Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Don't Mess With Texas...

So...I just got back from a short trip to hot and humid Austin to visit Ray while he's there for work for 2 weeks. Austin is known for its lively 6th Street where there are bars and clubs one after another. It's like a smaller version of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter. But I must say, it really doesn't compare. I thought it was going to be better, but alas, it wasn't. Just a bunch of old, damp smelling buildings turned into so-called bars and clubs. Football is really big in Texas and the Saturday night we were there...almost everyone downtown was running around with orange UT t-shirts on.

Ok...so maybe I need to rephrase myself here since some of you seem to be getting the wrong idea. 6th Street in Austin is "similar" in layout to SD's Gaslamp, however, it is very different because it is NOT overpriced, trendy, or hip. That's what I meant when I said it didn't compare. I was EXPECTING it to be like SD, however it was not...hence my specific description of "old, damp smelling buildings". Geez!! You damn LA people are so nit picky! Give it a rest!

"View of downtown Austin from the hotel room"


While downtown, we stopped in at Maggie Maes. It had some really good live music.






On Sunday, we took a day trip out to San Antonio which is a 1 hour and 15 minute drive from Austin. We visited the Alamo which was very interesting because it's a huge part of our history.


Then we took a walk around Riverwalk which is below street level. There are boat tours that you can take...sort of like a gondola ride. There were a lot of cute restaurants along the way.



Overall, the trip was good. I've never been to Texas before and even though the weather was hard to get used to, it was interesting to get out of LA for a few days and see what other folks do outside of CA.



I also forgot about the bats. Yes, since there is not much to do in Austin, you can apparently go down to the Barton Springs bridge and see bats fly out from under the bridge at around 7:30 every night. If you like bat droppings on your head, then this is attraction is definitely for you.