We knew from the start that today would be a busy day. We had a rehearsal dinner to get to that evening, shopping to do (the clothes Katie and I had planned to wear that evening were still packed in the truck!), and several hundred more miles left to drive. Because I take the longest to get ready, I had to get up and shower first while Katie and Melinda got a few extra minutes of rest. No big deal, I thought, since I would get to rest in the car when Katie took the first driving shift. I'm sure that by now you know just about exactly where this story is going to go: Katie forgot to transfer her contacts from one bag to another when we ditched most of our luggage in the U-Haul and didn't have a spare pair of glasses with her (those were lost while she vacationed in Costa Rica), so yours truly would be stuck driving the entire rest of the way to Austin. No rest for the weary is right!
Luckily, aside from that hitch the day actually went reasonably well. I powered through the drive, making the most of the 80 mph stretches of freeway, while Katie did her best to blindly direct me where to go and to work with her parents (who were already in Austin for the wedding) to make sure that she had clothes and contacts, and that we all would have a hotel room for the weekend. My sister had the important job of photographing our journey.
We arrived in Austin around 3:00 pm, where we immediately stopped by Target so I could pick up the additional things I needed for my outfit that evening, and then ventured on to The Driskill Hotel, the luxurious five-star hotel where we would be staying for the weekend. (It was also where the wedding would be taking place on Saturday, so most of Katie's family was also staying there). Definitely a huge step up from what we had referred to as the "semen hotel" from the night before! It wasn't long before we were quickly throwing on our party attire and getting ready for the evening's festivities.
Friday night was the rehearsal dinner at The Shoreline grill. Melinda knew from the start of our trip that Katie and I would be attending the rehearsal dinner and the wedding without her, but she is the adventurous type and was happy going off on her own to explore the city. As it turned out, however, one of the families in town for the rehearsal dinner/wedding who needed a babysitter and had planned to use one provided by The Driskill, was in a bind because The Driskill did not have enough babysitters on hand that evening. Since Melinda was nice enough to agree to help babysit the two boys, she was also able to come with us to the rehearsal dinner. This was especially cool for Melinda because she got to meet all of Katie's awesome family! After everything we had gone through over the past few days, it was completely surreal to be in a beautiful restaurant, wearing fancy clothes, and celebrating such a special occasion with Katie's family. I felt incredibly honored to be included and I was so happy that we had made it to Austin in the nick of time!
Saturday morning came all too quickly. Our bodies wanted us to sleep in, but nonetheless we had more important plans -- apartment hunting! Melinda initially debated about whether or not to come with us or whether to get some much-needed R&R at the hotel, but after a delicious breakfast at The Driskill, she decided that she had enough energy to tag along.
We met with an agent named Monica from Urban Squared Realty who was scheduled to show us several apartments in the Austin area. Neither Katie or I had ever used an apartment locater and our expectations about how useful she would be were low, especially given that few things had worked out very so far on this trip, but we were willing to give it a try. As it turned out, however, Monica was fantastic! Because she had lived in Austin since she was seven years old, Monica was able to give us what amounted to a driving tour of the city as we went from apartment to apartment. She pointed out restaurants, bars, farmers markets, stores, and other places of interest along the way and also helped give us the details about the character of each neighborhood we were considering. We definitely could have gone apartment hunting on our own, but it would have taken much longer and we would have gotten lost a lot! Plus, we've now visited several of the restaurants she pointed out and each one lived up to her top-billing.
We visited four apartments and the fourth one was a charm. The neighborhood was exactly what we were looking for -- vibrant and full of life, with a bunch of cute places to eat, drink and shop. It is three miles outside of downtown in the "South Lamar" area (otherwise known as "SoLa" if you are one of the cool kids). The apartment itself is a two bedroom, one bathroom unit on the second floor. It's nothing that amazing, but it's clean, the layout is perfect, there is parking aplenty, and the location-to-price-ratio can't be beat!
With our biggest mission (finding somewhere to live) accomplished, the rest of the weekend seemed to fly by. Sunday morning we again woke up earlier than was advisable given our level of exhaustion -- but who can argue against a farewell breakfast at an Austin institution: the Kerbey Lane Cafe?
After breakfast, we headed over to the Austin Airport to drop off Melinda. It was so sad to see her go! However, the fact that she was leaving was slightly overshadowed by the fact that Katie managed to lean heavily on her exhaust pipe while the car was running and give herself a half-moon shaped burn on her shin! Oops. Without further injury, we managed to get checked out of The Driskill and checked into our temporary (cheeper) hotel in the suburbs (our new apartment wouldn't be ready until later that week). There we got the kitties set up, ate some Tex Mex, and quickly called it a night. As I drifted off to sleep that evening it started to sink in: I was actually a full-fledged resident of the State of Texas . . !
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