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Published: March 5th 2009
Austin
Texas CapitolOur stop in Texas was not initially in our itinerary, but since we had to forcefully stop in Dallas on our way to Mexico, we decided to visit some good friends we had here and stay for a few days.
Our flight from California was into Dallas, about 4 hours drive from Austin, and we made our way down on the Greyhound bus from the city centre. I would not exactly recommend choosing the Greyhound bus, at least not in Texas. It was full of people that either looked drunk, drugged, or just plain dangerous, and we did not exactly feel safe, but we made it through.
We got to Austin and my friend Nirmal (from school in Swaziland) picked us up at the station and went out with his wife Sulma and his brother Nirav and wife to catch up on old times and remember some of favourite passtimes at school... eating and drinking.
The following day we relaxed in the morning, Nimi (Nirmal) had to go to work, but he lent us his car, so we managed to go on a little tour around Austin. We visited the Texas Capitol, the Botanical Gardens, and Zilker
Texas Capitol
the lone star state Park, where a lot of people were swimming in cristal clear natural spring waters. It was an extremely hot day, but Lorena was not feeling too good so we didn't jump in. We also kept up our good diet following our days in California with some delicious Tex Mex in a cafe called Chewy's.
In the afternoon we picked Nimi up at work and went around other places in Austin before going back home for a great home barbeque and some cold beers.
On Wednesday we also borrowed Nimi's car and went to San Antonio for the day. We visited all the historical sites and learned quite a bit about all the battles with the Mexicans in The Alamo and how the state of Texas came about... as they say 'Don't Mess with Texas'. San Antonio was quite a pleasant small city and well worth visiting.
Unfortunately our stay in Texas was not very long, so the next day Nimi and Sulma offered to take us all the way to Dallas, on the 4 hour journey. We stopped over a t a great place for some Texan BBQ where we over indulged on our meat eating powers. We had all
sorts of meat, ribs, sausage all weighed and chopped on a basket ready to eat, and washed down with a cold beer.
We got to Forthworth (near Dallas airport) where Nimi had organised a small hotel at a reduced price with one of his dodgy Indian contacts... it helps to have friends around the world. Unfortunately Nimi and Sulma had to make it all the way back to Austin, after watching part of the Olympics openning ceremony in Beijing.
DALLAS & FORT WORTH Our hotel was very near the airport, so we hired a car for one day and picked it up at the airport before going into Dallas to check out the city. We went to visit the JFK museum which was quite interesting and showed all the context and events around the murder of JFK. It was again an extremely hot day, so we went for a short walk and drive around the city centre with was not exactly inspiring, had some lunch and went to Fort Worth in the afternoon to check out all the cowboy world.
It was quite and interesting place, and you could still see all the old Stock Yards where cattle was auctioned
Nimi´s Place
with Nimi and Sulma in good ol' cowboy style. Even with all the recent introduction of tourism, it still seems to have that authentic cowboy feeling. We had a couple of beers to cool down and watched some live country music, but by 7pm we were pretty exhausted, and decided to go to the hotel to watch the Olympics on TV and stayed there.
The next day it was bye, bye, Texas, and we were off to Mexico in the morning to see my sister, Martin and Oscar.
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