You Gotta Go There To Come Back: Austin, not exactly the Lone star state of mind.

We met the wonderful Maggie Mcgrath at the airport and went to Trudy’s and I got to try a Mexican Martini (so potent you’re only allowed 2 and no other booze before or after). Maggie also gave us a Mexican food 101 course, as Austin is all about the Tex-mex and BBQ. We followed this up by trying to see the bats under one of the bridges go into a feeding frenzy but we just missed it so went to a hipster place called spider house for some pitchers, Maggie (the best and worst vegetarian ever, she thinks meet looks and smells awesome but morally won’t eat any except fish and duckling, disclaimer, duckling is a lie) had a veggie burrito and insisted I try it (it’s ok, I’m sure the burrito truck killed an animal on its way, so I could morally eat it). We stayed in a hotel the first night which was nice for a while, except for Penny’s snoring.

Wednesday we slept late then had some fantastic tacos before hitting Barton Springs water hole, an outdoor spring with seaweed and salamanders, which was superb.

Cold water swimming combined with some beautiful people, including probably the greatest pair of fake tits I may have ever seen, apparently quite common for Texan chicks to get for birthdays or graduation. Maggie didn’t like the cold water but managed to get in after some persuasion. I’m not sure why I have to mention this but the changing rooms were outdoors and so got to get bare assed under the hot sun, which as I have yet to skinny dip, streak or base jump naked, was awesome. We followed this up by going to Chueys retro 50’s place with cheap Margaritas and free nachos. Whilst queuing at the nacho bar a guy came up to me and asked how I was doing, to which I gave my usual no eye contact shrug and general answer, he carried on saying about how lovely the day was, so I said how we were struggling in the heat. He replied ‘but it’s a beautiful day to be alive’ and walked off. I looked up and it was a homeless guy that we had seen under the freeway earlier, it was quite humbling. We followed Chueys with a free gig in the park meeting a few of Maggies (gorgeous) friends, including Bogan (it’s some sort of flower). I don’t know why but in my blog notebook I have written Penny is from Afghanistan, so there you go. We closed out the night with a trip to a Microbrewery and stayed at Maggies boyfriend TJ’s place.

In the morning Mags dropped us off at the drag and we went to the Ransom Centre and saw the first ever photo, an original Picasso (Picasso drew a Daschund a plate for a friend), the Gutenberg bible and a Tennessee Williams display. We followed this with the Texas state history museum, which was interesting in the early parts but Texas pretty much writes its own history, and nobody loves Texas more than the Texans (why it’s also known as the reach around state). We followed this up by going to Maggies Art Gallery, featuring a rare non-pop art Warhol of an electric chair. Maggie also sorted us out with a tour of the Texas Capitol building with Bogan who works there.

To put it simply Texas is the only state that feels they need their own senate building and decided to build it to a similar design as the US congress building in Washington DC, except typically building it a little bigger, as everything is bigger in Texas. That evening we went to the original Salt Lick, another man versus food site, and ate a pound of meat, and felt I could do more.

It was one of the best BBQ meals I’ve had, and we finished up by hitting a few hipster bars like ulstre pearl and bar 97 for hula hooping, giant jenga and fussball. We stayed at TJ’s again and Maggie walked into the mesh door out to the balcony, which was hilarious.

On Friday we went to Rudys BBQ for more meat by the pound, then went to the Real Ale brewery in Blanco, Texas for a tour and tasting. Then an old school airport where you could walk on the runway and check out the planes (*this is not advice to terrorists, terrorism is bad, maybe look at going back to school or get a less explosive hobby), and they had also converted a hangar into a hotel.

We went to an old German town called Fredericksburg (don’t mention the war) and window shopped before getting dinner at Hondos, where Penny got a Port-o-bellend sandwich. On the way back Mags insisted on going to a small town called Luckenbach which is an old cowboy/country village filled with reall cowboys, country music and chickens in trees, and was really good, Willie Nelson loves it, they have a saying that ‘Everybody is Somebody in Luckenbach’.

Saturday we met two other friends from my second camp, Wade and Obesa and we floated the river in San Marcos. This basically means renting an inner tube and floating down the river with outrageous amounts of booze and testosterone. We went on tree swings, tried a jungle beer bong and tried everclear soaked strawberries.

Mags then took us to the Rollerderby, a massive deal in Austin, it was interesting but like most American sports goes on way to long, fortunately they had a bar.

We then met Steve Washer, a guy Mags and I know from my first camp and found out that he is getting married in like 6 days, so the drinks flowed freely from there which was pretty intense as we had been drinking all day. After getting even more intoxicated we hit dirty 6, a famous area of Austin that can only described as Magaluf, Newquay and Cardiff on a night out. I thought I would really enjoy this part but a combination of being wasted and beginning to dislike the dirty club and bar scene I struggled to like this place although I had an awesome night, especially as the beautiful Bogan was our host for most of the night.