Birdman

Welp. What can I say, life gives and life takes. On October 17th my squeeze lost his wonderful dad, Birdman. Or for those bloggers who never knew his real name, Mark. AKA one of the best people I've ever had the privilege of meeting.

This picture is from when he and his amazing wife, Ellen, returned to Maine after driving out to us in Austin (and hauling the rest of our crap with them). They wanted to show photographic evidence that all three of the kitties were alive and well, especially for a very worried mum who missed her Pig dearly.

The moment I realized I would never see another pORTcITYdAILYpHOTO blog post it was simply too much for me. The squeeze and I have long since accomplished many other things since our move to Austin, but I have avoided my blog in fear of sobbing like a huge baby whenever I come across that pseudonym with the 'B'.

So, thank you, Birdman, for giving me the idea to start this blog. I will now finish it with you in mind, not because I am too sad to continue it, but because you gave me the idea to start another project.

Rest in peace you kooky guy, I miss you.

Little Big City

We have been a couple of busy bees lately, who knew filling a whole apartment from scratch would be tough... Here's our new home, located in the hill country side of Austin, Texas! It's still strange to say that we live in the big Lone Star State, I think a part of me still believes I'm waking up in Maine every morning.

So what about Texas; it has been in the 90's until about two days ago, currently we are at a brisk 82 degrees with it reaching the low 60's in the evening. I hear back in Maine it's becoming chilly, people are wrapping themselves up in jackets and sliding on their boots to head to the Fryeburg Fair for fried food and carnival rides. It makes me a little nostalgic, especially since fall is one of my favorite times of the year, but Texas has an enormous state fair over in Dallas that we're going to visit in a couple weeks so I'm pretty excited about that.

This is our leasing center building, it sits across from our sort of Texas-shaped pool. I gotta admit, one of the things that I love about this state is how much it loves itself, everything is bigger and better here in Texas and I'm starting to dig it. Except for the enormous mosquitoes and crickets, those I don't dig.

The squeeze's parents drove his car down from Maine all the way to Austin packed full with the rest of our belongings, they stayed for several days, although it didn't feel like enough. We took them to see the swarm of bats that live under the Congress Avenue Bridge, unfortunately they didn't make their epic appearance like we had hoped but we did get a great view of Lady Bird Lake.

It's definitely taking some time to get used to, I miss Maine quite a bit. But Austin seems like a wonderful place and everyone has nothing but positive things to say about this little big city. I didn't realize how small Maine was and how big everything else is, but slowly but surely we are getting used to our new home, it's a big feat when we are able to get somewhere without our GPS! To new adventures!

Austin

So we did it, we finally made it! We've actually been in Austin for about four days now, we have just been go, go, go since we arrived. Our first meal here was not BBQ, I'm not sure if that's acceptable or not... our hotel was not near much other than food chains so sushi it was! Those meatball looking things were a tempura roll, but each piece was the size of a burger slider. Everything in Texas is bigger I guess. 

(We still haven't had any BBQ if you were wondering... I know, shame on us.)

The next full day we explored downtown a bit and drove up and down the side roads to get a feel for the city. At sunset we managed to catch the epic show that is the 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bats that explode out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge. Apparently it's the biggest urban colony in North America and every night they eat 10,000 to 30,000 lbs of bugs. It was incredible! The sky looked like someone shook a massive pepper shaker over, it was speckled with little black dots by the thousands. The bats are tiny little things, adorable too! Dinner time we grabbed some delicious grub at Eureka! on 6th Street and took in the nightlife.

We also browsed some apartment complexes and found one we liked, but they closed shortly there after and then it was Labor Day, go figure. So instead of hanging out at the hotel all day on the holiday we explored The Domain, which is a massive outdoor mall. It's a little more expensive than our former Maine Mall, with Burberry, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany & Co storefronts just to name a few. 

We finished the night off at iPic, some crazy luxury movie theater that costs $18 to get in. Overhearing our current living status, or lack there of, the girl at the counter gave us two free tickets for being newcomers to Austin. We still dropped a pretty penny on the food menu, that was brought by a waiter, while we reclined in La-Z-Boy-like chairs, wrapped in complementary blankets and pillows... It was part of the experience so we had to. I'm not sure if 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E' was so enjoyable because it was a good movie, or because we were at the craziest movie theater ever, or both.

After the long weekend we finally heard from the complex we applied to... and we got the apartment we wanted! A huge relief. The only slight blip is that we can't move in until Saturday because the appliances that were being delivered were apparently wrecked, we didn't ask how, but as a result the water and gas will also not be available until then. So for now, hotel living continues! We will both admit that hotel living and ordering out have lost their luster, we are ready for our own bed and a fridge stocked with food.

Houston

I don't have too much to report on Tallahassee since we only stayed one night, the only reason we even left our hotel room was to walk to the TGIF next door. But I do have much to report on Houston! Arriving in Texas was exciting, the dotted state line showed up on our GPS and we quickly counted down the highway exits to one before they started back up around 880 or so. And no, we didn't receive a gun upon entering the big Lone Star State.

Check out our amazing view from the hotel, the sides of the building were sharp corners so our room literally tapered into a point with nothing but two windows meeting on either side. Below is the view next to our bed, we were in the Skyline District (obviously) so it made for some dramatic day and night photos.

Our first night we went into town and grabbed dinner where the weekend crowds start, but the next full day we discovered the Houston Museum of Natural Science! This museum literally puts the Smithsonian to shame, not only is it tremendous but it's well organized and has an amazing variety of exhibits. We of course made our first stop the Paleontology Hall where they had dozens up dozens of fossils and replicas. Just look at the arrangement below, two woolly mammoth fossils are tossing a human skeleton into the air while he flails around pitifully. 

I took about as many photos as my iPhone would allow, but I'm sparing you the time to look through all of them and chose a few of my favorites from each section we visited.

Not only did the museum have an incredible amount of dinosaurs to stare at, but they also arranged them in an interactive way so you could imagine them with meat and skin on their bones just doing their dinosaur thing.

This I thought was rather cool, it's a fossil of a fish eating another fish, fish-ception?

Just when we thought we were fully satisfied with the dinos, we found their Ancient Egypt exhibit, this is the largest one by far I have ever seen!

This is not the real Nefertiti bust, but a near perfect replica (the real one is in a museum in Berlin if you were wondering). And below is the Rosetta Stone, again, not the original (that one is in the British Museum) but still very, very cool to see up close!

We were pretty tired at this point (it takes a long time to walk through large exhibits and lay eyes on everything!) and then we saw they had a Gem exhibit... so obviously we had to visit that. This was also mind blowing, the room seemed to go on forever and it was pitch black, all you could see were large glass enclosures with beautiful natural formations with a spotlight overhead.

The museum also had an impressive gift shop, I had to force myself to stray only into the dinosaur section because I almost left with a massive 600lb amethyst geode that I would have put god-knows-where. I highly, highly recommend stopping into the HMNS if you ever get a chance, best museum I've ever been to!

We grabbed some dinner at the Flying Saucer that night before calling it quits for the day and said our goodbyes to Houston in the morning. Well not quite, we had to get Scarlett Johansson (my car) an oil change the next day and didn't arrive in Austin until very late in the day. But I won't bore you with that silly stuff. Houston is only about 2.5 hours away so I hope we can visit again soon!

New Orleans

After a good five plus hours of driving from Tallahassee we made it to New Orleans! I have to admit, it's not quite what I expected. Some things haven't been too far off from what I imagined they would be like, but NO was a little bit of a surprise. Leading up to the city everything was connected by bridges over rivers and swamps, bayous were everywhere, it was quite a change of scenery! 

Approaching the city skyline we began to see remnants of Katrina, there were empty parking lots scattered along the main roads with bent street lights, buildings with empty windows, and only portions of rooftops remaining. There were clearly areas to avoid, but there were no clear lines separating the good and bad parts of the city. Our hotel was right in the French Quarter, where Mardi Gras takes over every spring break, Bourbon Street to be exact. We were a block away so once we were settled in we immediately grabbed some cajun food and hurricanes! Of course we had to get the large take-home novelty cups which contained four shots of liquor, so things began to lighten up a bit.

I think we took for granted how safe Maine is, how for the most part you can stroll through Portland at any hour and not have to clutch your purse at your side. Obviously every state has its shortcomings, but I've never been nervous back home. In New Orleans the squeeze and I were definitely a little nervous. I really wanted to like NO, and I did, I'm so happy we visited. But I hated not being able to shake the feeling of anxiousness while we walked through the streets.

People constantly approached us trying to string Mardi Gras beads around our necks, there were topless bars on every corner, and the heat made the pee in the streets fill our nostrils. The tacky shops selling themed t-shirts and bags of plastic beads reminded me of Old Orchard Beach a lot, just a lot scarier. 

There were some eclectic voodoo shops scattered about that I wanted to visit, the squeeze not so much. I managed to drag him inside of one and purchased a lucky three-legged frog figurine.

Starting on Canal Street is where the different parts of the city meet, the shopping/business district is where all the skyscrapers are located, it was so strange to go from old French-style buildings to modern day towers, neon wording and display lights.

The next morning we gave New Orleans another shot and headed to the WWII Museum, what a place! There is so much literature to read and so much information to soak in you could easily spend a week there. All of the volunteers are elderly women and men who are just beaming to talk to you about the history.

The Arts District where the museum is located had its own collection of buildings, a whole new type of neighborhood. We stopped at an adorable cafe called Bittersweet Confections and grabbed coffee and homemade cupcakes. I definitely began to warm up to New Orleans after the second day, I think the Mardi Gras scene just isn't our thing, I don't understand why people think it's safe or a good idea to go there for Spring Break! To each their own I guess.

It was definitely a great experience, I'm really glad we came because New Orleans is not like anything I've experienced before. Was it my favorite spot to visit... probably not, but that's ok! We ended the night at the Hard Rock Cafe a block from our hotel where this crazy bar was located. I can't remember exactly how many beer bottles make up this incredible bottle ceiling but I'm pretty sure one of the waiters said it was in the thousands. Off to Houston!