycle was myself. So here I am. For the third time. Trying to share just myself. And just to play it on the safer side, I've created as neutral of a palette as humanly possible so as to avoid any future color rejections that I might have. 

Here's to decisions. And to the future, whatever that may be over here. Happy Christmas Eve Eve!

LC

8//28- Day in DC

I spent my last Friday of summer at the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (both in the same building) and had an amazing time. I was really itching for some culture since coming home from London and got to see some really cool artwork in both museums. My favorite part was probably the contemporary art gallery in the American Art museum even one of my favorite pieces was the painting of the War of 1812 a few pictures down. (Ps the last photo is not from the museum but an Anthropologie close by that we stopped into.) 

xx

xx

UK Trip- The Second Installment

School is in less than two weeks and I am less than pleased about it. I have had the most amazing summer and am so grateful for all of the experiences I've been fortunate to have. I just don't want it to end. I genuinely feel as though this summer has changed my life for the better. Oh well, I knew I would have to go back to reality eventually. On a better note, welcome to my second (long overdue) trip recap!

We only had one day in Scotland :( which we spent in a city called Edinburgh (pronounced Ed-in-bore-oe by the English, and Ed-in-bra by the locals!) I fell absolutely in love with Edinburgh, so much so that I dragged my parents over to the visitor's center for Edinburgh University and grabbed a pamphlet or two because the school is incredible. It's a city campus similar to NYU, however these buildings are already significantly older than the entire city of New York. It was incredible and  Edinburgh stole my entire heart. Anyway, we visited the castle and did a ton of Scottish shopping around the city, purchasing three scarves and more, because when in Scotland amiright?? Overall we had an amazing day, despite the cold, darkness, and rain.
WARNING: photo overload ahead

We slept over in Edinburgh and then headed over to Ireland super early in the morning via ferry. We arrived in Belfast, a port city of Ireland where we visited the Titanic museum. The Titanic was built in Belfast and departed from their port, so the museum was built pretty much on top of the dock and primarily focused on what went into building the ship and how it affected the Irish people. Not my favorite part of the trip but still interesting nonetheless. If you follow me on Instagram (which you totally should) you'll know that I posted the same photo as below of the Titanic Museum and ironically it looked to me as thought the museum was underwater. I thought that to be a bit odd. After the museum we continued onward to Dublin, which I'll talk about in my next post!

To be continued... xx

One Moment- Why I Go To Camp

I'm back and as I say every year, I've just had the best three weeks of my life! Even though my camp experience was slightly eclipsed by the fact that I had just gotten home from Europe, the best trip I've ever been on; I still had the best time. I got a chance to be in Disney on my own with people whom I treat like family and then got to spend 2 more weeks living with them full time in one of my favorite places ever.  I honestly couldn't have asked for a better camp experience. I found my way on my own a little bit and strengthened bonds with friends that I didn't know could be any stronger! I  have loved going fo camp for the past eight summers of my life, and felt as though it needed a small tribute over here on the blog in the real world. So here we go!

For those of you who have never been to camp or went and didn't like it, you might be wondering why I choose to give up all connection to the outside world for three weeks just to hang out with friends that I could quite easily see here at home. It's a very hard thing to articulate but the easiest way I've found to explain it is by centering it around one moment. 

High school is hard. Between sports, student government, college, youth groups, friend groups, school, parents, teachers, grades, etc. I, and many others such as myself, feel as though I am being pulled in eighteen-hundred different directions at once. No matter how down-time I get (not a whole lot,) when I'm not focused on one thing, you better be sure that I'm thinking about another. Dreams are riddled with fears of failing or college rejection, friends text about which girl deserves the top spot in the boat, there is no break until school ends. So for me, camp has evolved from just a place of growth and change, to a safe place to escape the intense responsibility that I am constantly dealing with at home. 

I go to camp for that one single solitary moment. That second of my life that I can be four years old again and spin around in a circle as fast as I can while laughing at the top of my lungs, trying my best not to fall over. I go to camp because I only have to stress about why there are only green apples instead of red; or whether we're going to the pool or the lake that day. Camp is a safe place where I can grow into myself and figure out who I want to be without any pressure from anyone. Camp is home, which is why I go back summer after summer. 

xx

July Favorites!

I am in shock, July can't be over already. This is ridiculous, summer is literally flying by. Last thing I remember I was counting down the days until Europe, and now I'm already home from camp! Anyway, I'm going to keep this short in order to fully embrace every last second of summer, here are a few things that I've been loving this past month!

TV SHOW// Lie to Me. A short little show that I discovered on Netflix while I was in Europe and can't wait to finish up! (On Deck: Tudors)

SONG// Tear in My Heart. Such a jam song that my friend and I accidentally discovered a while ago like a week before it got super popular.

BOOK//  The Other Boelyn Girl. Expect an apology post later on in the week because I have totally abandoned the books I had said that I would be reading this summer in this post. I got sidetracked by the drama of old England, explained in an engulfing way by Philippa Gregory. My mom found the book The Other Boelyn Girl at a flea market in Cambridge and bought it for me because she had read them as a teenager and loved them. Once I had read it I found that I actually understood some of the English lineage when I visited the various castles. Now I'm on the hunt for a used The Boelyn Inheritance!

MAKEUP ITEM// Benefit Cream Eyeshadow in RSVP. I had been eying this for a while and then one day I was in Macy's and just decided to go for it; and I'm glad I did. It will last me forever because I barely need any each time I use it. It looks great and I love the consistency of it, it's super light on my eyelids.

STORE// Topshop. We've had a small Topshop section in our Nordstrom but I was never all that into it. Then recently I found myself looking though the stuff there more and actually taking a real liking to a few of their less edgy pieces. So I went to an actual store in London, and loved it! I got the coolest black flowy blouse and these shoes that I am head over heels (haha so punny) for.

What have you been into this past July?
xoxo