Four days in Austin
We don’t take enough trips.
Let’s just book some flights and figure out the rest later.
A month later, we end up in Austin, on a balmy Thursday. My Apple Watch is displaying triple digits — a first.
And four days after that, we’re back in Seattle: a little sunburnt, a little more full.
Here are some chaotic Austin thoughts:
- As hot as it was, I think on average I was actually cooler than I would have been in Seattle. Austin is at least prepared for the threat of heat: every single room you walk into is filled with A/C. (Seattle is not: 80 degrees doesn’t sound too bad until you realize the vast majority of buildings don’t have A/C.)
- Austin has the best storefronts and signage in the world. So much neon. South Congress is a mine of Tumblr photos.
- The food was very good. I did not need to be convinced of the intrinsic merit of breakfast tacos, but their worth was still, you know, demonstrative. The barbecue was great (even though we didn’t do Franklin’s, because the idea of waiting hours for food is too daunting.)
- Biking everywhere is a great idea until it’s 6pm on a Saturday and you realized that you’ve sweated through your shirt and this was supposed to be the one shirt you wouldn’t sweat through.
- Austin Bouldering Project was terrific, though it was entertaining to see the differences between it and Seattle Bouldering Project. The grades were looser; the grips were, in general, easier; the setters were more creative; the folks were nicer, but had less decorum.
- The Roosevelt Room was terrific. One of my top five cocktail bars ever.
- June’s was really great, too. The food was exactly what was needed (which is to say it was a fried chicken sandwich the size of my head) and Ariel, the bartender, wrote out a terrific list of cocktail bars after overhearing us rhapsodize about The Roosevelt Room.
- There was not enough time to do everything we wanted to do; there is never enough time to do everything we want to do.
- It is always good to visit new places, even if you have to leave them too soon.
- It gives you reasons to come back, is what I’m trying to say.
I’m back in Seattle, now, in an apartment that is considerably less well-manicured (and less air-conditioned) than Hotel San José. I still need to unpack and clean and do the dishes — to once again don the comforting yoke of routine.
Austin is great; short trips are great; the feeling of having a hundred-or-so photos to sort through in a couple days is great.
Three things I really liked this week
Happy Sunday
I hope you go someplace to which you cannot wait to come back.