Austin, Texas Recap Part 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, I had the honor of visiting beautiful Austin, Texas for a few days and I had an absolutely fantastic time. It was almost like another world down there, but then again, it wasn't as much of a distant land as I originally thought it to be. First off, I'd like to thank Jared and Sarah for being wonderful hosts to the Jessica and I. Second off, I'd like to mention that plenty of digital pictures were taken on this trip (by Sarah, of course. Ross still doesn't have a digital camera, in case you forgot), and we'll get them up here sometime in the near future, and when I say near future, I mean before the end of calendar year 2005. Now, on to the trip review...

When rolling out of the plane and into the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Thursday night (or as Jared explains, "They call it 'International' because they make a few flights each day down to Mexico."), the first thing I see is some little airport restaurant called the "Hill Country Bar" and first thing I hear is country music playing. Interesting. I immediately think to myself, "I'm not on the East coast anymore." After meeting up with Jared and Sarah, we head back for the "crib tour" as they like to call it. On the way, we notice an overabundance of strip clubs and Mexican restaurants. (Insert any wise remark here) Literally, every corner is some sort of Mexican restaurant, and every few blocks you see a strip club. In many cases you can't tell the strip clubs from the Mexican restaurants because of the neon lights.

First, we check out Jared's place, which Sarah gave a bad rap. I mean, come on...how bad could it be? It wasn't as bad as it was made out to be, but the story about the homeless guy in the swimming pool was pretty funny. Also, if you can picture this, the toilet was so close to the bath tub, that you could probably wash your feet while sitting on the can. Absolutely astonishing. When it all comes down to it, Jared's place was good enough for a grad student who normally doesn't spend too much time in the apartment anyway. Jared - don't let Sarah and her Club Med apartment bad mouth you.

Which leads me to Sarah's "crib", which was a very cozy set-up. Her pool didn't contain any homeless people from what I understand, and she had plenty of room to operate, excellent air conditioning, and sofas so comfortable that I fell asleep in them on more than one occasion. Sarah has some quality living in Austin, that's for sure.

Side note: You know what we saw down there? A Sonic Restaurant. Multiple Sonic Restaurants. Yes, "Americas' Favorite Drive Thru", which has had TV commercials on the East coast for as long as I can remember, actually exists. I once looked on their website, and it turns out that there are no Sonics on the East coast north of Virginia. Crazy national advertising has them showing 30 second clips in the New York area. Go figure....

Friday was the day that we went around and checked out what Austin had to offer. After an excellent breakfast at the hippie owned and operated breakfast joint, Kirbey Lane (has anyone ever had Gingerbread pancakes? These were fantastic), we made our way over to the University of Texas campus. We made our way through most of the campus, seeing many classroom buildings and the gorgeous new recreational facility (possibly better than the White Building!). Their student union building doesn't come anywhere close to Penn State's HUB though. While walking through campus, you'll always see people speaking and trying to gather a crowd for attention. At Penn State, it was the Willard Preacher. On this day at UT, it was the Jesus freaks. Yes, a bunch of them were out and they had the one thing that would encourage people to stop for just one moment: cash. They were giving out $1 bills if you correctly answered a trivia question or riddle type question. And when the trivia was over, they started preaching about JC. We didn't really care, so we left after winning $1 and pocketing it for our own profit. (The question I answered correctly: What are the raised bumps called that deaf people use to read? Answer: deaf people don't need braille. Brilliant, huh?) We walked around a little more, checked out the downtown area (set up similar to State College where the downtown area more or less borders the south end of the campus) and went to the Texas Co-Op (bookstore, souveniers, t-shirts, etc.) Overall, I'd say they have a nice campus down there at UT. The November temperature of 80 degrees doesn't hurt either.

Austin also happens to be a very scenic town and its natural landscape in the Hill Country region of Texas has some beautiful views. One of them is from the top of Mt. Bonnell, which, despite it's monicre of "Mount" is not actually anywhere near the size of a mountain. It's more of a lookout point. You drive up this windy hill, park the car, and then walk up a set of exactly 100 steps to the scenic viewpoint. You get a great view of the Austin River and some gorgeous houses that sit along the river. Cool item to point out: Some of theses houses have little inlets from the river, and many of them have garages for their boats. Think of a garage connected to a house made for one or two cars. Now think of a garage connected to a house, sitting on a river, made for a jet ski or another small boat. It's amazing.

Being the music fanatic that I am, I remembered reading about Waterloo Records in Austin, which is said to be one of the best college campus record stores in the country. So of course, I had to check it out. I was impressed by the wide variety of music held in Waterloo, from the national artists all the way down to vast selection of local music from the "Live Music Capital of the World". I definitely enjoyed roaming around in there for a half-hour and even picked up the new record by Matt Pond PA. (After a few listens, I'll share my thoughts.)

Friday evening's dinner brought us to the Hula Hut down on Lake Austin, which, if you love Mexican food, outdoor seating, and a quasi-Hawaiian atmosphere, you'd love this place. All of these restaurants have fantastic salsa and nachos, which you subsequently fill up on before your meal. Or if you're like me, you fill up on the nachos, and still polish off your enchiladas anyway.

Friday night's going out location: the famous Sixth Street, which is where I'll pick up my story tomorrow evening. It's getting late and as I'm typing, the extreme level of detail is taking me much longer than expected to put this all in print. So, here's what you have to look forward to in Part 2 of the Austin Recap: Sixth Street Craziness, how we almost got attached my ostriches, emus, and zebras, the trip down south to San Antonio, the Riverwalk and the Alamo, and how Ross' fun was partly cut short due to an unfriendly stomach virus.