Austin, Texas

This is one of the places that I was really looking forward to going to, and it didn't disappoint - although it was obvious that we hadn't given ourselves enough time to really explore the place and get the most of it.

After having driven for the majority of 2 days, from Tombstone to Roswell and then Roswell to Dallas, both of us were more than ready to settle in one place for a couple of days. Plus our one attempt to drive in Austin proved way too confusing and difficult so we decided to give it a bit of a rest and rely on taxis for a little while.

We arrived in Austin later on Thursday 21st June. Feeling a bit peckish we decided on some proper Texas BBQ. We went to a place called Iron Works and I had my first ever order of ribs - and it was freakin' good. The place was set up so you got your order on plastic plates with a side order of bread, potato salad and beans. It was completely no frills - just like the kind of thing you would get if you went to someone's house for a BBQ. And that I think is the main reason why I liked it so much.

The next day was Friday so we went out during the day to Sixth Street, which is the main place for bars and clubs and live music. During the day its pretty dead, but there is one place on the street that is open: The Museum of the Weird. For a small fee you get to go out the back of shop and see there exhibits. For a little bit more you even get a bit of a show. We decided to go for the whole enchilada.

First up were the exhibits. A lot of it was reminiscent of a lot of old freak shows. There was even a Fiji Mermaid

As we went on there was more in this vein - stuff on Bigfoot, mutated animal specimens, shrunken heads, dummies from old horror movies, and even a real human skeleton which we were told was responsible for some spooky occurrences in the shop.

Then we were shown their collection of live lizards.

Then we entered another room full of suitably 'weird' stuff.

We were then entertained with a quick show. And when I say "we", I mean just Liam and I. It was certainly "weird" to have someone perform to just the two of us. Especially considering it involved him putting his hand in a raccoon trap...

... and hammering a nail into his nostril and getting Liam to pull the nail out...

And then attaching fish hooks onto his eyes and hanging dead fish off them...

But it was all in fun.

Later that night we were lucky enough to be in town the same night as Jonathan Richman. However, given that there are so many live music venues there was a problem when he first came out as he and his drummer, Tommy Larkins, play pretty much unplugged and they were getting drowned out by the music next door.

After a half hour or so a compromise was reached and he came out and did a pretty terrific set. He didn't perform any of his songs from his time with the Modern Lovers, but it didn't matter. I particularly liked his dances.

(Sorry about the bad quality photos here, it was pretty dark and I didn't want to use the flash).

The next day was Saturday and it was all about the main reason we decided to come to Austin: The Alamo Drafthouse. We had bought tickets to see The Thing, which is part of their "Summer of '82" series. As well as showing recent cinema releases, the Alamo also have a lot of special screenings of older films, and often have marathons (they even showed a preview for an upcoming marathon screening of all 15 episodes of The Story of Film).

The Alamo Drafthouse really is a dream cinema experience. For one thing, it also operates like a restaurant. There is a menu of food and and you can order throughout the film. In front of the cinema seat is a long table with pieces of paper and pens, with a little light under the table for you to write your order on. Then you stick up the paper (they call them "flags) on a little ridge and after a sort time one of the waiters comes and picks it up and then serves it to you a bit later. The servers walk back and forth between the rows, but its low down so they don't get in the way of the screen. Oh, and you can also get alcohol.

But what really stole my heart is their strict no talking and no cell phones policy. There is an ad that plays before the film stating this, and even a manager came out before the film and said it again. Being an unrepentant "shusher" myself (and becoming increasingly frustrated recently with the amount of douchebags that I've come across in cinemas) you have no idea how much joy this gave me. Probably too much.

The film of course was great and before we left the cinema we both had to get ourselves an Alamo Drafthouse Tshirt. Then we went to a nearby bar called Chupacabra and had some Tex-Mex. It was a good day.

And a pretty damn good stopover, but we definitely have to go back again for a longer stay.