more ATX love

while i like to think that i am a relatively open-minded individual, someone who is down for whatever, open to new experiences, happy to meet new people, willing to move to random places like texas, etc -- i also believe that there is much truth in the old adage that "old friends are the best friends." this weekend i had the pleasure of playing hostess to my beloved buddy nicole, with whom i share a plethora of random old memories, including, but not limited to:

• watching "coming to america" and "friday" ALL.THE.TIME in her dorm room ("sexual chocolate!")
• eating way too much late-night food from the greasy-ass castle (freshman 15, anyone?)
• doing girly college-freshmen things like curling each other's hair
• getting drunk for the first time in her dorm room on jack daniel's lynchburg lemonade
• etc.

i was determined to show her a good time, atx-style, and give her a much-needed break from the life of a NYC attorney in my effort to live up to the title of "hostess with the mostest."

what follows below is a recap of our weekend, and even more reasons why austin is a fantastic place to visit at this time of year:

FRIDAY: a warm, sunny day. i pick nicole up at the airport and immediately we start chatting at the frenetic pace that always takes over when you're spending with an old friend that you haven't seen in a while. the chatting continues all the way to my apt in soco and then over margaritas and queso @ guero's (maybe not the most amazing tex-mex you can find in austin, but it's reasonably priced, has the chill laid-back atmosphere that characterizes austin and is extremely close to my apt). we devour an entire basket of chips and queso (with pico de gallo mixed in, of course) and decide to order another round of everything -- more margaritas, more chips, and another cup of queso ("queso: it's what's for dinner"). we wander around the neighborhood, poking our heads into the shops that are still open, taking in the beauty of austin's skyline @ night before heading back home for a quick shower and getting-ready session. nicole scolds me for getting lazy in my fashion choices ("but... but... i live in austin... i can go to bars in flip-flops!"), i sigh and drag out some ridiculously tight jeans and high heels and low-cut tops in an effort to live up to her NYC standards. :)

a mere $5 cab ride later, the bar-hopping begins. we begin with a round of martinis @ apple bar, including caramel apple martinis, chocolate martinis, and mexican martinis (with extra olives please!). we then head down to cuba libre for some freshly-made mojitos (served with a stalk of sugar cane), and then end up @ red fez for some hip-hop and dancing. i hadn't been there since the TOOTH INCIDENT OF '06 and am pleased to say that the drama was not repeated. and then... hmm. what did we do next? i think we wandered around aimlessly in search of food that was not a) nasty-ass pizza or b) mystery-meat hot dogs (amusingly named "the best wurst," which makes me giggle every time i see it) and ended up cabbing it down to magnolia cafe, austin's version of the 24-hour diner with the oh-so-ironic slogan of "sorry we're open."

SATURDAY: yet another warm, sunny day (although, as nicole so aptly put it, austin has this weird crazy temperature drop syndrome -- WCTDS for short -- where the middle of the day will be 71 degrees and sunny and come 9 pm it's 42 degrees and you're shivering. WTF?). we begin the day on an active note... renting a bike for nicole and taking a long, leisurely ride on the town lake hike & bike trail. oh the happiness! the swans cruising in the water! the turtles sunning themselves on every available surface! the sun sparkling on the water surface as kayakers glide through the glassy water! the happy dogs trotting alongside their owners on the trail! we took a few detours to take some pics and check out some downtown scenes, but all in all it was a fantastic ride.

after the ride we drove out to driftwood for, you guessed it, some salt lick bbq (faithful readers of JMWT will realize that i've taken every single one of my visitors there for the seriously delicious bbq, the hill country views, the amusing fact that hays county is a dry county and that you have to BYOB or make a pit stop at bubba's country store for some brewskis). several heaping plates of bbq later, we made our way back home for a much-needed shower/nap combination. later on, refreshed and rejuvenated, we headed out for the evening: a much more chill version of fri night, starting off with cocktails and appetizers on the rooftop of union park (heat lamps, pretty wooden furniture, pillows everywhere), some ginger-apple martinis @ saba (with the live music from next-door cedar street vibrating throughout) and then a stroll down austin's famous 6th street (adams morgan on crack for you DCers out there).

.... aaaaaand it's time for a sidebar! weirdest/lamest/funniest moment of the night, and also How to Spot Yellow Fever: as nicole and i were walking down 6th street this guy literally planted himself in front of me -- i.e. blocked my walking path -- to tell me that he was sorry to interrupt me (yeah right) but he just HAD to tell me how beautiful i was, oh man i am so beautiful, just wow, blah blah blah bullshit blah blah blah. i thank him and try to move on when he dropped the zinger: "what's your ethnicity?" i gave him a semi-glare of death (maybe a 6.0 on the 10-point deathly-gaze-o-meter) and said korean, to which he responded that his ex was korean and started trying to say korean things to me. boo. just boo. take your lame-ass game elsewhere, because i'm not interested, thanks.

so, this post is getting really long. let's starting speeding things a bit, eh? SUNDAY we went to stubb's for mimosas and buffet @ their gospel brunch (a college choir from lubbock, texas -- they were FANTASTIC, i really feel like gospel music should be sung by young, energetic choirs like that), stopped by the annual kite festival in austin's famous zilker park (home of ACL), wandered in and out of the shops in my neighborhood, bought some ridiculously expensive jeans at a super-posh jeans boutique, and went for delicious mexican food and sangrias at el chile.

the end. pics to follow another time...