14 posts tagged “travel”

We drank a lot.  Not as much as we had planned....well, maybe Leslie did:)  That's really all I can say about this portion of our adventures, so enjoy the pictures.

DAMMIT.  I had this awesome post all finished, detailed and full of pictures, and Vista crashed.  I hate Vista and the bastards who made it.  Anyway, let's try this again.  Less detail, but pictures are at the bottom, and I've included locations in the picture descriptions, in case you ever want to visit:)

I'm home.  I'm sunburned, lethargic, stuffed with food, and severely, severely freckled. 

I didn't want to come back.  I would have been happy selling everything I own, buying a bike, and moving into an apartment in SoCo.  I'd have to live with about a dozen people, though...those apartments run about $1200 a month just for an efficiency.

The thing that really struck Leslie and I was that everyone in Austin is active and healthy.  Everywhere you go, there are people walking, jogging, roller blading, and biking.  I suppose this is just city life, but pair that with the remarkable ease in finding healthy, delicious, and cheap food (vegetarian or not), and you've got a winner in ATX.

We ate very well.  We didn't overload on anything other than coffee and alcohol...I'll talk about the latter in another post.  We ate mostly Tex-Mex, and we refused to eat at any chains or any places we could have eaten in Tyler or Denton.  Chains suck, local is best.  The staff is friendlier, the food tastes better, it's generally cheaper, and you get a more authentic experience than you would get in boring-ass Friday's or Applebee's.

Once I get all of Leslie's pictures, I'll do another post.
 

I was listed on the Vox Music page for my post on Simple Plan!  That's a first (that I'm aware of)!  No wonder I was getting so many hits:)

I worked at the music store tonight, and Mr. I'm-Actually-Eighteen-But-I'm-Not-Telling-You came in with a few friends.  He asked me if I remember him, and I admitted that I did.  He didn't ask why I hadn't called, and I didn't bring it up.  He seemed a little embarrassed, but I didn't make a big deal about it, and chatted with them all for a few minutes.  Nice enough kids, I suppose.  

Two weeks from now, I'll be in Austin with Leslie, destroying my liver.  Can't believe it's almost here!  I think we should make it a yearly ritual...something to look forward to every summer.

I've started studying for THEA, and it looks like I won't have any problem with the reading or writing areas.  I'm pretty sure I'll get stuck in Remedial Math, since it's my worst subject, but that's okay.  I'm still going to try my best.  When I went up to TJC on Thursday, I got all emotional as I was walking to the Student Center, and I thought, "I've walked across this campus before, but never as an actual student.  HOLY SHIT, I GO HERE NOW!"  It was a truly kick-ass feeling.  I don't give a damn if it's just TJC and everyone and their mother can get in.  I'm elated.

I've been listening to Loreena McKennitt's albums constantly lately, mostly An Ancient Muse and Nights at the Alhambra, and I was struck by how the feel of her music has changed over the past ten years or so, when I first discovered her.  In 1997's Book of Secrets, her influences shifted from a mostly Celtic background to more of a Middle Eastern/Upper African one.  I was hooked as soon as I read the liner notes.  McKennitt is not just a wonderful, ethereal singer and musician...she's one hell of a writer.  Her notes, detailing the research and travels behind each song, are easily worth the price of the CD alone.  I want to write as she does, and I want to travel as she does.  I won't deny that listening to Book of Secrets all these years made me want to visit Morocco. 

For An Ancient Muse, McKennitt traveled from Greece to Mongolia, with stops in Turkey and China, and delved deeply into the mysteries surrounding the Silk Road.  I have no idea why I never read about this trade route before, except in textbooks, perhaps.  I'd really like to get Life Along the Silk Road...maybe next payday.

I was very excited to find out that she is planning to release a book of her travel writings soon!  If it's anything like what I've read before, it will be a treat.  Here's one of my favorite passages from Book of Secrets:

In casting your inspirational net as an artist, you become familiar with the humility that comes with watching your best-laid plans veer sideways, and recordings becoming something other than what you expected. So, you set out to travel to Rome . . . and end up in Istanbul. You set off for Japan. . . and you end up on a train across Siberia. The journey, not the destination, becomes a source of wonder.

In the end, I wonder if one of the most important steps on our journey is the one in which we throw away the map. In jettisoning the grids and brambles of our own preconceptions, perhaps we are better able to find the real secrets of each place; to remember that we are all extensions of our collective history.

These songs have been assembled like a mosaic, with pieces collected and fitted in one by one. They are also the souvenirs that come of sifting through shards of history and scraping away layers to reveal the fragile past, as I saw in Italy at an archaeological site at Chianciano Terme where ancient Roman layers reveal even more ancient Etruscan layers, or at the burial site of a mysterious Celtic chieftain in Orvieto.

My hope was that this recording might fuel curiosity in the same way as do the best books of travel stories. From all journeys, be they imaginative or geographic, the most important souvenirs to be collected are the reminders that people’s lives are fortified by family and friends; by our ability to create our lives like creating a piece of art; and by our efforts to reconcile our material needs with the importance of our connections to each other. – Loreena McKennitt

My God, I want to be her when I grow up:)

I guess it wouldn't be fair to end this post without a little gem from that album.  Enjoy.

I guess I'm just stupid when it comes to inter-continental travel, but I just found a ticket to Athens, Greece where I'd end up paying almost five dollars more in taxes alone than for the actual airfare.  o__0  Is this normal?

Total cost:  $1390.89
Airfare:       $693.00
Taxes:       $697.89

Damn.  But here's the good part: there's a 12-hour delay....IN LONDON.  That's like a little mini-trip in itself!  IN LONDON.

Before you get your panties all twisted, let me clarify that I'm not going to Athens or London anytime soon.  I was just playing around online, to see what my options were if I was able to save enough money.  Morocco still looks like a sure bet for late 2009/early 2010, though.  And that includes a 6-hour delay in Amsterdam!

We've decided to switch hotels in Austin.  The Omni is beautiful and ritzy, but I mentioned the other day that I'd like to hang out in SoCo, and Leslie did some research and found us this kitschy little place literally down the street from everything we want to do.  Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock have both stayed there, and we got the VERY LAST ROOM.  Must be pretty awesome.  I'm just happy that we won't have to worry about sobering up to drive after hitting Sixth Street, and we can just stumble on back to the room. 

Oh, and it's listed as a "Green Hotel"!  Yay for that!

Look at all the stuff there is to do!  Coffee shops, galleries, boutiques, fresh produce, bars, clubs, music, food, AGH!!

I'm prepared to fall in love with Austin again.  Who knows...between Dallas, Ft. Worth, Austin, and San Antonio, I might find a place to set some roots down someday.

Julie and I were chatting after walking at UT tonight, and I think I'm going to recruit her as my unofficial college advisor.  She gave me lots of inside facts on what classes to take, which professors to get to know, and told me about some fellowship programs that I'm very interested in.  When I get my B.A., whenever that is, I can go submit an application to teach English in Japan and make a cool $60K, plus all of my living expenses for a year.  Wow.  Or I could apply for the Archer Fellowship in Washington D.C.   I'm not planning on majoring in Political Science, as Julie did (she just graduated in May), but it sounds like an amazing experience. 

The next few weeks are going to be spent taking my placement tests, and I'm considering CLEP-ping out of a few courses.  Then I have to go up to UT, meet with the History Department's Chair, and get a list of what I need to be "core-complete" when I transfer...I want to get out of having to take Statistics.  UT also has a Classical/Medieval Studies curriculum that looks incredible. And I can minor in Anthropology, which makes my little heart go all fluttery.

LOL, you know me...yet again, I am getting ahead of myself.  I haven't even started my freshman year, and I'm already looking into things that I probably won't get around to for quite a while.  Even if I have to completely bust my ass and have no social or love life for a few years, I swear that I'll have my B.A. by thirty-two.  I've misplaced enough time, and I'm not losing any more!

SO EXCITED.  I'm doing a happy dance right now in my chair.  This is something I've been waiting and waiting for, and its here!  I can't wait to walk around with my nose stuck in a textbook, leaving a trail of index cards everywhere I go.  Just like old times...

I think this is a pretty good list of our plans in the capital next month.

• visit my sister
• go shopping
• watch some live music
• get trashed on Sixth Street, then try some public transportation
  
• stay in a kick-ass four star hotel (and it was CHEAP)
  
• watch some bats at the Congress Ave. bridge and try not to get pooped on
• more shopping
• swimming (our hotel has the largest pool in the city!)
• take corny touristy photos
• oooh, we should play some frisbee golf!
  
• walk a lot
• shop some more
• make fun of locals
• see some celebrities?  Austin seems to be a hip place right now.
  
• sit in a coffee shop until we've "solved the world's problems"

If anyone wants to tag along or meet us there, let us know so we can sneak you into the hotel in our luggage.

I'm sure that some of you have lived in or visited New Orleans.  Do you have any advice on lodgings?  Of course, I would love to stay in some renovated, former-bordello bed and breakfast (I could stay at the Marie Laveau Guest House, named after the voodoo queen!), and it would be nice to be close to City Park, but if you have any inside info, I'd love to hear it.  Even if it's just along the lines of, "Hey, don't go anywhere near _________."

Thanks!

Being the complete freak that I am, I'm already planning out my Halloween.  I wasn't able to celebrate last year, and it's my absolute favorite holiday, so this year, I'm going to try my best to go all out.  It's no longer acceptable to go trick-or-treating at my age, unless I have kids, and I don't really know anyone who likes Halloween enough to throw a big costume party, so I think a road trip is in the works.

The Voodoo Music Experience is the weekend before, in New Orleans, and if I buy my tickets soon, I can get in for all three days and it only costs $100.  Then I have to get a hotel room (I'm not hardcore enough to sleep in the park) and pay for gas, food, etc.  It's going to be a costly trip.  I could tuck away my plasma money.  But how cool would it be to hang out in New Orleans so close to Halloween?  In my mind, it would be second only to Salem, Massachusetts.  Ghost tours, the legendary cemeteries, the voodoo....I'm getting chills just thinking about it!

I don't know the lineup yet, except for the Big Three: R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, and Stone Temple Pilots.  Wow, that's worth the price of admission, and then some, and then more.  I just wish it was on Halloween.