I finally did it. Hours and hours of hard work finally paid off. I had spent way too much time waiting for the phone to ring. I had put my money and time in and was ready for my big break. And that's when it happened: the cable guy called and said he was here.
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My first night in Austin was spent at the most quintessential Texas bar, the Broken Spoke, which has literally been voted the "best honky-tonk in Texas" and the "best country dance hall in the nation." Needless to say, the Spoke did not disappoint in the people watching area. There were guys in Texas flag shirts, cowboy boots everywhere, and mustaches galore. Essentially a wet dream come to life.
Had to be at least 75 people doing the Texas two step in a counter-clockwise motion around this dance floor. Easily the soberest dance floor I've ever seen. It was also the soberest I've ever been while on a dance floor.
In addition to dance lessons and country music, the Spoke is also known for it's chicken fried steak. Now being from Chicago, I have never heard of nor eaten chicken fried steak before. It consists of a piece of "steak" pounded thin as a magazine which is then fried like chicken. My food critique in 5 words or less: meh, I'll pass on it.
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Favorite beer so far: Lone Star Beer. It is the unofficial beer of Texas and is quite good. It tastes even better when sold for $1 a la Wednesday nights at my local bar. Speaking of which, my adopted bar is a block and a half away. Let me repeat: 1.5 blocks from where I sleep. I could potentially leave my palace(not a misspelling) at a commercial break and make it to the bar in time when the game comes back on. If that isn't comfort, then I don't know what is.
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Austin is the proclaimed "Live Music Capital of the World" and so far has not disappointed. There was a band playing at the restaurant my parents and I stopped at for lunch last Thursday afternoon. Who has bands playing for the lunch crowd on a week day? Austin does.
The South by Southwest (SXSW) fest is coming up in March and I am considerably excited. I've been told that one could potentially not pay for any tickets and still see concerts each and every night during the week to ten days the fest lasts. ¿Cómo se dice fucking awesome?
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Facts and Figures:
Total miles driven from Chicago to Austin: 1174
Miles per gallon achieved by my 2009 Ford Focus on said journey: 42.1
Miles per hour I had to drive to achieve said MPG: roughly 63. For two goddamn days. (Insider info: I drove my car filled with shit and my parents drove their Expedition and pulled a small uHaul trailer filled with more of my shit, which is the reason we had to drive so slow).
If I were a betting man, which I'm not (neither a bettor nor a man per se) I would put my money on 15 hours driving from Chicago to the Big Steve.
Austin has many nicknames already: Live Music Capital, City of the Violet Crown, the BAT CITY, yet I've given the city my own nickname. I decided to call it the "Big Steve," both in reference to former wrestler/god Stone Cold Steve Austin and to my former acquaintance in college, Mr. Big Steve Mortensen. If you don't know Big Steve Mortensen then step your game up. If you don't know Stone Cold Steve Austin, well then I don't think we can speak anymore.
If the bold, italics, and underline didn't already fill you in, I choose the name of this here site based on nicknames of my former and current loves. For the uneducated/northerners, Austin has something like the largest population of Mexican bats in the world. And they live under one of the bridges spanning Lady Bird Lake. Come March-September near dusk, these bats exit the bridge and apparently turn the sky black due to the bats numbering in the millions. (I have also been told that the bats each eat 1 pound of insects a night. Meaning there are no mosquitoes to bite me. I honestly don't understand how Austin doesn't have a population closer to 5 million) Something I am definitely looking forward to seeing. So if you're keeping count at home, that's TWO reasons to visit me in March: SXSW and the bats. There's a lovely pullout couch with anyone's name it*.
*This is a total lie. I will only let something like 6 people use my palace with me. And if you have to think whether or not you're one of those lucky 6, you're probably not.
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Ya'll come back now, y'here
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