A year has past since our last girls' trip, to California, and if I had written about it right away the tone would have been completely different. But as you already know me, I rarely write right after a memorable trip, as I need to take time to myself and let those experiences settle in for a while...
Also, this is the first time I'm sitting down and writing since this pandemic situation has grown to what it is, and changed our lives in such a significant way. So, bare with me if my tone is a little bit nostalgic. But aren't we all craving what we had just a month ago, without even realising how much it actually was?
But let's get back to it. Coachella! A dream event for every fashion lover. To be completely honest, initially I thought it would be quite overrated and extremely overcrowded, with everyone paying more attention on taking good pictures than really enjoying the concerts. Specially, when taking into consideration the price of the ticket. I mean, $500 seems to be a normal price for a festival in the States (what we paid for the GroundUp Fest in Miami was a bit cheaper, but not much), but not in Europe... Well, now I can tell you - it was worth it. The entire festival was very well organised and the lines for the shuttles were very well divided. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the festival's customer support, as I spent hours on the phone (calling from Portugal to the USA) trying to figure out what was the problem for them not sending me the tickets. But in order to make any changes and send them to a different address, they wanted my credit card details (which in the meanwhile was cloned in Malta and cancelled, though I was able to restore the number) and were always insisting that my bank was "giving me false information" as they had "another card on file". I didn't really care how I would receive the tickets, though I've paid for the international delivery. I just wanted to receive them somehow, and instead of focusing on solving the problem, they seemed to stay stuck in the same place and not helping me all. While there was the option of the festival's pick up point... It was a very frustrating and exhausting week of communication, so if you're ever planning on going to Coachella, choose the pick up option directly in order to avoid any stress with their customer support.
As we've been planning this trip for a few months, we really wanted to have the best experience possible. Which to us meant not only going to the festival and having fun, but also having kind of that Coachella VIP experience we all see on social media. A bit shallow, I know, but we're not doing this every year, so we wanted to get the most for our money. So we opted not to stay in any of the resorts near by and rent a private house instead. Best decision ever!
As we booked it quite ahead of time, it was way larger than the three of us needed, so closer to the dates of the festival we were able to find other 3 super cool girls to share the space and the cost with. Do I need to mention that we had a blast? Just for you have an ideia - we had our own bar, our own pool and were doing our own private parties during the day. In fact, we enjoyed it so much, we were never ready on time to catch the first few bands and always arrived to the festival around sunset. Plus, the Coachella shuttle bus stop was just around 10 minutes walking distance, or 2 minutes by Uber and our shuttle line was never super busy.
I'm not going to talk about the lineup. Each one of us had their favorite artists that wanted to see and we had so much fun. Overall, I have to admit that the festival surpassed my expectations. Despite all the stress and negativity I've had when dealing with the tickets, and despite all the crowds, we didn't face any lines and walking around the field from one stage to another was easy and smooth. Even going to the restrooms was not much of a pain. Also, food was yummy and even though alcohol was sold only in specific areas (and you're not allowed to leave them with beverage in hand), it didn't really bother me.
So, when this hell of Coronavirus pandemia is over and you're torn wether to go to Coachella or not, my advice is go, have fun and enjoy it big time. Just like we did. I personally can't wait to go out there and explore more of this amazing, beautiful world we live in.
In the meantime, stay safe.
P. S. Miss my #GirlsChellaSquad
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