December

Greetings - It's time to awake from my month long blog hibernation and write about December because December rocks. For many reasons. It's a month full of festivities, which include my birthday, Christmas, and new years eve. December used to come with a downfall; winter. Some Decembers were better than others, but cold always crashed the party. More north, this year seems to be no different. The news outlets are continuing to use and abuse their awful pun of "snowmageddon" over and over. Here in Austin, when we "miss" snow we just turn on the TV and view how exciting it is to be in a blizzard. However, my kind of blizzard comes from Dairy Queen and is enhanced with snicker pieces. Enough about the weather exclusively; to the recap...

December is a family month and I started my December with a trip to winter's homeland, Minnesota. This visit served as a way to celebrate Thanksgiving/Bday/Xmas with my family with a bonus quick visit to see some short smiling faces during my Chi-town layover. It was fun to catch up with family and friends and I thank my sister and bro-in-law for their fun, festive hosting of myself. The weather wasn't too cold but still it was quite the change and with that change came a cold which handicapped me a bit. However my 6-day stay was still a great time filled with reminiscing adventures with friends and family and visits to places of interest and restaurants. Experiencing low teen weather and snow does make 50/60 seem like heaven which was a nice bonus upon my return and luckily the MN snowstorm/blizzards (including the metrodome killer) happen before and after my visit. I look forward to my next visit being in the summertime when I need to escape 110 and hang out in 80/90's.

Next came Summer and my exploration of San Antonio, specifically the Riverwalk area. This is where my blog becomes less personal and more factual because if your in Austin, or anywhere, the riverwalk area in San Antonio is a must visit. But before we talk about that, we had a pit stop on the way to visit Real Ale brewery. Now I know Shiner Bock but Real Ale has some tasty handcrafted beers themselves. The brewery is near Blanco Tx, and is near impossible to find without GPS because they have no signs. Anyways, on Fridays from 2-5pm they offer a tour and free tasting of select beers. It was a great time and I could write a blog about how delicious those beers were but I'll save those non-beer enthusiast the read and just post a link to their site: http://realalebrewing.com/beers/yearround I'll conclude by saying that their Pale Ale and Coffee Porter were my favorites while Summers favorite was the Fireman #4 Blonde Ale. I think the blonde thing just a coincidence ;)


Back to San Antonio. We got a hotel right on the riverwalk, which is a necessity. Ours didn't have a balcony because for some reason the week we were there, most hotels were booked, so we were happy just to have an affordable place to stay. There was either a convention or just the timing since at that time the river is decorated with holiday lights. Nonetheless we were rarely in the room anyways since the Riverwalk was our amusement park. The weather was quite nice 70/80's during the day from what I remember and maybe 50/60's during the night. At first we both didn't know what to expect. From our hotel the riverwalk just appeared to be a canal-like river with sidewalks on both sides. As we kept walking we discovered the shops and restaurants along the river and the touristy ambiance which made the area appear to be European in ways. Here's a map I found that shows a bit of what the riverwalk is all about.

Friday night we walked around the riverwalk taking in the scenery and browsing the sidewalk vendors. Hearing about dollar beers made us stop at a British pub called "mag dogs". We had a table with a view and sat to snack and enjoy some beverages. The next morning we took a boat tour of the river, had waterside lunch at a mexican place, walked a lot and had a nice seafood dinner, also waterside. We were debating to either do some bar-hopping or something else next. Since Summer was kind enough to book this trip for my birthday and I was feeling quite happy from the happy hour/dinner beers, I thought I'd indulge her and be open to the "ghost tour". =) Now, I found the tour amusing for many reasons but the best part is I got some of it on video. While taping, I was under the impression these would be way more hilarious, mainly because the tour guides voice and cadence really fit the bill of ghost touring; however upon watching these videos again, I didn't "lol" but nonetheless I invite you to take a watch. Keep in mind these were undercover from an iphone so don't expect the finest quality. In the first video you will see Summer pointing a laser, its a temp thing. I guess the temp will be different if a spirit, ghost or something more tangible is present. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-fVFVVxJOY. There is a guy yawning near the end of the video, it looks like me but I don't think it is because the angle of my filming doesn't fit. Perhaps its my ghost ;). On the next video Summer served as the lady's assistant for this polarity thing. Now this simple instrument could be actually quite interesting and informative or it could just be sensitively reacting to tiny movements in the holders wrist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoxiY9SBk1w. I'll let you decide. Here the lady again is showing her dosing rod but begins with a physic story to enlighten the crowd. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYT-XFgSEK0 In closing, the tour was interesting and severed as a fun and different evening activity.

We also visited the Alamo which may interest you history buffs. I'll post some pics of that and the general visit below.

Alamo front

Palm Trees

RiverWalk

Another pic of the walk

You can see all the umbrella water side tables in the distance if you squint. =)

More Palm Tree pics to excite and prepare my mom and sister.

The bar had 2-4-1's, the table did not so we stocked up, little did I know it would lead to a ghost hunt.

supposed to take a pic to see if you see someone hanging from the hanging tree. Nope.

same thing but i guess images appear. hmm...nope.

So that was San Antonio. We ended our trip with a visit to a tasty tea house for some good breakfast. Also on the way back to Austin, there was a giant outlet mall on the way back with multiple stores of the same brand. Kind of like how Mall of America had four Footlockers. 

So that was December in Austin. The weather was nice with quite the range. Averages of 50/60's with some nice days in the 70's but a Christmas cold-spell of 30/40's (maybe to remind us that xmas is a winter holiday). In closing, it was a fun-filled month full of adventures mixed with weekday holiday quietness. I have my goals written down for a prosperous and fun-filled 2011 and I'll work on keeping this blog more active.

Wishing you a Happy, Healthy and possibly warmer New Year,

-Austin/Taragos