Austin Y’all!

Hi Y’all!  I think this might be how I start all my emails, posts, phone conversations from now on. 🙂  It’s so cute and quaint and reminds me of the weekend I just had with my girlfriends.

Have you ever been to Austin?  I just got back from a girls weekend there and man, it is so very cool.  There’s just no other way to describe it!  Me and 3 of my girlies wanted a girls get-away somewhere in-between the west coast and the east coast where it would be WARM in November.  And sure enough, Austin did us proud!  It was still in the 70’s & 80’s with sunshine every day.

After settling into our Air B&B, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in the South Congress, a neighborhood which was filled with little bungalows, Tudor homes and newly renovated building in the “new farmhouse” style, we headed to SoCo Street to eat.  Brunched at June’s where chic ladies dine with girlfriends or even alone, with their dog at their feet or their book in hand, and a barbeque chicken coleslaw sandwich awaiting it’s first bite.

After filling our bellies with good food and beverages, we then walked the avenue of darling shops, restaurants and even some food carts like this adorable Airstream cupcake cart.

After finding some fun souvenirs (stocking stuffers, a recycled airplane ornament for my origami king, a kitty cap for my girl and a “Namaste y’all” tank for myself), we headed back to our rental, got gussied up and uber’d it to a chic bar called the Roosevelt Room where they specialized in drinks per decade.

Not too surprising, we jumped into another uber (I think we took 13 uber rides in all) and found ourselves at Lenoir, an old house, converted into a one room restaurant where the hostess station was out on the front porch!  Only in Austin.  Poor Portlander would be freezing and looking like a wet dog if we had all our hostesses outside on the front porch or sidewalk!

We feasted on a prefix menu while gazing at the unique and utterly cool up-cycling of some 80’s lamp-fixtures-turned-into-a-lit-piece-of-art for which the curtained room was centered around.  It was magical.  So magical that the couple at the end of the bar were gettin’ pretty frisky!!! (oh my people!)

But my favorite thing of that whole dining experience was the BATHROOM!!!  Do you ever judge a place by it’s bathroom?!!!  It’s in the details, y’all!  (Oh, I’m getting the hang of this 😉  )

Saturday brought us for a walk on the waterfront and to another fun eatery Jacoby’s, a southern style brunch place.  Dining al fresco, with a live jazz duo, an over-sized Texas flag on the barn wall and eating out of a trough tells me this place is into it’s southern details.  And I so appreciated it.

But one of the most memorable nights we had was when our uber driver dropped us off on Rainey Street.  We had heard it was a street where older people (and by older I mean graduate students 😉 ) went for live music and fun bar atmosphere.  Well, I’ll tell you.  We did NOT know what we were getting into.  Imagine a street of again, cute bungalow houses (what is up with all the cute bungalows in Austin?!  Tellin’ ya.  It’s a cool city!) converted into a funky bar of one theme or another.  The first one we ventured into was UnBARlievable.  It was truly a fun-house for adults—circus stripes on the ceiling, hula hoops being USED by guests and even a slide!  Yes folks.  My girlfriends and I downed a Pickle-back and then went down a slide–in a bar–in heals.  It was hilarious!!!!

Unfortunately the live band had just ended before we got there.  When in Austin you HAVE TO hear LIVE MUSIC!!!  So we ventured back to the Blackheart, still feeling the Pickle-back so we did NOT consume whiskey, but DID hear a few songs of the live band that started at 11pm. (We lasted till 11:05pm–it was a little weird and the mom in us was yearning to be out of our fancies and into our pjs) :).

My favorite things from the trip: Alan the uber driver (he was a wealth of knowledge!), South Congress shopping, for sure!  June’s for brunch,  Fixe for the biscuits (we went there our last night.  It’s in downtown), 2nd Street for more clothes shopping, Jo’s Coffee (Where we learned of a frose’!  It’s the one thing I wish I DID try!!!  Call it an adult pink party in a glass.), walking the waterfront (wished we had time to do more of this!), the salted cucumber garnish on my grapefruit margarita (yep.  I could have had a whole tray of those suckers) and brunch at Cafe’ No Se’ in the South Congress Hotel which had a super chic hotel lobby. I bet the rooms are just as nice!

So if you’re thinking of going to Austin, give me a jingle.  I just might join you!  So soooo cute, y’all!

xo, Melissa