Austin

Monday - Wednesday I went to Austin with Wendy for work. I super love working for a company that's headquartered in a cool city. Just like the last time we went, we should have gone for a longer period of time. The antiquing alone in Austin is incredible!

We flew out on Monday morning and arrived in Austin just before 4 PM. Picked up our snazzy rental car, that went by any of the following names....ZZ Top, Charmin, Toro, Stay Puff and Marshmallow. I swear it needed horns on the front hood a la Boss Hog, so we decided to put Flowey (my buffalo that has traveled the world) on the hood for a photo shoot before we left the rental car lot.
Time for Happy Hour - before going to the hotel we went straight to Guero's for Queso and Drinks!After our snack we walked around a bit on South Congress. We went into Uncommon Objects which is the most incredible antique store. I love antiques, but not most of the shops in the Bay Area because they are so pricey. This store is pretty affordable compared to San Francisco and we went bananas in there but didn't buy anything, we had to sleep on all of the lovely things we saw first. After treasure hunting at Uncommon Objects we went over to Allen's Boots and take a gander at the array of boots they had and take in the smell of leather. One thing I noticed in Austin was a lot of stores had a sign on the door "no photography" - which, as a blogger, really bothered me.
After walking around a bit, we went and checked into our hotel, plugged our computers in and worked for a bit before watching WAY too much Celebrity Rehab until 2 AM.
Tuesday was all work and almost no play. We woke up, worked a bit and then went to our flagship store (which is a monster of a store). We walked around before eating lunch at one of the food venues at the store and then headed to the office (which is connected to the store). I got to meet with people I have spoken to on the phone and emailed with over the years so that was nice. Some people I met last time I was in Austin, but it has been 6 years since that last trip and there were quite a few more people to meet this time around. I ran into people that I used to work with in my current office as well (Manny, Wade, Brian just to name a few). I had a meeting from 3-3:30 and shortly after that ended Wendy and I headed out to go back to the antique store and pick up what we had seen the day before. I got 2 cool jars with vintage Christmas ornaments in them and a couple other tiny things. Wendy got some great prints in frames for her house. We literally rushed through the store though since we had to get back to the hotel and get ready for an awards dinner. Wendy is one of the award winners, so I went as her date. This dinner was the sole purpose of the trip. We got ready very quickly and headed back out to the awards location (Green Pastures). It was an incredible place, I didn't take my camera though (wouldn't fit in my fancy purse). It is a Victorian Mansion (I had to read about it) and it is surrounded by the most magnificent trees with limbs that sort of creep over the lush carpet of green grass that the property is wrapped in. The magical part the trees are wrapped in tiny white lights and there are peacocks on the property and one of them is white! We saw them sleeping up in one of the trees, what a nice cradle for a sleeping peacock. We stepped into the house, got a drink and visited with some of our old office mates that now work in Austin. Dinner was served (it was all vegan and not good vegan if you ask me) and then the awards ceremony started. We watched other people go up, get their awards and say a little thank you and then the time came....Wendy's boss presented her with her award and said some very nice things about her followed by Wendy's acceptance speech. She did really well, but the funny thing was, she couldn't remember what she said when she got back to the table, it was like all time stopped when that spotlight was on her. Shortly after the awards ceremony ended we decided since we were in Texas and it was our last night and the dinner was vegan we HAD to go out and get some Texas style BBQ. We went to a cool place called Ruby's and split a BBQ plate and drank beer straight from the bottle like the classy ladies that we are. After our second dinner we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Wednesday morning, we went to meet Raquel and her son August for breakfast a Kerbey Lane Cafe. Raquel and I used to work together and then she moved to Austin a couple years back for her husband to attend post graduate school. We knew each other from working together but have gotten to know each other even better thanks to blogger. It was so great to see her and spend some time together albeit brief, it was delightful. The gingerbread pancakes were incredible and HUGE - I should have just ordered one. After breakfast Wendy and I took one more pass through some shops on South Congress - oh the temptation was great, but we held tight onto our pocketbooks. We checked our emails one last time and headed to the airport. Our plane landed on time and delivered us back here to a wet and dreary Bay Area. It was a quick but wonderful trip.