All About Austin, Day 1

On Wednesday evening, Trevor and I got back from our six day trip to Austin, TX. The main purpose of our trip was so that I could attend the 35th annual NISOD International Conference on Teaching and Leadership Excellence. My school is a NISOD member college, and every year leading up to the conference, member colleges nominate and select their own employees (faculty, staff, and administrators) for the NISOD Excellence Awards. I was one of two employees who won the award this year; my colleague and fellow winner, Julie, is another faculty member who teaches administrative office management. One perk of winning this award was that Julie and I both got free trips to the three-day conference--a pretty big perk, right? So, since Trevor and I rarely take "big" vacations (big = those that include packing multiple changes of clothes [dresses for me and at least one shirt & tie for Trevor], getting on an airplane, and landing in a city that's on a different time zone than the one we left from), we decided to make a real trip of it and get to Austin a few days ahead of the conference.

We'd never been to Austin and had heard only good things about it, so we had high expectations setting out on Friday morning. We'd landed late the night before (or the morning before, depending on how you view 2 a.m.), which wasn't intentional, but rather caused by the bad weather coming in from the East Coast and flight delays. We set out to wander the South Congress (SoCo) neighborhood, which is a hipster's paradise. Really. Trevor and I have never seen so many tattooed people. It makes the Chicago tattoo culture look like a bunch of Mary-smooth-skins.

After wandering the strip of upscale flea market shops, bars, taco joints, and boutiques, we were smacked upside the head with an uncharacteristic rainstorm. T. and I had just popped into Wahoo's, a restaurant boasting terrific fish tacos, so we ate our grub (the tacos really were delicious), ordered a second drink, and waited for the rain to slow down.

Wahoo's was a skater's haven

Once the rain had gone from torrential downpour to normal rain shower, we left Wahoo's to wander back up north, stopping in a few shops along the way. One of the stand-outs was Uncommon Objects, a shop set up with booths for two dozen different antique dealers. Each little nook had its own strange and wonderful goods. Trevor spotted these two guys hanging up and spent the next four days contemplating buying one of them.

Weird and wonderful lambs

We didn't end up making a lamb purchase, but we did come home with a pipe, which I anticipate will be a tremendous tool for my writing. It just looks like it will bring inspiration, doesn't it?

Now, one might ask, "Laura, do either you or Trevor actually smoke a pipe?" to which I might answer, "Well, no, not actually. But I just like the looks of it. So get off my back, jackson."

We had dinner that night at Koriente, and then hit Austin's famous 6th Street to wander past the dozens upon dozens of bars, the half dozen tattoo parlors, and the posses of UTA fraternity brothers who all seemed to be about seven feet tall. They grow them big in Texas.

And when we'd worn ourselves exhausted, we headed back to the Driskill Hotel, where we stayed the first three nights of our trip. It had gallons of personality: artwork on the hallway walls and in the rooms, books for borrowing on lovely curved shelves just outside of the elevators, live music each night in the bar, free coffee each morning in the lobby, and its own bank vault.

All of those safety deposit box doors were locked. We tried them.

Oh, hello.

AND, the Driskill Hotel has tiny furniture in the lobby! Why? I DON'T KNOW BUT I LOVE IT!

Trevor looks like a giant

And that was our first day in Austin.

We had a lot more adventures, and we took a lot more pictures. But I'm going to split them over a few posts, so look for more to come!