Austin

Today was another hot one. We had nothing definite planned for the day except to have a look around the city of Austin.

There is a liberal feel to the city that has only accelerated with the continued growth of the SXSW Festival. On the main throughfare, Congress Avenue, there are a number of alternative clothes shops and coffee shops. Sixth Street crosses Congress Avenue and it is on here that you will find the majority of the drinking venues that lay the claim to Austin being the home of live music. A short walk away and we visited a large book store, Book People. Another large, airy and well stocked store that Alice and I spent a good while browsing and enjoying the air conditioning. A bit further on and there is a large graffiti park that was larger than I expected. It appears that people are free to spray what they like (within reason I'm guessing) where they want to. One part of me appreciates the idea of collective spray painting and the community aspect, whilst the other thinks that the artistic aspect is lost in all the random basic doodlings, sometimes over other people's very impressive murals. However, I suppose that is the whole point of a free space for people to spray as they chose. An interesting space and talking point about art and the ideals of freedom of expression. Whilst walking back we popped into a large independent record store, Waterloo and had a look around.

We were getting hungry by now and decided on getting lunch at Wholefoods. In the UK you might find the occasional salad bar in a Tesco or at a dedicated small organic food store, but Wholefoods take salad bars to another level. We had salad for lunch as we've eaten a lot of meat recently we were keen to jump on anything remotely green and crunchy. There were rows and rows of options and as tends to be the case we assumed that it wouldn't be filling and so picked up the largest boxes available. Salad isn't really filling until you start pilling in grains, bread, pasta and chickpeas as just the lowest level of the box. It suddenly has more heft, and heft also leads to a double take at the cash register. Wow, those were some expensive salads. However, our bodies were crying out for a non-fried meal and we were happy to oblige.

Having ticked every hipster daily routine box possible (to-go coffee, visiting alternative shops, an independent book store and record store, admired some graffiti and ate our freshly picked lunch) there was only one thing left to do, lounge by the pool. We headed back to our Super 8 Motel, got into our swimming gear and meandered over to the pool. The pool was shaded by the L-shaped motel and seemed like an ideal time to be going for a dip as it was blisteringly hot. The water turned out to be ridiculously cold. Alice braved it by literally inching her way to the deeper end of the pool starting at her knee height. I just sat in the middle with my legs dangling into the water. By the time Alice had made it to me, with the water at her shoulder height, we both felt as though we were losing sensation in our feet. We lounged in the sun, warming up for a bit and then went back to the room to get ready before going out.

We went for a world known local combination, the Tex-Mex. Pappasito's was packed which was a good sign for a Thursday night. We found out later on that it was fajita night. We weren't sure what that meant as we had already ordered by that point, ribs for me and enchiladas for Alice. Alice was sure that the meal she received was not what she had ordered as it should have been a combination plate, but we really enjoyed what we had anyway. We finished our meals and before considering whether we should have dessert we were given a dessert for free, a sponge cake with cream and milk. We're still not sure why we were given it, maybe the waitress realised she accidentally gave Alice the wrong meal or that our wait for our mains was a bit longer than usual. We weren't bothered and didn't make a fuss about those minor things and it felt glib to ask why she gave it to us. Maybe fajita night is free cake night! It was a pleasant surprise anyway and we left happy and full.

Song of the Day:
The Mystery Jets - Lost in AustinRead more