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Published: September 7th 2010
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Sometime during the week one of the people in my 'international' group of friends (which is the best way to describe this group, seeing as we largely met each other at events for exchange students) decided that it would be a great idea to go on a roadtrip over the long weekend (Monday was Labour Day). Luckily we had enough American in the group that we had access to a large van, a pick up truck and a car, just enough to take all 13 of us (which included 6 Australians, one German, one Belgian, 2 New Zealanders, and 3 Americans).
So early Saturday afternoon, we set off. San Antonio is only about 1.5 hours away from Austin, but somehow I was in the van that went to one side of Austin to pick up the German, then went to the other side of Austin to pick up someone forgot, before we were able to set off in the right direction. Add a stopover because someone needed to go to the bathroom and I was feeling a bit motion sick, and we were at least an hour behind the rest of the convoy. This caused a few problems on the
first day, because the first 2 cars that got to San Antonio had lunch without us. That was fair enough seeing as we took so long, and when we called to say that we were in San Antonio they told us the burger joint they were at. The thing that annoyed us (the van people) was that in between us getting to San Antonio downtown and finding a park then the burger joint, the other group of people left the restaurant, and didn't think to message us to tell us where they were going. Considering the price of phone calls and messages in America, and the fact that you have to pay to received as well as receive them, everyone was getting a bit annoyed about the amount of calls we had to make, as the other group had wandered off to a place so that they didn't actually know where they were and didn't know how to get to the Alamo (the most signposted and obvious landmark in all of San Antonio).
There was also the fact that they had eaten and we hadn't and they couldn't provide a straight answer on whether we were going to be
having dinner together. It made me never want to travel with such a large group ever again. It was starting to become an 'us' vs 'them' mentality which thankfully healed itself relatively quickly with most of the group agreeing to have a few drinks at the hard rock cafe while we had a late lunch.
After that we went to check out our accommodation- which is basically what you would expect for $22 per night per person. It was actually pretty good because we had the whole place to ourselves and it was kind of like a giant lodge- with a kitchen and TV room. Someone brought a guitar, so we started off the night with some beers purchased from the local service station with a pop song singalong (my favourite was probably 'Don't Stop Believing' by Journey). Thankfully we had a guitar player within the group that knew how to play a lot of those sorts of songs. it was a good start to the night.
Then we went down to the river walk- which is really lovely- kind of a canal a storey below street level, with a lot of restaurants and bars along it and
Peaches!
Lots of peaches in Hill Country jazz music playing. Of course, we managed to find the one bar that was playing trashy 80s music and hit the dance floor. It's funny how in Texas there are quite a few pop songs that have designated dances to them. One came on and it turned out to be pretty fun. A bit after that the music turned to salsa sort of music which none of us knew how to dance to, so we moved onto some British pub that was playing trashy 90s music.
The next morning we decided to go to IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for breakfast, which I was pretty excited about because I'd yet to be to one. Unfortunately there was a huge line out the front, so instead we decided to go to Whataburger, which the international group's favourite burger bar (better than any burger chain in Australia I reckon). Unfortunately great things could not be said of their breakfast menu.
When we originally set out to San Antonio, we were planning to spend the second night on a ranch. Annoyingly, it was booked out, so over breakfast we made the decision not to stay another night (we felt we'd pretty much seen all there was to see in San Antonio, and accommodation at another ranch was going to be upwards of $40 per person), and instead go to a Texan town called Fredericksberg as a day trip on our way back to Austin. We couldn't even be bothered to pay the $10 for parking + however much entrance is to the Alamo, especially when everyone says its very mediocre, so we engaged in some 'drive-by tourism' which involved driving really slowly past the Alamo with people so inclined taking pictures. Honestly, when it comes to the Alamo, that's probably enough- it's really not that spectacular.
Fredericksberg started off as a German colony, and if you're in the area is definitely worth giving a visit. Some of Fredericksberg's attractions include: an AMAZING candle shop, ice cream everywhere, a christmas store, a Pacific War museum (with Japanese peace garden, and war re-enactments if you're willing to pay entry), a lot of German restaurants, a lot of antique/ vintage stores, and some kitchy/ very texan memorabilia/ souvenir stores.
One of the best parts of the whole weekend though was probably the van ride back to Austin. It was just great fun joking around, with everyone in such a great mood. We got back to Austin around 7pm. Which conveniently was the starting time of a birthday party for 2 of the members at the co-op. So I got into my 'greek mythology' costume and joined the celebrations. There's always something going on in Texas!
N.B. All photos are unknowingly courtesy of Steve, who put them up on facebook.
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