First things first: Sophie’s laptop, which has been on its last legs for many months now, has officially died. This means that I am left in sole charge of the blog…HAH. No I’m just kidding, I’m way too lazy to write every post from here on out, but really, we are a laptop down. Sophie has also started incurring several million more disasters to add to our total, including dropping eggs on the floor, losing earrings, etc. But, we’re in Austin – our second to last stop before Disneyworld! – and we are alive.
Yesterday, our last day in Dallas, started at a place called Breadwinners which is this really cute cafe/restaurant thing Carie took us to. It was only 11:20 but they gave us the lunch menu but whatever, we were down. They also brought out some ‘bread’ which was actually cake and which was DELICIOUS. We all had some combination of salad/soup/sandwich and even though it was restaurant food, it didn’t really taste like it – my salad had real, actual chicken in it like off an actual chicken! Which makes a nice change. We were sitting in this cute like atrium/half-outdoor area and it felt a bit like we were in Paris, it was so nice!
Next up was a very cultural activity: we went to the Dallas Arboretum to see an art exhibit! It was by a guy called Chihuly and involved a lot of glass orbs/sculptures and stuff and it was really cool. We went and picked up Hanna, who I met at Sig Chi formal and who went to Carie’s high school/lives in Dallas, and then off we went, with only one near disaster in the parking lot. We were on a mission to take as many photos as we could so that our Dallas album didn’t look too bare next to all our others (always thinking about Facebook…sorry about it). Hanna was especially dedicated to this mission, making us imitate various statues and stuff. Regarde:
This was probably our most cultural activity so far and it was so much fun! It was also REALLY HOT so we were forced to buy enormous tubs of frozen lemonade obviously.
Eventually we had to leave, so we returned to Carie’s condo and finally managed to meet her mum who is LOVELY! We couldn’t stay long as we had to leave for the Greyhound, boooo, so we gathered up all our stuff and put it in Carie’s dad’s truck, and it was here that the disasters started. We had literally just pulled out when Sophie noticed that we didn’t seem to have the tickets printed for this journey, so we had to run back inside and print it on Carie’s dad’s computer (THANKS). This would have been fine except for the fact that by this point we were seriously cutting it close on time. We had wanted to go to the bank to get cash for the taxi at the other end but had to forgo this and luckily Carie’s knowledge of Dallas meant that we could ignore the iPhone’s ridiculous instructions, which wanted us to go a really complicated way through lots of traffic, and got to the Greyhound just in time. THANKS CARIE for excellent driving!
This was not the end of our disasters, though. We thought we were going to be fine, we just had to line up, weigh our bags, and we were good, until we noticed that the ONE lady working the desk was moving literally in slow motion. THEN we noticed that the two guys in front of us had literally seven or eight bags between them, and were ALSO moving in slow motion. One of them was too heavy so they started very slowly moving trainers between bags, with no sense of urgency whatsoever, while all the people in the line with us watched the clock count down to 5:15 when our bus was supposed to leave. Eventually a man behind us went and talked to another lady and left the line, so we did the same, and she gave us our luggage tags (without even weighing our bags, although really it is very obvious that neither of us could possibly carry a bag that weighed more than 50lbs anyway) and, finally, we were on our way. This bus was very luxurious again, leather seats and wi fi, and it was only half full which was a very welcome change!
The drive to Austin is only about 3 hours and it was interesting to see some of Texas as we drove through. There were some very old school buildings (think Wild West movies) and a LOT of neon. We have noticed that the outskirts to every single city we have visited are all exactly the same: car dealerships, then chain restaurants and more neon, then cheap chain hotels/motels, then a bit of a gap, then finally, the city.
We pulled into Austin just about on time and got a taxi. The taxi driver didn’t know the address we gave him but eventually we found it and he left us at the road. It was at this point we realised that we didn’t actually know a) what number our apartment was or b) what building it was in. Luckily the owner’s girlfriend was going to be there to meet us to give us the keys so we called her and she came and rescued us. She was LOVELY – she had even left us water, coffee, eggs and milk and offered us the loan of her bike. As there are 2 of us and 1 bike we had to decline but it was so nice of her to offer and she told us to call if we need anything at all. It was so lucky she was there – if they’d left the key somewhere like the guy did in Savannah we would have been totally and utterly lost.
After she left we made a quick trip to a nearby convenience/largely alcohol store for Goldfish and bread (nutritious snacks), struggled to unlock the door (to the great amusement of the people next door who seemed to think we were Jamaican, judging by their imitations of our accents) and spent the evening watching terrible TV about murders/ doing nothing. Another wild night on our travels!
Today/now we are going to explore downtown Austin…we have heard great things so we are excited! Also one more time, THANK YOU SO MUCH to Carie & her family we had SUCH a good time in Dallas and it was so so so nice to be in a real house – we wish we could have stayed longer! We will be back! (Hopefully)
B
the virginia monologues 