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demakatIf it were up to me my mornings would be extremely calm. Instead my parents are down stairs talking, which sounds like shouting because my dad is very loud and can mostly still hear. I went down to retrieve my cereal bucket with the good frosted wheat chunks, and I had to ask why my Aunt called saying "something was going on". No one home at the time answered the phone cause the landline is never for us.
Turns out nothing was going on and everyone is just sliiiightly off. Grandma's phone battery was dying so hang on I'll call you back. Aunt hears talking and then muffling and when she tries to call back no answer. She calls my grandma's call phone a few times and still not answer. So clearly my grandma has been kidnapped, or is being robbed or something. So she calls our house, and after identifying herself leaves the most cryptic message that "something is going on" and my mom should call my grandma as soon as she gets this. Then apparently she called the police.
My grandma, the one with the dead battery phone, was going to call my aunt back on her cell but got another call from someone else. She can talk for DAYS all on her own, so I doubt it was a short phone call. Then must have finally called my aunt back.
My grandma is in Arkansas and my aunt is in Florida. I bet 911 was very confused.
---
Texas was pretty cool. Mostly because I was packing in tons of stuff and so it seemed much longer than I expected. I also did the thing where you park your car at the airport and leave. It was a secondary place, not the actual airport. I pulled in at 3 degrees and literally beached my car into a snow covered spot. Plane was delayed coming out of Ohio because they had to wait in the de-icing lane "We might have to do that here too!" no, hon, this is Chicago*.
It was my first time flying Southwest, which if you have done some flying before but not with them...is an experience! They board in groups based on when you checked in for your flight (which of course you could pay extra to do early = most if not all of group A) So you get there are on your boarding pass is your group letter and a number. This is NOT your seat number. They have 2 screens and people queue next to these tall metal poles that say numbers on them (<- 35-45, 45-55 - >) and everyone is in charge of arranging themselves in line based on their group, then number. A lines up and boards, people with disabilities, wheel chairs and small children board, group B lines up & boards and then group C. So you sit where ever you want that there is space once you get on the plane. It's way more efficient than I expected.
The best part was that the flight crew seem to have the option to be sassy if they'd like to. They don't have to, but there were at least 2 "In the event of a water landing you'll find this yellow fashion toilet seat cover under your seat" or some variation. I also saw a lot more men as flight attendants than I expected, so that was cool too.
Then in Austin I had the "coming out of a movie theater in the middle of the day" moment where it was 70 degrees. A 67 degree difference from my morning start with the snow beached car. My friend ended up picking me up in her chevy spark, along with two other friends. So that was a full little sparkle! We got great vegan food that was tacos and then for dinner I also had tacos and in the morning...breakfast tacos. Fully inundated with tex-mex right from the start. Whiiiich is not that novel cause of the tacos in Chicago. I guess the thing Austin, and maybe all of Texas is missing is Asian restaurants. There aren't even enough of them to have food regions/types...its just a smattering of everything at one place and apparently none of it is particularly good. Reminds me of when friends were living in NJ and couldn't get good tacos. It was tacos made by people who don't traditionally make them, with ingredients from other food/flavor traditions. Disaster tacos or taco bell were the only options.
I was immediately struck by how much it looked like Florida, which offended some people. But really florida is my only "in the south" experience and so it's probably that the winter in the south things are mostly brown-ish with sometimes evergreens and maybe palms.
The second day we hiked and saw this really awesome waterfall place. I took more photos of rocks and plants. Sunday was the superbowl which we didn't really watch. We built things with lego instead. Then Monday most everyone had to work again so I wandered around Bee Cave and enjoyed being able to sit outside.
Aside from the part where I got home at 9pm and then had to work right away the next morning, I had a really good time!
Some photos!:
*Technically I imagine having just gone through a de-icing the plane would not have accumulated ice on the way over, and therefore not need to be de-iced again.
Turns out nothing was going on and everyone is just sliiiightly off. Grandma's phone battery was dying so hang on I'll call you back. Aunt hears talking and then muffling and when she tries to call back no answer. She calls my grandma's call phone a few times and still not answer. So clearly my grandma has been kidnapped, or is being robbed or something. So she calls our house, and after identifying herself leaves the most cryptic message that "something is going on" and my mom should call my grandma as soon as she gets this. Then apparently she called the police.
My grandma, the one with the dead battery phone, was going to call my aunt back on her cell but got another call from someone else. She can talk for DAYS all on her own, so I doubt it was a short phone call. Then must have finally called my aunt back.
My grandma is in Arkansas and my aunt is in Florida. I bet 911 was very confused.
---
Texas was pretty cool. Mostly because I was packing in tons of stuff and so it seemed much longer than I expected. I also did the thing where you park your car at the airport and leave. It was a secondary place, not the actual airport. I pulled in at 3 degrees and literally beached my car into a snow covered spot. Plane was delayed coming out of Ohio because they had to wait in the de-icing lane "We might have to do that here too!" no, hon, this is Chicago*.
It was my first time flying Southwest, which if you have done some flying before but not with them...is an experience! They board in groups based on when you checked in for your flight (which of course you could pay extra to do early = most if not all of group A) So you get there are on your boarding pass is your group letter and a number. This is NOT your seat number. They have 2 screens and people queue next to these tall metal poles that say numbers on them (<- 35-45, 45-55 - >) and everyone is in charge of arranging themselves in line based on their group, then number. A lines up and boards, people with disabilities, wheel chairs and small children board, group B lines up & boards and then group C. So you sit where ever you want that there is space once you get on the plane. It's way more efficient than I expected.
The best part was that the flight crew seem to have the option to be sassy if they'd like to. They don't have to, but there were at least 2 "In the event of a water landing you'll find this yellow fashion toilet seat cover under your seat" or some variation. I also saw a lot more men as flight attendants than I expected, so that was cool too.
Then in Austin I had the "coming out of a movie theater in the middle of the day" moment where it was 70 degrees. A 67 degree difference from my morning start with the snow beached car. My friend ended up picking me up in her chevy spark, along with two other friends. So that was a full little sparkle! We got great vegan food that was tacos and then for dinner I also had tacos and in the morning...breakfast tacos. Fully inundated with tex-mex right from the start. Whiiiich is not that novel cause of the tacos in Chicago. I guess the thing Austin, and maybe all of Texas is missing is Asian restaurants. There aren't even enough of them to have food regions/types...its just a smattering of everything at one place and apparently none of it is particularly good. Reminds me of when friends were living in NJ and couldn't get good tacos. It was tacos made by people who don't traditionally make them, with ingredients from other food/flavor traditions. Disaster tacos or taco bell were the only options.
I was immediately struck by how much it looked like Florida, which offended some people. But really florida is my only "in the south" experience and so it's probably that the winter in the south things are mostly brown-ish with sometimes evergreens and maybe palms.
The second day we hiked and saw this really awesome waterfall place. I took more photos of rocks and plants. Sunday was the superbowl which we didn't really watch. We built things with lego instead. Then Monday most everyone had to work again so I wandered around Bee Cave and enjoyed being able to sit outside.
Aside from the part where I got home at 9pm and then had to work right away the next morning, I had a really good time!
Some photos!:
*Technically I imagine having just gone through a de-icing the plane would not have accumulated ice on the way over, and therefore not need to be de-iced again.
