The Armchair Traveller

This final post about Austin Texas has been a mammoth effort to complete; it has been a work in progress for over a month now because I just can’t seem to get it right. You may wonder what I mean by that but all I can say is that this trip was such an amazing experience that I find it difficult to put into words in a way that (in my opinion) does justice to the experience. Also, by leaving the post incomplete for so long I have been able to indulge myself and re-visit the good times over and over every time I attempt to complete this post. Anyhow, I think it is finally there so I hope you enjoy it…

My last three and a half days in Austin passed far too quickly, we did a lot and at the same time it was really relaxed, but when Saturday afternoon rolled around and it was time to head for the airport I was devastated - Austin had made a great impression on me and I didn’t want to return to the reality of my life in London.

The day after our trip to San Antonio we spent the morning shopping at a big shopping centre, where we all managed to shop up a storm. We re-fuelled with lunch at Magnolia Cafe. This was a really cool cafe just down the road from where we were staying. It is open 24 hours and it has this fantastic sign outside that says “Sorry we’re open.” I found that so amusing - how many places do you come across that apologise for being open!

The food there was delicious - great omelettes and pancakes in particular. Lunch left me feeling very full but ready to tackle an afternoon exploring more of Austin. First stop was South Congress; this is a great street in downtown Austin full of kitschy stores and cool cafes and reminded me a lot of Cuba Street in Wellington. South Congress is home to Allens Boots Store, a premier cowboy boot shop in Texas, the place that Bon Jovi apparently buys his boots! It was amazing to go in and see shelves and shelves of impressive leather cowboy boots, each pair were artworks in their own right. If we had been there longer and I had more money I think I would have seriously considered investing in a pair of boots - how cool would genuine cowboy boots be!

After South Congress was conquered Trevor took us to his favourite bar - The Mean Eyed Cat - which is an absolutely fantastic local bar which happens to be obsessed with all things Johnny Cash! Even the toilets were themed with the men’s toilets being called ‘Johnny’ and the women’s toilets called ‘June’. There was Johnny Cash memorabilia all over the place and a juke box full of his music. Another interesting feature of this bar was the random chainsaw memorabilia, apparently before it became a bar, the building was a chainsaw shop and was where the chainsaw was purchased for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or something like that anyway).

In keeping with the musical and relaxed vibe that Austin has there was a live band playing on the stage outside in the garden of the bar. So after getting our drinks, from the very friendly barman Paul, we headed outside to enjoy some local music and soak up the Austin atmosphere. It was extremely hot outside (over 40 degrees Celsius, or 100 degrees Fahrenheit if that is what you prefer) but sitting in the heat with a nice cold drink, great company and good music made for a great relaxing afternoon. It would have been very easy to stay there all evening and continue to drink, talk and listen to music but we were expected home for dinner so off we went. And might I add, Amiel’s dinners were always delicious so we were very happy to head home to one of her meals!

Thursday morning began with a visit to the largest electronics store I have ever seen - Fry’s Electronics. Mum and Lynsey had been there on their last trip to Austin and they were keen to visit again because of the lure of cheap computer equipment. There was one thing I found strange about this store and that was the giant grand piano over the entrance to the building, it left me a bit confused about what grand pianos have to do with electronic goods, a keyboard I could understand but a grand piano…

Anyway, after the Fry’s experience we were taken to see Trevor’s office and meet one of his colleagues who we took out for lunch to a Texan restaurant where I ate the most amazing Texan-style baby back ribs. They were absolutely delicious with the meat literally falling off the bone as you went to eat it. I was very impressed!

After the Texan food experience it was time to hit Half-Price Books which is this amazing second-hand bookstore! This was an absolute dream as well as total nightmare because I have an addiction to buying books but I had to remember that this wasn’t my home town and I was going to have to cart back to London any books I purchased (and let’s not forget that books can get quite heavy)! I managed to walk out of there with only three books of average size that didn’t weigh down my luggage too much

We ended a great Thursday with a delicious Thai meal at Madame Mams restaurant which was a fun place to eat, with the most interesting decor - the entire ceiling was covered with umbrellas!

Friday was a much slower day with the only things scheduled being a visit to the original Whole Foods Market and dinner at a friend’s house. The Whole Foods Market was amazing, overflowing with amazing fresh produce and different take-away food options at every turn, a great experience which puts the London branch to shame! Dinner that night was a delicious Polish experience as the people we were dining with were Polish and decided to treat us with their native cuisine. Being Polish myself I absolutely loved what was on offer It was a very relaxing day spent in excellent company and was a great final day in Austin Texas!

The following morning welcomed a very big day - it was the day to fly back to London, to say goodbye to my mum and stepdad and friends, and it was also my birthday! So to celebrate my birthday we all climbed into the car and headed for a cafe called Al Aroyo where we ate a Mexican breakfast known as migos which is like scrambled eggs with chillies added to it for an extra kick and served on flour tortillas rather than toast. It was absolutely delicious and I can’t wait to have it again. To top of a great birthday morning, the staff from the cafe served me a Mexican flan (pronounced flaun) with a candle in it and everyone at the table sang happy birthday, it was great!! For those who don’t know, Mexican flan is like a crème caramel - delicious!

Then it was back to the house, closing the suitcases finally and then saying goodbye to one another, mum and Lynsey were flying back to New Zealand and I was heading back to London.

It was such an amazing holiday, I was so thankful to have been able to experience such a cool place with my mum and to have spent my birthday with her as well! I look forward to our next trip together! Leaving Austin was really sad as well because I really felt a connection with this city…

Watch out Austin, I will be back!

On our third day in Austin we decided to go for a one and a half hour drive south to San Antonio, Texas (the second largest city in Texas). Mum and Lynsey had wanted to do this trip on their last visit to Austin but had run out of time and I had been recommended a visit to San Antonio and its famous River Walk by the nice lady I met in Denver, so we were looking forward to what San Antonio had to offer us.

Our first stop in San Antonio was the McNay museum - the first museum of modern art in Texas! The first thing you see when you pull up the driveway is this amazing Spanish-style villa and the only thing that gives this away as being a home of modern art is the array of very contemporary sculpture on the front lawn!

Inside the museum we were treated to works by Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Cezanne, van Gogh, Cassatt, Degas, Picasso, Chagall, Calder, Diego Rivera, Robert Indiana, Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns, and Edward Hopper to name just a few artists represented in the collection. There was a room dedicated entirely to prints, and an entirely new wing attached to the Spanish-style building which contained contemporary painting and sculpture and opened out onto a sculpture garden as well. It was a magnificent museum and we ended up spending a good few hours there and didn’t even manage to see everything!

Time passed very quickly and suddenly it was nearly 1pm and all we had seen of San Antonio was the museum!! So off we went towards another icon of San Antonio, The Alamo. It was scorching hot outside the Alamo so we didn’t stay there very long, just long enough to get the general feel for the place and snap a few pictures. For those who don’t know, the Alamo was the site of a battle fought in February and March 1836. According to Wikipedia, the battle was part of the Texas Revolution and was the first step in Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s attempt to retake the province of Texas after an insurgent army of Texan settlers and adventurers from the US had driven out all the Mexican troops a year earlier. The locals lost the battle and it is believed that of those who fought in the battle only two managed to survive. One of those that died was the famous frontiersman Davy Crockett.

By the time we had finished with the Alamo we were desperate to get to the River Walk and find a place in the shade (preferably with fans or air conditioning) to eat some lunch. We found a starting point and then started walking - it was amazing. Who knew that such a tropical looking paradise would exist in the middle of such a big city! Flowing right through the heart of San Antonio, the river winds its way around the city, below street level. The buildings seem to be built around the river and the trees rather than on top of them and there are wide walkways on either side of the river with the occasional bridge should you want to be on the other side. Once you were down there by the river it was easy to forget that you were in Texas because it really looked so different from everything else we had seen so far. We met up with some friends along the way who joined us for lunch. We found a nice little Mexican place and sat outside but under cover and enjoyed the food and each other’s company.

After lunch we continued to explore the River Walk. There are these river boat cruises you can do which give you a historical tour of San Antonio from the river, we contemplated taking one of these boat rides but in the end we decided to leave that for another visit in the hopefully not-so-distant future. There was this cute little theatre along the river as well. The stage was on one side of the river and the seating on the other side. An entrance to the area of town known as La Villita was just behind the theatre seating as well. Apparently the stage gets used regularly for local Mexican plays and Mexican style entertainment. It would be fun to come back here in the evening and experience the theatre in action.

Eventually we said goodbye to our local friends and headed back towards the car to make our way back to Austin. It was a gorgeous day spent in a gorgeous city… I hope I will return there someday.

Only in London would you go to a park to enjoy some sunshine and see a mother and daughter turn up with a mysterious box which has two guinea pigs inside that they put leads on and take for a walk through the park!!

I didn’t realise that guinea pigs were the sort of animal you could put a lead on and take for a walk! Seems I was mistaken.

For at least two months before arriving in Austin, Texas the friends we would be staying with had warned us that the weather was currently “hot as hell” and that we should bring only our coolest clothes, so stepping out of Austin Bergstrom Airport I couldn’t really exclaim surprise about the heat, except for the fact that it was 8.30 at night and was still sweltering! This hot temperature was something that I got used to though over the course of the week and when it came time to fly back to London I was really sad to be leaving because it really was so nice.

We were greeted at the airport by Trevor’s smiling face, which Mum and Lynsey had seen only 6 months before but I hadn’t seen for two whole years! When he got us back to the house we were greeted by Amiel’s smiling face which I was equally pleased to see. It was nice to arrive in a new land but have something familiar in it to make it feel instantly like home!

It was dark when we drove into Austin from the airport so I didn’t get to see much of where I had arrived but the next morning, with the sun shining and the sky a lovely shade I blue I got to appreciate the beautiful periwinkle blue house we were staying in as well as the nice feel of the surrounding area.

We had a very busy schedule planned out for us over the next week, taking in places mum and Lynsey wanted to re-visit, places none of us had ever been too, and plenty of people to see, I was looking forward to it. So, Sunday morning began with brunch and some friends of Trevor and Amiel’s. It was a nice way to start our visit, all very relaxed, just like we were at home. After brunch Amiel took Mum, Lynsey and I on our first shopping trip, we went to DSW Shoes which is this amazing bargain store full of designer shoes at warehouse (and cheaper) prices - AMAZING!!- I walked out of there a little while later with 2 new pairs of shoes, oh dear I can see this trip is already going to bad on my luggage weight allowance for the trip back to London!

We had lunch that day at a Mexican Restaurant, the first Mexican meal of many on this trip. The food was great and only got better as the week went on!

After lunch we hopped back into the hot car and drove off to Central Market, the most amazing food store ever! It is better than any supermarket I have been into and was full of so much fresh food as well as packaged food - plus all the free samples of things made visiting this market an experience to be remembered, not your typical trip to the supermarket for supplies. I think if I lived in Austin I could quite happily go to Central Market on a regular basis!

Sunday ended with a lovely home cooked meal with another friend of Amiel and Trevor’s. Day one in Austin… I am loving this place so far!

Monday morning I had a slow and relaxed start to the day and the first trip out of the house was to have more Mexican food for lunch, this time it was at Hula Hut, this incredibly kitsch restaurant on Lake Austin, I absolutely loved this place - there should be more places like this in the world! Lunch today was with some of Lynsey’s friends whom he met though his blog about gardening.

Lunch was again delicious, here they served freshly cooked tortilla chips with salsa for everyone at the table to munch on and they re-filled the basket of chips when they got low, the problem was they were so good that you kept eating them even after you had finished your actual lunch because they were sitting in front of you asking to be eaten!

Later in the afternoon we were taken to Barton Springs for a refreshing swim in cold water! With temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius, the cold water of Barton Springs cooled you down to the core and made the heat much more bearable. Barton Springs is a natural spring which has been fenced off at one end so that it can be used like a swimming pool, but there is still a current flowing through and the natural slimy rocks under your feet. There was even the odd fish and turtle swimming along beside us! What an amazing place. It was relatively inexpensive to get into as well which was handy.

Another amazing dinner cooked by Amiel and more of her friends to meet… I am really beginning to feel like I could live here amongst all these great people, in this lovely climate! The evening ended with our very own screening of Trevor’s film “Drawing Closer“, which is based on his experiences of visiting children with cancer. Mum and Lynsey are in the credits of the film as they were there when it was being filmed 6 months earlier and helped out with it. It was an inspirational film and the star of the show, Cambell Westmoreland, was brilliant, that boy has a great career ahead of him I am sure!

We had a relatively early night that night as we were off on a day trip to San Antonio on Tuesday.

After only a few hours sleep it was suddenly Wednesday morning and I was in Denver! Mum and Lynsey were up and about in the hotel room preparing for the first day of the conference they were here to attend and I took the opportunity to be as lazy as possible because I was here for a holiday! I stayed in bed a little longer and then read an American newspaper from cover to cover to see what it was all about. The first thing that struck me was the size of the paper, every country seems to have their own shape - in NZ they are A2 in size, in the UK they seem to prefer A3 - the USA Today paper is the length of an A2 page but only half the width, which makes it rather awkward to read actually. The other thing which struck me about the American paper I was reading was the lack of global news, it was a newspaper that was entirely America oriented - interesting, do they know there is more world outside the boundaries of the USA?!

Eventually I got hungry so it was time to head out of the hotel room and explore what the area had to offer. The hotel we were staying in was the Sheraton Denver West in Lakewood which is just outside of Denver city (we had a stunning view out to the city centre from our hotel room window) and is mainly a business park area with a whole lot of cafes and restaurants scattered amongst the office blocks. I had breakfast at Denny’s a real American food chain. I had an omelette with ham and cheese (the most processed and orange looking cheese I have ever seen!) and this came with a giant hash brown and a toasted bagel with cream cheese - an absolutely huge meal!! I was very full after that. I decided to walk around the area and see what I could uncover in this part of Denver. What I discovered was more restaurants, some petrol stations, a pharmacy, and a small pond with some giant ducks hanging out in the water. Not the most exciting sights to be seen. However it was really nice to be out in the warm sunshine walking along what was basically an empty sidewalk - most London sidewalks are horrible and overcrowded, and it seems that here in Denver you drive everywhere, you don’t usually walk.

The landscape of the area was lovely - in one direction you had sprawling flat desert-like land and in the other direction there were hills leading up the very impressive Rocky Mountains. The buildings in the area we were staying were not big skyscrapers dominating the landscape but were modest sized buildings which remained understated amongst the backdrop of the hills. The sky was a great shade of blue and the clouds were incredibly white, the colour of the landscape was brown and so was the colour of many of the buildings. Interestingly though, I didn’t find the colours of the city drab, rather they were calming.

In the three and a half days I spent in Denver my morning routine remained the same - sleep in, read the paper, eat breakfast somewhere, go for a walk, come back to the hotel. Before I left London for this holiday I had discovered the hotel had a swimming pool and I had planned to spend my time relaxing by the pool and enjoying the sunshine. I was disappointed to discover the pool was attached to the hotel gym and it was an indoor pool! So I decided not to spend my time at the swimming pool but instead read books, wrote and drew in my journal, and ate lots of food.

On my third day in Denver I talked to the friendly staff at the hotel reception desk and discovered that the complementary hotel shuttle could take me out to a nearby shopping centre called Colorado Mills Mall (apparently listed as a top 10 attraction in Denver!!). It was an absolutely huge mall and to my delight was full of factory and outlet shops for some very big brands! Yay! Cheaper items meant I could buy more if I wanted! So I spent about 4 hours at the mall shopping up a storm, getting myself some new clothes and even picking up a giant box of Lego from the Lego outlet store for my brother who is a Lego fanatic! Once I had finished shopping I called the hotel to come and pick me up.

While waiting to be picked up I was joined by another lady who was also staying at my hotel and had spent the day shopping at the mall. We ended up having a really interesting discussion about America. I discovered that she was an American who has visited every state in her country so she had a lot to say on which places were worth visiting and which were not. She had such a passionate enthusiasm for her home country that she inspired to want to see more of America. She didn’t recommend places like New York because she felt they are too overcrowded and touristy, her suggestion was to visit the national parks (like Yellowstone National Park) and also to do a road trip up the West coast, starting in San Diego and going all the way to Vancouver Canada! When I asked her if there was one place in all of the USA that she felt everyone should visit her answer was San Francisco (now before it grows too much bigger). She in turn asked the young man from the hotel that picked us up to take us back to the hotel and his answer was the West Coast in general, and also his hometown of Denver! I might have to explore the idea of visiting more of the USA at some point soon…roadtrip along the West Coast anyone?

The people I encountered in Denver seemed very friendly. I enjoyed shopping there so much more than I do in London - customer service was great, everything was very relaxed and friendly. Unfortunately what did annoy me was that all the prices on items did not include the standard tax so you always ended up paying a bit more than you thought because tax got added on at the check-out. A strange experience in Denver was discovering that while Americans and New Zealanders both speak English it is very different type of English and things can get lost in translation! The best example of this was mum asking for a glass of water at a restaurant and having 4 staff members look at her blankly not knowing what she was asking for! Who knew that ‘water’ was a tricky word to understand! Actually my own experience of spelling my name for someone at the hotel reception desk was amusing as I kept saying ‘Zed’ for the first letter of my name and she just looked at me blankly until I realised I needed to say ‘Zee’ - then she understood me!

On Saturday morning, my final morning in Denver, I went for one final walk and got myself a bagel and a coffee for breakfast which I took back to the hotel room and ate while I packed up my suitcase ready for the next part of my holiday. By 1pm Mum, Lynsey and I were saying farewell to Denver city and by 5pm we were flying away from Denver, Colorado on our way to the capital of the Lone Star State of Texas - Austin.

It was going to be a very long day - 7 hours in a plane from London to Minneapolis, 4 hours waiting in Minneapolis, then another 2 hours on a plane from Minneapolis to Denver. However, Mum and Lynsey waiting at Denver airport for me makes all this travel worth it!

My day of traveling began when I left the house at 10am, I arrived at Heathrow airport at 11.15am, boarded my flight at 1.45pm and have been in the air ever since. Check-in at Heathrow was horrible, I felt totally picked on for being a New Zealander who happened to live in London. Security people wanted me to show proof of my UK address, wanted to know where I purchased my tickets for this trip, how long ago I purchased them, how I paid for them, and so on and this was before I had even checked in my suitcase! Once my bags were checked it was time to go through security and into the departure lounge. As always seems to happen to me I set off the metal detector alarms but rather than make me go back, remove my jewelery and walk back through the female security guard decided to feel me up and down and then sweep the hand-held metal detector over me to be completely sure that I wasn’t hiding anything! What felt like 10 minutes later I was finally free to go. This was an absolutely horrible experience which I hope not to repeat! The next annoying thing to happen was that I had over two hours to occupy myself in the departures lounge but I had no idea what gate I needed to go to when it came time to board my plane, and they didn’t announce the gate until about half an hour before they started boarding! This was so irritating as I didn’t really know where to place myself to eat, read and wait for my flight so I kind of felt really on edge until I was finally able to get on the plane.

Here is where everything finally come right and I realise that the universe is looking favourably on me going on this trip… My wonderful travel agent Letia had booked an aisle seat for me because that is what I wanted and when I got on the plane I was very pleased to discover that I actually did have an aisle seat, and even better, there were two empty seats between me and the next person so I had room to relax and spread out for the 8 hours of flying! And as an added bonus there was no one sitting in the seat in front of me either which meant that there was nobody pushing their seat back and taking up my free space!

I was flying on Northwest Airlines and I want to mention that I really enjoyed flying with this airline. The staff were friendly and the flight itself was really good (I had visions of the horrible journey I had been on from Hong Kong to London on Lufthansa last year but I was pleased to discover the complete opposite experience!) There were small TV screens on the back of every chair with a full range of entertainment options to keep you busy once we were in the air. Over the course of the flight I watched 3 films: Definitely/Maybe which was a romantic comedy and was kind of sweet; The Other Boleyn Girl which almost made me cry! It was a fantastic film; and finally Fools Gold which was an action-adventure treasure hunt kind of film and was good for light entertainment. When I wasn’t watching films I occupied my time by reading my book, flicking through a couple of magazines and listening to my iPod.

I was a good girl and drank lots of water on the flight to keep me well hydrated and alert and I have to say that I really enjoyed the food we were served. We got a packet of pretzels and a drink when we first got into the air. Lunch was called ‘Chicken Pasta’, which was actually a chicken breast, some rice with Parmesan cheese on top and some green beans, all coated in a sort of gravy sauce. It actually wasn’t that bad. This was served with a potato, lettuce, celery and apple salad, a bread roll and for dessert this chocolate sponge/mousse/profiterole slice thing which was also rather tasty. Also on the tray were some cheese and crackers which I put aside and ate a bit later when I was feeling hungry again. About 2 hours before we landed we got a snack - a roll with cheese and roasted vegetables (or turkey if you preferred) and a small tub of Belgian strawberry ice cream, yum

Overall it was a great flight on a nice airline and I look forward to flying with them again on the way back to London.

Arriving in Minneapolis was really easy, going through customs was easier than my check-in at Heathrow! Once I had passed through customs, re-checked in my suitcase and passed through security (without setting off any alarms this time!) I went for a walk to find my gate. It was an easy walk as I still had 4 hours before my flight to Denver even started boarding! At this point it is 6pm local time which by my body clock was after midnight London time and I hadn’t slept at all, in fact on the flight over I didn’t even attempt to sleep because it wasn’t night time and I just wasn’t tired. I decided to go all American once I found my departure gate and ended up having McDonald’s for dinner and then a bit later I got myself a Starbucks Coffee to keep me awake.

After sitting around reading my book and listening to my iPod it was finally time to board my plane and take off to my final destination for the next 4 days - Denver, Colorado. Again I was flying Northwest airlines and despite the fact it was a very full domestic flight it was still OK. I managed to finish reading my book and grabbed maybe 20 minutes of sleep before we were landing in Denver. It was the best feeling ever to step off the plane knowing that I was now in the same town as my mum for the first time in nearly a year! I had to get this train from my terminal to the main terminal were baggage claim was and mum was waiting for me when i got off the train - it was AWESOME!! I didn’t want to let go of her as we hugged a very long overdue hug!! We then went to the baggage claim area where Lynsey was waiting with their bags - it was great to see him too! Eventually we got into a shuttle and headed for our Hotel in Lakewood, West Denver. Unfortunately as it was dark (1.30am by this time) we missed out on seeing the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop to the city of Denver but we were so tired that it didn’t matter.

Once we were checked in we all got into bed, talked a little bit and then finally fell asleep. I was so excited to have survived my first solo international travel experience and the fact I had basically been awake for what added up to nearly 24 hours (at 2am Denver time it was 9am London time!) really didn’t matter because I was there and so was mum!