Texas is a big mystery to me still. It's been eight months since we moved to Austin and I'm still surprised or confused by something almost every day.  Take cowboys and gauchos for example. I always thought gaucho was just cowboy in Spanish but it turns out I was very wrong. Evidently there is a big difference in culture, food, and lifestyle of Texas cowboys and South American gauchos

I found out about my mistake on the way to a festival put on by The Wine and Food Foundation of Texas a couple of months ago. Cowboys and Gauchos was a one day festival at a ranch-style venue a few miles out of town. There was promise of all you can eat meats and flowing bottles of Texas wine. How could we say no?

On the way out to the festival my husband set me straight on the cowboys vs. gauchos thing. Being a native Texan he got pretty worked up over me not knowing the difference. I thought it was a pretty easy mistake to make, but what do I know?

I bet you want me to stop boring you with my story so you can see the pictures of carnage don't you?


Are you happy now? No?


Still not satisfied? Wow. I thought I was weird...


Poor little piggy. He was pretty tasty though.

We weren't disappointed. There was enough meat available to feed at least a few packs of wolves. We had meaty bison sliders, spit-roasted Brazilian sausage and quail dripping with smoky juices, whole roasted pig (buried and smoked in a pile of wood shavings for hours), and of course the lamb and pig splayed out above. It certainly wasn't barbeque.  But it was tasty.


Along with the meat there was an entire room with booths for various Texas wineries (yes they actually grow wine in Texas. Fascinating, I know...) so plenty of people were getting sloshed on that fine Sunday afternoon.


Probably helped liven up the dance floor - there was no shortage of dancing to the country/western music in the main hall. Adding to the experience were the huge live Oak trees around the property, the girls in beautiful dresses and cowboy boots, and the smoke from roasting meat lingering in the air. Quite an experience.

Small town Texas

Becoming Texan?

The last two months in Texas haven't gotten me any closer to an accent and I haven't bought a pair of boots or cowboy hat yet, but that hasn't stopped me from falling in love.What's not to love about a place where you can eat barbecue, biscuits and gravy, and sushi alike out of food trucks, where you can hang out at an outdoor pub on a Sunday afternoon with your dog, or get all dressed up for a night on the town?  I don't even think I've gotten to the honeymoon stage yet, but the activities below have made me feel all head over heels for my new home.

5 Cool Things I've Done So Far

1. Music - saw my first concert at Austin institution, Emo's.  For only $20 we saw three great bands on the outdoor stage. It was cool hanging out in the crisp air, drinking cheap beer, and getting smoke blown in my face. Definitely a must for anyone into music
2. Food - My husband and I celebrated our 9th anniversary in style at Jeffrey's downtown. What a treat! Foie terrine and duck confit for me, crispy oysters and fillet for him. I only wish I would have taken pictures
3. More Food - A trip to San Marcos a few miles away ended with some of the best barbecue I've ever eaten in a hole in the wall we never would have found without the help of Google. Kip's Texas BBQ off I-35 had brisket that melted like butter when it hit your tongue and cornbread that would make a grown man cry and ask for more (okay, there wasn't really any crying but there certainly were seconds)
4. Shoal Creek - A great off-leash area runs along the creek just a couple of miles from our house. We take our dog Ripley down, let her off the leash and watch as she chases squirrels, plays with other dogs, and cools off by laying in the shallow creek. I love how dog friendly this town is!
5. Shopping - I discovered Central Market, also just a mile from our house. This mecca of organic specialty foods is absolutely amazing. The produce section alone could occupy me for whole afternoons.

What's Next?

The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty cool here in Austin. Here's a few things I hope to do and blog about:

1. Farmer's Market - I'm hoping to hit up the local farmer's market for the first time this week. I'll post about all the interesting things I find
2. Mardi Gras - guaranteed to be a blast - I'm sure I'll find something fun to do.   
3. SXSW -  South by Southwest is about to start! Good thing we got wristbands -they'll get us into some of the amazing concerts. My husband, the lucky dog, scored himself a ticket to the interactive portion and will be spending a whole week geeking out.
4. Spring Planting - I know this doesn't sound as cool as everything else but I'm excited! It's been over a year since I've had any sort of a garden and I'm looking forward to getting some dirt under my fingernails.

Keep checking back for updates! Spring is in the air and my fingers are itchy to tell stories.

The snow is already all melted, but this morning felt like a winter wonderland when we woke up. Ripley and I went to play outside for a while and it was all silent and peaceful (except for the kids yelling and throwing snowballs at each other down the street). I think most people took the day off. It wasn't a lot of snow but after living on a tropical island for the last nine months it was kind of surreal. Weren't we just sweating our brains out in Taipei a couple of months ago?

Ripley was cautiously optimistic about the snow until she slid on her butt

The last few days have been ridiculously cold. I was excited at first but the dog and I started getting pretty stir-crazy mid week. I hope it warms up next week. We found a great off-leash trail (where dogs can run around off their leashes and terrorize squirrels and unsuspecting hikers) only about a mile away from home. I can't wait to take her back so she can get into the creek and bite at the fishes but it's way too cold out right now. 

We're finally starting to settle in to our new home a little more. It was really strange coming back to the states and to a new city but little by little it's feeling like real life again. The highlight of the week (other than the snow obviously) was my first trip to the local library. I got a card and a stack of books. Something I dreamed about many times in Taipei (yeah I'm weird. I longed for the library...)

Definitely not a scene you see in Arizona.

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. To be honest I needed some recovery time from all the travel. It didn't seem like it would be a difficult thing to travel for a month straight but it really took a greater toll on me than I expected. I'm just now starting to get in the mood to travel again (to the great excitement of my husband - he didn't get to go to Europe and has been itching for some good travel for a while now). 

Strolling down Las Ramblas

So without further ado, back to Europe! After our drive through France it was nice to give up the car for a few days and hop a train from the south of France to Barcelona. As luck would have it we hit Barcelona right as the biggest festival of the year was about to begin - La Merce. Because hotel rooms were sold out we ended up renting an apartment which turned out to be a fantastic idea. It was spacious and had a kitchen and washing machine.

The festival started our first night. We went to one of the big squares and there was a parade of giants. People carried these massive puppets around and made them dance to some really strange music. All night puppets danced around the streets followed by bands. Stages were set up all around the city and concerts started at all hours of the night, one even beginning at 4AM. It was one massive party.



The next morning all those people who'd just gotten to bed from the partying were rudely awakened by muskets. This is another tradition of La Merce. Older men walk through the streets (followed by drummers) and shoot rounds of muskets to wake everyone up and get them out to join in the festivities again. This was pretty outrageous to experience. It would never be allowed in the U.S. - the complaints of disturbing the peace would be enough to have even the most jovial of law enforcement officers put an immediate stop to the shenanigans.



After waking up and following the musketeers around for a while, we went on a tour of the city - mainly to find Gaudi. Gaudi was a 19th century architect and responsible for some of the strangest buildings on earth. The walls of his buildings seem to drip and morph as you walk around them. A very surrealist experience.



Of course we ate several meals worth of tapas while in Barcelona. The food was incredible throughout Spain. It was a little shocking for me that the best food was without a doubt in Spain and not France, but the flavor and variety was unlike anything you could find in the relatively bland and uniform restaurants of France.


We ended our visit to Barcelona with an evening trip to the pier and beach. We had a fun time at a beach-side restaurant, sipping sangria and eating nachos (that is until a massive windstorm came up and almost blew the whole place away). Right before going back to our apartment we saw a great fireworks show on the beach (related to La Merce).


Barcelona was an interesting mix of heavy tourism, backpacking/beach-bum crowd, and amazing Spanish culture. We ate some of the best food I've ever had, got used to the lispy sound of the Spanish unique to Spain, and saw beautiful architecture - both old and new. I would definitely recommend Barcelona as a great vacation destination. There is a ton to see and do and eat and experience - not to be missed if you can get yourself there.

A great thing about driving through the French countryside is that there are plenty of picturesque little villages to stop and see - what I like to call petit France. Yes, there is an actual place called Petit France in Strasbourg (see picture above), but the title seemed fitting for each of the quaint towns we visited on our trip through France.

Strasbourg, France - cathedral

Every small town has a cathedral or an old play house or a castle of some kind to see. We started out our drive in Strasbourg, which is part of the Alsace region of France. It has a distinctly German feel to it, being near the border and having been a part of Germany for many years.

Stasbourg France

The food in Alsace definitely demonstrates the German influence- some local favorites that we tried (and loved) included spaetzle, sauerkraut, and several types of sausages. Coupled with the cold chill in the air and the smattering of German words throughout the city I almost felt like I was in Germany instead of France.

Strasbourg, France

As we made our way south and into the Burgundy region, the thick dark forest and German architecture of Alsace begin to give way to more rolling green hills and white-washed towns. Dijon was our first stop and we felt warmer already as we climbed out of the car and walked through the mostly empty streets (it was a Sunday and few people were out, almost nothing was open). Some of the German influence was still around here though. It was an interesting mix of the whiter and warmer towns of the south with the darker and colder towns of the north.

Downtown Dijon, France

Dijon, France

The white buildings and calm streets of Dijon were a good indication of what we could expect as we made our way through the Rhone Valley to Lyon where we stopped for the night. Much of the German influence was left behind as we entered this light and airy city on the rivers Rhone and Saone.

River Rhone - Lyon, France

We got in at dusk and walked along the river for a while and near the bustling college campus. After walking around we ended up in a nice area with several squares filled with restaurants, their outdoors seating made comfortable by heat lamps and charming lights.

It was our first real French feeling meal, starting with an apertif then three courses (heavy on the cream!) accompanied by a beautiful bottle of wine and finished off with a digestif. We felt very French as we walked back to our hotel, ready for a good night sleep before hitting the road again.

The next morning we passed through a town called Orange, small but with immense old ruins of a play house right in the center of town.
After Orange we visited the walled city of Avignon to see the Pope's Palace and walk on the old cobblestone streets. The Palace was beautiful and definitely deserving of its world heritage site standing.

Palais des Papes

The cream colored old buildings towered over the small streets and tourists crowded everything.
We spent the night in a small town in Provence, enjoying a great gourmet meal and a peaceful morning under olive trees soaking up the earthy smell of the land. We started the day in Aix-en-Provence to walk in Cezanne's footsteps.
Then to Marseille, but only to drive through because the driving was so awful we were afraid we would never find parking, and finally to the end of our road trip, Montpellier.
Each small town is so unique, and has something different to offer. The regions are all very distinct with their own dishes, wines, customs, and architecture. Driving through petit France I got to see the incredible variety that makes up this beautiful old country.

I'm finally back home after spending almost all of last month away. I had a great time visiting Hong Kong, Macao, France, and Spain. My Hong Kong trip was early in the month and I never got a chance to write about it so hopefully soon I can fill you all in on the great stuff I did there. But for now I want to talk about my Europe trip while it's still fresh in my mind.

Are these really turn lanes?!? I'm confused..

For most of our trip my friends and I decided it would be a great idea to rent a car and drive instead of taking the train. It cost a lot less for one thing, especially when since we were all sharing the costs. And it was faster, so we could see more. Instead of taking the train to a couple of different cities, we could drive everywhere and see loads of cities! What a great idea we thought. And so economical of us.


Things didn't turn out exactly as we'd planned however. First, about the cost. Yes it's cheaper when comparing the price of the car rental to the price of train tickets. But then you have the other fees - 10 euro a day for GPS, extra for an under 25 driver (we decided only I would drive - I am, ahem, slightly older than 25), tolls throughout France and Spain (we easily spent at least 100 euro on tolls) and gas - probably another 150 euro or more on gas. So in the end, I don't really know if it was any cheaper than the train.

I sure hope this is a one way street because my big lug of a car takes up every inch of space!

We definitely did pack in the cities though. In our 15 days on the road between France and Spain we visited 14 cities. This too had some ups and some downs. We saw a lot but after a while it all seemed the same and ran together. And we only had a little time in each place so we didn't really get a feel for most cities we visited, sometimes only having enough time to stop for a meal before we were back on the road.

Where the heck am I going?

Speaking of roads... there's nothing like driving into a walled city in a big Dodge SUV, worrying about scraping the side mirrors on 500 year old stone walls. Until we started making our way through the tiny streets of Avignon and through the parking garages where 3 point turns were necessary just to make it up the ramps, I had wondered whether the rental car company was being nice to us by upgrading to the SUV, or whether maybe they were messing with us a little bit. NEVER try to drive a big car in Europe - it is a curse I hope to never encounter again.

You want me to drive where?

Part of the trouble can be blamed on the GPS. It was truly both a blessing and a curse. Trying to navigate the tiny and confusing streets of any of the small French cities we went to would have been hell without that ridiculous female British voice, but she did take us on some pretty horrible roads. It was her idea to go through the walled city for example. And likewise up one of the steepest dirt roads I've ever been on, taking us the back way to the tiny town in Provence we were supposed to spend the night.

At least I know how to circumnavigate a round-about!

The worst experience of all was in Madrid. We changed cars in Spain and got lucky with a beautiful BMW 3 series from the best rental car company I've ever used - Sixt Rent a Car, which I definitely recommend. I don't know what I would have done in Madrid with that big boat of a vehicle we'd had earlier in the week. Even with the BMW I was frazzled after 2 1/2 hours of driving, trying to find parking on a Saturday evening. The title of this post is inspired by the time I spent driving in Madrid - it became my new favorite phrase as lanes would appear and disappear, funneling lines of cars into nowhere, needlessly creating congestion. After a while I stopped asking "what happened to my lane," and replaced it with the shorter and more to the point "what the hell!" or just a few honks, fitting right in with everyone else.

Madrid looks deceptively peaceful on a Sunday morning - no remnant of the hellish driving the night before

I'm not sure if I would do it again. We definitely got to see some amazing things we wouldn't have seen had we taken the train, and we did visit a lot of smaller towns we would have skipped otherwise. But the stress of it definitely put a damper on my fun (and left me craving a drink as soon as I got out of the car every night just to calm my nerves! Bring on the Sangria!) I think it might have been a less stressful and more enjoyable trip if we'd just visited a few cities and spent longer in each one. I definitely could have used a few more days in Madrid or Lyon. On the brighter side of things, I definitely feel like I could drive anywhere now.

Have you ever driven in a foreign country? If so, did you find it difficult or did you have a great time? Leave a comment and tell me about your experiences!





If you're crazy enough to try driving in Europe:

Is it really time for another photo of the week post? The weeks have just been flying by - but I guess that tends to happen when you visit 7 countries in one month. I'm finally heading home - I've loved my time in France and Spain and especially loved hanging out with friends, but all my clothes are smelly, I miss my own bed, and I want to take a really good shower with something other than hotel bottles of shampoo.

This week was especially cool and it's going to be tough picking one picture as my favorite. The week started out with Barcelona and more La Merce activities, then Madrid for a couple of days of eating, drinking, sight-seeing and flamenco, on to Granada for Moroccan food and the Alhambra. And finally we finished up the week in Paris.

And the winner is...

The Louvre, Paris early in the morning

Some great pictures from Spain

Madrid Palace

Olives growing in the Spanish countryside - all the little dots on the hills are olive trees

La Alhambra, near Granada

Alhambra

View of Granada from Alhambra

Granada cafe and cathedral

And some more great pictures from Paris

Notre Dame

Eiffel Tower and a neighborhood

Eiffel tower view from the Siene

Parisians (and tourists) taking in the sun at the Tulieries garden

Tulieries Garden

Another view from the Siene