Ev Star

Saturday we took the day to go to Austin.

In the morning, Carlos and I picked up Juan and Betty and we drove to Austin.  It takes about 2 1/2 hours –with lots of music (Carlos is a big music fan, has a large collection & does a good job of picking music to bring on our various outings) and a good tour guide pointing out various sights it was fun.  When we first arrived, we drove to a lake where we had lunch.  It was about a 30 minute wait before we could have lunch so we had drinks by the bar.  I drank something that is apparently quite popular in Mexico which is a bunch of spices and tomato juice with beer.  It was pretty good.  We also got  large basket of tortilla chips & salsa, which apparently you get at every tex-mex restaurant.  When it came time to go inside, carlos recommended we order 2 dishes for the 4 of us & share them because they would probably be huge portions.  He was right!  We still had enough leftovers to eat the next day!  It’s pretty crazy.

After that, we went to the Texas Capitol.  It’s a huge building capped by a large dome (from the inside you see a large texax star at the top of the dome).  On the ground floor we could see statues of Sam Houston and Stephen Austin and a couple of paintings of battles at San Jacinta.  On the second floor we could see the senate chamber and the house of representatives chamber.  Otherwise we could just walk around and look at the building.  I actually greatly enjoyed the security guards because they wear cowboy hats!  I think we could have gone and walked through the grounds, but as it was 106 degrees, no one was overly interested.  Instead, we headed over to some cold springs that Carlos had seen on his last trip to Austin to go for a much needed cool swim.  The one thing my doctor emphasized i should not do (because of an infection in my leg) is go swimming…but it was sooo hot, so I did.  And in ended up being about a 5 minute swim because all of a sudden there were big grey clouds and lightning.  The lifeguards started blowing their whistles & everyone had to get out of the water.  We hung out for a moment on the shore and then went to get changed.  After that we decided to go for a bit of a hike.  It was nice & because it had become completely overcast it wasn’t as hot out.

Our hike last about an hour or an hour and a half & after that we went back into the city for some dinner.  Carlos has a great love of death metal music & so we ended up at a death metal pizza place.  Pizza made by a man covered in tattoos, Slayer posters and loud death metal music.  Carlos was in heaven & the rest of us thought the pizza was pretty good, so it all worked out.  After that we wandered along 6th street which is sort of the happening street in Austin & ended up at a bar called the chugging monkey for a drink.  There was a live band and the girl singing was good so that was fun.  After that we had the long drive home –poor carlos did all the driving!  we dropped betty and juan off, then did a quick detour through river oaks which is where all the richest people in Houston live—think huge houses with columns etc. all light up by groundlights at night time…pretty crazy!

Sunday we slept in a bit & then had some breakfast.  Carlos had leftovers from the previous day’s restaurant and I had a Canadian style breakfast.  Chocolate chip pancake with yogurt.  Carlos ate that at Kaeridwyn’s house while he was there in October and has since taken to making large batches of pancakes and freezing them.  Anyway, after that we went to see the movie Food Inc.  which we both found quite interesting.  We walked around by the Bayou, which apparently outside of the city is home to crocodiles, and then went to carlos’ work.  I got to see his office & the project he is currently working on which was interesting.  Also cool was that because his office is on the 9th floor we had a good view of the city.  After that we collected Juan and Betty and drove out to NASA.  We got to go on a tram ride around the complex –it is HUGE– like it’s own city!  There was a stop at the mission control centre which was neat, there was an older gentleman who talked to us about some of the missions and also one of the men currently working in the conrol centre came to speak with us & to answer some questions from the audience.  Apparently normally you don’t even get to go into the real mission control centre & if you do you just get a spiel from the tourguide, so it seems that we were lucky.  After that we had a stop at the rocket park where we could see a massive rocket.  That was pretty neat to see.  The rest of the tour we saw a variety of things including a space filled with dirt and rocks where astronauts practice working on the moon, a circle of oak trees that serve as a memorial to astronauts who have died while on a mission & so on.  Inside the NASA museum itself we could see inside of a spaceship which was neat & then there were a number of games for children which looked pretty fun.  After that we went to Juan’s house for dinner —he gets food from the hospital he works at!   So we had an assortment of chicken & mashed potatoes, tortillas, pork chops, corn on the cob, chips, drinks & cake!  quite the spread!  After that Carlos and I did some grocery shopping & then came back to the apartment.  Carlos is at work today & I am about to embark on a journey to the natural history museum.

Ev