Fun times have passed for this happy cowgirl in the making. A friend from MBA was visiting and so I took this opportunity to show her around A-town and the surroundings. Some of these I haven’t been at before.
Noteworthy spots
Austin capitol building – many wide galleries and high ceilings serve as a reminder of the great Texan past. One could easily imagine wealthy land owners walking around those halls, enacting laws to protect their freedoms of property and bearing arms. It was also cool to visit the legislative assembly room and look a the old photos of the legislators. Many mustaches were spotted. One lady was also reoccurring in the pictures. I think she was the secretary. Or maybe a mistress. Or maybe both.
Georgetown Caverns – despite the cheesy huge Mammoth cadaver at the visitor center, followed by a not less cheesy tour, this is a greattttt place to survive the Texas heat. 72F all year round, what else can one ask for? My friend and I were the only foreigners amidst a bunch of partially obese Texas/Midwestern tourists. This gave us a good opportunity to observe the local traditions and speak patterns. They were also really nice when I was reminiscing about another time when I visited caverns in Tom Sawyer’s town (about 13 years ago). They reminded me of the existence of the state of Missouri, which has long escaped my memory.
San Antonio River Walk – Oh what a great place for a romantic stroll and people watching. I have never been there before and was hugely impressed. We took a long walk to King William historical district and by the time we arrived there, I was almost wishing I were living in SA. Lovely! Unfortunately, some of the cute art galleries we were going to visit were closed by the time we arrived there. Too bad.
Oasis – Amazing view over Lake Travis. Great Margaritas! Things to avoid: The food and speaking to the waiters.
Alamo Draft House/Violet Crown Cinema: Two very different movie watching experiences – Alamo Draft House provides cheesy Hollywood blockbusters with greasy fried food whereas for $5 one could sit among pseudo-intellectuals in a cool atmosphere, sipping martinis and eating hors d’oeuvres. Having said that, I really enjoyed watching both Horrible Bosses and Woody Allan’s Midnight in Paris. So enough with the snobbery.
Update: I just discovered that the really attractive curator in Midnight in Paris is in fact Carla Bruni. Wife of. Good for Sarcozy! (She is not a bad actress too..)
p.s. My genius deed of the week: It is amazing how much the spell-checker in Word destroyed my ability to type in human language. I did an ill-favor to my friend and helped her revise a cover letter for a potential job opportunity. As we hit “send”, she realized that we did not use the spell-checker on this e-mail and that I had something like 10 different typos that made her look really ignoramus. “Oh well”, said my friend, who has a really good attitude apparently, “now, they will definitely have no doubts with regards to me being an international candidate” (we were previously debating whether to describe her global experience and decided against it).
Grobetrotter 