Goodbye Austin, Hello New York

All things come to an end, and so did our Austin trip. We decided to make sure that we ended the trip with a bang and so woke up early for some breakfast before heading to the airport. Enter El Mesón Taquería.

We were there so early we had to wait in the car for 10 minutes for opening time. (7am on Saturdays.) You order and pay right away. I got the Chorizo con Huevo plate, which consists of Chorizo, egg, black beans, potatoes, corn tortillas.

I wasn't expecting ground chorizo, so I was very pleasantly surprised. It was also good and spicy and just pretty much perfect. Well worth almost missing our flight for.

Speaking of our flight - we flew American, from Austin to Newark, via Chicago. We stayed on the same plane, not even getting out in Chicago, so that we wouldn't have to take our stuff out, too. You know what didn't stay on the plane though? Our luggage. But we didn't find this out until we hit Newark, stand by the Carrousel, see everyone else pick up their luggage, and then suddenly the thing stops churning out suitcases. Uh oh. Everyone that flew from Austin had their luggage left in Chicago. It's the first time that has ever happened to me... the suitcase has stuff I want, of course, but since I travel with the real essential things with me I wasn't as upset as some of the other passengers were. American promised to ship it to my house by 10pm Saturday night, but that looks like it'll turn into Monday morning between 7 and 10. You know what was in the Newark airport and that someone forgot to pick up, for some reason?

A couple of boxes of donated human tissue, that's what. I have no idea what that means... is it skin? Dead skin? A little gross, but also funnily fascinating.

I had to rush back to Brooklyn to drop off the equipment and then run home, shower, get prettified, and meet mi Cariño at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to see parts of the Ultimate Latina Theater Festival. It was pretty interesting - these group of women played lines from a bunch of different movies, using all kinds of props and situations to give them different meanings. Only downside was that the whole program was too short: less than an hour. Really enjoyed it.

Afterwards we walked all over LES and found this place called Cafecito, for some Cuban Food. Not a real big place, but had a great set up. We sat at the bar, but outside, on stools facing the inside of the bar. The bartender was cute and friendly and quite personable. Mi Cariño declared that the food was the closest thing to Cuban Miami food, and the sitting outside and the mojitos probably helped. I had the picadillo (which is ground beef) with white rice and maduros.

Although I really enjoyed my meal I wasn't bowled over by it - I was more impressed with the tostones and garlic mojo that came with mi Cariño's meal. However I really enjoyed the ambiance, the Sol's and the Presidentes I had were great and perfectly cold and the music... well the music made it the entire visit worth it. Good, old school Salsa that made us wanna just jump up and start dancing.

Speaking of dancing, after la cena that's what we went off to do. First we met up with some friends, then ran into some other friends, and then the whole mess of us walked to a friend of a friend's birthday party before meeting with more friends and walking to Sin Sin for some more birthday partying celebrations. (Ha! Try making sense of that.) Good Times.

Austin Pride

Friday! Our last full day in Austin. Work was a DRAG, despite some very cool stories of activism and writers. But we got through it, packed up our equipment and headed to our hotel to drop it all off. There we met up with Ben before heading to North Austin for some Thai. Chow Down recommended Titaya's.

When we got there it was chock full. Our waiter was a trip, with what we decided was an exaggerated "work" accent that made everything she said come out in a sing song. In any case, appetizers: Spinach Dumplings. (Because one must always have dumplings when one can.)

BTW, those are bits of fried garlic on top of the dumplings, not peanuts. It made for an interesting and yummy change of flavor. One of these days I'll be able to go to a Thai restaurant and not order Tofu Pad Thai. This was not one of these days.

It was delicious - I cleaned that plate gladly. During dinner we entertained ourselves with World Cup chat. Ben and I disagreed over who sang the official World Cup song this year. For some reason I thought it was Daddy Yankee. Ben said it was Shakira. We bet ice cream. Matt spurred the bet on, knowing the answer full well as he was looking at his iPhone. I should've known better. If you must know, Shakira sings this years' official World Cup Song. Stoopid South Africans, choosing Shakira. We drove to Amy's Ice Creams. All three of us got scoops of Coffee Oreo. I paid for Ben's.

One lick of that and I didn't care one bit about losing the bet. It was fracking awesome. I didn't eat the napkin out of pure luck, cuz I sure ate everything else.

Dessert taken care of, the boys decided to meet up with their friends and head South. Luckily, the Long Center was near our hotel so I chose to stick around town and walk to listen to some music. Austin Pride is this weekend and one of the many activities was an outdoor concert.

Chick at the front was pretty friendly and kept calling me Ma'am, which I thought was funny. For 10 bucks I got to buy this general admission bracelet that if I had stayed around Austin for the weekend would've gotten me into several events.

It was all good. There was more space than Lesbians, and there were mostly lesbians, which I expected since three women were scheduled: Robin Smith, Tribella and Patrice Pike. DJ Chris Cox was scheduled at 11pm, but as you know by then all the lesbians will be beddy-bye and the boys will take over. There were a lot of them - just not enough to fill up the area. The VIP's got to sit at tables set out for them. The rest had to make do with lawn chairs and blankets. I used a blanket from my hotel. I feel kinda sorry for my cleaning lady.

Having missed the first two acts I waited for Patrice Pike, who was one of the grand Marshall's for the Austin Pride Parade on Saturday, but whose music I had never heard. She was scheduled to start at 10pm - but didn't. Her music was good but nothing to go crazy about to be honest. Frankly I was more interested in the dynamics going on around me: There were very few women of color present, which surprised me a bit because, hello, Austin TEXAS? I didn't stay for the whole show one because again, Patrice Pike: feh. Two: Not a very friendly bunch. While waiting for Patrice to show up I made the rounds and attempted to establish eye contact with several groups in an effort to introduce myself but it didn't fly. I guess that lesbians are lesbians, even in a town as friendly as Austin. Three: flying back to good old NYC way early in the a.m. y'all, where I got some lesbians that do want to meet me. I think. They might just be trying to act nice. But nice is good. I wish I could've stayed for more of Austin Pride's festivities, though - Saturday morning they had a Pet Parade going on. How cute is that?!