Weird weekend.

Last Thursday I wake up at the ungodly hour of 5am, do morning things, grab my suitcase and catch a cab to Logan for a 7am flight to Austin, TX. The couple of times that I've taken a cab to the airport at ungodly early hours, it seems I get the chatty guys. Every other time I've taken a cab, I get the more laconic type. Is it really too much to ask for a reversal of that kind of fortune. Small talk's not much on my mind when I'm using most of my energy just to stay awake.

So, this Austin trip has been on the radar for a while. Even though I only set it up a couple of months ago, I knew it would be happening soon for a while before that. Recently, going through one of my usual phases of, "This winter thing sucks...what am I doing here?...I should move someplace warm." I made a mental list of places I would consider moving, if I ever did decide to. It was a short list. I wanted to still be in a decent sized city. Some place with a good music scene. Maybe someplace a little eccentric. It was a short list. Los Angeles, of course. Atlanta. And Austin.

L.A. I'd already been to a few times. I didn't have to go back to know I'd seriously consider it. Atlanta, I checked out briefly about a year and a half ago. And now I've knocked Austin off the list.

So, how was it?

A bit underwheleming, I'm afraid to say. Although there are conditions on that.

First, when I go to a new city, some place I haven't been before, I try to set my self up in an area where I think there'll be a lot going on. So, typically, that would mean "downtown," unless I already know otherwise. For instance, I know downtown L.A. was not really the area I wanted to be in when I went there. Hollywood was more the scene I was interested in. So, for Austin, not hearing otherwise, I chose downtown as the place to stay. I wasn't renting a car, so I wanted to be within walking distance of stuff, or on/near public transportation.

Now, the problem I found with downtown Austin (or what I saw of it), is that it's a largely a "business" downtown, which is to say a lot of companies. Also, being the capital of TX, there's a lot of government there as well. Basically, not places you're going to hang out. It sleemed like a very slow area, even on the weekend. No funky little shops. You even had to walk a few blocks before hitting your first restaraunt.

The one exception to this was of course 6th street, which would be like the Austin equivalent of the French Quarter. But even that didn't really get busy until night time. At which point the roughly 100 dozen bars attracted thousands of people. They close off certain blocks of the street to traffic, and the city's party-going population walk (and eventually stagger) from bar to bar. There's no cover anywhere (at least that I went to) on the street, and drinking in Austin is not expensive. There's a pretty decent mix of live music venues, DJ venues, and dance venues. We saw a bit of all of them. And while it was an enjoyable enough for the weekend, it seemed like the type of scene that would get old quickly. It felt a bit too contrived (although that type of scene anywhere probably is to some degree or another.) But it felt worse here, mostly because for a few weeks before I went, all I heard about was "Oh yeah, 6th street. Gotta go to 6th street. 6th street is the place to be." Anywhere I did research on what to do. Hell, even a guy who called into the Help Desk from TX, when making small talk, mentioned it.

It was fun, but after three nights in a row, I realized it's wouldn't be the type of place I'd ben spending entire weekends.

Now, there's a caveat to these downsides. I mentioned before that when I go to a new city, unless I already know otherwise, I usually chose a downtown location to base out of. Works great for a Montreal, or for a New York. But to liken it to a city in which I'm intimately familiar, it would be like staying at a hotel in downtown Boston and not straying far from that area. I don't particularly hang out much in that area, and I'd miss out on places I do hang out, which would be more Cambridge, Somerville, Allston. I'm sure Austin has these equivalents, but not knowing anyone there, and not knowing a public transportation system well enough to get to said areas (if we knew where they were) made it hard to really branch out.

Also, there was the fact that according to local weather forecasts, it was the coldest weekend Austin had experienced in a while. The first day we were there was pretty nice. The second was rainy and cold, and the third windy and cold. I wasn't packed for that. I thought I was getting away from cold.

The biggest thing however, was actually from back the Boston way. We (me and Matt) found out Thursday night that my aunt Shirley was in the hospital and not doing very well. The connection is obvious for me; and Matt grew up around the corner from their family and was good friends with her son (which is how I met him, incidentally). So when we found out Saturday that she had passed away, it seemed to cast a bit of a pall over rest of the trip. It was shocking mostly because it was so quick. She was admitted Wednesday night and passed away on Friday. It was kidney or liver failure, from what I heard. I'm a bit unclear on the details because I got them piecemeal over the weekend.

And a blizzard. The biggest storm of the 2005-06 winter hit Boston on Sunday morning/afternoon. The very day we were supposed to fly back. So after spending many minutes on hold with Jet Blue, once on Saturday night, and again on Sunday, we find out that our flight is stills cheduled to go, albeit with about an hour delay. Although we hear that Logan airport is either closed or or 90% closed (depending on the report). Apparently, however, our flight was one of the 10% that felt that flying into a blizzard with high wind gusts (more the problem, in my estimation) was a fine idea. So we only got back an hour or so later than originally planned. Of course, landing at Logan was the concern on everyone's mind, but all things considered, although tense at the time, it was very smooth. I've experienced worse landings in much better weather.

All things considered, coming home to cold, shoveling, and a funeral, however, I might not have minded as much a canceled flight. It was an interesting weekend, should be an interesting week. More in the Chinese curse sense of the word.