Austin: It's a City Where People Live and Stuff

Finally, here is my recap from my work trip to Austin last week. I have been busy enjoying my weekend with Brett and the dogs, we may have even danced in the kitchen this morning while making breakfast.

I already touched briefly on the impact that Hurricane Ike had on Austin but the silver lining (trying to be optimistic) was how gorgeous it made the weather and how it removed the humidity from the air. Seriously gorgeous weather, which allowed for some great evenings out on terraces not breaking out into a sweat or retreating indoors to air conditioning (there is only so much air conditioning you can take). This is my second time in Austin and I am falling in love. I want to go back soon, there is so much culture, art, music, great food and shopping. It really is like a little diamond in the rough of Texas (honestly, I don't have any strong feelings to visit other places in Texas).

I was in Austin for work and I think I mentioned before how awesome my coworkers are. Well, let's just say mixing some amazing co-workers, lots of alcohol and one very cool city and is a recipe for some great memories. Since we were in Austin early with nothing to do we headed out Friday night to a wine bar called Taste, where I continued my love affair with Rieslings. Also used the fisheye lens for a fun group shot

and a shot of all the wine

Then the rest of the week was work and tiring and I didn't want to have to carry around the big camera so there aren't any shots from Saturday-Tuesday. Wednesday rolled around and the conference ended and there was the Closing Night Party at Mohawk, which is a phenomenal venue that is used by SXSW (who just happened to be co-hosting the party with us). So the night started out great. It was the first time I have ever started a night out drinking with shots, usually I end the night with shots, but no I started and actually did nothing but shots the entire night (and I am not talking about my camera here).

I don't look like I have had too much to drink here do I?

My favorite part of the trip was when I was standing at the bar with my camera and our "professional" photographer for the show (who is also a Nikon user and shoots with a D200), so here is our conversation.

him: nice camera
me: thanks
him: what lens are you using
me: oh I am shooting with my fisheye
him: really, is it the 16mm?
me: nope, the 10.5 mm
him: really, can I take a look at it?
(he then takes my camera and looks through the viewfinder in awe)
him: want to switch lenses?
me: um, sure

So for the next couple of minutes I was using his Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S (who cares how drunk I was I did not forget the lens information). The lens was amazing and took great pictures, after a few shots we switched back and he mentioned how he needed to look into a lens like mine and I thought the same thing. I looked it up online later and I will really need to be a good girl to get this lens as it is not cheap. But seriously that was the best feeling I have had since I got my camera, I knew what I was talking about and I was actually treated like I did. I was walking on cloud 9 for the next couple of days. Here is a shot with his lens, I took a picture of my favorite bartender who kept me in grape popsicle shots all night.

This picture probably doesn't show all the glory of the lens but it was dark in there and she was far away and well it was a great lens for taking portraits especially at parties, okay I am really trying to figure out how to come up with the money right now.

Next we ended up at Cedar Street, where the Spazmatics were playing. The Spazmatics are the coolest 80's cover band I have ever seen. They play at Cedar Street every Wednesday night, to see a video of them in action and in all the glory of their "costumes" click here. I don't know if it was the 80's music or the dorky outfits or all the alcohol but I could have stayed there all night watching them but alas the lack of food and the massive amounts of alcohol was starting to take its toll on me. Within minutes I was looking for a cab, I wanted to go to bed before I started puking.

On Thursday after sleeping in and lots of water and convincing myself that I can't be hung over. not. today. Kara and I headed out, we decided to go shopping in the So Co (South Congress Area) and I found this great store Parts and Labour, everything they sell in the store is made by local Austin artists. Also, it is where I got the title for my post (it was screen printed on a t-shirt in the store). While in there I got a little souvenir for Brett, it was perfect because of our love of scrabble.

Next we stopped at this amazing candy shop, that I talked Kara into going to primarily so I could take photos, but then I ended up finding some amazingly hard to find candy. Okay, this amazingly hard to find candy might have been those candy cigarettes that my sister and I used to love because we loved to pretend that we were all grown up and smoking (thankfully neither of actually smoked real cigarettes). Can't wait to smoke a pack of candy cigarettes with you Jenn, just name the time and the place.

I had an amazing time in Austin and had hoped to take more pictures but ended up running out of time, next year I promise OR maybe after Brett heads down there for work at the end of the month he will get a little bit of the Austin bug and we can head back down there for a vacation.