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Tuesday, 13 September 2011 - Texas road trip!

 
 
Yesterday I mentioned that I'd found a trail while I was out cycling around in near-40-degree heat like an idiot. At the start of that trail was a lot of burnt land, and a couple small fire engines floating around. That part of the trail is airport property, and so I assumed there had been a controlled burn given all the brush fires in Texas flaring up at the moment. Turns out however that there was a pretty decent (and uncontrolled) fire here just 24 hours earlier, and in fact we'd actually seen the smoke coming from it while returning from LBJ Lake, but I didn't put two and two together until I saw this news article this morning. Texas is burning up!
 
Anyway, we headed up to Austin today for the start of a small road trip. A few days in Austin, followed by Austin City Limits music festival on Friday, an American football college match on Saturday, and then however many more days on the Texas coast. Groovyness! On the way up to Austin we stopped at a gas station to grab a couple drinks, and I almost got me some Muscle Milk, until I saw it contains no milk hehe. An hour or so later we made it to Austin, home to 800,000 (compared to San Antonio's 1.3 million) and headed into Downtown, as seen here from the Colorado River which flows through the city.

 
 
The first thing I noticed was how cycle-friendly (and pedestrian-friendly) the city is, and being the home of Lance Armstrong I'd expect nothing less!
 
Even the cops hoon round on bikes here (I never expected to see that in the US).

 
 
Austin has these cows all over the place in Downtown (just like Munich in Germany), apparently as part of something called CowParade - "the largest and most recognized public art event in the world". So there you go; cows.
 
Apparently it got up to 41 degrees today, and it sure bloody felt like it, but regardless we continued wandering.

 
 
Lots of skyscrapers...
 
Lots of green space, cycle-friendly and all that - I'd have to say I'm liking this place a lot so far.
 
We found this thing set up randomly on the roadside. Based on the words "Animal Vital" on the side of those containers with hoses leading down to a dog bowl, one would guess it's a dog water station for folk walking their thirsty mutts, but regardless Kristina helped herself to it anyway hahaha! Like I said, it was pretty warm today ;)

 
 
Austin is the capital city of Texas, and this is the Texas State Capitol building, constructed in the late 1800s and contains (among other things) the offices of the governor of Texas.
 
Here's that dork who used to be president, before which he was the governor of Texas for six years.

 
The Capitol also houses the chambers of the Texas Legislature, where the powers that be all get together every so often and bicker with one another, wave their fists in the air, and occasionally achieve something useful.
 
FYI, here's a photo of the first Texas Capitol - very grandiose.
 
 
From there we ventured north into the neighbouring University of Texas campus - a 420-acre monster which is about the same size as Downtown itself, and has over 50,000 students. Bloody hell! In the UK, university places are scarce - no such problem in this country (but it does mean the graduate job market is a tough one).
 
 
I'm not sure if this guy was taking a nap or if he'd fallen off his bike and knocked himself out. Either way we laughed our asses off and took a photo of him ;)
 
Jesus, anyone want a pumpkin? This lot were outside a Downtown grocery store - interesting. There's a few in the foreground that look like they have cancer. Anyway, that was Central Austin in a nutshell - good stuff.

Wednesday, 14 September 2011 - Springs and sunsets

 
 
Second day in Austin, and we spent most of it here at Barton Springs Pool, a man-made recreational swimming pool but filled by water from the Main Barton Spring. At about 22 degrees, it was a lot cooler than the rivers and lakes we've been jumping in lately, but when it's pushing 40 degrees outside who cares.
 
It's a hard life.

 
And this is how we finished the day: dinner overlooking Lake Travis - another reservoir on the Colorado River like Lake LBJ where we were last weekend. Not bad huh!

 
 
Locals and tourists alike pile into The Oasis restaurant in time for sunset and fill out its several terraces, all with the most amazing views. I gotta be honest this is easily one of the best restaurants I've ever stuffed my face at, so if anyone happens to be in the Austin area at some point then keep in mind this joint comes highly recommended by Aaron ;)

 
 
Everyone had their cameras out trying to capture the moment (made a lot easier by having a DSLR!).
 
Then they all applaud when the sun disappears over the horizon (like it was some big effort), and ooo and ahh over the pretty sky it leaves behind. Good times :)

Thursday, 15 September 2011 - Up on the roof

 
 
Quick trip up a 'mountain' today, specifically Mount Bonnell. Not sure why they call it a mountain - it's just a large hill that happens to be the highest one in the city, but regardless the views over Downtown and the Colorado River are pretty ok, and it's one way to kill a half hour.

 
Speaking of the Colorado, Kristina's mates who we we're staying with live in a neighbourhood that backs on to it, so we killed some more time swimming in it and trying to sunbathe.
 
 
We finished off the day at one of several rooftop bars around the 6th Street area - one of the main entertainment districs of Downtown Austin, and chock full of students from the neighbouring University of Texas campus.

Friday, 16 September 2011 - Austin City Limits music festival!

 
Part one of my birthday present (back in June) from Kristina was a ticket to this - ACL or Austin City Limits, an annual three-day music festival which this year celebrates its tenth birthday. Some hardcore festival junkies come all three days but one was enough for us softcore types. A total of 130 bands play across the three days, with eight stages set up in Zilker Park which hosts it all.

 
 
We arrived in time to see Ray LaMontagne - one of Kristina's favs, though we had to enjoy him on the big screen since someone decided it'd be a great idea to stand behind the sound stage which obscured our view of the stage. It's did provide some shade though, and for the guy on the right a spot to coma.

 
 
After Ray was done massaging our ears with his folks tunes, we inched our way through the swarms to the other side of the park to check out Damien Marley (the youngest of Bob's sons) with his painfully long dreadlocks, and enjoy a bit of his reggae rap. Video here.

 
The day started off overcast but when the sun broke through it got pretty warm pretty fast, so hooray for mist fans!
 
 
After then seeing some other chick called Sarah Bareilles sing and play the piano while steaming drunk, we rocked up to see one of the two headliners for the night - Coldplay. The other headliner playing at the same time on the other main stage was Kanye West, so all the blacks were up that end of the park and all the crackers up this end.
 
 
After all that we piled back onto 6th Street, for some more of those rooftop bars and our final night in Austin.

Saturday, 17 September 2011 - College Football!

 
 

College football (as in American football) - it's a fucking big deal in America, the likes of which we have no such concept where I come from. I mean I'm sure we have university sports teams, but they don't attract crowds or a cult following like this. Anyway, part two of my birthday present from Kristina was front row seats to Texas A&M (one of the main Texas college teams) versus Idaho State - isn't she awesome :) For this we drove a couple hours northeast of Austin to the city of College Station for the night, built around the A&M campus and absolutely full of students. Texas A&M are known as the Aggies - I have no idea why but as you can see the city is all about its university!


 
 
We arrived just in time for kick-off, and the noise of the crowd was amazing especially given this is just a college game. Video of the raucous here.
 
Just before kick-off I was put on the big screen while I was setting my camera up, and just after kick-off Kristina was put up and probably on national telly hehe. Her older brother Derek and his wife Lauren are on the left.

I said "just a college game" above but again I really can't overstate how manic this country is for college sport hehe. For many colleges this is a major revenue stream, from ticket sales to television rights to merchandising etc, and for that reason most of the students in these teams will be on some sort of scholarship for no other reason than their sporting success. Kristina got a full ride through college thanks to her swimming success in high school for example - her university wanted her on their swim team and so these scholarships are offered to make that college a more attractive option.

 
 
I made sure I had a basic understanding of American football before we arrived. In a nutshell, each phase of play begins with that dude on the left passing the ball between his legs to the waiting quarterback behind him. There is then a lot of rough and tumble as the offensive team aims to protect the quarterback while he sums up the situation and either runs with or offloads or throws the ball downfield to his mate, and it all ends in a big haystack of heavily-armoured bodies. Ordered chaos really.

 
 
There are some pretty large (and goofy-looking) boys in this sport, and some runts like fuck-whar here.
 
And if you're a chick who likes guy's butts (or a guy who likes guy's butts), then there's something in this sport for you too ;)

The view from the front row was often obscured, so I wandered up the back for a bit to get some better snappy-snaps of the game.
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Initial formation at the start of each phase...
 
...and the final haystack and littered bodies. Video here.
 
At halftime we were treated to some more ordered chaos, this time from the college marching band. No shortage of them. Anyway, the final score was a 37 - 7 drumming by A&M. Thanks for coming Idaho.

Sunday, 18 September 2011 - Finally the heavens open, in time for the beach

 
 
While at College Station we were staying with Kristina's younger brother who just recently started college at Texas A&M. After the game last night we all went into town and did what students like to do (get drunk and make asses of themselves), and then brought the party back home. Usual scene in the morning - kitchen's a mess with red cups everywhere, bodies all over the place, good times!

 
 
We hit the road bright and early (at 10am) for the four-hour drive from College Station through small-town Texas to Port Aransas on the coast for some beach time!
 
Well that says it all really. $400 a month well spent.

 
Given Texas is in the worst drought and having the hottest summer in living memory, you might think it'd be a fairly safe assumption that we'd get some good beach weather.
 
Wrong! Thunderstorms and torrential rain over half the state hahaha! Video here.
 
 
The sun did break through for a bit though, and with that, welcome to the Gulf of Mexico! Port Aransas has bugger all of interest besides the beach, and granted I've seen nicer but I've also seen worse, and this is only a short stopover for the night.
 
 
Our hotel chicky told us we can simply drive along the beach and park up, and be that as it may I was still a little worried about doing so in a two-wheel drive car but it's not a problem.
 
Unless you're these dumbasses.

 
 
I hit the water (and damn it was warm!)...
 
Kristina posed for camera...
 
People chilled on the beach as the sun went down...

 
 
And the birds crapped all over the cars.
 
View from the restaurant where we had dinner (seafood of course). Anyway, tomorrow we head further south still, down to the Mexican border! Not sure yet whether crossing into Mexico is feasible, so stayed tuned :)

Monday, 19 September 2011 - What did you do today? I went to Mexico

 
We left Port Aransas yesterday morning to more glorious-looking beach weather and more spots of rain, but it fined up in time for our arrival a couple hours later in...
 
...South Padre Island, down the bottom of a barrier island along the Texas Gulf Coast. At the height of summer and around spring break this place is absolutely packed with tourists and students, but right now I feel like we're the only ones here hehe.
 
 
South Padre beach out the back of our hotel.
 

While I was in the water, Kristina made a sand hill complete with tunnel hahaha - strange girl.


 
 
Anyway, South Padre is only a short drive from the Mexican border, and I was keen to go in for lunch and have a look around the border city of Matamoros. However, Kristina in all her American-media-induced paranoia was not so keen. In recent times there have been several instances of tourists being mugged and murdered near the border. Some of it is drug-related, some of it is piracy-related (in open waters), some it is for no apparent reason, but the American media jumps all over it which only adds to Americans' paranoia and intimidation of venturing into foreign countries. Furthermore, if we weren't going to get murdered, then we were surely going to get robbed by corrupt Mexican border guards, according to Kristina. That being the case, she strongly suggested I leave all my valuables in the hotel hahaha! Camera (the big new one), phone, sunnies, jewellery, money, and even the fridge magnet I bought in Austin (my Mum collects them so I get one from everywhere I visit) - the whole lot got left at the hotel, where the Mexican room service personnel could steal them instead. Once Kristina was suitably satisfied, we headed to Brownsville in the southernmost tip of Texas and to the border.

 
 
Rather than drive across, we parked up in Brownsville and simply walked across.
 
No man's land and the Rio Grande river that forms the border.

 
 
Welcome to Mexico! This is the city of Matamoros, home to half a million Mexis. It's well-known for being the birthplace and base of the Gulf Cartel, one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico. We were hounded as soon as we crossed the border by people trying to sell us shit and offering us taxis and tours - it was like we'd crossed the border and stepped into Egypt. We started walking along the main drag in search of lunch, and Kristina was shitting her pants right from the outset with comments like "I hope it's safe to walk into town" hehe. It's not that I blame the girl, I mean most Americans lead such a sheltered life and are quite ignorant to anything or anywhere else in the world, so they hear all this drama about Mexico border murders and Middle East terrorism on the news and in the paper and it's all they know - some people thought Kristina was nuts just going to Europe! Kristina is one of the exceptions, but she's still American at heart ;) I on the other hand had no qualms whatsoever about what we were doing. Yes I'd heard about some of the goings on, but to me it was akin to hearing about a plane crash. Planes fall out of the sky from time to time but you'd have to be pretty bloody unlucky to be on one of them. Dodgy stuff happens around the Mexican border but again you'd be pretty unlucky and your number would really have to be up if you were to find yourself caught up in any of it. Plane crashes don't stop me flying, and a bit of increased crime (serious though it is) won't stop me from visiting a country especially when it's somewhere like Mexico - I mean we're not talking about crossing into fucking Iraq here. Let's get real America - it's a wonder half of you dare leave your house or even get out of bed with the amount of gun crime in your country.

 
 
First order of business - Mexican lunch! We had these fucking yummy soft taco things with chicken and beef and other bits and pieces, and it all got washed down with margaritas.
 
Bit of Mexican music on the telly, which looked like it was about to fall off the wall.

 
 
Kristina's nervousness seemed to calm down after lunch and we ventured deeper into town.
 
Power lines. You can never have too many.
 
I love my bitch.

 
A lot of Yanks come across the border to raid the plentiful pharmacies (or farmacias) for cheap drugs hehe.
 
Some also come over for a bit of the ol' cosmetic surgery since it's a lot cheaper here than in America, but you get what you pay for apparently and they often fuck it up hahaha!

 
 
Several people suggested we visit (or offered to take us) to this market. It covered several blocks and had no shortage of crap, but since the flow of tourists from the US has all but dried up (because they're going to get mugged and murdered etc) these Mexis are probably struggling to make a living.
 
And with that we slowly started heading back to the border, without incident.

 
 
If Kristina needed to be worried about anything it was the heat. We could've taken a bus or taxi, but what's the fun in that. And the hand-written "Taxi Plus" in marker pen on the side of the taxis didn't exactly grab me hehe.
 
So that was our half-day in Mexico :) Definitely a country I want to see more of, and if all goes to plan and I end up living in North America for a while after Kristina and I get back from this huge-ass trip then I might just do that.

Sunday, 25 September 2011 - Golf mission

 
 
My final full day in Texas today before we start our three months in Southeast Asia, and what do we do? We go to the local driving range hehe. There's a long story behind this going all the way back to Paris, but in a nutshell I've never been to a driving range before and I wanted to, and there's one just round the road. Given there were young kids there with no problems hitting the ball, the pressure was on hahaha.

 
 
Kristina battled away with mixed success, but I found my calling and was clouting that bastard good - Aaron Woods!
 
An occasional miss-hit ;) Video here and here of me showing y'all how it's done, and one here of Kristina showing y'all how it's not done.

 
 
Once I was done smashing balls, I took my own two balls and crushed them against my bicycle seat for another 40-something kilometres of fun in the 37-degree sun. My route for the day was the Missions Trail, connecting four of the five Spanish frontier missions which played a major role in the development of San Antonio back in the day. The trail starts at the cliché San Antonio attraction - the Alamo, and then follows the river out of Downtown.

 
First up, Mission Concepción - established in 1716 and the best preserved of the Texas missions.
 

Next up, Mission San Jose - established in 1720, and also in pretty good shape to this day.


 
 
Then we have Mission San Juan - established in 1716 also and falling to pieces.
 
And finally, Mission Espada - established in 1690 and still with a functioning church but otherwise also falling to bits.
 
And that was that. 20-something kilometres into Downtown and another 20-something scoping out the missions (then Kristina collected me with the car). I'm not standing there with an open top because I'm awesome, but because I'm friggin' hot (as in temperature)!

Monday, 26 September 2011 - And that was Texas

It feels like I've been here a lot longer than a month - I've done a lot of shit! Cycling, tubing, swimming, music festivals, sports events, weekends on random lakes, touring random towns, a quick jaunt down to Mexico, etc etc. And while I'm a lot tanner than when I arrived I'm also heavier - 5kg heavier in fact hehe. I've been the exact same weight (70kg) for about ten years, until I come to America for a month. Anyway, I've absolutely loved it here, and am really looking forward to coming back for a bit (to collect all the crap I'm leaving here) but in the meantime Kristina and I board a plane at bloody 5:45am this morning bound for Bangkok! We arrive at 11pm local-time on Tuesday night (we skip forward a day when we cross the international date line), then for the following three months who the hell knows, but a daily dairy of it all will be here :)

 

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