Austin

Last weekend we headed to the home of my alma mater: Austin, Texas. Obsessed. I went to, and graduated from, The University of Texas at Austin. While a name that long sounds pretentious (it is), it is necessary to differentiate from UT Austin/Arlington/San Antonio/El Paso/Dallas. I loved Austin. It is such an amazing city. It is super laid back, beautiful, fun, and a little hippie mixed in. I go back every chance I get. Case in point: the UT/Texas Tech baseball games. The boy went to Tech and we have made it a point to attend as many sporting events between the two. Well, at least the sporting events that we care about: football and baseball. If the Tech basketball team was any good, we would go to that game too... but they are not. Love you Yohnny! 


On to the weekend getaway! I epically failed at taking pictures during the trip, but I hope to redeem myself with my stellar story-telling gift...


We drove up Friday afternoon and stayed with my high school and college friend, Ian. He lives right on Town Lake. Town Lake is a beautiful river that runs through the middle of the city. It is just south of downtown. His apartment looks out over the river and onto Auditorium Shores, which coincidentally held the annual Reggae Fest while we were there. We had a glass of wine on the balcony while listening to the beats from the festival. That night, we headed to dinner at 219 West. It is a really neat restaurant in the warehouse district. All appetizers are 1/2 off before 9PM and the sliders are super cheap and yummy. Winner. Later, we headed back to Ian's and chilled. I had worked the night before and was still suffering from work jet-lag. 


Saturday was absolutely beautiful! We went on a walk around Town Lake with Ian and his dog. 

All around the lake, some art festival put pianos that you could play and write on. Remember what I said about Austin's hippie-side? We decided to let Ian's dog play the piano.

We went to brunch at my favorite breakfast place in Austin: Red River Cafe. It is near campus and totes awesome. It is a seat-yourself, $4/plate kind of place. When I suggested it, Ian wanted to look at the menu online. My response: "Um this is not really the kind of place with a website." And I was correct. Ian was happy to find that they do have a MySpace, since that matters and stuff.


After brunch, we headed to the baseball game. One of Johnny's friends from college and his girlfriend met us at the game. We had great seats, but somehow ended up in the Tech family sections. Gross.

(This concludes my picture contributions. If you come to this blog to see my beautiful face, you should stop reading now)

After the game, we got a snack, rested, showered and headed to dinner with the aforementioned college friend and girlfriend at Z Tejas. They started talking about going to this bar made out of train cars with red carpet from 1962, a live band, and plenty of old people to go around. Naturally, we went as soon as the bill was paid. 


The next morning, we went to an all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet brunch at TNT. After rolling ourselves out of the restaurant, we went kayaking on Town Lake. I wanted to take Johnny to the Green Belt. This is a water trail in the city with fun places to swim, relax, take dogs. However, there was not a SINGLE drop of water in it. Maybe next time?