Hello, all.
Yes, I have been touring Austin and the adjacent areas. I've been checking out the local BBQ places, and I think I have enough red meat in my system to last me a lifetime (though it might have been shortened with all that fat). Well worth it. I'm starting to acquire a taste for Austin. It took a while. There's a lot of places to hike here, and a lot of hills overlooking different lakes and rivers. I figured I'll just wait until I collected enough pictures to share the scenery of Austin before sending them to you.
Austin is THE place to be if you love live music. Austin is filled with a lot of live music. Crazy. I went hiking around Town Lake (portion of the river running through downtown), and I heard live music playing at a Little League Baseball game. Austin also has a yearly festival of live music in Downtown area called "South by Southwest". They had different musicians playing at different nightclubs and bars for a full week. Different artists playing every hour each night for a week. The tickets (or ID bands) cost as low as $150. So, I didn't go to that area where you need ID bands, however there were plenty of places that you could hear those same artists play for free. Direct TV taped a few of the artists during the weekend, and we could go in for free. My friends and I went to that and heard 3 bands there on Thursday night (3/9). The artists were locals and even popular ones like Smash Mouth. The next night I went to Dominican Joe (my fav coffee shop), and a few of the artists came over for Open-Mic night and played for the crowd. I took some pics, but they didn't come out as well as I hoped. I'll send the pics, but I apologize for some of them that are blurry.
I had a lot of "first" opportunities in Austin: Fried Ocra, popular local places (Austin Java, Amy's Ice Cream, Waterloo Records, Chuy's, Salt Licks BBQ, Poke-E-Joe's BBQ, etc), Tornado warnings, and ice storms. My friends and I will go Kayaking this Wednesday on Town Lake. Can't wait.
I have one more month here in Austin, then I'm headed off to St Louis. I don't have an assignment yet, but I working with my recruiter to sign with a hospital in St Charles, 30 minutes away from St Louis. The hospital is 9 miles away from my sister and her family. I figured that though I may be farther from St Louis than I expected, at least I'm still in close vicinity to Lora and fam. When it's confirmed, I'll e-mail you an update.
I was hoping to return to San Diego for a fall assignment, but my uncle Denny brought up something that is very true: if I return to San Diego for an assignment, I may not want leave San Diego again. I miss San Diego, and after traveling around the US, I've come to appreciate San Diego even more. San Diego is protected from a lot of the severe weather the Midwest and east coast has to endure. We may have "severe" weather in San Diego, but it's NOTHING compared to what the rest of the country has to deal with. I will no longer complain about the weather when I'm back in San Diego. It's perfect in it's mild weather issues. (Of course, I don't add L.A. to this because of the smog they have that's drastically compromised their environmental haven.)
I think I've written quite a lot. I promise to e-mail everyone before I leave Austin.
Love,
Leona
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