Another Silly Photo!

Sorry, but I just had to embarrass Rich by getting the camera out in the supermarket AGAIN! The idea of easy cheese (that's cheese in an aerosol can) is bad enough - but the tag line - A Little Way to Show Your Love - ????!!!!

To make up for the silly photo, here is a nice one of a pretty amazing cloud I spotted while driving into town the other day.

My Birthday - Dinner at Uchi

Its not very often that anyone gets dressed up in Austin, and I guess we have even less of an excuse than most. But we did for my birthday, which meant it was worth a photo!



Some of you may know that Griogair and Kirsty gave us a very cool wedding present - a voucher for one of the best restaurants in Austin. We decided to use it on my birthday, and had an amazing dinner there. Its called Uchi, and it is a Japanse restaurant, which specialises in sushi. It is in a cool area of the city just south of downtown, and not that far from where we live.

We forgot to take any pictures of the outside - so keen were we to get in and start eating - but here is a picture of the cool view out the window of the bar, where we sat while waiting for a table.
We went for the 9 course chef's tasting menu, which unfortunately means I don't really know what anything was, just that it was delicious. Here are some photos for you to drool over.

I remember that this one had foie gras in it, and had the most amazing velvety texture.


And we washed it down with sake - I didn't really know that sake was cloudy, or that it came in a box! But it tasted great.
The last course was a rather amazing chocolate and wasabi cake with pistachio ice-cream. The cake was amazing - the wasabi was a bit intense after a while, but that was probably a good thing, or else I would have been asking for seconds!

So thanks very much to Kirsty and Griogair, this really made my birthday!

Cool Restaurant Walking Distance From Our Apartment!

This is the last of the photos from the dump of the last few weeks, but look away if you are squeamish!
We have seen this restaurant a couple of times while walking/running past, and it is just down the road from our apartment. Walking distance, although on the basis that there are no pavements up the road I'm not sure how often we would do that - we drove for this visit!

It is a cool Tex-Mex restaurant with a large patio area outside, where a band was playing as it was a Saturday night. It has a funky kind of 1970s vibe about the mis-matched garden furniture and wipe clean tablecloths, and the food was good.

Unfortunately, we went at dusk, and were outside next to lots of trees. And we didn't think to take any bug repellant. Oops! Once we realised the critters were biting we borrowed some from the barman, but the beasties had beaten us to it.

Exhibit A for those who can bear to look - I could barely walk that day my foot was so swollen. Forgetting the bug repellant is a bit like having a big night out drinking - once you are in the midst of the after-effects, you swear you will never do it again. But you always do.

What you can't see very well from here (lucky you) is the blister on my fourth toe - it was a monster, and stopped me bending the toe at all. MUST REMEMBER BUG REPELLANT AT ALL TIMES!

4th July Fireworks

Yes, the wonder that is 4th July continues - they really love this holiday here! We got back to Austin in time to head into town to see the fireworks. Apparently about 100,000 people were watching them, although as the park we were watching from is so huge, we didn't feel that crowded. We headed down to Town Lake about 6ish with Lorraine and Boyd and had a picnic first.
It was a pretty hot day (again) definitely in the 100s, and by the time it got dark (back of 8) it was only just into the 90s. The symphony orchestra played the 1812 overture (unfortunately not when the fireworks were on) and generally it was a great night. As my camera has a fireworks mode, I went into photographer overdrive - luckily for you there is only room to post a few pictures on this.

4th July Parade

We stayed in Fredericksburg on the morning of the 4th to see their parade, and boy are we glad we did! It was quite an event, the whole town came out for it, no doubt because it was a Saturday, and a great way to understand a bit about the psyche of these Yanks. Best to describe it by pictures I think, you can take what you will from them!

Pipes and guns, always go together over here:
Luckily they separated the Republican and Democrat floats, but I reckon the Republicans would have won in a fight, they had a lot more support!


More guns, but I presume this one isn't in working order?
The Gillespie County Farm Bureau Beauty Queens 2009:

A father and son tractor combo:

A true German/Texas goodbye - "Das ist Alles, y'all!"

4th July weekend - Fredericksburg

As Rich had the Friday off for the 4th July celebrations, we headed west to Fredericksburg, which is right in the Hill country, I guess a bit like Pitlochry in Scotland. It is a quaint wee town, with lots of unique shops for rich tourists, nice bars and restaurants, and a German theme, it having been set up by Germans in the 1840s (don't quote me on the time period, I learnt most of the facts while drinking beer in the Brewery!) As usual, there were some amusing signs I just had to take photos of. I particularly like the idea of the second shop, Mum I reckon we could spend a lot of money in there!

The next day we got up early and visited Enchanted Rock, which is a geological feature similar to Ayers Rock (in geology, not in size!)
It is pretty impressive, and as it is basically the biggest thing around, you get a great view from the top. Here are some pics of us mucking about on top of it.

I also found this cool rock which looks just like a face!


That evening we headed out to Luckenbach. It is described in the guidebooks as a town with one of the oldest dance halls in Texas. A town would be a generous word to describe what is really just two barns - one which is a post office and bar (yup, how cool is that?!) and one which is a dance hall. We had a great time watching guys two-stepping in their stetsons and cowboy boots without a hint of irony. We took to the floor a couple of times, but I think we need a bit more practice before we take these guys on!

More Wakeboarding!

At the end of June, Rich and I went to the Texas Ski Ranch, which is sort of similar to indoor skiing, but for wakeboarders/water skiers. There is a huge lake with a cable tow that runs in a loop round the lake about 20 feet above the water. The ropes feed down from that and tow the wakeboarders/water skiiers, basically until they fall off!

Unsurprisingly Rich is now awesome at this sport and spent hours circling the lake and learning how to turn and (attempting to) jump. I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong as I saw him walking back to the start of the tow after one of his turns, and then I realised it was because, unlike the rest of the wakeboarders coming back for more, he was carrying the handle and rope - unfortunately he had held on for too long while crashing into the side, and had taken them with him, a feat I didn't see anyone else manage while we were there.

I am still struggling with this sport, so took to the baby tow, and was unaware Rich was taking this video of my first go. Unfortunately at this point no one had explained to me that you are supposed to hold on when it reaches the end, and it will turn round and you can board back to the beginning. Hence you see me crash into the water in spectactular style, worrying that if I stayed upright any longer I was going to be boarding on the grass!

Sorry for the delay!

Apologies if you have been looking at the blog, patiently waiting for some more news of our exciting life here! As you may know, we went through a computer malfunction, meaning we lost all the photos we took since we got here (boo!) So I was waiting until it was fully resolved to upload any more photos. But we are back in busines, and I thought I would start with a quick video clip of the view from our balcony during a thunderstorm. We get these quite often, and although they are pretty scary, I have to say we could do with one just now, it hasn't rained for days! I am also told by the friendly weather chap on the news that this is the 28th day in a row the temperature has hit triple digits (that's a minimum of 38 celsius, guys!)