Hi y'all!  I arrived in Austin, Texas 2 days ago.  Let me tell you, it was not a smooth journey.  I left Boston at 5:26 AM.  You may think that a seasoned traveler like myself does not get stressed while traveling, but that would be a misconception.  I arrived at Logan airport at 4:55 AM; the plan was to be there by 4:45 (I had my boarding pass and wasn't checking any bags).  I thought that was plenty of time.  Turned out, I was wrong.  First, we encountered a detour on 93S and could not get access to the airport tunnel where we should have,  If you know Boston at all, you know that they don't post there road signs well and the airport entrance is a bit hidden (from me anyway when I am anxious about getting there).  So after taking a making a couple of u-turns and a roundabout way, we made it.  I calmed myself down and thought, "plenty of time," and guess what?  Wrong again!  The security line was excruciatingly long.  After checking the time a million times in a matter of minutes, I put my phone away to counter this stressful behavior.  When I though I had finally made it, my bag got pulled and searched twice for what turned out to be a bottle of vitamin E that was in there (a story for another day).  I made it onto the plane at 5:23 AM; 3 minutes before scheduled take-off and silly me. . . there were about 20 more passengers that sauntered onto the plan without a bead of sweat on there foreheads without a care in the world while I, myself, looked like a chicken with its head cutoff.

Needless to say, in my mind anyway, after a start like that, where else would I end up but in the last row of the plane in the middle seat.  Traveler tip number 1: Always make sure to choose your seat ahead of time.  I really screwed myself this time.  Some of you may not realize, but the last row of seats cannot recline, and they seem to be straighter and more uncomfortable that any seat in the world especially when you have a rather large lady to your right whose leg in squished under the armrest and nicely pressing into your own thigh.  We arrived in Houston on time.  Well, sort of.  We circled the airport for approximately 1 hr 20 min due to bad thunderstorms.  As the stewards assured us thousands of times, "all flights will be in the same predicament we are, so we are almost certain your connecting flights will be delayed, too.  But we don't really know anything, and you'll have to ask the people on the ground."  In my mind they were saying, "We don't really give a _________ about you and we are passing you off to the next sorry sack as soon as we possibly can."  I was correct in my conclusion.  There was one poor soul from United at the top of the gate and about a hundred passengers panicking about their connecting flights so I took my chances with the monitors where I discovered my flight was delayed an hour.  That was perfect.  I made my way on the tram to terminal A to a satellite area that could barely hold 100 people never mind the 500 or so stranded travelers trying to figure out their connections.  I sat down to read for half an hour before deciding I should battle my way through the frustrated mob to my gate where I soon saw that my flight to Austin had been cancelled.  I reread that screen about 5 times to be certain I was looking at the correct flight to Austin (there were approximately 5 in all.)  Unfortunately, my was the unfortunate flight to be cancelled.  I dashed to the customer service line, which at this point was 20 deep, and waited (I have to say very patiently) for my turn.  I was hoping that if I was positive and calm the Universe (yes, read The Secret or better yet, watch the movie) would take care of me.  "Next in line."  OK here we go, this is were I was going to be rewarded.  Well, I was wrong, sort of.  The polite gentleman at the counter informed me he could get a me a confirmed seat on the 3:20 PM plane not today, but Friday.  For a little context, it was Thursday at 11:20 AM.  This would not do, but what could I do?  I remained calm and patient as he told me he would put me on standby.  Just as I was about to go begin my purgatory of standby, he said, "I have good news!  A seat just opened on the 3:20 flight for today, and I will put you on standby for the 1:00 flight."  Needless to say, the Universe had my back, and my name was called on the 1:00 flight.

My cousin, Niamh (rhymes with Steve, she came up with that) was there to greet me in Austin.  She is a Galway girl, but drives a honking Ford Explorer in Texas.   It suits Texas, not Niamh.  The Explorer does provide you with a good view of you surroundings though.  I love looking at a new place for the first time as you exit the airport.  I was ravenous at this point not having eaten since 5:00 PM the previous day.  For those of you who know me, I am not a happy Travelkat when I am hungry.  Niamh quickly put that monster to rest by taking me to Trudy's in Austin (it is a bit of a chain).  It is a Tex-Mex restaurant.  I had a typical salad that you would find at a restaurant like this, but the drink I had really stood out.  It was a Silver Fire Margarita. . . a standard margarita with bits of jalapeno and Tabasco sauce.  Sounds disgusting but tastes delicious!  And on Thursdays they are only $5.00.

After dinner we went on my first real adventure in Austin.  Maybe its because I am from the Northeast or maybe it is because I am from Boston, but I had never in my life heard of a karaoke league.  Well, they have one here.  A friend of Niamh's is on a team, and he was competing Thursday night.  She had never been either so we had no idea about what to expect or the prime people watching we would experience.  First off, it was the strangest bar I had ever been too.  It is named Ego's and it is on the bottom floor a building attached to a parking garage.  If you didn't look hard, you wouldn't find it.  It is dark and there are absolutely no windows of any sort.  Niamh and I grabbed the last table available.  Don't be mistaken though, the place wasn't packed with people, the table were just all covered by what we presumed were team costumes, and we were right!  We saw crazy wigs, Bert and Ernie (from Sesame Street), and lots of neon adorning the tables.  We sat at our little square out-of-the-way table, and waited.  Well, we got a show straight off.  A cowboy came sauntering in.  He didn't have a horse though, just a laptop.  I'll get back to that later.  He looked a bit like Kenny Rogers with a long gray beard, cowboy hat, black leather vest, etc. . . . We assumed, as he set up his laptop, that he must have something to do with the music.  We assumed wrong.  As we watched him throughout the night, we became very perplexed.  He had a slide show running with photos of himself that looked to be professionally done and pictures about Texas pride with guns and cannons and such.  However, he totally threw us for a loop when he started singing along to Kelly Clarkson, Michael Jackson, and even Blondie singing "Rapture."  Strange in deed.  The karaoke teams were not as entertaining, except for the blue team.  They were really amateurish even though they had a week to prepare.  They all had costumes and props though that added to the silliness of the entire evening.  Luckily we were spared after the 2nd round when they experienced technical difficulties and had to postpone the 3rd round.

All in all it was a great introduction to Austin.  Trudy's yes, Ego's no.