Americans need to fix their bloody sidewalks...

September 9th 2009

When I arrived in Austin, I arrived alone. It was a bit of a sad though but I fought through. There was a bit of a wait before I could take the city bus down town, so I took a bit of a wander to the local mall. Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch, because I really tested the boundaries of my dignity as I walked into the food court expecting to buy a burger but instead being called over to a Chinese food stand, where they offered me a taste from every single one of their delicious meals. I tried some of them twice, you know, so I could make a fair decision on what I would purchase. Then they told me the price, but I was gone before they finished their sentence.
The great thing was they weren’t the only stand to do it, I was well and truly full up on free samples. Just a tip for someone in a mall.

The next day the guy whose couch I had made my temporary bed said I could take his bike out into the city, and I did so. There were some pretty sweet sites, although it was then that it struck me that being alone no one else could document my travels by video, so I need to remember to dust of my old taped together digital camera.
One of my favourite sites was a statue of a woman firing a cannon in her nighty, I was thinking about the thoughts of all those woman empowerment people I knew. Turns out she had a pretty badass story of trying to kill a guy called “Sam Houston” who was trying to steal Austin’s private records or something.

I also stopped of to have a burger at a pretty nice looking place, so I ordered at the bar, sat down, enjoyed the burger, and eventually (after convincing the waitress that we didn’t have squirrels, chipmunks or deer in England) left. Now as I left I thought about how that probably wasn’t nearly an interesting enough story to put in the blog/ that’s when I looked in my wallet to find that there had been no change to the amount of cash in my wallet hadn’t changed since before going into the place.

Barbeque Burger, Cooked Rare $8.50
Homemade Fries - $2.50
Shake - $3.50
Amount Paid by Rowan – Nothing whatsoever…oops

Oh yeah, I fell off of the bike, putting a big graze on my knee and a big tear in my jeans, I asked for help from a dude nearby (you know, a bandage or something) and he taped some kitchen role to my leg…that bit sucked!