here’s what it looked like when i departed the burgh last week for austin, yuck. we got deiced and all had to sit in the back of the plane, fun fun.
so, i made it to detroit, where they have this insane tunnel between terminals
there is also crazy music playing as you walk through. good for the d.
i was psyched to visit with susan because 1. i hadn’t seen her in forever, i think we finally figured out that is was summer of 2004 (i think…) and 2. because i have wanted to see austin.
friday susan had a class, a short one i might add, so we headed over to campus and i, of course, checked out the library (what did you expect?). then we headed to lunch. austin is seriously one of the best places to get good food. so lunch was at el chile. we headed to the texas state museum, complete with interactive movie, and then the austin museum of art which featured a cool ny exhibit. friday night we checked out el automovil gris, which was a really cool combination of movie, play, musical, whatever. you can read the article, but basiclly it’s a silent movie, with japanese interpretation and spanish interpretation as well. dinner at a good veggie place called mother’s. they had some insane crazy jumping koi there which were right beside our table, luckily they did not jump onto our table!
saturday we did some more fun stuff. so here’s the thing that is the best about austin: Gingerbread pancakes. susan analyzed the situation and took me to the best place, magnolia, right by all the cool shops on south congress.
unfortunately, first samples, a sewing studio was closed when we visited, but i got to peek inside this awesome space…
we had some ice cream at amy’s (photo booth photo to be provided soon…) and checked out the bats that hadn’t moved to mexico for the winter.
saturday night we met up with some of the people in susan’s program and went to dinner. another good place, unfortunately the photo of me with the giant horse painting did not turn out. damn. so, dinner and drinks at el gringo i also do not have a photo with me and the huge beer i had, not only was it giant but it was in seriously the heaviest glass ever. like a goblet. while we were there, i saw jeff klein- my celebrity sighting in austin. i was too shy to say hi to him, but i was suprised to see someone i know (i.e. recognize….) how bad do you think i wanted to say, you’re in my top eight, and that’s serious dude. i think at the time i might have even had one of his songs on my myspace. seriously, inside i was geeking out.
after dinner we went to see one of susan’s school chums who is in a band. the show was the parish and the band is called clap clap, because, they have a ton of hand clapping, is this a band i should be in or what? susan’s classmate does mostly hand clapping. it was a lot of fun.
sunday we headed to the flagship whole foods and then music shopping at waterloo and cheapos, where susan found me a used clap clap cd. the weather was great so we checked out zilker park and were amazed at the swimmers in barton springs. dinner at chuy’s and then we went to see a script reading for an anne rapp movie, maybe, called double wide. i had never been to anything like that so i thought it was cool.
after the gingerbread pancakes.
it was a crazy whirlwind trip and i thank susan for hosting me and entertaining me with lots of great austin activities!!! i hope to get to visit again soon, it’s an amazing place and i had such a great time with my hostess.
obligatory daniel johnston photo.
