~ The Live Music Cycling Liberal Mecca Capital of the World ~

Clearly, my boyfriend of twenty-one months does not know me at all. As we were walking through the airport to our gate, he said to me, "My best guess was Miami." On Sunday, October 25th at around 6 o'clock in the morning, Josh and I began our journey to Austin Texas. Prior to this, he was not privy to the knowledge of where he would be vacationing. For months, I have had the agonizing responsibility of keeping it a secret. He knew that he was supposed to take the time off of work, and beyond that I endeavored to keep him in the dark. During this time, I spilled the beans to several individuals, most of whom asked me "Why Austin?" Austin is, after all, well known as the Live Music Capital of the World, the hometown of Lance Armstrong (along with being regarded as something of a cycling town), as well as a place for a couple of hott liberals to take a fall vacation to extend the summer (indeed, Josh and I have returned with fresh sun burns!). Needless to say, this is going to take some time for me to recount. The trip, incidentally, was something of a celebration...Josh's thirtyfirst birthday is nearing, we just celebrated our twentyfirst-monthiversary, and two days before we left I found out that I was accepted into my masters program. Ching, ching!

As I already indicated, we left on Sunday on an early flight. I refused to be offended by Josh's thinking that I had planned a trip to Miami (???whatever???) and we got some coffees and had a big airport experience, made bearable by the two travel guidebooks that I had provided. After we arrived in Austin, there was some difficulty in finding an affordable way to reach our hotel. I had endeavored to be ultra prepared, and had printed off the bus schedule. Except for that I printed off the wrong bus schedule. As a side note, the Austin Capital Metro website could be improved for those of us who cannot read maps and who have no sense of direction, honestly! So, after I asked multiple people at the airport on how to catch the bus to our hotel, they all told us to take a taxi for twenty dollars. And now I ask you, is there no difference to a budget traveler between a twenty dollar taxi trip and an affordable fifty cent bus ticket??? I cannot quite articulate how flabbergasted I was feeling about this. Eventually, we received some proper directions and sucessfully road the bus downtown for fifty cents. As we were rolling into downtown, I was surprised about several Austin characteristics. Unlike what I had expected for the Capital of Texas, Austin was not an arid flat desert full of macho Texans with boots and belt buckles. It was a city on numerous hills with lush landscape, streams and creeks trickling down the urban hillsides, with rockn'roll hipsters loitering around the many music venues.

The taxi dropped us off near to the Texas State Capitol building. Apparently, the largest state capitol building in the U.S., the Texas Capitol building to me, however, was just another state capitol building. The only thing I found particularly noteworthy was the extensive grounds of the capitol area. From the bus, we walked through the Capitol grounds to our hotel, an affordable Super 8 Motel on the other side of the freeway. That evening, after some rest and recuperation at the hotel, we wandered downtown along Congress Avenue to the trendy Warehouse District. We had coffee at an espresso joint called Halycon before exploring the seedy bar district along 6th Street. Upon finding an establishment with cheep beer and a cowboy /slash/ outerspace theme, we found repose with several games of table hockey...and beer.

After leaving this establishment, we walked along Red River street, home to many of the indie hipster-type music venues. Even on a Sunday night, it was hopping. At some point, we stumbled upon a little place called Stubbs, the maker of (what Josh considers to be) the best bbq sauce in the world. It is truly a sight to see the delight upon Josh's face as he proceeds to consume a meal featuring Stubbs. Twentyone months ago, I had never heard of Stubbs, yet now it is a frequent item on my shopping list. And? Austin is the hometown of Stubbs...which is not only the distributer of amazing bbq sauce, but also has a restaurant with an outdoor amphitheater which hosts incredible bands. Even though I was not at all hungry, we hurried into Stubbs and ate an entire meal. And it was delicious. Incidentally, what attracted our attention to the Stubbs establishment in the first place was the placard out front which featured the upcoming bands to play there. Bands such as Ani Difranco, Built to Spill, and the Decemberists. Before leaving, we purchased some concert tickets to the Built to Spill concert which was scheduled for the time that we would be in Ausin. Funny story, hahahaha...I'm not sure if perhaps I was more tipsy from my beers than I had realized, but at some point, I was going down the stairs to the restroom, and I tripped and fell down several steps. Downstairs, there was some fancypants dinner event with white tablecloths and nice wine, and I was splayed on the floor, having stubbed myself at Stubbs. I was so embarrassed! Everyone rushed over and asked me if I was okay, and I said I was fine and ran away. I then arrived back at our table and, with tears welling in my eyes, told Josh my horrible story. As I was doing so, I had become rather animated with my jesticulation, and I flung my head back during an exclamation, and violently banged my head on the wooden wall. Later, as we were walking back to our hotel, I tripped on the step up to our room and banged my knee. And that is Day 1 of our trip... there are six more days, so stay tuned.

Posted by jennifer at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)