Category: Latest Highlights

Life is Beautiful Weekend | 2018

Fresh coconuts, good weather, and even better company… Life got a little more beautiful in downtown Vegas last weekend when Life is Beautiful came back to town! The line up was pretty similar to Coachella’s with The Weeknd, Miguel, and Daniel Caesar as a few of the headliners, but the artists were just that good that I had to see them again! Plus, it didn’t hurt that LAUV, T-Pain, Florence + The Machine, Bastille, Arcade Fire and N.E.R.D. were there.

Here’s a recap of the weekend!

DAY 1 | Park on Fremont, The Weeknd & Daniel Caesar

My cousins and I arrived downtown and had a few drinks at the Park on Fremont—a super cozy bar with the nicest ambience and the cutest patio—before heading to the festival. We hung out at Container Park for a few hours and watched local performers beatbox and breakdance, before getting serenaded by Daniel Caesar and ending our night dancing to The Weeknd.

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DAY 2 | Exploring the festival grounds, N.E.R.D., Miguel, and Florence + The Machine

We arrived a couple of hours before our first set to explore the festival grounds and there was a lot to see! We visited the “Crime on Canvas” art gallery, admired a lot of the street art, and spent the rest of our night sipping on fresh coconuts while dancing to Miguel and Florence!

Top, bandana, and harem pants from ASOS.com | Shoes: Nike Cortez

DAY 3 | LAUV, T-Pain, Bastille, ODESZA, Blackbear, and Arcade Fire

This was our longest day, but it was also our best! We saw so many performances from Bastille to Blackbear, and we briefly saw ODESZA and Arcade Fire, although we were so sad we didn’t get to see their whole set! My favorites of the day though, (or maybe even the whole weekend 🤫) was T-Pain and LAUV! I knew LAUV would be amazing, but he was even way better than I anticipated! And T-Pain’s set was so. much. FUN. I felt like I was in middle school again, hearing him perform so many of his old songs. The whole crowd was singing loud and dancing hard, and it really made the weekend that much more memorable to me!

Pants from ASOS.com | Body suit from Capezio | Sunglasses from Abella Eyewear | Crystals from Silver Post USA

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Life is Beautiful really can’t be compared to other music festivals. It’s got its own charm. Located at the heart of downtown Las Vegas, it’s giving a new name to our budding downtown community. Vegas is becoming more than just The Strip, and Life is Beautiful is one of the reasons why. I loved getting to enjoy my city like this! And I know you guys will too.

Check out my VLOG below from Life is Beautiful!

Lots of love,

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A New Space for Me — and For You!

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Hi, hello! May I just say that it feels so good to be back?! For my new readers, welcome. For my former (and shall I say, loyal) readers, welcome back.

This is the new arianadecastro.com. It’s still as colorful and pink as ever. It’s still a bit all over the place (you’ll find recipes, and poetry, and book reviews, and photography, and travel diaries, and skincare tips, and…OK, you get where I’m going here). But I’ll tell you what has changed: Me.

I told myself that this blog would be for me. For me to share the genuine “me.” The good, the bad, and the really ugly. And by sharing my truth, my hope is that this blog ends up feeling like it’s for you too.

So much growth has happened since my blog launched in 2015. I was still a sophomore in college then and surprisingly had a lot of time on my hands. But that changed. I went through a really difficult creative writing block and I really had no enthusiasm for writing. Not short stories, not blog posts, not even journaling.

You can imagine how particularly traumatic this time was for me, because I mean, all I knew myself to be was a writer. And I couldn’t write? It was a period of total crisis.

I eventually found my way out of that block (I promise to tell you more about that journey soon), but I missed the innocence behind my writing and doing it for the sole purpose of just doing it because I loved it.

All I focused on in college was getting published, and hoped that if I get published enough, I’d eventually get paid for it. But it was a taxing, daunting cycle. It sucked all the love I had for writing.

A few other health reasons contributed to my hiatus, but I knew I had to stop using uncontrollable situations as an excuse and make a commitment to myself to begin writing again. And I wanted my current rebirth to happen where it all started: blogging.

It began circa 2007 in the Myspace bulletin boards. Then, for years, I bore my deepest, darkest feelings on Tumblr. And eventually, I had my very own space. Unfortunately, I just didn’t know who I was at the time and sharing parts of myself became really, truly scary. Baring vulnerability was too hard for me. But I’m trying to change that.

This relaunch is happening because I’m finding bits and pieces of who I am and want to be, and I’d like to have you along through the journey.

My biggest hope is that in this creative space, you find a little of yourself in me and I find a bit of myself in you.
Let’s be friends. ♡

With love—always,
Ariana