Lizzy's Luggage: One Direction Weekend

As you all know; I went to the One Direction Concert in Kansas City this last weekend, and can I just say; I was in fangirl heaven. I was surrounded by thousands of girls who were as obsessed (if not more obsessed) than I was. Was it the best concert I've ever gone to? Maybe or maybe not. I've always hated trying to rate my concerts. I've never been to a concert that I didn't have fun though, and this one was the same way.

Not only was the concert fun, but the entire weekend was a blast! I got to spend two days with two really good friends in the fun place of Kansas City. Do you want to know something great about Kansas City? It has amazing shopping!!!!! We left our small town a little before 8 and got to the big city around noon. As soon as our feet hit the pavement we were shopping fiends. Until supper, we browsed through Zona Rosa with our multitude of shopping bags. I bought a bunch of stuff I'm super excited about, and I can't wait to show you all in a haul video I will be filming soon (hopefully). After the long day of shopping we spent the evening watching Ridiculousness and mentally preparing ourselves for the day ahead.

The next morning was quite.... eventful. Once we were awake and had breakfast, we went back to the room to get ready for a day at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. However, before leaving we realized that One Direction's new single would be premiering on radio that morning. After quickly changing Greenwich Mean Time to Central Time, we realized that we were only 10 minutes away from listening to the song live. We quickly began streaming BBC Radio One (a UK station) on my laptop to catch a listen to Harry introducing the song. After a bunch of delaying, we finally got the chance to fangirl over it, and can I just say; it is "The Best Song Ever". Okay, maybe not; I feel like The Lion King's 'Hakuna Matata' is still ahead (sorry boys). However, if you take a listen you'll have to agree that it is indeed fist-pump worthy. Plus, their music video is hilarious.

After fan-girling, we packed up the car and left for the Art Museum. Like the unique, immature person I am, I spent most of my time making fun of the people in the paintings and sculptures. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love art and it honestly shocks me that someone can paint something that looks like a basic photograph, but sometimes I can't help myself:

Actually, none of us could...

Being completely serious though, the museum was really cool. I got to see some sculptures by Claes Oldenburg, an artist I did an art presentation over, and it was a really cool environment. The 'guards' or 'rule-watchers' were a little scary, but other than that, it was quite chill and relaxed.

Sculpture by Claus Oldenburg

After getting our fill of the art culture, we ate lunch at The Cheesecake Factory (yum) and headed to our next hotel closer to the venue. Just our luck, our route actually took us right by the Sprint Center so we got to see the front. Let it be known, that it was around 95 degrees outside, and people were waiting outside. (Concert starts at 7:30... we drove by at around 2)

Like slightly normal people, we didn't leave for the concert until a little closer to the start time. Before leaving, we obviously needed to have our small photo-op with our custom-made shirts outside of the hotel.

The snapchat I sent everyone

Unlike the normal occurrence, we actually got referred to a taxi driver who took us to and from the concert. Apparently, this is very rare. Our driver, Bruce, was super nice and kept us entertained with small talk during the short drive. On the way back to the hotel after the concert, I asked him about some of the people he had driven in his taxi. He went on and on about the variety of people he came in contact with everyday. From down-and-outs to criminals to celebrities (HE DROVE KID ROCK), he had seen them all. It honestly made the entire trip even better with the addition of his genuine, kind personality.

Picture in the taxi.

After a short drive, we were dropped off at the Sprint Center! Can I just say that this building is magnificent inside and out. It's so big and spacious, that even my claustrophobic-self didn't have any panic issues. We showed up about 15 minutes before the doors opened. It was super hot, but it was really cool to meet some fellow fans while standing in line.

Some friends I made :)

Once inside we did what any other fan would do; we quickly bought our souvenir t-shirt (I'll show you later). Also, we made sure to go to the bathroom so there were no accidents made due to extreme excitement. We then made our way to our seats which were, to our surprise, much better than we had anticipated. Sure, we weren't front row, but we had a view of the entire arena without being nose-bleed high.

I know what you're thinking: 'Great! Now she's going to talk about the actual concert'. Not quite. Before it even began we got the funny experience of listening to fans scream and squeal anytime anything One Direction related came over the big screen. They replayed their fragrance commercial multiple times which in turn made people scream multiple times. Not only that, they had an amazing taste in pre-concert music. We were entertained with the wonderful words of Little Mix, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Olly Murs. Talking about 5 Seconds of Summer, I may have a new small obsession on the small Australian band who opened. I'd never really heard them before this, but I'm glad I got introduced to them. They did a pretty sweet job, and not only that; they were hilariously goofy. They seemed like the kind of guys I would hang with: immature and care-free.

Between 5 Seconds of Summer and One Direction, they played a few songs that were able to get people dancing. Our section, for some stupid reason, was a little fun-haterish. Not to sound mean, but when "All the Single Ladies" and "I Like to Move It" comes blasting through the speakers; you get up and dance. Abby, Sapphire, and I were able to contain ourselves fairly well until a Grease medley came on. Oh boy... let's just say all three of us know all the Grease songs... very well. Ignoring all the stares and the woman taping us, we broke out in the cliche musical way; with jazz hands and screeching voices. Do I regret embarrassing myself? NOPE! That was probably one of my favorite parts of the entire concert, and let's face it: I probably won't ever see those people again.

Sadly, I don't have any videos, but if you see us anywhere on YouTube; let me know... :)

And finally... THE CONCERT! My first note: it was freaking loud. I always thought the Jonas Brothers' concert was bad, but this was another world! Not only that, the upper bowl deck actually went above us a bit. It's hard to explain, but this then led us to being in a slight dome. We decided that that was the reason that everything seemed to sound a pitch higher. Niall, the Irish one, sounded like a mix of a leprechaun and the tooth fairy. I guess if I could fix anything it would be that. It was really hard to understand them when everything sounded high pitched. However, it was super fun to listen to each of our voices after the concert. It took a good ten minutes before we stopped sounding like we had sucked on helium.

During the concert consisted of screaming, dancing, singing, hip thrusts, and more screaming. I don't think we sat down even once. Quick example of my embarrassing actions: there was a small family (mom, dad, 2 daughters) that were seated in our row. It seemed like they had to leave every 20 minutes. Let's get this straight: I was in full fan-girl mode. I wasn't worried about people trying to get by me. So during the song 'Rock Me', I wasn't afraid to throw a few hip-thrusts in there. Heck, EVERYONE was hip-thrusting to the song. What I want to know is why the DAD decided that this song was a good time to try and get through. Being in the middle of my friends, I hoped that either of them would let me know if something was coming that could potentially make me die of embaressment. Sadly, their discreet elbow-hits were not significant enough because I hip-thrusted right when the man was a foot away from me. Talk. About. Awkward. The look on that poor man's face was priceless. Let's just say that I tried to pay a little better attention after that.

I'm going to end this post with a fun collection of all the pictures I took. Later this week I hope to be able to upload a video montage of our time there. Like a good vlogger, I filmed a lot of our crazy antics and laughs. Thanks for sticking with me during my fangirl session, and I hope you laughed along with my embarrassing moment. Also, I apologize for all of the crazy tweets that occurred this weekend. I'm sure my 106 followers (Woohoo, I passed 100 around the time I posted my 100th post) really appreciated it.