If I had the choose a storyteller among my friends, it would be my best friend Saskia. We met in hazy Baghdad seven years ago and since then we have witnessed the golden Buddha in Thailand, chugged steins of beer in Munich, discussed life changes in the streets of Old San Juan, and mended broken hearts in Brussels. Now I get to see her in Austin, where she recently moved to from San Francisco. What better place than Austin to start my series of Adventures in Americana?
It all begins on a Friday evening when I arrive to Austin. I arrived with no agenda as Saskia is always armed every restaurant/entertaining/reviewing entertainment app available on her iPhone. My trips to San Francisco never disappointed therefore I knew Austin will be as memorable. We began our evening catching up as we treated ourselves to oysters at Clarks. I was pleasantly surprised a landlocked city has such great oysters and moreover I never thought I would be having an Aperol Spritz in the great state of Texas. We moved on to drinks at Clive on Rainey Street. It was great to be drinking a Mezcal flight under the stars courtesy of the fabulous December weather in Austin. Contrary to my late nights in Brussels, last call was at 2am and thankfully so as I did not know what was really in store the following day.
Saturday, we find ourselves at the Big Gay Bruch at 519 W 6th St. Love the theme at the bar: a washed up drag queen in sexy Mrs. Santa outfit, all you can drink mimosas, and to top it off a cereal with booze bar. I would have never guessed that a large shot glass of apple jacks, fruit loops flavored vodka (I'm not making this up), and milk tastes so good. After gorging ourselves, we went to the terrace to try to dance the booze and food off before our next adventure: an Apple holiday party. Poor Saskia was disappointed that a big star was not present to serenade us as they did in her former days in Cupertino, however, it was nice to warm-up to The Ranch on West 6th St. It was nice to see that Austin also has an international community which seem they were all present at the The Ranch. The commentary of the Polish guy complaining about the bad vodka was priceless.
After a booze infused Saturday, we started our day quite late. Saskia took me to Rudy's for a true cultural Texas experience: BBQ. Unfortunately, I was too hungover to really enjoy the Rudy's BBQ so this will be an agenda item for next time. Basically, I am not the rockstar I used to be. By the time we finished at Rudy's it was too late to do much sightseeing but we took advantage of the warm weather and her convertible 1 series to see the city. What impressed me the most riding through the highway were the impromptu Christmas decorated trees on the side of the road. Apparently, random people pull over and decorate the trees. Some of them are very tastefully decorated, right out of a Crate and Barrel catalog and others from a Wal-Mart after Christmas sales bin. The trees possibly represent a diversity I was not expecting from my trip to Austin.
To conclude the weekend, we went to South Congress St. This area solidified my plans for a return in the spring. The street was lined with antique shops, boot shops, unique clothing stores and a food truck park. Sadly, it was a Sunday evening and most of the antique shops I wanted to check out were closed. Although my tourist discoveries in Austin were quite limited and at times hazed, my main objective from the trip was to spend time with one of my dearest friends and enjoy the fact we are in a similar time zone and support one another through a move. Being back in the US gives me the opportunity to discover the new world in an easy and affordable way. I'm working on my 2013 bucket list of US travel and will keep you posted through these series.
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| Enjoying the Texan Scenery |
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| Flight Of Mezcals |
CONVERSATION