I left for Austin on Thursday afternoon and it was a crazy start to my vacation. My flight out of Tucson was originally scheduled for a 12:10pm departure, but right as I was driving away from my house at 11:00am, I got an e-mail saying the flight was delayed until 1:45pm. Rather than wait at the airport for an hour and a half, I figured I'd just play some Diablo at home and then get some BK Taco Stand before my flight. 12:00pm rolls around and I get a new e-mail saying that the new departure time is 1:15pm, so I'm like, "okay, I should leave now so I can still grab some food, but I guess I will settle for the other BK." As I pull into the drive-thru at Burger King and am waiting for my food, I get a new e-mail saying the flight leaves at 12:45 now. Ruh roh! So now I have like 25 minutes make it to the airport AND park my car. As I run into the Southwest check-in stand at 12:40, I ask the lady if I can still make that flight. She calls the gate and tells me, "probably not, but you should run to the gate and try." Fortunately there was only 1 other person in the security line (man I love Tucson airport) and as I was running to my gate, I hear on the intercom, "Last call for Andrew Lin, doors closing in 5 seconds." I make it to the gate and it's already closed, but the attendant opens it and lets me through, lol. Such a close call and I'm extremely pissed at Southwest for the misleading e-mails! I guess moral of the story is to not take too many chances and next time just go to the airport bar and drink...
Finally in Austin several hours later 'cause I had a connection in Las Vegas...
On the first night I met up with Chris, Nate, Pete, and other Chris, but that Chris passed out early from too much day drinking, a common theme of this particular bachelor party lol. We headed out to 6th street that night, spending most of it at Kung Fu Saloon, a pretty chill bar with several video games to play (skeeball too but it was busy). It was a fairly chill night, but we did stop by Magnolia Cafe on the way home, which I will say has awesome Queso Dip and great food. I know I might've been drunk, but my tastebuds still function fine even then!
The next day, the rest of the party arrived in Austin including Chris's brother Mike, Lee, Adam, Doug, and Matt. We started out with some Tex Mex lunch at Iron Cactus on 6th street, which was delicious but expensive in my opinion. We then made our way over to Bikinis and had several shots and Dos Equis as shown below!
For the most part, Chris's bachelor party was a bunch of drinking at various bars around downtown. Interestingly enough, Nate, Mike, and I did wander into the Pecan Street Festival on Saturday when we were trying to go back to 6th street. Being the alcoholic that I am, I decided to get myself a 24oz Coors Light for only $4. Mike and Nate weren't really day drinking much at that point, so they decided to meet up with Chris and some other guys to check out UT's campus. I kept on drinking and checked out the festival, not really finding much interesting other than a big fat turkey leg. Ugh, I ate soooo much this weekend and followed up a 1 lb turkey leg with a 22oz rib-eye steak at the Roaring Fork just a few hours later, lol.
In the end, a solid bachelor party and I think Chris got everything he wanted out of it. Now it's just the waiting game until his wedding in New Jersey come September!
On Sunday I met up with my friend Mike who used to work at the IBM in Tucson but transferred to the IBM in Austin. He took me to one of his favorite dive bars called C-Hunts Ice House where there's an ice trough at the bar where you can stash your beer. Although there is really no reason to ever nurse a beer so long enough that it would go warm... Nonetheless, a novel idea! I went to IBM Austin on Monday to say hello to a few coworkers and just check out the plant, but I think I definitely enjoy the Tucson site better.
Austin was a pretty cool city to check out, but it wouldn't be on one of my top cities to live in. Anyhoos, was just great to be on vacation again since it had been a while! Next stop Apache Lake and then New Orleans! W00T W00T!
