Austin Trip, the silliness of it all
Our Austin trip had several silly aspects.
- We stayed downtown, but never did anything downtown
- We went to experience “Austin” but stayed in a Four Seasons
- We had a ton of fun at the swim meet, but only went one night. It was going on half the time we were there.
- Everything except the hotel still cost less then one night at the hotel.
- We are really are jealous of the Longhorn Aquatics Masters team, but didn’t swim as guests at any of their practices. (there were 8 different practices while we were there)
Now, we had a blast in Austin, but looking back at the trip, I wonder at the aspects above.
I am lazy at heart, and there was nothing that I wanted to do enough to drag my lazy ass out of the hotel to sixth street. If we would have stayed at the Driskill Hotel, which is on sixth street, or the Inter-Continental on 7th, I think we would have gone out at least to people watch. Instead we went to sleep as sixth street was probably getting entertaining.
The Four Seasons is a Luxury hotel removed from the surrounding hustle and bustle of the surrounding downtown. Wait, I wanted to experience downtown. Oops. It wasn’t a bad location, we were just lazy. And the Four Seasons bar looks like a mortgage brokers convention in the evening. This will surprise people who know me, but I didn’t fit in. The wine list was supposed to be excellent, and I didn’t even request to see it. Oh, and the bar/lounge area was packed, every night. There was nothing, hot, young or edgy in that crowd. My wife was actually surprised at how dressed up everyone was. Dear, welcome to the Four Seasons, where stuffy is the norm.
Our swim meet trip was planned to only be the last evening we were there, and too bad we didn’t plan it for the first evening, because it was great. Dave Walters broke Michael Phelps 200 yard free record, there were famous people (to us) down on deck and nerdy swim chat up in the stands.
I am going to post separately about the food, but there was no The French Room on the list of dining establishments. It just seems strange to spend so much money of a hoity toity hotel, and then only eat at dives while enjoying free entertainment. Strange, but not necessarily a horrible plan.
Fear explains why we didn’t swim with the Masters team in Austin. In Lewisville, I know everyone, everyone knows me, Brook is the fastest swimmer and I try to keep up with her, and there are only about a dozen people who ever show up, most of the time there are only 4. Austin has 3 practices a day with 40 people showing up at a given practice, with 200 people on the team overall. The team has 8 lanes broken up by speed, and I would probably be in the middle if not in one of the slow lanes. My ego can’t handle the truth, and I know it, so I ignore it.
And that concludes my silly adventures in Austin.