Big Skies
To someone used to the green hills of Scotland, the Texan landscape can seem pretty flat and monotonous. But if there's one way in which the state does trump my homeland it's in the quality of its skies, particularly at dusk. As we drove towards downtown Austin this evening, the skyline was backlit by pale yellow/green clouds, occasionally split by great stabs of lightning. Texas doesn't mess around when it comes to weather.
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Hotel San Jose
On Sunday R started feeling poorly again, but insisted that I go to the reception and represent Sid's Glasgow friends. I was glad that I did. Partly because it was a lot of fun, partly because the food was awesome, and partly because other than the best man and his wife none of Sid's other friends from the UK were able to make it. He's a fairly taciturn individual but I think he was glad to see someone from home other than his family. Moving to New Jersey from Glasgow is going to be a huge adjustment for him, and I hope he does well. He'll will very much be missed both as a friend and a colleague - though he will still be working for the company, so we'll keep in touch via MSN and email, and he'll probably be back in the UK a couple of times a year.
I did feel bad leaving R hurting in the hotel, so left early and went back. Here's a quick travel tip that certainly applies to hotels in New Jersey and probably elsewhere in the US. If you go down to the front desk and ask them to order you a taxi, chances are they've made a deal with a "private car" service and will order one of those instead, costing you (as we discovered to our expense) an arm and a leg. Better to find a local cab company yourself and order your own.
Anyway, it was just as well that I didn't stay too late, as we had to get up early in the morning and fly to Texas. R felt poorly on the plane, but ever since landing on home turf she's been much better. We've had a couple of days of family time, and today we drove down to Austin for some welcome relief from having to run around like headless chickens, as per most of this trip so far. Last Xmas we spent a couple of days at the San Jose hotel, and loved it so much that when we decided we needed a relaxing treat after all our latest drama we chose to book another stay here. Right now it's warm and muggy, and I'm sitting on the porch outside our room taking advantage of the free wi-fi and listening to peals of thunder in the distance, drinking red wine, and feeling pretty good.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Hotel San Jose
"I'd crawl over broken glass to sniff the exhaust of the truck that took her underwear to the cleaners."
- Patrick, a very drunk Dubliner now resident in Austin, describing his wife Andrea last night.
Posting from the San Jose hotel, Austin, Tx, the morning after an excellent birthday night out. In Dallas we had to scrape ice off the car, but down here it's like the height of summer in Scotland, and we wandered around last night in t-shirts quite comfortably. We hung around the hotel bar for a while waiting for Jonathon, who never turned up, but wound up talking to the aforementioned Irish/Texan couple who talked a mile a minute, bought me birthday drinks, and after a quick slice of pizza across the road, took us to their favourite dive bar, the nearby Horseshoe lounge. On the way we passed a goat in someone's front yard, and a large cannister of liquid nitrogen just hanging out on the pavement.
God, I love Austin.
Anyway, we didn't get obliterated, just nicely drunk, and got to bed around 1am. This morning I just have a slightly fuzzy head rather than a full-blown hangover, which is just as it should be.
The San Jose isn't the swankiest hotel we've ever stayed in, but it certainly is the coolest. Tastefully minimal decor, friendly staff, and lots of cute little details, such as the iPod dock on the clock radio, and the warning sign on the heater controls being written in haiku. Pretentious? Aye, but so what? I'm having fun.
It's raining a little bit this morning, but it's still warm, and the pool is heated so I think we're going to a have a quick dip before going for some breakfast. Big cheesy grins all round!
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Merry Christmas from Texas
Although it's technically not Christmas in more in the UK, but I'm trying not to think about that since my body clock is still as confused as confused can be. Despite being delayed for 24 hours, our journey over was as smooth as smooth can be, with both flights departing and arriving pretty much on time, and even a decent selection of in-flight movies on the trip across the atlantic, including the sentimental-but-good Little Miss Sunshine. We were stuck in the middle row, but being at the front of economy class meant extra leg-room. We had no windows in sight, unfortunately, making the flight a somewhat abstract experience, particularly when landing in Dallas, when we thought that sudden bump was us entering a bad path of turbulence, then realised that we were, in fact, on the ground.
Christmas dinner was spent at one the house of one of R's many brothers, and a good time was had by all, despite the presence of a great number of over-excited nieces and nephews. Right now, though, I am craving vegetables and brown bread, having eaten so much enough fatty food over the past few days to give an elephant a heart attack.
Tomorrow we hit the sales, and then on Thursday (my birthday) we are heading down to Austin.
Hope you are all having a fun and low-stress festive season!
Labels: austin, movies, texas, travel
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