I rang in the new year for the first time away from home. I was 6 hours away from home, and I enjoyed it. I spent it with the girl I love, Vanessa. I also got to spend New Year’s day with my friend Dannis from San Antonio. He graduated with Vanessa and I, and if it wasn’t for him, I would never have met up again.
Her idea was I go on the trip to her sister’s house, and early on New Year’s day Dannis would meet us in Austin, and she’d go back to her sister’s and spend time with her as well as with her brother who lives there as well. Isn’t she the greatest?
I treated Dannis and Vanessa’s brother to breakfast since he accompanied us. Then it was just Dannis and I, and I was going to go back to San Antonio with him, spend the night at his place, and then later in the evening on the second, we’d go back to Austin, and Vanessa would pick me up. When we got up and were about to travel to Austin, it was damn cold. There was even ice on the car!
We spent several hours in Austin doing what we like to do best: hit up bookstores for books, and movies and music. There’s this wonderful chain called Half Price Books that sells lots of stuff for good prices. We got a map from the first one we went to and hit up ALMOST ALL OF THEM in Austin.
I was like a kid in a candy store. I ended up with quite a few movies that I’d been looking for, and when we got back to San Antonio, I got the gem of the lot. Klaus Kinski’s autobiography Kinski uncut. Also scored the great soundtrack to Sideways that we listened to in his car. The music really fit the trip. Dannis is a big Chinese food aficionado like myself, so that’s what we ate. We finished the night up with a double feature of Robot Jox and Graveyard Shift. Really felt like old times when we used to do that during college. I told him that we’d have to that again soon. Maybe during Spring Break.
The next day we headed out, and had ourselves an adventure on the way back. We ended up almost getting lost in San Marcos. We crossed a bridge, and there was a point where there was literally nothing around us. We didn’t fret as Dannis is always prepared, and had maps with him.We ended up getting back on the expressway (it was pretty damn far from where we were at) and ended up on the outskirts of Austin hitting the last Half Price Books in the town of Round Rock and then I got picked up by Vanessa and her sister. The next day we came back.
It was certainly quite the adventure for me, and very fun as I hadn’t been to Austin in 9 years or so, and hadn’t been to San Antonio in 5 years. I think I’m going to remedy that and make another trip back soon.
Rene’s song of the day “White Lightning” by Charles Bernstein.
Thanks for reading my blog and see you next time!