Saint Anthony

Or, San Antonio, as they say in these parts :)

We took a day trip on Sunday to a fabulous city an hour and a half south of here, called San Antonio.  It is a very old city, full of history.  We loved it!

The first thing we did was the riverwalk.  What a beautiful place!  It's like what the canal in Indianapolis wants to be when it grows up-- full of very nice restaurants, shops, and beautiful landscaping.

At one place on the riverwalk, there are stairs up through a little riverside open-air theater to go visit the "Historic La Villita."  It's a tiny little village of stone houses and a church, built in 1819.  There's one main road and then just a conglomeration of the little houses.  So sweet!  The church was beautiful.  La Villita is now a "thriving arts community."  http://www.lavillita.com/

We had lunch on the riverwalk, too.  It was SO YUMMY!  We chose it because the menu looked affordable and yet gourmet, and because they provided traditional ponchos for every customer!  It was still a bit chilly from the morning, and someone decided to dress for the high temperature instead of the morning temperature.  Let's just say that only one of us had to wear the poncho.

Next, we visited this really awesome square.  It's called the Main Plaza and it sits between these two historic buildings: the courthouse (in shadow-- sorry!), and the oldest cathedral in the United States.  The San Fernando Cathedral was built by immigrants from the Canary Islands, Spain, between 1735-1750.  It's still a vibrant center of activity for Catholics, as the Plaza is for San Antonio with its farmer's markets and festivals.

Speaking of farmer's markets and festivals, the most disappointing thing of the day happened as we were leaving, and I realized that the largest Mexican market outside of Mexico, called El Mercado, was only a few blocks away.  We drove by just slowly enough for me to snap a picture.  And cry inside.

I think I'm getting the events out of order by now, oh well.  Another place we visited was the Alamo.  Remember the Alamo?  ;)  It looked just like it did in History books.  Except the entire area around it had been turned into a retail theme park!  It was so weird!  Ripley's Believe It or Not, a Wax Museum, the Guinness Book of World Records museum, and all sorts of other odd touristy shops and carnival-esque businesses littered the surrounding block.  And surprisingly, Brandon had no interest in visiting!

The Alamo itself is just the main building, but there are two other buildings inside the stone wall.  We waited in line (it was short) to get inside the main building, and it was interesting (no photography allowed), but the grounds were beautiful!  The other two buildings had been turned into a museum and a gift shop, I believe.  

In the afternoon, we left the main downtown area and drove around.  We found some really neat architecture and a super awesome historic neighborhood called King William Historic District!  The bottom two pictures of this set are in that neighborhood.  It was sweet!

And just before leaving, we drove south a few miles to see one of the Missions.  It looks like a castle, doesn't it?!  There are a few others in the area, but we decided to get back on the highway toward home.

On the way home, we spotted this building.  We were convinced it was a riverboat or gambling casino. Doesn't it look like one?  Well, when we got closer, we could read the sign out front.  Can you?
"Alamodome."  Yep.  A sports arena.  Crazy, right?!  Very odd.

And that's the last of our fabulous day trip to San Antonio.  We loved it, and it's even cooler that it's so close to home!  We have to go back sometime so I can visit that Mexican market...

Bike Ride

We finally completed the loop around our lake!  Yay!  There is a 10.2 mile multipurpose trail all around the lake that we live on, and we've never attempted to complete it!  Well, it was too sunny over the weekend to ignore our lonely bikes, so we hopped on and rode all the way around.  The trail was well paved/packed the entire way, and there was a separate, partitioned sidewalk across every bridge.
Here are some pictures:

Above is the dam that forms the easternmost boundary of Lady Bird Lake.

This is a plant that is being decommissioned.  Probably for something awesome.

Downtown Austin!  Looks much smaller from over here.

You can't see it here, but my bike basket is broken.  Off.  Completely. :(

I love the little things.  Like a little feather submerged in this tiny inlet.

Here's a map of our travels!

Last minute excursion

We had the wonderful opportunity to meet up with old friends (more like adoptive family) that were visiting Texas over winter break, and learned about a quaint little town called Gruene (pronounced "Green").  A few days later, some dinner guests cancelled on us last-minute due to illness, so we decided to check this place out!

It did not disappoint!  It was very cute and walkable and we had a great time exploring all the little shops.  The white building that's mostly hidden in the above picture is their famous music hall-- the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas!  It was built for all the local farmers to have a place to let loose :)  LOVE IT!

We spent a long time in the above antique store.  It was huge, had tons of trinkets to look at, and amazing architectural details!  The only photos that Brandon took during the entire trip were inside this building-- old brick walls and an ancient free-standing concrete safe with oversized black door  :)

We had a light supper here, at the Gristmill, inside Gruene's old cotton gin barn thing.  Again, Brandon was in love with the architectural details and layout.  :)  The food was pretty good, too!

And today we're both back in classes.  Winter break sure was fun!

Happy New Year!

We had a really relaxing New Year's celebration together.  We hung out at the house most of the day, and then around dinnertime we walked down to the "ANY" [Austin New Year] celebration just a few blocks from our place on the lake.  It was a lovely, foggy day!

 

The ANY celebration had many bands on various stages, food vendors, and artisans selling their wares in booths.  The only thing missing were people!!!  We were kind of confused as to why there were very few people around, except that it was occasionally misting.

The last stage, above, was our favorite.  As we passed it, a Russian band was playing really fun music and dancers were on the dance floor in front performing for us.  We stayed and listened to a few songs and had a really fun time watching the toddlers all around bounce up and down to the traditional beats :)  The coolest part was that crazy instrument the guy on the left is playing.  What in the world?!

We then walked home to chill for awhile.  We watched a movie or two on the computer and had some dinner, and then biked back to the lake party around 10pm when the fireworks were scheduled to begin.  NOW there were crowds!  The concerts sounded awesome and there were tons more people than before.  Looks like most people wanted to come closer to time for the fireworks.  And boy, was it a fabulous display.  I kept expecting them to be finished way before they ever were-- they rivaled the 4th of July fireworks!!  They were really beautiful, and accompanied musically by a troupe of bagpipes.  So cool.

As we biked back home, it began to drizzle.  We arrived just in time to watch the best part of the New Year's countdown on TV, and broke out the bubbly in celebration.  Happy 2013!

Austin Christmas trees

Roadside "Christmas trees" are everywhere in Austin.  Ha!  I wonder who does this?