austin awesomeness

This weekend I took a trip to Austin with some pretty normal friends named Jenny, Steve, and Hansen. We departed Saturday morning around 8:30am and received a brochure from some random lady about how to spend time with family. That is exactly what we set out to do this 4th of July weekend.

I told my parents on Friday that I was leaving for Austin and they were not too happy initially. They made me rent a car that would make the costs high... and I feel bad since I was planning to take my car. Oh well we got to have fun with a rental car as always. Thanks to GPS (which we relied heavily on), we never really got lost. We prepared a ton of fruit for the trip: apples, mangoes, watermelon, pineapple, peaches... yeah we were healthy snackers, aside from the chips and Jenny's Mountain Dew.


Come Saturday. We meet up with Ruyi at Jester and unload our belongings. Parking at UT sucks, so we had to go to a garage that provides free 30 min parking. We had to monitor the time closely and we had to make 2 trips just to move the car so we would not get charged $3. I am not used to driving hills so a cop gave me a warning to slow down, I think I was going 20+ mph when the limit is 15 mph. I have learned my lesson. After an hour upon our arrival, we decide to meet up with Ruyi's friends at Frank's, a place known for hot dogs. I didn't fancy the idea of going there but I was on vacation so I could care less. On the way, I scraped the bottom of the rental and went the wrong way on a street for a few seconds. I hate down towns and I dislike the idea of paying $7 for parking. Once inside, I got a Chicago hot dog and a chili cheese hot dog, which was pretty heart attack looking. What was cool about this place was that they had a reservation on the top floor (which was where we were eating) and the manager had to bribe us to leave. He offered us shots, drinks, cookies, and chocolate wrapped bacon. We took the bacon and cookies. Austin is getting a bit weird for us.. but in a good way.

After eating, we planned to go to Hamilton Pool. It is a pretty, naturally made pool. The drive took about an hour and we find out that it is pretty much closed. Bummer. Then we did a quick revision and decide to go kayaking in Barton Creek. That was pretty tiring because the river was vast. Steve, Hansen, and Ruyi's friend Rosalyn jumped off a bridge, kinda like gorge jumping. My shoulder was sore the next day. We wanted to go see bats and meet up with my old high school friends but we ran out of time because all five of us decided to take a shower. Instead, we simply eat dinner and a Korean BBQ trailer named Correanos. That was delicious. We wanted to go to 6th street afterward, and we did, but to no avail. We are not 21 so we could not get into anything. Hmm but the night was not over. We ended up drinking "smart water" and call it a night at 4am. I got no sleep that night but I got rest.

The next morning, I wake up around 9 or so while everyone else is still snoozing for the most part. We did a McDonalds run and Ruyi got a Pikachu that lights up. It is pretty cute. We quickly rush to Hamilton Pool and have to wait for a good 2 hours, which was well worth it in the end. I recommend that place if you ever hit up Austin, Texas. And thanks to Steve's awesome plan to purchase fifty nuggets for ten dollars, we did not go hungry. After that, we all showered except me, and meet up with my ex Spanish teacher Scott to see some bats fly out under the bridge. It was an amazing site and I enjoyed hearing the squealing. There were a ton of people and parking was hectic as always, but free as well. Then we eat dinner at Threadgrills and I got Chicken fried chicken and did a roulette to choose my sides. I waved my finger up and down the extensive sides list and Scott told me to stop twice. I picked some interestingly good tasting grits and corn. The grits were surprisingly yummy, even Scott and Jenny agreed (they don't like plan grits). We want to go to a honkey tonk saloon after that but it was closed, and the other club was reserved for a private party. Out of luck we were, but we did get some Amy's ice cream. I got the Kahula one, and the alcohol impaired my senses just a bit. We part from Scott and find out that the night was still young, it was merely, lets say 11pm or so. We go back and drink some more "smart water" and decide to dash to the capitol of Texas. We were very happy people. After a bit of wandering, me and Ruyi had to go to the restroom and we did just that, except I kept Austin weird and did it discretely in a dark alley. Shh. After that we go back again and talk about deep stuff, deeper than Jenny would have liked, but not deep enough to turn her away, as she instantly woke up when we started to talk about her mom, among other things. I took a power nap, then my much needed shower, and was back in action, talking the night away. Me and Steve put on a great orchestral duet in F major, and everybody loved it. It just kept coming and coming, all night long. We topped Jenny's from a few weeks ago. Good job Steve. We end up sleeping at 5am.

I woke up first on Monday morning at 10, then 10:30am, while everyone was dead asleep. Being hungry, we eat at Pluckers, a wing place. I got an unlimited wing deal for $14 and I ordered 40. I snuck some across the table to my loyal dog stevey, who barked "woof woof" and I felt so sorry for my poor dog that I had to lend him some wings. I think I ate about 34 wings that day, and that is all I ate for the most part. My stomach was miserable all day and I fell into a food coma.. but not after singing our hearts out at Juicytart! I got Taro and almond froyo and we sang karaoke for a good hour or so. We are very talented singers who could start a business if we really wanted to. After that, we got some leather bracelets from a weirdo on the street who probably ripped us off. It's all good though as it represents our friendship indirectly, as we all agreed to get one if one person got one. Jenny got a music one, Steve got a peace sign I think, I dunno what Hansen got, and me and Ruyi got Christian fish. After that we packed our stuff in 10 minutes because the rental car was due in about 4 hours (it takes about 3 to get back) and said a farewell to Ruyi.

That was our trip to Austin in a nutshell. We got weirder by going there but I think I am becoming more normal as time goes on in Houston. I would definitely go back to Austin again, as I probably only did 1% of the things available there.