Austin, Texas

On a last minute decision last weekend five of us decided to visit the big capital of Texas - Austin. We spent two nights in the refreshingly warm city with the reputation of being weird, its slogan being 'keep Austin weird'. This was my first experience of a real American-Style motel and luckily for us is a quite a nice one 'Super 8'.

We arrived there around 8pm after a 6 hour drive from norman, OK to Austin, TX and hurried to get ready so we could hit the clubs! Now for all five of us this was the first time we'd been in real night clubs since our trip to Dallas in September, so it was a big deal to experience real civilization! 6th Street is Austins equivalent of Wind Street with a few added extras such as the Spanish-Style open all night souvenir shops and club reps who shout drinks deals at you as you walk past.

On our first full day there naturally, being 21 year olds, we missed breakfast and eventually rose in time to visit one of Austins flea markets in the backyard of a German style pub we were told was opened in the late 1800's. We then headed to a 'Cowboy Market' at which we were the only non-spanish speakers, quite the culture shock. I did contemplate buying a pair of cowboy (or cowgirl?) boots in a desperate attempt to fit in, however the price of fitting in was about $140 out of my price range. When I realised I could get a nice radley handbag for that price I swiftly changed my mind. Instead I decided to buy a cob of roasted corn, frozen margarita and people watch.

After we'd taken in as many cowboy hats and boots as we could handle we went back to the city to visit the capitol building, which was breathtakingly beautiful.
In true Texan fashioned we ate dinner at a Tex-Mex (Texas Mexican food) which was one of the best meals I have had since I've been here and I don't usually like Mexican food! After dinner we traipsed up and down 6th street looking at (and buying) pointless by funny souvenirs for ourselves and our families, but mostly ourselves. At the end of this Christmas vacation I would have visited six different US states and I have decided that I will dedicate the first blog post of my return to all the pointless gifts I buy for myself, because for some reason when you're a tourist anything, and I mean anything, with the name of the place you're visiting written on it in bright colours you MUST have because you can't possibly remember your time there without it.