Traipsing Around Austin

So a few weeks ago, Cynthia and I decided we were going to do thing in Austin we hadn’t done before. I’m warning you now that this blog post isn’t terribly exciting, but I did get a little taste of some of the things I want to further check out in Austin.

For breakfast we headed over to the Texas School for the Deaf for their pancake breakfast. Cynthia is a member of the American Sign Language Club and asked if I wanted to tag along. I like meeting new people, and I like Kerby Lane pancakes, so I was in. Proceeds went to help the deaf community, and I had such an interesting time that I decided to join the club also.

One of my first real jobs was working on school buses, watching the kids that rode the short buses. Some of these kids were deaf, so it felt satisfying learning a new way to communicate again. We played a version of the game telephone, and now I know how to say, “The train left.”

After that we went back to South 1^st and tried a food truck, Mellizoz Tacos. I thought they were delicious. I had the Padre and the Shroom and was in heaven. Seriously, I think I should just dedicate a blog to the tacos of Austin, since it feels like that’s all I eat. Even tonight, Gabby invited me over for some shrimp mango and avocado tacos. And it was just as delicious at it sounds.

But back to my day out with Cynthia. After Mellizoz we wanted to go to the Bob Bullock Museum to see the Hobbit in IMAX. I wouldn’t have minded checking out the actual museum as well, but neither Cynthia nor I are made of money and Middle Earth was calling to us. There’s still plenty of time to go back, and I will.

Well, we had more than an hour to spare, so I convinced Cynthia to walk around the UT area with me. I’ll let you in on a little secret; I’ve always found UT to be intimidating with its size and hipster population that I always steered clear of it. But then I reasoned that I’ve lived in another country away from my family and friends. I’ve traveled Europe, been stranded in foreign terminals, and navigated cultures that were different from my own. UT wasn’t so scary; it was just another place to explore. Of course we didn’t have enough time to truly look around, so that too will be another place I revisit. (I really want to see the Blanton.)

So that was then.

Last week, I got off of work and decided I couldn’t possibly spend more hours in front of a computer screen even if it was for the sake of my education. I told Cynthia that I wanted to spend the beautiful day out in the city. See, we recently got a cold snap and because of the “ice” the city shut down. We like to joke about it, but there were over 200 car accidents on the first bad weather day alone.

We went to Hey Cupcake, got some pie at Home Slice, and did a little shopping on South Congress. I think it was a victory, even if Cynthia pretended she didn’t know me when I stopped in the middle of the crosswalk to take the iconic picture of the view of the Capitol.