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| Austin 'triple threat'! |
Since first getting involved with
the Couch Surfing community it has been our first port of call when looking for
accommodation. We haven’t had great success for most of the trip but things
seem to be turning around.
Austin was one city that we
particularly wanted to Couch Surf in, just because we had heard so many good
things about it, we knew if we were staying with a local our time in Austin
would return tenfold.
Enter the aptly named Austin…
Originally Austin was going to be
away for the weekend we had planned on being in town, but due to how much he
enjoyed his time travelling around Australia he decided to change his plans and
try and be in town for the most of it. And if he wasn’t, he even offered to
leave his keys out for us to have his place to ourselves.
That takes a fair amount of
trust…
With joining the Couch Surfing
community we have had to explain the nature of the beast to a number of people,
friends, family, travellers, people we have met along the way. The most common
question is along the lines of ‘How to you know you aren’t getting a creep’.
When my brother heard a friend ask us this, he replied ‘imagine hosting him’.
At this time I looked very much the part of a bum – unkempt hair and bushy
beard, and a backpack that contained my entire worldly possessions. Not too
sure what Charles’ original thoughts of me were, but luckily I had Nic on my
arm to ease the burden.
Meeting Austin we naturally got
to discussing the CS ways and he delivered the most eloquent prose I have heard
to perfectly describe the nature and concept of CS. Unfortunately we were a few
beers deep (Austin is in the process of opening his own brewery so you can
imagine the beers flowed naturally between us) and none of us can remember
exactly what was said. We have since tried to get back to that state of
inebriation to see if it will come back to us but alas, she is lost.
However, the general gist of it
is, albeit not so poetical, that the same sort of people who will put
themselves into the somewhat uncomfortable position to be hosted by a complete
stranger, are the same sort of people who will welcome complete strangers into
their homes.
There has to be an element of
trust involved…
One of our main aims in Austin
was to get Rodge fully registered. We had heard the Lone Star state would allow
internationals to register their car using a passport. We were approaching the
end of our 45 day temporary tags so we needed some luck to come our way after
failing in Georgia, Tennessee and Louisiana.
Well we didn’t get much luck to
begin with. Stepping back a few months to the Smoky Mountains, less than a week
after we had purchased Rodge, a light came up on the dash board. The manual
describes it as having something to do with the emissions (we did have a
current Georgia emissions certificate so we thought we were in the clear),
however it is more commonly known as the ‘Check Engine light’. Upon our return
to Atlanta we queried our trusty car salesman and he assured us it was nothing,
in most older cars this light comes on but doesn’t really mean anything.
Well in Texas this light does in
fact mean something…It means you will fail the inspection required to register
all out of state cars. Long story short, a new catalytic convertor, $850 and a
day later the light had disappeared. Unfortunately we still couldn’t have the
car inspected because the on-board computer had reset. Our mechanic, Tom,
instructed us to drive old Rodge about over the weekend and come back Monday.
I will skip the weekend for now,
but meeting Tom definitely did have its perks!
Monday morning arrives and we
were hoping to get the car inspected (and passed now we were best mates with
Tom), head down to the DMV and hope our luck continued and walk away with brand
new pates and make our way to Dallas. Again, our luck didn’t last that long.
Upon handing over all the
documents there were a few minor mistakes on the Georgie title, one being the
date of sale written in the Australian way, and a cross out of an address. This
meant we were supposed to send a new document back to our trusty salesman in
Georgia, have him mail it back so that all signature were originals. This
definitely did not fit in with our plans.
I have always considered myself
quick on my feet and open to selling a little white lie when the need arises.
Hearing this terrific news I asked Nic loudly enough for our clerk to hear,
whether she could remember whether Bill (our trusty salesman) was in fact
somewhere in the Texas area for football.
A few hours and some fancy
penmanship later, we were back at the DMV. As luck would have it, out of the 40
or so clerks on this Monday, we got the same one again. I decided it would be
best if Nic stayed in the car, that way I could claim she was still with Bill
grabbing a coffee if anything else wasn’t in order.
No questions asked, ten minutes
later we were the proud owners of Texas plates…FBD 5586. FBD is now fondly
abbreviated to F_cking Best Day!
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| Happiest kids in Texas! |
In the long run, buying Rodge has
been a pain in the proverbial, but now, hopefully we are past all the hassle
and it should be a dream run from here on in. My advice to others considering
buying a car in the U.S. is to find a state that currently does allow you to
register cars with photo I.D.’s, otherwise the process is long, expensive and
painful!
Getting back to Austin…and
Austin.
Friday night he took us out to
his local pub – the Draught House. Now I thought Delirium Café in Brussels had
a few beers on tap, this place had double! It took a good five minutes to
decide which one to try first! I’m not too sure how many we got through, but I
can safely say I did not try a bad beer during my time in Austin!
I am now a firm believer that
Texas is the friendliest place we have been to. Never before have we been
approached so much simply due to the fact that we speak a little differently. I
can’t count the number of times people have asked us where we are from just to
start up a conversation. And Austin was no different. We got free beers, offers
for accommodation if we are ever back in the fine city, offers of free College
game tickets, etc. You name it, we were offered it. And I didn’t have to sell
myself either, just talk like the yobbo I can be!
Austin was taking a day trip to
Houston to check out some brewery gear so Saturday we were left to our own
devices. Enter Tom…
The day before Tom, like so many
Texan’s before him, asked us where we were from and what we were doing in
Austin. After a quick chat he asked us if we were interested in going to a
college football game. Unknown to him, it was probably the number one reason we
were in town on this particular weekend. Turns out he had a few extra and would
be willing to sell them to us as long as we joined him and his family before
the game to tailgate. Reluctantly we agreed!
Tom and his family, along with a
number of friends, rent an area they tailgate at every home game. Decked out
with a fully restored Chevy pickup in the orange of the Horns, a towable flat
screen, beers, BBQ, food, etc. and I was in heaven. The crew took us in like
family and we almost didn’t want to go to the game, the tailgating was too much
fun. After hearing our story, Tom and Denise (his wife) wouldn’t accept any
money for the tickets. We couldn’t allow that. After a quick discussion we
settled upon Tom ensuring Rodge was passed on the Monday and I would feel we were
more than even, but Denise said she would only have it if we agreed to call
through Austin again and stay with them.
The game was nuts. The Longhorns
are in a rebuild phase at the moment and their defence has started the season
strongly. Their offense has only just began to click but are building towards
something good. Well the roles were reverse this night, and a suspected
defensive struggle turned into an offensive shootout. We have been lucky with
our games so far, and this one turned out no differently. 17 last quarter
points including a 21 yard field goal with 7 seconds left and the back of a
45-48 win, the Horns were back in contention in the Big 12.
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| Texas vs Iowa State - Hook 'Em Horns! |
Add in the marching band and half
time shows, and College Football definitely has something the pros don’t. At
this stage I would have to give the edge to the college game, but with a little
luck, hopefully I can sample a few more games to gain better judgement.
Pre-game & Halftime show -Pretty cool choreography (UT & Vince DiNino 1918-2014)
Sunday was all about food and
more importantly Texas BBQ. We kicked it off with breakfast from one of
Austin’s (both city and the man) favourite eateries – food trucks! Without the
overhead expenses of a restaurant, you can eat the same quality for a fraction
of the price. Austin took us on a sightseeing tour of his favourite spots
(something we had offered to us by a number of Austenites), sampling a few free
lookouts of the city, a few breweries, and finishing with some of the best food
of the trip to date. It sounds like we have been saying that a lot lately, but
the meats on offer at Salt Lick were so tender, juicy, and delicious that I
couldn’t not. Throw in BYO and you had me at hello!
Texas BBQ at it's finest!
Unfortunately we didn’t even get to see two of Austin’s best sides. The music and the natural pools. Just driving into Austin on the Thursday we had a quick look at some of the local gigs on offer. To say amazed would be an understatement. Shocked does it more justice. Every night there were at least 2 or 3 gigs we would have loved to go to, but things didn’t go down that path. We also ran out of time to check out a few of the natural pools in the Austin area, but unfortunately Rodge took up a little more time that we had anticipated.
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| Colorado River and Austin City in the background |
But all that means is that we will have to be back…
Something I think we can arrange!
On a side note the check engine light is back on. Not too sure if we should consider this lucky or unlucky. Lucky the bastard stayed off and passed the inspection. Unlucky the bastard is back on. Unlucky for the chump we sell Rodge too.
Oh and yeah, she was a long one for anyone making it to the end!
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