Austin 2013 (part 1)

I'm such a slack blogger, can't believe I've been back from Texas for like three weeks and am only just getting round to posting photos from my trip! it was such an incredible two weeks - however I didn't take that many photos. our aim for the trip was to just become Austinites and as it's not a very touristy (in the traditional sense) place we just hung out, ate lots, wandered round the shops, got in some pool time, saw some local live music. it was perfect, and for the first time in over a year I actually felt relaxed!

here are the first installment of photos, which are mostly from the area right around our motel - we stayed in SoCo which is basically just a really long road which runs through Austin. the top part is called Congress Avenue, and that runs through the city, and then it crosses over the river, and that bottom part (where we stayed) is called South Congress Avenue. it's quite cool, lots of interesting shops, LOADS of amazing places to eat, bars, live music venues.

 

Magnolia Cafe is where we had breakfast almost every morning - it was so yummy there. I had pancakes or breakfast tacos pretty much every morning. once I even had both. oh yes.

pretty much my favourite thing about Austin was all the street art and posters and stickers everywhere - it's such a cool place, and there was always something to look at and snap photos of

these pieces of street art were outside the MexicArte museum we visited and were some of the best pieces we saw during our trip (that dancing lady is my absolute fave!)

the MexicArte museum was showing an exhibit of masks when we were there - a mixture of traditional style ones used for folk dances and religious festivals, which were SUPER creepy looking but quite fascinating (some were made with real human hair and stuff!) but they also had a section of the Lucha Libre masks, which was so interesting. they had original posters from Lucha Libre films which are really popular in Mexican cinema, as well as Luchador costumes and masks, and a film reel showing a documentary about Mexican wrestling.

we walked past this huge lion mural almost every day as it was just up the road from our motel, so I had to get a snap in front of it (excuse the mess that is me - my hair went majorly cray cray in the humdity!)

so I have another three posts about Austin (including one about the Renegade Craft Fair) coming up over the next week and a bit, so stay tuned folks! and if anyone else is thinking about going to Austin, or is planning on going and needs some tips, just holler as I have so many recommendations!