A truly Texan day

Firstly, Happy Birthday Alastair! I thought I'd try to get a post out today since I know you'll probably be checking the blog and for some unknown reason you're at work on your birthday! What's the point of retirement?

Our friend Harry, international man of mystery, came to visit us a few weeks ago on his way between China, where he had been living, and moving to Africa(!) Really he was in the US visiting his fiancée, but we got lucky for a brief window.

While he was here we thought we'd take him to some of our favorite truly Texan places, including Gruene, the little German town just outside San Antonio that has been "gently resisting change since 1872" and is home to the the oldest dance-hall in Texas (which had a rocking local bluegrass/folk band playing when we were there). We also took him downtown to La Tuna (the little tin shed pub that I've written about before) and Liberty Bar!

Not going to go on, this is just an excuse to post some Texan pics really :D

The Guadalupe river at Gruene. Milky blue/green from all the limestone. This is looking down from where we had lunch. There were a couple of big turtles climbing onto the rock, sunning themselves, then plopping back into the water.


Part of the fantastic collection of bar signs and lights at Gruene Hall.


Part of the charm of La Tuna is its location, near the flour mill and grain silos...and with the industrial train line basically running right through the place!


Harry and Josie at La Tuna drinking with our dear "true Texan" friend Tom.


La tuna...the cactus that gives our favorite watering hole its name.


Pecan trees and powerlines.


More powerlines just near La Tuna. It's a truly industrial part of town but for some reason we both really like it. Perhaps because it is less plastic or artificial than other parts of San Antonio...


Maude...what can I say. She was gently parked out the front of La Tuna by an immaculately dressed old man...they were an impressive pair and I fell for her at first sight.

Downtown part 1

Hi y'all,

I finally managed to see some other parts of San Antonio. My dear friend Tom took me downtown on Friday after work and showed me some of 'his side ' of San Antonio. It was great, I really enjoyed it. The city itself has a great feel. I'll have to spend more time there to really work it out nut first impressions were kind of like the St Kilda side of Melbourne in the 70s, combined with 50s/60s America straight from cowboy films and something else... Lots of trees, huge old houses (stunning) and remnants of industry on the outskirts. The inner city was a max of tacky-land tourist (but that's all below street level on the riverwalk, and yet there's something magical about the riverwalk at the same time - I loved it) and some kind of suave home of business men in suits c1960. Like a john brack come to life (with a severe Mexican influence). I know that whole mental picture doesn't make any sense so you'll all just have to come to visit and see what I mean!

San Antonio hosted the first world fair 'HemisFair' in '68 and I think that was a bit of a boom time for the city, and it looks to me like a whole sections haven't really changed since! It's kind of cool. Makes me want to go to a barber though...weird.

I'm a bit deficient on downtown photos at the moment though...it got dark before I really got into the heart of it, but I have a few. These first two are of the place we went to first, called "La Tuna". It was great. The brown bits all over the ground aren't dried leaves, they're years worth of bottle caps, millions of them!




This is the flour mill just near La Tuna, still working too! One of these has a shot of a rock train in it too. Noisy, but I like em. Huge trains (length)




This is the tower of life. Only one of the cool buildings in town but a good representative (too dark to get the others by the time we had dinner)



Finally, a little taste of the riverwalk area. Lots of places to eat along this section and heaps of people. No railings either, so walking along the edge is a high concentration affair!

Jo's Birthday

Hi everyone, just a quickie to let you know that Jo had a wonderful 30th birthday and to thank every who helped to make it so special.

We did all sorts of lovely things... On the Friday after work we went to a real Texan outdoor drinking establishment (La Tuna - I've mentioned it before) for beers and wine served out of a little shed and drunk at outdoor tables under pecan trees. It's the place where the ground is covered in bottle caps instead of pebbles! The plan was to move from there through some of the other boutiquie pubs on that edge of downtown, but it was such a lovely afternoon and we were all enjoying it so much that we just stayed!


Later that eve we went to one of the well known Mexican restaurants here, La Fogata, well known for its margaritas that is! Jo was serenaded, not once, but twice by the mariachis, much to her delight. We also had a unique kind of birthday 'cake' with all sorts of yummies (including chirros, my favorite).



On the day of her actual birthday we had a big fry up at home, then she set to opening presents (many of which made her cry!) We had a lovely visit from Oscar and Leo who brought her a ziplock bag full of mud and water with a few flowers in it, as only kids can. Collected with much love I am sure!


That night we had an amazing dinner at a restaurant called the Grey Moss Inn. Grey Moss is on the outskirts of San Antonio in a place called Grey Forest and it was so beautiful to drive out there and be in almost rural countryside, but with trees and even the odd hill! Again it was a truly magical night for sitting outside, and we did so under the enormous oaks strung with long tendrils of swamp moss. The food was gorgeous. I had fresh Hawaiian tuna with foie gras and a leek custard and Jo had an amazing looking filet (yes, steak) cooked on the charcoal grill. I won't go into too much detail because I know some of you complain about the blog being all about food (I love food!) but amazing desserts, wine and even hot tea were present and accounted for. It was also a lot of fun because we all decided we'd frock up for the night (yes, even me, in a dress).



The next Saturday night we had a birthday bash in the evening which was pretty much a repeat of the superbowl party, just with a different reason for celebrating. We made chili and sushi and I became the bar queen and made mint juleps and mojitos with the fresh mint we'd been growing on our deck. It was pretty amazing to see all the people there and realise just how big our social network here is. We are very lucky to have so many good friends both here and at home.

Back in black

Hi all,

I'm back, and so is my little lappy :) Mostly fixed and raring to go. I say mostly because it's still turning itself off, but after another fruitless interaction with tech support I've given all hope of SONY fixing it and I'm doing what I can instead. I'll spare you the details, but new bios and graphics settings will hopefully help! I'm also thinking of getting one of those fan pads to sit it on. They circulate cold air under the laptop. It seems the vaios are notorious for getting too hot, but I'm not surprised given the specs of the thing!

Anyhow, all is well. I had a good weekend of shopping, cleaning and gaming. On Sunday Tom called and invited me on a tour of the West Side of San Antonio, so that was a lot of fun. Aside form the fact that it was, of course, stupidly hot which restricted us to short hops out of the car to take snaps instead of really being able to wander around. We briefly retired to La Tuna for an intermediate beverage, and later hit the saucer for another beverage and some food. I tried their bratwurst platter (excellent - included a mustardy potato salad and a tonne of sauerkraut) and Tom had their chili which was also delicious and stuffed inside a cobb loaf. I'm having wing withdrawals though since it's been about a month since I last had any!

Last night Tom and I went to dinner at a little Belgian place that we'd heard good things about and had driven past on our Sunday tour. It's called La Friet and it felt a little like somewhere small on Lygon St, Melb. Of course we both had a huge bowl of mussels and fries, and the food was wonderful! The broth for the mussels was perfect. From the options of curry, tomato and "normal" we chose normal, which was white wine and cream with lots of garlic, shallots and herbs. Delicious. Even the fries were good and tasted like they were hand made from real potatoes. We had a half decent French red to go with it and topped the whole thing off with an incredible chocolate tart that was bittersweet and smooth and simply wonderful. Go San Antonio!

On the other side of life here... Within hours (or less) of the latest terrorist threat that saw the orange globe get replaced by a red one we were issues a travel safety notice for work that states:

NO LIQUIDS OR GELS OF ANY KIND WILL BE PERMITTED IN CARRY ON BAGGAGE. SUCH ITEMS MUST BE IN CHECKED BAGGAGE. This includes all beverages, shampoo, sun tan lotion, creams, tooth paste, hair gel, and other items of similar consistency.
Exception: Baby formula, breast milk, or juice if a baby or small child is traveling; prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger'’s ticket; and insulin and essential other non-prescription medicines, which all must be presented for inspection at the checkpoint

One thing that has always surprised me is the sheer volume of baggage that you are allowed to take as carry on on US flights. One of those big roller cases and a smaller (slightly) duffelbag. No wonder it takes an hour or more to get through the screening at the airport here! Oh well, at least I won't have the problem of my moisturiser leaking all through my bag and laptop again, but no toothpaste? No waterbottle? It goes on to say that drinks purchased in the airport have to be consumed before getting onto the plane, but does this throw a spanner in the duty free market? I guess we stay tuned. But I'm so glad I'm not traveling today.

Miss you all ^_^

Oh yeah, I also have photos from our Sunday tour...watch this space.

Días de los Muertos - Days of the dead

Over the last week or two we've been celebrating the days of the dead in their various forms. San Antonio is brilliant; not only do we get the usual American Halloween fun including work celebrations, dressing up, lots of sugar and trick or treating but we also get the Mexican / Catholic celebrations of El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) which is both a memorial and celebration of those who have passed on.

First off there was the work Halloween party which included a hallway decorating contest, costume contest (I was a judge, ha!), mummy wrapping game and dessert contest! The photo below is our friend Katy's 3rd place dessert entry (I think it should have won).

Katy's jelly brain dessert with berry sauce

Then there was the actual night of Halloween. I made a big pot of my Tassie Devil chilli (and a vegetarian version - neither of which actually include devils) and we headed on down to John and Jo's since their house is in a better neighbourhood for the festivities (you don't really get trick or treaters at apartments unless organised by the complex). There were a bunch of us going, some to trick or treat and some to man the door and hand out candy, but the deal was we all had to dress up. We thought we were all organised with Marty's costume since we had this fabulous chilli-pepper outfit we bought before he even existed... but at the last minute we discovered a wardrobe malfunction! Every time he moved his legs it popped open! It was too small!! (Actually, I think it was designed by someone who had never seen a real baby...maybe one of those people who design costumes for dogs) We did manage to get a few pics before retiring the chilli.

Awww

He was remarkably chipper all through the dressing up process!

Hot stuff (aww come on, someone had to say it!)

RAWR!

Luckily his mama did some fancy footwork and secured him a replacement outfit at the 11th hour... even if I did have to drive to the back of whoop whoop to pick it up!

It's a rainbow glow bug, I think. We'll it's cute whatever it is! (Poggie not in costume at this point)

Rainbow bug and his Papa Bear - make sure you check the Bears for more pics and news

Halloween loot for just one child o_0

Our church also does a lovely and very moving day of the dead celebration where members bring photos and stories of people they want to remember.

Altar of remembrance

Finally, to wrap up all this celebrating death/life we popped down to First Friday, which is a arts/beer festival in Southtown, the San Antonio arts district. This particular first Friday included a day of the dead parade as well as a Muertitos Fest!

We started First Friday with drinks, fried mushrooms and jalapeno poppers at our favourite Texan icehouse, La Tuna. We met up with friends and their little girl Camille and then headed down to Muertitos Fest at Say Si, arguably our favorite gallery in San Antonio. Say Si is a student art program but the quality of the work is excellent, as you will see in a moment.

Some of the incredible altars at Say Si

More altars. Call it my Catholic roots but I love these!

Some of the artwork. Hard to tell from the pic but these were gorgeous.

This was our favourite piece by far and we would definitely have bought it if it hadn't already sold! It is a combo of found paper, block printing, woodwork and resin.

After we'd checkout out the artwork we popped outside to catch some of the traditional dancing, including this incredible routine where they danced with real candles on their heads!

After that we did catch the parade, but my photos suck so if you want to see better ones check out the Bears.

Day of the dead parade at Say Si

And of course we dressed Rooey for the occasion so that everybody stopped to goo over him!