Awesome Austin

Last weekend I went to Austin for the first time and I absolutely loved it!  I drove out on Friday to see my former roommate R and stayed the weekend with her at her boyfriend's house.  The town as a whole has an overall pretty young population - the city was crawling with good-looking, hip 20 and 30 somethings.  And R's boyfriend T seemed to know almost all of them which made it even more fun!  He and R, plus on occasion his roommate, were awesome tour guides and the more they showed me around and pointed things out the more I fell in lust (it's only been one weekend, so I'm not sure I can jump in with "love" yet, but I have a feeling it's in the cards) with the city.

First of all, I can't get over the vintage vibe in the city - literally old signs that look like they're straight out of the 50's and 60's (I have a feeling a lot of them actually are) for awesome restaurants and bars.  And you know how I love me some vintage.  We started out on Friday night at a bar called Doc's where the bartenders were, unfortunately, not so familiar with the recipe for a gin gimlet.  From there we snagged some pizza (I hadn't had dinner yet, just alcohol.  wasn't going over so well...) and VEGAN CUPCAKES!  The whole city is chock full of restaurants that cater to people with specialty diets and Ms-Egg-Yolk-Free-Me was totally digging the fact that I could order cupcakes and french toast without worrying about migraines!  After food we then headed to a bar called the Hangar, where T knew everyone, and that doesn't mean just 7 or 8 friends, the bar was seriously packed with his gigantic group of friends and they were all really friendly and fun and dancing all over the place.  It was a blast! 

The next day, after sleeping in, we hit up Congress Ave. again in hopes of exploring a bit.  Unfortunately the rain dampened those hopes, so we got some tasty food at Snack Bar followed by some Peach Habanero ice cream at Amy's (so good!) and then headed back to the house to chill.  That evening T's friends were hosting a concert at Club De Ville where we saw Gobi and then proceeded to do some more bar hopping and dancing.  After returning back to the house sometime between 2 and 3 we decided to play board games, which didn't cease until 6 am!  I'm telling you, I had a blast with everyone I met!  Yesterday we hit up Torchy's Tacos for a late lunch (I got fried avocado and chili pulled pork tacos and they were pretty darn tasty!) and then R and I did some vintage store hopping where I picked up a plaid button down shirt with a frilled neckline for $5 and an INCREDIBLE black dress for $30!

Bottom line: Austin rocks and I'm totally going to have to go back!

(images from here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.  Must remember to take my own pictures next time...)