Back in Austin

After my brief visit to San Antonio I'm now back in Austin. When I was in San Antonio it was good to be amongst so many Spurs fans -- admittedly most of them have never heard about a little football/soccer team from north London. And for them the Alamodome is much more significant than White Hart Lane!

The drive back up north to Austin was very straightforward once I'd escaped the crazy roads around San Antonio. On the way I stopped at a massive 'outlet mall' place. In fact there were two massive places side by side. I had a look in a few stores including an Abercrombie & Fitch outlet. The A&F place was chaos and to be honest the stuff for sale was there for a reason -- certainly no polo shirts.

Once back in Austin I stopped for lunch -- a really excellent Banh Mi Vietnamese sandwich. I then checked into my hotel and said a fond farewell to the little (by Texas standards) Mazda 3 that I've been driving around in. You really do need a car around here. For the next few days I'll be limited in my 'exploring' to downtown Austin and the immediate surrounds.

My hotel is really close to 6th Street which seems to be a road made up exclusively of bars, clubs, restaurants and music venues. In fact I was sort of conscious of noise from a club or something when I half woke up at about 2.30am.

Where I went for dinner last night was on 6th St. -- a place called Casino El Camino. A classic 'dive bar'. It was really dark in side and had quite scary bar staff (lots of piercings and tattoos). What the place did have going for it was good music, Shiner Bock on tap and fantastic hamburgers (the main reason for me going). I had an Amarillo burger which had cheese and jalapenos on it -- really good.

After my food I didn't hang around and instead retreated to my hotel for a relatively early night.