From Boston to Austin

You’re welcome, Austin.

For what? For the two days of rain I brought with me, after your approximate 500 days of drought and heat. I know it was only five minutes of inconsistent, inconvenient light patter, but based on your recent past history it must have seemed like the biblical flood. And more importantly, it wasn’t enough to even remotely spoil my trip. Not that it was likely to.

This was my second trip to Austin, and I’ve now seen two very different sides of that town. The first time was a few years ago, and while fun, I equate it to if you came to Boston and spent your days only downtown and your nights at the bars of Faneuil Hall. Not necessarily a terrible time, but not the way I’d choose to spend my days. That’s what comes from not knowing the city, anyone in the city, or a way to easily get around the city.

The second time, this past weekend, I was going to visit my ex-roommate. She lived in a different area of the city, had a car, and has better taste. So I got to see more of the city with a native (albeit a relatively new one), and stuff more in line with my interests nowadays.

Stuff like food. And in Austin that means food trucks. I kid you not when I say that they are everywhere. On street corners, outside the bars, grouped together in vacant lots in what are known as “trailer parks”. And holy shit, Robin!, there’s some good food there. Take, for example, exhibit A:

These corn wrapped bits of heaven were courtesy of Torchy’s Damn Good Tacos. Truth in advertising.

Although this isn’t food, it is the back stove burner to the street corner shack that we got a four meat plate of damn good barbeque:

I’d like to claim that the meal was so delicious that it caused me to forget the name of the place, but in reality it was because I was drunk (more on that later).

There was also a fantastic late night banh mi (not pictured).

Luckily there was actually time enough in the day to some other things aside from eat. I mean we had to do something in those hours it took us to get hungry again. The Austin City Limits festival was going on this past weekend. Three days of music featuring the likes of Stevie Wonder, My Morning Jacket, Coldplay, Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, and dozens of others. We didn’t go to that. Instead, we spent much of our Saturday at Ditch The Fest, an alternative to ACL featuring all local acts, which took place over five bars and over about 12 hours from 2pm until 2am. During the day we saw a of bands, from what could only have been child prodigies with an average age of 11, to alternative, to punk, to boring indie to these guys:

BK & Mr. E

And:

Total Unicorn

This day long festival made for a day long drinking extravaganza. I did mix it up with some bourbons (especially as most of the bars seemed to have Bulleit available) and some local brews, but a large part of my day, and indeed weekend, was spent with the state drink of Texas:

Sunday held a little bit of a lot of things. I had my first (and probably only) healthy meal, saw a little more of the city (hill country and the river), watched some football (while Sara did some work), played some ping pong (badly), and saw a country band until far too late in the night (considering I had to be up at 5am the next morning to head to the airport). But the hangover was worth the eight seconds I managed on old Bessie: