A U S T I N: Texas State Capitol

So we went to Austin. And it was pretty awesome. Everyone seems to rave about Austin and I kind of understand why now. It is soooo different from Dallas.

The first thing that I noticed was that the roads are wayyy nicer than they are in Dallas. Not sure why, but they just are! And also the traffic doesn't get nearly as bad which automatically gives Austin like 10 points. Traffic in Dallas is the worst! The second thing I noticed was that even though this is the capitol of Texas we're talking about, Austin isn't nearly as huge as Dallas either. I never really understood just how big Dallas was until I went to Austin. Austin is a big city, Dallas is wayyy bigger.

The highlights:
+They weren't joking about those food trucks! There are so many of them there; I'm so glad that we had amazing weather so we could actually enjoy eating outside :) "Gourdough's" was recommended to us and so we tracked down that tiny food truck and made sure that we tried it. I don't know what I was expecting; I guess just a regular donut, but these donuts were so amazingly delicious, Yvonne and I couldn't stop saying how amazing they were as we ate them! Yvonne kept saying "It's like sin. It's like eating pure sin!" haha, yeah. They were that amazing. And that's why this post deserves two pictures of them ;) Yvonne got the "Son of a Peach" and I got "Miss Shortcake" and I think I would get that one every time. Wow. A whole paragraph about a donut ;)

+My long time good friend Regina just recently moved to Texas! Of all places! And so we were able to meet up one evening and have dinner. It was so fun seeing her. And it was so crazy to think about how we both live in Texas now! We've known each other since we were 12 years old, she helped me learn German (big time), we had many sleep overs, we were best friends! And growing up in Germany we never thought we'd both end up in Texas one day, at the same time no less. I was so happy to see her and her sweet hubby for the evening, even if we did accidentally end up eating at probably the most expensive Italian restaurant known to man. That's what I get for not looking at the menu before walking in. It was a tiny hole in the wall, well so it seemed from the outside, and our waiter did not seem to like us much. Yvonne was so sweet and paid for it all. We owe her big time.

+The fact that Yvonne was able to be there with us was awesome. She spoiled. us. rotten. And we absolutely loved  it :) It was fun shopping with her (she got me that new leather jacket I'm wearing. thank you! I love it!) and driving around the city while Cole took his naps in the car and while Steve was at his seminars during the day. We spent a good chunk of time at the Wholefoods flagship store. That place attracts exactly two types of people: the ones who have dreds and tatoos and look like they woke up at 3 in the afternoon, and then there's the ones who live in their yoga pants. They look so done up and cute in their yoga pants it's hard to believe that they actually do yoga. Never in my life have I seen so many yoga pants all in one place!

+I wasn't joking when I said Cole is attached to that puppy. It went e v e r y w h e r e with us.

+This isn't really a highlight, but we were grabbing some things at Walmart on one of the days we were there and as we checked out, the cashier didn't put our items into a plastic bag. She explained to us that the city of Austin had passed a law that very day which banned all plastic grocery bags. And sure enough, we looked around and every isle was out of bags and all the customers were carrying piles of their purchased items in their hands. We were like ok, whatever and started walking out when we saw a pile of paper bags so we went to grab one when a worker said, "um sorry you have to purchase those." So all I'm trying to say is that if you ever visit Austin, bring you own bags!!!

I don't know when or if we will ever go back, but I'm just happy to have been able to go. I felt like it was sort of a necessity to at least visit the capitol of Texas once before we move away. How can we live in Texas for nearly 4 years and not see the capitol? Yvonne is already making plans of going back and if she really does, I will totally join her. Mainly because I want to get another one of those donuts......;) yum.