"Austin Texas place to be, I hate girls..."
Now after my first real sleep of Spring Break 2005, I can finally reflect on my sweet trip to Austin this past weekend. I'll try to be as detailed as possible, for my own good, but I will probably try to shorten for time.
Friday:
-Boarded a plane at O'hare headed for Cincinatti around 9:30am and landed in said "Cincy" about 40 minutes later. In fact, by the time we got our drinks, they had to collect them 2 minutes later as we were beginning to land.
-Our 2nd flight involved walking out onto the "runway" or whatever its called and boarding the tiniest plane I have ever been on, via a fold-down staircase. We then took the longer of the two flights in this deathray, with a destination of Austin, Texas. The flight ended up being nice, even though they forgot to give us drinks (by us, I mean just me and Kevin). The problem was solved by a swift push of our call button and then I finished a book I had been reading since the beginning of the winter.
-We landed in Austin around 3pm and the weather was absolutely awesome.
-After a 40 dollar cab ride to our hotel, we found out that cabs were running over an hour late, so we immediately called for a cad to go downtown. About 45 minutes later, one showed up with blacked-out windows and hip hop flowing, sort of a modern day Fresh Prince theme, no dice in the mirror though.
-We arrived at some party at an art gallery and met up with our crew for the weekend, after hugs and placing of free drinks in our hands, we had our picture taken with some porn star named Britney Rears. She was disgusting and looked nothing like Britney Spears. All discrepancies aside, she was still a porn star and we still wanted our picture taken with her. I saw a bunch of friends from Chicago and met many cool people at that weird art gallery/porn party, and I sipped a lot of free drinks in a short period of time. We had been in Austin for about 2 hours at this point.
-From there, we ate pizza that wasn't all that good, and headed to the Break the Silence show at Redrum. They rocked as normal and marked the beginning of our weekend hangout with our boys (BTS). They were the last band we saw last year, and the first we saw this year.
-Later we went to some Atlantic Records schmooze party and I didn't reject their free food and drink. Most bigwig record guys are gross, so being around a room full of drunk ones was overwhelming, but again, the drinks were free and we ended up running into some trashed under-aged friends from home.
-To close out the night, we picked up Dan W. from Redrum and went down to Stubbs BBQ for the big end of the night show down there.
-After too many purchased and free drinks, it was time to go to sleep.
-Bands seen on Friday: Break the Silence, Amber Pacific, Nural, Kasabian, and the New York Dolls
Saturday:
-Woke up hurting, and crawled into the shower and discovered the best smelling soap I have ever used. Thanks ExtendedStay!
-We headed downtown and ate at some BBQ place and then filed into Emo's for the day. The Take Action show was going on all afternoon, on 3 stages, so we met up with friends and took it all in. A major part of Emo's is outside, and it thunderstormed for about 20 min, so that was interesting but really cool to see.
-Entering into the evening, we decided (more like the people with the money decided) that we were going to go have sushi for dinner. I'm not a fan, so I just had some noodle thing and drank expensive saki. I never saw the bill for that dinner, but I'm pretty sure it was the most expensive meal I have ever been a part of.
-After dinner, we went down to the Victory Records show at Bigsby's and we met up with lots of friends from Chicago. We got free glowsticks, so we decided to put on a show for the hardcore kids. Mine broke off the string it was attached to and speared its way across the room. It may or may not have pierced someones throat, I never turned to survey the damage. That show was very cool and intimate, we watched people hardcore punch/dance, disco dance, slow dance, head bob dance, and then fall over drunk.
-We got word about 5 minutes prior to them going on, that we would be able to get into the Against Me show down the street, so we bolted out of Bigsby's and made it just in time to see the band I was in Texas to see, Against Me. I give them an A+.
-From there, we went back to the Victory show and collected our people and said our goodbyes to friends, and then ate pizza in the street. It was time to go to sleep once again.
-Thank God that Bad Boyz 2 was on TV at 4am when we got back. I think I might have called everyone in my phone and told them about it.
-SXSW was now over.
-Bands seen on Saturday: Gym Class Heroes, Plain White T's, Kaddisfly, Murder By Death, Communique, Rufio, Since by Man, Underoath, Sinai Beach, Comeback Kid, The Forecast, Action Action, Bayside, and Against Me
Sunday:
-Wake up call never came but the cabs weren't behind anymore, so we got downtown ok.
-This was our day to recover, so we ate mexican food and found a mall before we had to see Ryan off to the airport.
-We actually had our own cab for the afternoon. Just had to call him and he'd come pick us up and take us wherever we were going. Nice guy, a chicken farmer in Africa, cab driver in America.
-Later, we strolled the now empty streets, most people left Sunday morning to go home. We landed at a billiard place and played Shuffleboard for 3 hours. While playing we saw the cast of the new Real World being taped in Austin. They walked by us with cameras rolling. I heard their house was right by where we were.
-After the Shuffleboard place began to fill up with frat dudes, we left and met up with dear friends Lindsey and Wes, who were also in town for SXSW. We had a nice dinner on a patio and then called it an early night.
-I was so beat, that I was asleep by 10pm while watching Euro Trip on TV. Kevin apparently tossed our whole room while I was passed out, because he saw a cockroach in the hallway. He didn't find any, but still decided to sleep with our TV on.
Monday:
-Woke up to an overcast morning and got ourselves packed up and ready to go.
-We checked out and ate breakfast continental syle and made our way to the airport.
-After another quick trip to Cincinatti, and the beginning of reading the David Beckham book, we were back in the chill of Chicago.
-Vacation was over.
Summary:
-Good weather, awesome friends, killer music, mean shuffleboard skills, and 1.5 million laughs. I had a blast. Thanks priceline.com
Friday:
-Boarded a plane at O'hare headed for Cincinatti around 9:30am and landed in said "Cincy" about 40 minutes later. In fact, by the time we got our drinks, they had to collect them 2 minutes later as we were beginning to land.
-Our 2nd flight involved walking out onto the "runway" or whatever its called and boarding the tiniest plane I have ever been on, via a fold-down staircase. We then took the longer of the two flights in this deathray, with a destination of Austin, Texas. The flight ended up being nice, even though they forgot to give us drinks (by us, I mean just me and Kevin). The problem was solved by a swift push of our call button and then I finished a book I had been reading since the beginning of the winter.
-We landed in Austin around 3pm and the weather was absolutely awesome.
-After a 40 dollar cab ride to our hotel, we found out that cabs were running over an hour late, so we immediately called for a cad to go downtown. About 45 minutes later, one showed up with blacked-out windows and hip hop flowing, sort of a modern day Fresh Prince theme, no dice in the mirror though.
-We arrived at some party at an art gallery and met up with our crew for the weekend, after hugs and placing of free drinks in our hands, we had our picture taken with some porn star named Britney Rears. She was disgusting and looked nothing like Britney Spears. All discrepancies aside, she was still a porn star and we still wanted our picture taken with her. I saw a bunch of friends from Chicago and met many cool people at that weird art gallery/porn party, and I sipped a lot of free drinks in a short period of time. We had been in Austin for about 2 hours at this point.
-From there, we ate pizza that wasn't all that good, and headed to the Break the Silence show at Redrum. They rocked as normal and marked the beginning of our weekend hangout with our boys (BTS). They were the last band we saw last year, and the first we saw this year.
-Later we went to some Atlantic Records schmooze party and I didn't reject their free food and drink. Most bigwig record guys are gross, so being around a room full of drunk ones was overwhelming, but again, the drinks were free and we ended up running into some trashed under-aged friends from home.
-To close out the night, we picked up Dan W. from Redrum and went down to Stubbs BBQ for the big end of the night show down there.
-After too many purchased and free drinks, it was time to go to sleep.
-Bands seen on Friday: Break the Silence, Amber Pacific, Nural, Kasabian, and the New York Dolls
Saturday:
-Woke up hurting, and crawled into the shower and discovered the best smelling soap I have ever used. Thanks ExtendedStay!
-We headed downtown and ate at some BBQ place and then filed into Emo's for the day. The Take Action show was going on all afternoon, on 3 stages, so we met up with friends and took it all in. A major part of Emo's is outside, and it thunderstormed for about 20 min, so that was interesting but really cool to see.
-Entering into the evening, we decided (more like the people with the money decided) that we were going to go have sushi for dinner. I'm not a fan, so I just had some noodle thing and drank expensive saki. I never saw the bill for that dinner, but I'm pretty sure it was the most expensive meal I have ever been a part of.
-After dinner, we went down to the Victory Records show at Bigsby's and we met up with lots of friends from Chicago. We got free glowsticks, so we decided to put on a show for the hardcore kids. Mine broke off the string it was attached to and speared its way across the room. It may or may not have pierced someones throat, I never turned to survey the damage. That show was very cool and intimate, we watched people hardcore punch/dance, disco dance, slow dance, head bob dance, and then fall over drunk.
-We got word about 5 minutes prior to them going on, that we would be able to get into the Against Me show down the street, so we bolted out of Bigsby's and made it just in time to see the band I was in Texas to see, Against Me. I give them an A+.
-From there, we went back to the Victory show and collected our people and said our goodbyes to friends, and then ate pizza in the street. It was time to go to sleep once again.
-Thank God that Bad Boyz 2 was on TV at 4am when we got back. I think I might have called everyone in my phone and told them about it.
-SXSW was now over.
-Bands seen on Saturday: Gym Class Heroes, Plain White T's, Kaddisfly, Murder By Death, Communique, Rufio, Since by Man, Underoath, Sinai Beach, Comeback Kid, The Forecast, Action Action, Bayside, and Against Me
Sunday:
-Wake up call never came but the cabs weren't behind anymore, so we got downtown ok.
-This was our day to recover, so we ate mexican food and found a mall before we had to see Ryan off to the airport.
-We actually had our own cab for the afternoon. Just had to call him and he'd come pick us up and take us wherever we were going. Nice guy, a chicken farmer in Africa, cab driver in America.
-Later, we strolled the now empty streets, most people left Sunday morning to go home. We landed at a billiard place and played Shuffleboard for 3 hours. While playing we saw the cast of the new Real World being taped in Austin. They walked by us with cameras rolling. I heard their house was right by where we were.
-After the Shuffleboard place began to fill up with frat dudes, we left and met up with dear friends Lindsey and Wes, who were also in town for SXSW. We had a nice dinner on a patio and then called it an early night.
-I was so beat, that I was asleep by 10pm while watching Euro Trip on TV. Kevin apparently tossed our whole room while I was passed out, because he saw a cockroach in the hallway. He didn't find any, but still decided to sleep with our TV on.
Monday:
-Woke up to an overcast morning and got ourselves packed up and ready to go.
-We checked out and ate breakfast continental syle and made our way to the airport.
-After another quick trip to Cincinatti, and the beginning of reading the David Beckham book, we were back in the chill of Chicago.
-Vacation was over.
Summary:
-Good weather, awesome friends, killer music, mean shuffleboard skills, and 1.5 million laughs. I had a blast. Thanks priceline.com