Espana!

Hola hola!

It's been a minute since I've written a blog but not because I've forgotten about you. I've been gallivanting around Spain for 2.5 weeks. To say it was magical would be putting it lightly. In fact attempting to put it into words is probably not the best idea.

But you know me-I love a challenge! 

The first week I traveled to Madrid, Sevilla, and Cordoba by myself. I basically just ate and drank my way through Spain. It's actually the perfect place to travel by yourself because they have tapas, which are small plates and it's great because you can taste a couple of them and still not be too full.

I have so many stories from my trip. But I don't want to make this blog too long. my favorite night of week 1 was when I met 3 local girls in Sevilla and they invited me to dinner (which we never ate) and we just kept drinking cerveza after cerveza after cerveza. The next morning was not fun, but oh was it worth it!

The second week was the reason for the whole trip and that was the Songwriting Retreat in Andalucia. To say it was a dream come true, would be.....True! 100%. It's something I've always wanted to do. And I just got so lucky with the people that were there. 

Everybody was so talented and so giving with their information and so passionate about song-writing. What more could you ask for? 

We were put in groups of 3 each day (different groups of 3) and basically we had til lunch and then til dinner time to write a song. The mentors would come around and help us out, and give us feedback. and then after dinner, we had playback sessions where we performed the songs we had written that day.

All the songs were so good, and everyone was so talented, and so supportive. 

And then afterwards, all the hoodlums (that would include me of course) would stay out til way too late playing guitar, and sharing more songs. And drinking more cerveza and wine. We were in a little villa in the South of Spain. We had it all to ourselves. It was magical.

And so now here I am, trying to come back to reality after that trip. I feel different. I feel like I have different goals. Like I've released some ideas and notions about what I want. I'm asking myself important questions and doing my best not to judge the answers.

More about that later. I'm still figuring it all out. One thing I do know, is that my love of song-writing is ever-present. I keep getting better and better at it, and my passion for it never wanes. Well, it wanes, but it always comes back. and I'm committed to following that passion wherever it leads.

Here are some pics from Spain and the retreat. Unfortunately I can't share any of the songs that I was a part of writing because of reasons that are too long to explain:) But I hope you get to hear them soon! The last 6 pics are from the retreat. I have more, but that's all I can do for now.

How is your summer going so far? What passion projects are you working on? anything you care to share? I'm all ears. Always.

In music and love,
Dana

If you're in the NYC area I am playing this Sunday June 21st as part of Make Music New York. I'll be outside at Restoration West Plaza (1368 Fulton St. Brooklyn) from 11:45 am-12:30pm, and then outside Capitoline Grounds (1499 Fulton St. Brooklyn NY) from 2pm-3pm. Super Excited!

And then I'm playing Saturday June 27th, at Muchmore's (2 Havemeyer St.) in Brooklyn at 7pm. It's going to be a songwriter in the round kind of night with Katie Garibaldi from San Francisco and one other songwriter (not yet confirmed). It's going to be a lot of fun!