Blogs from Austin, Texas, United States, North America - page 7

Hello again... it’s been a good long while (9 months?) since I last wrote a blog... thank you to those who are still reading them!! This one is going to be slightly different!! I am not back in some far off exotic country, neither am I off gallivanting on my own for months on end. This time I am visiting a friend in Austin, Texas and then the two of us are flying to Cancun, Mexico where we are meeting a few others and spending 9 days diving – Heaven! The people I am going with are all people who I’ve met on my many travels. Let me introduce them to you: Adam (who I’m staying with in Austin) is a British guy who did his dive master training with me at Blue Planet Divers, Thailand. ... read more

The only sign of life anywhere nearby was a conveniently placed taco stand opposite. Our usual 6am rise for the hotel breakfast. No cereal on offer today, so we had our first Waffle. Quite a skill to cooking them. Today we set course for Amarillo, Texas via New Mexico. The first thing we needed to do on the road was to stop at the state line for our now customary photo with the new state we are entering and then it was onwards towardsTexas. Fuel in Americahas averaged so far at around $3.45/gallon which converts to around $0.91/litre. Compare this to Australia where you can pay anywhere between $1.35/litre in the city up to $1.70/litre in remote country towns, and it is no wonder no one our age can afford to road trip around Australia. New ... read more

Sunday 8th of July So tired, is the only way I can describe the way a felt when I woke up on this day. I tried so hard to get up in the morning to have breakfast but I just ended up rolling around in bed and farting about in our room for hours. After just a few days our room was an absolute state. I can't say I am the tidiest person in the world but I try and keep my stuff in order where possible. Anyway i decided it was time I went down to the pool to catch up on some much needed sun bathing. When we all finally got down to the pool it was completely empty we had it all to ourselves. The first thing we did was dive in the ... read more

Day 1 Fifth stop on our trip is Austin, Texas, home of Oli’s extended family. We flew with Jet Blue, our third airline of the holiday. These were a step up from US Airways, free checked bag AND free snacks. I think you were only meant to take one snack but Oli somehow managed to snaffle three snacks and I wasn’t far behind with two. We pooled our resources and had a rather nice meal of cookies, peanuts, popcorn and these weird dark navy blue crisps. Our flight arrived a little late in Austin at about 6:30, Mark and Janie were waiting at the bottom of the escalator to meet us. We collected our luggage and walked out of the airport into a wall of heat which didn’t let up the whole time we were there. ... read more

We got up tired and hung over and went to the greyhound station for our bus to Austin! I'd forgotten how gross the greyhound stations were. ALOT of poor/bum looking people everywhere! The bus to Austin was easy and once we got in Meghan's boyfriend -Alex's brother Chris picked us up and also graciously let us sleep on his couches for the two nights!Chris had band practice so we went straight there (with no make up on, feeling gross from the greyhound and wearing ugly clothes). He plays in an African band at this awesome place called Sahara Lounge. The owner was a crazy American woman who was married to the leader of the African band and also played bass for them (she learnt bass at 48). She gave us free beers and the wifi password ... read more