Cell phone photos from one of my favorite parts of SXSW this year - United States of America’s Most Awesome Open Mic of All Time. Or something like that. It wasn’t reaaaaally an open mic, I’m quite sure it was by invitation, but all the super awesome folkies did sets of in-the-round the whole night long. The only bummer was everyone only got two songs, but all of them were great, so even though it wasn’t enough from any one artists, the good stuff just kept coming.
Good thing there’s a whole movement to Keep Austin Weird, cuz my tofu dog taco, Topo Chico, Kettle Chips & strawberries are not exactly traditional fare for this holiday! Happy 4th! :)
Thanks for the Sushi, Mr. President!
On Tuesday I decided to take advantage of my 24 hour bus pass and go back downtown to explore a little. I also wanted to see if I could get my backpack strap fixed before it came off altogether, and I’d seen an Austin Shoe Hospital (they fix luggage too) on the route the day before, so I figured that if I was on the same bus, even if I passed it, all I’d have to do is get off on the next stop and walk back.
Seemed like a good plan, except for this was posted on the bus:
So I don’t know if I got on a different bus than the day before, or if it didn’t go the same way because of the President’s visit, but in any case, we got to a point downtown and the driver told me it was the end of the line because of the detours. I hadn’t seen the Austin Shoe Hospital, and I really thought I was paying attention! So I figured we must not have passed it yet and continued on foot.
When I got about a block away from the river, I realized that I was a little lost and pretty hungry, so I decided to find some food and check maps on my phone. I saw several tempting choices but decided to go for sushi at a place called How Do You Roll? It ended up being sort of like Subway or Quiznos but for sushi! You picked your ingredients and they rolled it right there in front of you.
I chose the traditional seaweed wrap, brown rice, asparagus, avocado, tomago (little strips of egg omelet) and cream cheese.
I also got a seaweed salad and a dragonfruit Vitamin water It was all delicious!
After lunch, I figured out I needed to be several blocks over and back in the direction I came. I ended up passing the big hotel place where the President was going to speak later, and saw some camera crews setting up and just the general bustle of people getting ready.
I did finally make it to Austin Shoe Hospital to drop off my backpack, but the way I see it, if the president hadn’t come to town, the busses would have ran normally and I wouldn’t have gotten lost (well, not in that particular part of town at least!) and I wouldn’t have found the lovely sushi. So thanks Mr. President! :-)
